More than a year ago, in his rundown on “top substances that have influenced music,” promoter-DJ Marco De La Vega said this: “I...raid my own medicine cabinet, take a couple Vicodin, and listen to a stack of records including [Girls],Tamaryn, King Dude, Chelsea Wolfe, and Zola Jesus.”

Already a fan of the others mentioned in that paragraph, I sought out King Dude (a.k.a T.J. Cowgill) and found that I'd already known his previous work, intimately. I'd seen his black metal band Teen Cthulhu in high school, and for many years had the band's sticker plastered on my black Nissan Maxima, later discovering his band that rose from the ashes of Teen Cthulhu: Book of Black Earth.

It was his turns as founder-creative director of his own clothing label, Actual Pain (Kanye has worn it, OK?), and solo “darkly spiritual acoustic-folk” singer-songwriter that have been the most surprising. Like previous King Dude releases, 2012's Burning Daylight (Dais) is a desolate affair, with subtle plucking and Cowgill's darkly raspy vocals meditating on death, murder, spirituality, and love – or as I wrote in this week's Tofu and Whiskey print music column (Jan. 9 issue), it sounds like “a gravelly demon inside, clawing to get out.” Read more »

It's likely your first full week back to work after the holidays – and just how does that feel? Painful? Like a dull, numbing pain creeping up your neck? Fix it with fun, like the kind you'll have seeing former Das Racist, Kool A.D. at Elbo Room, doom folk friends Chelsea Wolfe and King Dude at the Great American Music Hall, or producer Jerome LOL at Rickshaw Stop, punk act Kicker at Bender's, or club night Push the Feeling's one-year anniversary show at Underground SF.

Cheer up, Bay Area. There's plenty to hear in 2013.

Here are your must-see Bay Area concerts this week/end: Read more »

For our annual Year in Music issue, I asked local musicians, rappers, producers, and music writers to sound off on the year's best songs, album releases, shows – pretty much anything they wanted, music-wise. For the next few days, I'll be posting them up individually on the Noise blog. You can also check the full list here.

So, I (Emily Savage, Guardian music editor) included my top albums list in my Ty Segall cover story (also a part of the Year in Music issue). For easier access, here's that list below, along with my “Top Live Shows That Created The Most Post Memories in 2012” list. Whew, what a year: Read more »

For our annual Year in Music issue, I asked local musicians, rappers, producers, and music writers to sound off on the year's best songs, album releases, shows – pretty much anything they wanted, music-wise. For the next few days, I'll be posting them up individually on the Noise blog. You can also check the full list here.

Grass Widow's Internal Logic was one of my favorite albums of the year. Post-punk at its finest with hypnotic layers of three-part harmonies, and cosmic lyrics. Really just a perfect package.  When I spoke to bassist-vocalist Hannah Lew around the release of the album, she was filled with great songwriting and inspiration quotes, including this one: “Sometimes when I'm feeling down I'll go online and check what NASA's doing. I follow them on Twitter. It just, for some reason, makes me feel hopeful when there are things out there that people are doing that make me feel like an ant."  Read more »