San Francisco Bay Guardian

What exactly does it mean to be a pop star these days? Does it mean you have masses of eager (young) fans, breathless feature articles, and a healthy growing buzz on so-called tastemaker sites? Can you do it without a major label, without a proper album, without really touring? Seems like the answer for now is...maybe. It's a world we're all just beginning to crack open. One thing I know for sure, Florida teen rapper Kitty Pryde wouldn't have blown up quite like this before the web.

She made her mark on Youtube, with casual, adorable bedroom rap track and video “Okay Cupid,” along with an ode to a certain youthful pop star (“Justin Bieber”). There's been plenty of speculation about Pryde. If she's actually a teenager. If she's “in on the joke.” If she'll sign to a major label and crush it. These questions are sort of beside the point. So far, her output has been cheerful, weird, fun, and uniquely telling of young life in America in 2012. Or, as the New York Times put it in its CMJ rundown, Pryde “offered cute, comedic expositions of unrequited crushes.” Read more »

Kitty Pryde, Maya Jane Coles, Die Antwoord, Tilly and the Wall, La Sera – it's like a pop culture IRL explosion on the streets of the Bay this week. It's the acts that shake up your Youtube trolling, the bands that guest star on teen queen dramas, the darlings of Hipster Runoff, all on the calendar during this first full week of November. Oh, and the irrepressible, Mike Watt. Let the fall sweeps begin. Read more »

Localized Appreesh is our thank-you column to the musicians that make the Bay. To be considered, contact emilysavage@sfbg.com.

That’ll teach me to judge a book by its cover; or better yet, to judge a whole lineup by its headliners. I first caught the Parmesans opening up for Buffalo Tooth, Poor Sons, and Uzi Rash at Elbo Room this summer, so I naturally assumed they’d be in the same thrashy vein, or at least, they’d play some variation on the loud rockn’roll theme. Untrue: they lined up, strumming guitars, banjos, a mandolin, a stand-up bass, and the like, and launched into a fun set of bluegrass, folk, and Americana ditties, some covers and some originals. Read more »

Guardian music writer Haley Zaremba managed to snap a few shots of Rasputina during the stringed trio's appearance at Great American Music Hall on Wednesday.