April 7, 2026

Robin Lapid

bagrandaddy1

Give In to 2000, Man

Robin Lapid September 21, 2025

So why not go back to 2000? A musical time trip might be a balm to dealing with the horrors of the present. Grandaddy, the Modesto-born band who gained traction in the late ‘90s—is happy to oblige me. Touring in support of the 25th anniversary of their 2000 album, The Sophtware Slump, frontman and songwriter Jason Lytle, a skateboarder-turned-musician, offers a nostalgia-tinged complementary American precursor to the creepy, hi-fi fears on Radiohead’s 1997 album OK Computer. 

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Grandaddy

Preview: Grandaddy at Regency Ballroom

Robin Lapid September 12, 2025

It’s time for one of those “I feel old” moments: American indie stalwarts Grandaddy are touring in celebration of the 25th anniversary of their seminal second album, The Sophtware Slump. That album was a mini-masterpiece of its time, suffused with dreamy, disenchanted early aughts melodies, gauzy guitar and keyboard flourishes, and the echoing vocals of frontman Jason Lyttle. It’s their first North American tour since 2004, and it features Pedro the Lion as support on the West Coast dates and Greg Freeman on the East Coast and Midwest. Don’t be surprised if you find yourself staring wistfully into your beer in the dark.

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Devo at Mosswood Meltdown, Oakland (July 19-20, 2025)

Best of the Fests: Mosswood Meltdown and Portola Music Festival

Robin Lapid May 21, 2025

Get ready for those tasty East Bay summer vibes: For my tastes, nothing says Hella Oakland more than the annual Mosswood Meltdown. This year’s weekend music fest takes place July 19-20 at Mosswood Park, natch, and, per usual, features the inimitable filmmaker and indie tastemaker John Waters as your cheeky host. This year, many of the acts are making their only Bay Area appearance at the fest, including DEVO, Osees, The Exploding Hearts, Shannon & the Clams. Also appearing are ‘90s riot grrrl band Bratmobile and Kreayshawn, who’s doing her first show in over a decade. You might be baking under that East Bay sun, but you’ll for sure be doing it in style.

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Nobodys-Empire

The Magic of Wandering Days

Robin Lapid March 11, 2025

Nobody’s Empire by Stuart Murdoch. There are plenty of artists who cross genres into writing books—actors, directors, and musicians have all tried this form of creative expression. It doesn’t surprise me that musicians venture into the literary genre, especially singer-songwriters, who only have to trade their microphone for a pen to tell a story that sings. Stuart Murdoch, the singer-songwriter behind Belle and Sebastian, the Scottish indie-pop band that gained acclaim in the early ‘90s behind Murdoch’s witty lyrics and gorgeous melodies, seems perfectly suited to the task. Besides writing several albums that now span decades, Murdoch has published The Celestial Café, a collection of blog entries, poems, and lyrics, and written and directed a film, 2014’s God Help the Girl, about a lost and lonely young woman who starts a band with friends in Glasgow.

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Earlimart

Serenading the Spirit of Someone You Love

Robin Lapid March 3, 2025

In a compact set that packed a heartfelt wallop, L.A. band Earlimart wanted to serenade a love lost too soon. “It feels like Elliott’s spirit is here,” said singer Aaron Espinoza. He was talking about the late Elliott Smith, the soft-spoken singer-songwriter, friend, and muse who, according to Espinoza, used to “weird” the band out by standing front and center at their L.A. gigs back in the early aughts. Smith, who died in 2003, inspired the sound of Earlimart’s most well-known album, Treble and Tremble, released in 2004. That album conjured Smith in its whispered, resonant lyrics and mellowed-out vibes, the sound of soft-spoken indie rock shows that filled Spaceland and other intimate venues around Echo Park and Silverlake, where I’d see them play regularly back in the day.

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Stuart Murdoch photo by Amy Timko

Write About Love, and Music, and California

Robin Lapid February 12, 2025

On a blustery, cold San Francisco night (cold for San Francisco, that is—a frigid 45 degrees), I walked to the end of a long line of well-dressed indie kids of all ages. We were queuing up on Valencia Street outside The Chapel music venue in San Francisco’s Mission District, the neighborhood that just happened to play a part in Nobody’s Empire, the debut novel by Stuart Murdoch, Scottish singer and mastermind behind the twee-pop wonderband Belle and Sebastian. Fans of the band, which dug its deep, pop hooks and its wispy rhymes into the hearts of twee music lovers from 1996 on, also know it as the name of one of their songs and the album it’s on. The book tour promos played to its audience: It was marketed as a night of “readings, songs, live Q&A, and book signing,” and it featured informal chats with moderators and hosts Mike Schulman and Nommi Alouf, the latter of whom figures in the novel as the college radio station DJ who invites the main character on her radio show.

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Poundsign at Thee Stork Club (07 Jun 2024)d3b65894200b

Summer Songs of Nostalgia for an Oakland Weekender

Robin Lapid June 10, 2024

Summer in June is lovely in theory, but every true Bay Area local knows that our mercurial microclimates beckon us east this time of year, away from San Francisco’s gloomy June and through the BART tunnel, surfacing in Oakland for snatches of sunshine. The same holds true not just for the weather but for lovers of indie pop. As art lovers and party people packed Uptown’s Telegraph Avenue for the First Friday art scene, music scenesters packed Thee Stork Club on Friday for night 2 of Oakland Weekender, the yearly music festival. “Festival” may seem like a stretch, as it all takes place in the cozy, dive-y environs of just the one bar, but the stellar lineup did make the weekend feel and sound larger than life. From the lo-fi, ‘90s pop nostalgia of Santa Cruz’s #Poundsign# to the honeyed, atmospheric melodies of San Francisco’s Seablite, the Weekender’s Friday night lineup had music fans basking in the sounds of an indie-pop summer. It was the kind of indie pop night where lyrics and words took a backseat to music, mood, and sound.

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