San Francisco's Noise Pop Festival rolls into first full week
Celebrating its 32nd year, the annual Noise Pop Festival continues Tuesday with a busy schedule of local and national acts including Death Cab for Cutie songwriter Ben Gibbard, hip-hop maverick Earl Sweatshirt and more.
A San Francisco institution ever since it began as one night of loud, tuneful local bands back in 1993, the festival has expanded this year to ten days of music, film and art featuring some of the most respected names in independent music. While the focus remains on the cutting edge of indie rock, the eclectic festival also features modern R&B, global grooves and even avant-garde electronic music. Noise Pop will also be returning to unusual venues with multiple events at Grace Cathedral and Mission District art space Gray Area.
After going dark on Monday following a busy opening weekend to the festival that included sold-out shows featuring St. Vincent, the Reverend Horton Heat and Chat Pile, Noise Pop ramps up the activity on a number of fronts Tuesday. Feb. 25 marks the beginning of four days of collaboration with radio station KEXP's live session series broadcasting from 25th Street Recordings in Oakland. This week's Live on KEXP feature artists headlining shows during the rest of the festival (Cymande, Wyattja) in addition to some hand-selected local acts including electronic favorites Toro Y Moi, rising Oakland rockers Fake Fruit and experimental punk band Marbled Eye. Tuesday will also commence the annual series of free happy hour shows at popular Mission District dive Bender's that will offer a range of performers like Fake Your Own Death (led by ex-Elephone guitarist Terry Ashkinos) and local songwriter Jacob Aranda.
Other highlights on Tuesday include the first of two nights with acclaimed Odd Future member and rapper/producer Earl Sweatshirt, who will be performing two completely different sets at the Great American Music Hall with support from Navy Blue and El Cousteau and a special set from Death Cab for Cutie/The Postal Service principal Ben Gibbard at Grace Cathedral that includes an opening performance by Sea Lemon, the dreampop solo project of Seattle-based musician Natalie Lew.
Wednesday finds August Hall hosting a sold-out show by influential and heavily sampled British funk outfit Cymande. Formed in the early '70s by Afro-Caribbean musicians who had ended up in London, the band was discovered at an underground club in Soho by British producer John Schroeder. The band had some success with its eponymous debut and the bass-driven minor hit single "The Message," touring the U.S. with soul vocalist Al Green, jazz keyboardist Ramsey Lewis and like-minded global funk band Mandrill, but a lack of impact in their native country led the group to dissolve after three albums with a fourth that didn't see release until 1981. However a resurgence of interest spurred by the creative sampling of their songs by De La Soul, EPMD, The KLF, MC Solaar, Heavy D and the Fugees eventually spurred a one-off reunion in 2006. That was followed by a full-blown revival a decade later that included a new album and Cymande's first U.S. tour since 1973. The band has since been the subject of an acclaimed documentary and released another new effort entitled Renascence last year. Brooklyn electro-soul duo Bathe opens the show.
Wednesday will also mark the first San Francisco appearances by reunited Austin-based band the American Analog Set in 20 years. Crafting a mix of lush, delicate dream-pop and minimalist post-rock instrumentals, the group earned a loyal fan base starting in the mid-1990s. While the band went on an extended hiatus in 2005, they released For Forever, their first album in 18 years, late in 2023 and played their first live shows since 2011 in Austin last year. The group's back catalog is also receiving a deluxe reissue treatment by Numero Group, who put out a box set of their first three albums in 2024 and will release a second box later this year. These two shows at Grey Area will feature AAS playing a 90-minute set drawn from the band's first six albums. More details about Noise Pop's full schedule of events, tickets and festival badges can be found at noisepopfest.com.
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Boston Globe
27 minutes ago
- Boston Globe
Sacha Jenkins, filmmaker who mined the Black experience, dies at 53
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Advertisement Mr. Jenkins later served a stint as the music editor of Vibe magazine and wrote for publications such as Spin and Rolling Stone, before turning his attention to the screen. Advertisement 'There's a huge void, right?' he said in a 2022 interview with Okayplayer. 'There weren't a lot of documentaries about hip-hop for the longest time. I think hip-hop generated some of the strongest, most powerful storytellers of our generation with the music so it's only natural that we would create projects in the film and television realm that would have resonance.' He joined Mass Appeal, a New York-based media and content company, as the chief creative officer in 2012. Three years later, he directed 'Fresh Dressed,' a documentary that chronicled the rise of urban and hip-hop fashion, tracing elements of Black style from the antebellum plantations of the South to the world's fashion tents. 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Los Angeles Times
an hour ago
- Los Angeles Times
Why cozy content is king for stressed-out young adults
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The question is: What comes next? Many expect the cast-off Warner and NBCUniversal networks to merge at some point, with Paramount channels perhaps joining them one day. Listen: Turnstile's new album 'Never Enough' is out. Also, The Beths have a new tune. Sabrina Carpenter's latest has already been declared the 'song of the summer.'
