Mark Shikuma

In the early 1970s, my parents and I drove up Hwy 17 from Watsonville, then a small farming town, to visit relatives and their new house in Foster City near San Mateo. As soon as we entered Foster City, a relatively new suburb built on landfill in the ’60s, we got lost. All the houses […]

It began with a dinner invitation. Based in North Adams, Mass., the experimental duo The Books was formed in New York City in 1999, when cellist Paul de Jong invited guitarist and vocalist Nick Zammuto, who lived in the same building, over for dinner. After de Jong played Zammuto some of his collection of audio […]

Detroit-based musician, songwriter and producer Matthew Smith has been frontman for Outrageous Cherry for more than a decade, crafting a string of fractured pop releases blurring the borders of pop and experimental music. Smith has drawn heavily from Lou Reed’s blueprint with The Velvet Underground along with influences from a spectrum of ’60s pop and […]

Peter Case has always fashioned himself a musical troubadour, even before his time with rock ’n’ roll outfits in the mid to late ’70s, joining The Nerves and then forming The Plimsouls. In 1973, he was part of a bourgeoning street musician/cabaret scene in San Francisco, which included Allen Ginsburg, among others. After the breakup […]

The term “lo-fi” has often been used of late as a loose tag, category or reference to a scene within the independent music scene. Even though bands such as Guided By Voices, Pavement and Sebadoh became the poster children for the term (among others), it goes back to a special D.I.Y. tradition in ’50s R&B/rock […]

When country singer/songwriter Dwight Yoakam arrived in Nashville in the late ’70s, he was shunned by the music industry for being too “honky tonk” or “hillbilly” (a tag that Yoakam embraced, titling one of his albums Hillbilly Deluxe). Yoakam subsequently headed to Los Angeles, closer to the Bakersfield side of country. Labeled an outsider, Yoakam […]

Fresh from the breakup of the San Francisco-based pop band The Nerves, whose song “Hanging on the Telephone” would later become a hit by Blondie in 1978, singer/songwriter Peter Case drifted south to Los Angeles and its region’s burgeoning D.I.Y. music scene. Case formed The Plimsouls, named after the British term for “sneakers,” in 1979 […]

New York-based singer/songwriter Nina Nastasia released a steady stream of intimate folk-based recordings starting with her 2000 self-released debut, Dogs, slowly drawing in a growing number of admirers, most notably legendary British deejay John Peel and musician/engineer Steve Albini. The Shellac guitarist/vocalist/engineer has “recorded” every one of Nastasia’s albums, including her superb sixth full-length release, […]

The Band had a unique way of blending disparate forms of American music, including horn arrangements that distilled equal parts orchestral and New Orleans marching band (largely due to instrumentalist Garth Hudson’s contributions). Later, Kurt Wagner’s Lambchop, Neutral Milk Hotel and Vic Chesnutt skewed musical categories even further with their own eccentric presentations of Americana. […]

The marriage of ’60s garage, pop and girl groups has roots in the pre-punk street glam of The New York Dolls, with The Ramones, Blondie and Mink DeVille following soon thereafter — each in their own unique style. London’s Thee Headcoatees, featuring Holly Golightly, Memphis’ The Hellcats, Barbara Manning’s San Francisco Seals and Boston’s Mr. […]

The Canadian-based band The New Pornographers, led by songwriters A.C. Newman and Dan Bejar, staked its reputation on delivering smart pop songs. From their 2000 debut, Mass Romantic, the talented core group, including vocalist/songwriter Neko Case, has remained intact. They’ve enlarged the troupe, adding guitarist Todd Fancey and Newman’s niece, Kathryn Calder, on vocals and keyboards […]