Warren Hellmans' legacy....a warm, friendly and vibrant, annual San Francisco music event. View from the stage (David Noble) Every year in early October Golden Gate Park hosts a wonderful music event called Hardly Strictly Bluegrass. As it infers in the title, it's way more than Bluegrass, although there is bluegrass played, this festival is hardly strictly bluegrass alone...it's all genres...blues, pop, rock, country, jazz, punk and all kinds of music is welcomed and showcas

The band Sparks have been touring and recording for 55+ years and these two brothers are still going strong. Ron Mael (80) and Russel Mael (77) have been performing together since 1968. They are on tour now and played San Francisco's Golden Gate Theater in September. The audience was filled with Sparks fans that knew every word to every song, even the new material. Which was very endearing for me to witness. It was apparent that the Mael brothers haven't lost their chops, o

Irishman, singer songwriter Glen Hansard performs at the Masonic in San Francisco. Two days prior to Hansards' San Francisco show, he said he was scheduled to appear on the Jimmy Kimmel Show. But it was temporarily cancelled due to the thin skinned orange felon who sits in the White House. Hence Hansard was bumped from being a guest that day. His intro included the Kimmel issue and he sang the song he was meant to perform for the Kimmel show. The bully scared the network in

Fantastic Negrito comes home after several world tours and supports the legendary Mavis Staples in Napa. If you are unfamiliar with this very talented local contemporary blues man, Fantastic Negrito...now may be the time. I've been following him since 2018...Since then, he has worked hard and catapulted to the top of the contemporary blues music category with winning three Grammys in the last three years. Fantastic Negritos' given name is, Xavier Amin Dphrepaulezz and he is

The culmination of a lifelong appreciation for this band, when 'super fan girl' (me) photographs The Who! On a beautiful September evening in Mountain View California, at The Shoreline Ampitheater, The Who played to an audience of approximately 18,000 attendees. This was the tail end of their "The Song is Over" farewell tour. From here, they headed north to Vancouver and the Pacific Northwest for three more shows and are winding up their last show, on their last tour, in Pal

Gear News talks to world renowned British rock guitarist Paul Guerin. My dear friend in the UK, Lars Mullen is a music journalist, photographer, musician and one of the funniest people I know. Lars spoke to another lifelong British rock guitarist, Paul Guerin for Gear News about his career spanning over 30 years in the music business, performing with a host of bands from Michael Schenker, to The Quireboys, Down ‘n’ Outz with Def Leppard’s Joe Elliot and his latest project