emilysavage@sfbg.com

MUSIC I half-expect Jhameel to be sporting face paint whiskers swiped across his cheeks as I walk up to meet him at Cafe Strada near the UC Berkeley campus. Lyrically, he's inspired by Ben Gibbard, musically by Sufjan Stevens, but aesthetically, it's early Bowie.Read more »

emilysavage@sfbg.com

MUSIC Water Borders, a gloomy beat-driven San Francisco band with a new release (Harbored Mantras) on Tri Angle Records, spent the past few weekends practicing the art of creating atmosphere for obscure vintage films.Read more »

In Cuba, there is just one group that specializes in traditional Haitian songs — the Creole Choir of Cuba. "Some of the songs in our repertoire are those we learned from our parents or grandparents, others we learned during the many visits we have made to Haiti," says choir director Emilia Diaz Chavez, through translator Kelso Riddell.Read more »

FUTURE ISLANDSRead more »

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MUSIC "The reason why my rhythms are so repetitive and feel almost infinite is that, in a way, I fear closure. In the same way that I can never finish a book, I have trouble ending my songs. I have trouble ending anything. I can't even finish a meal," Luis Vasquez, frontrunner of the Soft Moon, tells me. (The group plays Mon/31 at the Independent.)Read more »

emilysavage@sfbg.com

MUSIC On the final day of Budget Rock 10, the endmost moment of the Budget Rock showcase itself, there will be pancakes and local '80s surf-punk band the Phantom Surfers. Likely a few tear stained cheeks as well.

The daylong event at Thee Parkside — which tops off four days plus 10 years of weirdo, trashy, slack rock shows — also features the annual morning record swap and a ticketed evening lineup that includes the Legendary Stardust Cowboy, the Mothballs, Midnite Snaxxx, and Okmoniks, amongst others.Read more »

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MUSIC Over beers one night, a friend of Himalayan Bear (a.k.a Ryan Beattie) described for him a tattoo he wanted: a boat full of sailors being swallowed by a kraken with the inscription "Hard Times" beneath it. Thus, the title of Himalayan Bear's third, and most fully formed album to date, was born.

"I wanted to make it a bit more LP-centric," Beattie says of the record. "I was trying to explore a concept — every song is a love song."Read more »

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MUSIC In 2010, while Franki Chan contemplated the pros and cons of bringing back his much-beloved Los Angeles-based Check Yo Ponytail party concert series, he wasn't entirely sure where it all might lead. All he knew is that he'd become detached from the rapid takeover of the DJ scene and the lackluster dance parties that were becoming the norm.Read more »

MUSIC On the winding beach roads of Central California, in the cool coastal stillness of midnight, I remembered what the music hive mind spewed forth when it came to recently released record (and previous albums) from Philadelphia's the War on Drugs: road trip music.Read more »

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MUSIC Now in its fifth year, the Treasure Island Festival maintains a mystifying balance: it's both big enough to attract larger acts (Death Cab for Cutie, Empire of the Sun), and small enough to make the event feel intimate (with eyes closed, it's you alone dancing in the Silent Disco). There are rarely timing issues, one act stops, another begins. Precision and organization enrich a festival, whodathunk?Read more »