November 12, 2012 – Everything about ex-Girls frontman Christopher Owens' solo debut show last Friday night felt special. First there was the ride in what its operator declared was San Francisco's oldest working elevator. Then there was the Lodge, a 300-occupancy wood-paneled Regency Center room that ordinarily hosts weddings. Under the stage's proscenium hung three layered curtains featuring hand-painted forestry. On each seat was the evening's set list, which resembled a classical music program.

August 22, 2012 – Something happened last year to R&B, something more radical than most of us realized.

February 27, 2012 – Bob Mould Bottom of the Hill San Francisco, CA Friday, February 24, 2012 He helped define alternative rock with hardcore/power-pop trios Hüsker Dü and Sugar, but Bob Mould is still the kind of guy who schleps his own equipment before taking a proper entrance. Punk rocker, World Champion Wrestling script writer, autobiographer, and 51-year-old gay San Franciscan, Mould is what the Mickey Rourke character in The Wrestler never could be — an emotionally mature adult who can still play a young man's game. With his close-cropped hair, full beard, and gym-toned bulk, he's the rare middle-aged rocker who actually looks better than he did during his cultural heyday, and having long ago quit drinking, drugs, and cigs, he sings better too.

April 27, 2011 – Little more than an hour before last week's start of the Railroad Revival tour at Oakland, California's Middle Harbor Shoreline Park, the members of Mumford & Sons, Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros, and Old Crow Medicine Show boarded the train that would take them from Oakland to New Orleans.

April 1, 2011 – Walking onstage without fanfare, marching band uniforms, or fancy staging, the My Chemical Romance that kicked off the North American leg of its World Contamination Tour is far more straightforward than the prog-glam behemoth that brought us The Black Parade. Now a four-piece joined on this tour by drummer Michael Pedicone and keyboardist James Dewees, the Jersey-bred ensemble (currently residing, mostly, in Los Angeles) has morphed back into a polished punk-pop band, one that's scaled down its theatrics considerably. That didn't stop singer Gerard Way from painting his neck bright red, or his blonde bassist brother Mikey Way resembling Duran Duran's Nick Rhodes at the peak of his androgynous powers.

November 17, 2010 – He may have titled his debut album Doo-Wops & Hooligans to acknowledge both his female and male fans as well as his pop and street inspirations, but the opening night of Bruno Mars's first headlining tour revealed that the most apt word for the year's breakout R&B singer-songwriter is wholesome. From the gentleness of his tunes to the dimples in his cheeks, Mars is most certainly that, but not in a contrived, Disney-fied way that suggests he'll end up in rehab the moment his hits stop coming: Either this Honolulu-born 25-year-old of Puerto Rican and Filipino descent is either refreshingly well-adjusted or a remarkably gifted bluffer.

October 25, 2010 – Organized by Neil Young and his wife Pegi, the Bridge School Benefit -- begun in 1986 and held each year since 1988 in Mountain View, California -- is one of the world's few music festivals with a mission, sound, and vibe truly like no other. The couple started these shows to build a school for their own children, and kids like them, with severe physical and speech impairments. See 17 photos from the concert >> The students, the teachers, the alumni, and their parents sit on the stage's raised platform in wheelchairs and chairs facing the audience and the backs of the performers, who this year included the reunion of Young's early band Buffalo Springfield, Pearl Jam, Elton John and Leon Russell, Elvis Costello, and other veteran acts. The music is played almost exclusively on acoustic instruments, and the kids are often sung to directly.

September 30, 2010 – It wasn't quite a Carrie moment, but it was close. "[A jealous] choir teacher failed me because she hated me and wanted to be a singer too," confesses singer-songwriter Lissie, a native of Rock Island, Illinois. So when this doctor's daughter, now 27, was barred from singing the national anthem at a high school basketball game, she retaliated with a crime she won't reveal--but which was bad enough to result in a brief jail stint and her eventual expulsion. "People will say to me, 'I can't imagine you being mean,'?" reflects the ruddy blonde beauty, "but if I feel trapped in a corner, I will get sassy." That sassiness abounds on Lissie's debut album. Already a Top 30 hit in the U.K., Catching a Tiger (Fat Possum) evokes a vintage Fleetwood Mac attack with its hummable choruses, spiky guitar leads, and crescendoing arrangements.

October 29, 2009 – Michael Jackson proved time and time again that he was both master and victim of some of popular culture's most serious control issues. At his best, he could sing and dance with supernatural stamina. At his worst, he rearranged his physical features until they fought back, and resorted to anesthesia just to get some shut-eye. Like most posthumous releases, Michael Jackson's This Is It places fans in a quandary. Jackson didn't sign off on this cash-in film comprised of rehearsal footage for what would've been a 50-date residency at London's O2 Arena, and for once, crazy big sister LaToya is totally right: There's no way that he would have. Michael was all about the magic. This film focuses on what goes into creating the slick entertainment that his fans came to expect.