Author Ally Mason

You can’t throw a stone these days without hitting a band that spells their own name wrong on purpose. Perhaps that stands more as a testament to the sheer mass of existing bands past and present than pure st...

Life is full of clichés. When you’re in love, you behave foolishly. When it rains, it pours. When the sun shines, the world feels right. Best Coast revitalizes these tropes to create straightforward narrativ...

I once read a piece of music journalism which analogized the music of SALES to a Beach House record mistakenly played at 45 rpm. It makes sense — both groups craft superbly minimal pop songs utilizing program...

Friday, July 21, was a remarkable night for guitar pop aficionados at The Fillmore in San Francisco. Soccer Mommy, Stef Chura, and The Drums comprised a bill of bands with a penchant for melodic earworms and i...

Keenan Mittag-Degala and Patrick Rendel have been hard at work. However, right now they have just discovered the new Mrs. Pacman feature on Google Maps, giggling like a couple of teenagers out past curfew. ...

I would like to think I know my way around a music festival--how to navigate a crowd, a lineup, a schedule. Music festivals, not unlike music, require a keen sense of timing. Though I tried to map out the in...

As South by Southwest officially enters its thirty-first year, I enter my twenty-first, and our paths finally collide. Growing up, my dad promised to take me to the Elysian musical free-for-all in Austin, Texas...

Who better to close out Noise Pop’s 25th year than Ty Segall? The former staple of the Bay Area music community delivered an explosive and dynamic end to the ten day festival that makes a point to highlight l...

After releasing an initial demo in 2013 and a few split 7”s (including one with labelmates Former Ghosts) Funeral Advantage's debut LP Body Is Dead (2015) and subsequent Body Is Dead (Demos) (2015) found its ...

Surfer Blood is on tour fresh off the release of their new album Snowdonia (2017). They stopped by The Chapel in San Francisco Tuesday night, drawing the largest crowd I've seen at the venue since Real Esta...

There's a few things a gal from Southern California can't live without. Burritos for starters. Somewhere high on that list is surf rock. The Beach Boys, Dick Dale, The Ventures. Sometimes it's hard to indulge i...

In high school perhaps you knew a friend or acquaintance in a band and made the pilgrimage to the local all ages venue, got your hands X'ed and swayed alongside your classmates. Maybe you even had your own band...

Canadian rockers Alvvays instantaneously solidified themselves as classics with a single release. Riding the success of their debut self-titled LP in 2014, Alvvays has been busy playing every festival from her...

It's here. After releasing Lost in the Night (2014), London alt-blues outfit Palace strolled onto the radar with five elegiac tracks effortlessly balancing soaring guitar harmonies and sophisticated diminuendo....

Prism Tats won me over the way a burrito falls apart; slowly, and then all at once. What originated as South African-born, Garett van der Spek's solo project now includes a bassist and drummer based in Los A...