The future looked bleak for Maryland-bred folk-popper Eric Hutchinson a few years ago. Right after signing with Madonna’s Maverick Records the label folded, forcing him to reconnoiter in his parents’ basement, where he eventually penned, then self-released, his debut recording, “Sounds Like This.” Quickly snapped up by Warner Bros., the Perez Hilton-touted album broke worldwide via irresistible hits such as “Rock & Roll.” Read More

Video may not have killed the radio star, but it nearly defeated quirky California folksinger Kina Grannis, who spent 22 months with director Greg Jardin filming a stop-motion animated video for her single “In Your Arms” — using 288,000 jelly beans. For more than 2,300 meticuous frames, she posed on a plexiglass table, with elaborate bean scenarios spread beneath her. “We’d spend over an hour building one frame, then I’d come in, lie on the glass, and he’d take one picture,” she says. “So most days we’d get less than a second of footage completed.” Read More

It wasn’t as crazy as that Von Dutch celebrity cap fad from a decade ago. But Keith Morris recently was taken aback by a sudden mail-order run on merchandise from his proto-punk supergroup OFF!, appearing in The City on Friday, backing its self-titled, Damned-retro debut disc. “We were running to the post office two or three times a week, sending out hat after hat after hat,” says the ex-Black Flag and Circle Jerks frontman. “We had a real rash of teenage girls suddenly purchasing our trucker caps.” Read More

It was an odd move for Arctic Monkeys bandleader Alex Turner — the Sheffield native’s relocation from Britain to New York’s tony Williamsburg, where he resided for a year with then-gal pal Alexa Chung. “I actually really enjoyed my time there, and it was pretty exotic for me,” he says. While there he even wrote “Suck It and See,” the group’s fourth and most melodic album. But times change. In rapid-fire succession, he: broke up with Chung and returned to London, composed the folksy soundtrack to U.K. Read More

Touring the country by bus may sound romantic, but for musicians, it also can be a cramped, claustrophobic nightmare, says Alex Ebert, frontman of the 12-member Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros. Then again, the singer — appearing this week in Oakland with the band, promoting its upcoming gospel-fervent sophomore recording “Here” — says he was spoiled by last year’s unusual Railroad Revival Tour. Read More

Jesse Cohen understands ironic, even post-ironic, humor. But last week — when a chum termed a certain popular group a “guilty pleasure” — he had enough. “I said, ‘C’mon, man! You’re in your 30s! There shouldn’t be such a thing as a guilty pleasure anymore — who has the time for it?’” he says. He and bandmate Eric Emm, right, bring that same anything-goes attitude to Tanlines. The dance-rock duo’s delightful new “Mixed Emotions” debut recalls vintage percolators from Blancmange, Shriekback and New Order. Tanlines’ credo, he says, is remarkably simple: If it sounds good, it is good. Read More

She’s the Grammy-winning, sitar-wielding daughter of Ravi Shankar, half-sister of Norah Jones and wife of British film director Joe Wright, of “Atonement” renown. But perhaps the reason the California-educated Anoushka Shankar isn’t a household name yet is because she plays an arcane type of music — classical Hindustani, sometimes fused with genres such as jazz or traditional flamenco, as on her intricate new CD “Traveller.” She recorded with Jones on her last effort, 2007’s “Breathing Under Water.” Her months-long world tour brings her to San Francisco today. Read More