Author Archives: Daniel J. Willis
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REWIND: You don’t feel old enough, so let’s put music in perspective
I’m sorry I have to be the one to tell you this, but you’re old. You’re so, so very old. For example Friends is making a nostalgia-fueled resurgence, despite the fact it’s whiter than a…
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REVIEW: The Chainsmokers bring their circus act to Chase Center
SAN FRANCISCO — Near the end of The Chainsmokers’ show Friday at Chase Center, three members of the Urias family entered a Globe of Death on dirt bikes and performed one of the most legendary…
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REWIND: The best of the 2020 Grammy nominees, including Lizzo and Gary Clark Jr.
As regular readers of my column are well aware, I don’t much like the Grammys. Sure, occasionally Fantastic Negrito or Weird Al wins a trophy, and they absolutely deserve it. But they win the non-televised…
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REWIND: It’s mashup week, featuring Girl Talk and Amerigo Gazaway
This week’s column has five entries, but far, far more songs. That’s because this week’s column is about one of the best but most under-appreciated genres: The mashup. The history of the mashup is a…
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REWIND: Celebrate my birthday with five of my favorite songs
My birthday is Tuesday. So in honor of me this week’s column theme is… me. That’s right, rather than picking five songs I like with a common theme, I’m just picking five songs I like.…
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REWIND: A tribute to PG&E, featuring Billy Joel and AC/DC
A trigger warning for our Bay Area and Northern California readers: This column is an ode to PG&E. As our non-Californian readers may have heard, California was recently in the midst of a full-blown apocalypse.…
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Interview: Spinal Tap’s Derek Smalls on gardening and television, and also music
You may not have heard much from Derek Smalls, bassist of the legendary band Spinal Tap, aside from the occasional reunion concert when enough of the band members simultaneously run out of money. But that…
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REWIND: It’s Halloween! Time to listen to Rob Zombie and Marilyn Manson
We’ve made it! Halloween is less than a week away and after columns about horror punk and horrorcore we’ve finally reached the main event: Metal. Horror metal is a thing, of course, but why limit…
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REWIND: Broaden your Halloween playlist with some horrorcore
In last week’s Halloween Season kickoff we covered five classics of horror punk. But punk isn’t the only genre that has a horror section: Meet horrorcore, or horror-themed hip-hop. If horror punk is ’50s and…
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REWIND: Kick off the Halloween season with five classics of horror punk
In modern America, any holiday with profit potential gets a whole season, and those seasons last for an unbearably long time. Valentine’s Day decorations go up at CVS in early January, for example, and it…