Class acts
We pick the up-and-coming local music stars who make the grade – your class of 2004

FACE THE MUSIC . We all carry a little bit of the old school daze into our adulthood, be it those pre-finals all-nighters that have morphed into after-hours dance parties, the finals that have been replaced by performance evaluations, or the keggers that have become, well, keggers. Anyone got any more ice?

So as a new school year begins, and Bay Area bands everywhere return from their summer break, tour, rehab, what have you, we take stock of the local music scene. Plenty of familiar faces from the past few years have graduated to majors and major indies (if that isn't the most meaningless contradiction in terms), to the sheets of Entertainment Weekly, and maybe even to another set of white pages. We have to wonder, is that all there is? Who's next? Who's emerging, and who's ready to make the grade, go steady, get on the team, and take the next step to recording their first album, touring nationally, you name it? Thus, here are a few of our star students in the school of rock, hip-hop, and electronic music. We've been won over by these artists' enthusiasm, originality, and chutzpah and believe that whatever they do and wherever they go, they're sure to be in a class of their own. OK, you're dismissed – though these artists probably won't be. (Kimberly Chun)