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Tofu and Whiskey Arbiter of good taste, Thrill Jockey Records is officially 20 years old. In another era, in another business, this would merely be a back-slapping milestone. In the present stuck-barreling-downwards roller coaster of the music industry, it's an anniversary worthy of widespread jubilation.

"It's a mind-boggling number of years," label founder Bettina Richards says during a phone call from the main office in Chicago, where the label's been based since 1995.Read more »

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Tofu and Whiskey The phrase "'woman' is not a genre" has been popping up again. It's been in articles, board threads, and subsequently, conversations I've been a part of. It's a good one. Kind of an earworm of a saying, because on its face, it's implicit, simplistic, obvious, even. But it's a good mantra, for music writers. "Woman" is not a genre.Read more »

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TOFU AND WHISKEY Sitting on a pilled blanket out in Golden Gate Park, watching Australia's folk-noise instrumental outfit Dirty Three tear shit up on violin, petting my SPCA-adopted chug and sipping my homemade beer, I thought, "this is magic." And then, "I'm pretty drunk." And finally, out loud, "I'm a cliché right now."Read more »

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Tofu and whiskey is music editor Emily Savage's new weekly music column.

emilysavage@sfbg.com

Tofu and Whiskey There are loud grinding noises and those cinematic electric sparks shooting from a machine below a church pew-like balcony. It's musky and filled with dark bordello wood. The arched main room, the one you see when you walk in the front door of 777 Valencia Street and turn a quick corner, is outlined in bright, bloody red, and there's a stage.Read more »