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
Comedy Wildlife Photography Awards exhibit opens at Springfield Museums
SPRINGFIELD — If a laughing dormouse or a kangaroo playing air guitar doesn't make you smile, nothing will. Kris Ludwig, Curator of Art for the Springfield Museums, is hoping that one of the 60 happy-go-lucky animals on display in the George Walter Vincent Smith Art Museum as part of the Comedy Wildlife Photography Awards exhibit will be enough to brighten anyone's day. 'We first came across the Comedy Wildlife Photography Awards years ago in articles featuring many of the winning images. They were so funny and uplifting that it became somewhat of a tradition for us to continue sharing them with family, friends, and coworkers every year,' Ludwig said in an interview with The Republican. 'When we discovered that the photographs were being offered as an exhibition, we were delighted to have the opportunity to share this same joy with our visitors.' The competition for which the exhibit is named, the Comedy Wildlife Awards, describes its mission as 'conservation through competition' on its website. The awards are co-hosted by wildlife photographers Paul Joynson-Hicks and Tom Sullam, who also co-founded the awards in 2015. It all began when Joynson-Hicks, who has lived in East Africa for the past 30 years, took the time to slow down and really look at the photos he was taking. In doing so, he noticed just how relatable animals could be. In a statement on the competition's website, Joynson-Hicks said, 'To really understand animals and the issues that affect them, you need to empathize with them as fellow inhabitants of the same planet.' The Comedy Wildlife Photography Awards, which has expanded over the years to welcome thousands of entries internationally, donates a portion of its proceeds to the Whitley Fund for Nature, a United Kingdom-based charity that supports conservation leaders across the global south. According to the International Union for Conservation of Nature, more than 47,000 species are being threatened with extinction as of this year. That breaks down to 41% of amphibians, 27% of mammals, 34% of conifers, 12% of birds, 37% of sharks and rays, 44% of reef corals, 28% of crustaceans, 21% of reptiles and 71% of cycads under this threat. While conservation awareness and fundraising are its primary goals, the Comedy Wildlife Photography Awards do aim to fulfill a second purpose: making people smile. 'The photographs are as beautiful as they are humorous, so I hope visitors also come away with a sense of appreciation for the natural world around us as well as a closer connection to nature's creatures after sharing some laughs,' Ludwig said. The photographs on display at the Springfield Museums are winners from across the Comedy Wildlife Photography Awards' 10-year run. Among them is 'Smile!' which shows a marsh frog leaping out of the water with a big grin, and 'Squirrel Wishes,' which depicts a Eurasian Red Squirrel blowing on a dandelion. Just like the competition itself, the photos on display at the Springfield Museums span the globe, with photographers from across Italy, Sweden, Australia and Russia — just to name a few — being represented. 'As diverse as the photographers are, the locations they traveled to capture these images is even more expansive and includes exotic locals like the Falkland Islands, the Bahamas, and Namibia as well as some more close to home, like Staten Island, New York, proving that animal comedy could be hiding in your own backyard,' Ludwig said. In some cases, the photos capture animals that are now considered 'critically endangered' by the International Union for Conservation of Nature, such as the Verreaux's Sifaka, a lemur species native to Madagascar. In Alison Buttigieg's photograph from 2015, 'Staying Alive!,' the lemur is captured mid-hop with one arm raised. Since that time, deforestation and illegal hunting has driven down the Verreaux's Sifaka population, and their status was officially updated from 'vulnerable' to 'critically endangered' in 2020. Asked what his favorite photograph is in the Comedy Wildlife Photography Awards exhibit, Ludwig said the answer was 'difficult.' 'One of the most wholesome is certainly 'The Laughing Dormouse' by Andrea Zampatti,' he said. 'The tiny mouse is perched in a flower with its eyes squinting and an expression of pure happiness — you can almost imagine it letting out a little squeak of joy.' Down the hall, the Springfield Museums offers plenty of additional opportunities for animal lovers of all ages to learn more. 'Whiskers and Whimsy: Animals in Currier & Ives Prints,' a collection of more than 1,200 lithographs that depict fuzzy and feathered animals is on display in the D'Amour Museum of Fine Arts. 'Habitat,' on loan from the Smithsonian Institution, is installed throughout the museum grounds and depicts the many different environments that animals call home. In the Springfield Science Museum, visitors can also visit the newly renovated Live Animal Center. 'Here Be Dragons,' also at the Springfield Science Museum, brings visitors face-to-face with live reptiles. For more information about the Comedy Wildlife Photography Awards and other ongoing exhibits at the Springfield Museums, visit the Museums' website. Read the original article on MassLive.
