Rooney Pitchford ‘15 is a rock star. Or at least he was on Saturday night, when he performed for a sold-out crowd at the Milk Bar, a cozy Haight Street dive that was packed wall to wall with fans, friends and family coming to see his homecoming return. Since graduating from Stanford in the…

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On Saturday night, standing alone on a shallow stage in the new cabaret space at Bing Concert Hall, Vikesh Kapoor offered a breathtaking set of original music that felt at once both anachronistic and timely. With technical mastery and poetic storytelling, Kapoor breathed fresh life into the American folk tradition, and continued to carry the…

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February is a month to celebrate love and black culture, and if you’re at Stanford, the Black Student Union puts on an event each year where you can do both. On Friday night, Black Love, the BSU’s annual concert, brought out two big name singers, BJ the Chicago Kid and Mario, to cap off an…

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Need something to help get you through the quarter? We know we’re a little bit late to the party, but the music writers at the Daily are here with a much anticipated list of the much-anticipated albums we’re looking forward to hearing in 2017! Kanye West (Ben) After closing out 2016 with a string of controversial political…

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Rooney Pitchford ‘15 had just finished his freshman year at Stanford when he packed up and left for the high desert of Taos, New Mexico. He found work with a local newspaper, holed up in a one-person trailer and passed the time listening and playing along to John Prine, Neil Young and Townes Van Zandt.…

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About a week before the Frost Music and Arts Festival brought Fetty Wap to campus for an afternoon of music and sunshine, I receive an email from his publicist asking if I want to interview Fetty’s “musical partner and best friend,” Monty. I haven’t requested an interview with either Fetty or Monty, so this email…

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Once a year, Frost Amphitheater opens up to the masses for Stanford Concert Network’s annual Frost Music and Arts Festival. The venue is inconspicuously located between Palm Drive and Campus Drive, a sloping stretch of green hidden by a perimeter of trees and fencing. Even when returning for a second visit, the grounds feel entirely…

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On his third album, “The Colour in Anything,” British electro-soul singer and producer James Blake dares not leave the confines of the sparse, ambient world he has created over his celebrated six-year career. The haunting falsetto, wavering synths and minimalist production found on “Colour” are a familiar, perhaps expected, return to form, but they are…

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For hip-hop heads, the West Coast ruled Coachella weekend two. Sets from Vince Staples, Anderson .Paak, SZA and Ice Cube brought out a slew of legendary guest artists from the wild west, and sounds inspired by life on the sunny streets of Los Angeles dominated the desert air. While other acts from New York (A$AP…

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James Brown was called the hardest working man in show business, but today, Charles Bradley is making his own case for that title, and he’s following Brown’s footsteps in more ways than one. They share looks, fashion sensibilities and most importantly, vocal prowess. But after a long career as an impersonator, Bradley is now his…

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Since the Stanford Concert Network recently announced Fetty Wap as their headliner for the annual Frost Arts and Music Festival — Stanford’s biggest music event of the year that’s brought in acts like the Grateful Dead, Eric Clapton, and more recently, Modest Mouse and Flume — it seems appropriate to revisit his self-titled debut album,…

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While the Stanford men don’t have a place in March Madness this year, another Cardinal underdog is quietly dominating a different scene. In a few weeks, Stanford’s top jazz combo will return to Monterey to compete in the Next Generation Jazz Festival for the second time in history, having made their inaugural appearance last year. With their sights set on taking home the top prize in April, they stopped for a Monday night performance at the CoHo as winter quarter came to a close.

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The smell of grease, the sound of jazz — the atmosphere at CoHo on Monday nights provides a total escape from the drudge of winter quarter. This week, the combos from the Stanford Jazz program took the stage, playing three tunes apiece for their end-of-quarter showcase. In contrast to the usual Monday night jam, this performance…

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“Shirley [1942-2016]” is a heartfelt eulogy, delivered without words but with plenty of soul. The instrumental EP is a tribute from Chris Russ ‘15, also known as faruhdey of the Outsiders, to his late grandmother, Mrs. Shirley Russ. Crafted in the weeks just before and after her passing, the project spins wistful soul samples with…

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An adorable marshmallow-headed robot falls in love with a beautiful human scientist. That’s the gist of the plot in “Nufonia Must Fall,” but it comes nowhere close to a justifiable summary. That’s because “Nufonia” is an intricate multimedia production, and the many layers of craftsmanship that go into its live performance are the backbone of…

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Last Sunday, filmmaker Andy LaViolette responded to a press inquiry I had sent weeks ago, belatedly inviting me to attend the screening of Snarky Puppy’s new album/DVD, “Family Dinner – Volume 2,” which is set for release on February 12th. It was early in the evening when I read his email, and the showing was…

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“I do not want this album to tell a specific narrative, but to instead heighten the listener’s awareness of their own narrative.” This is the goal that David Grunzweig B.S. ’14 M.A. ‘16, also known as T∆PE GHØST, lays out when describing his most recent album, “[ ]” (pronounced “blank”). Like his previous projects, “[…

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Closing out an explosive year, the Korean rapper Keith Ape continued his first American tour with a gig at Venue, a small nightclub in downtown Oakland. The show was intimate, rowdy and reckless, ending abruptly after a dancing mob formed on stage and tripped the sound system. But disregarding the night’s performance, the event’s popularity…

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Eli Arbor raps as if it’s his last day on earth. “Shooting star / Here today, but gone tomorrow.” Arbor, also known as Elliot Williams ‘15, repeats this phrase often in his two-part debut album, “IDols,” which is available now on Soundcloud and Bandcamp. As a founding member of The Outsiders, Arbor is a familiar…

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The Chicago-based rapper Noname Gypsy (born Fatimah Warner) performed at EBF on Wednesday night. Earlier that day, she participated in a Q&A hosted by the Institute for Diversity in the Arts at Harmony House, which overflowed with curious fans, spilling into the hallways and up the staircase. The late night concert, co-sponsored by the Stanford…

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Raury is the Atlanta music scene’s self-declared indigo child, an adept vocalist and songwriter with sweeping messages of peace, love and armageddon delivered in saccharine lyrics and warm acoustic productions. He thinks and creates differently. The 19-year-old’s debut studio album, “All We Need,” is a tangle of folk, hip-hop, R&B and electronic influences, and he…

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Compared to most rappers, CONNIE.K is pretty new to hip-hop. Growing up in a fairly conservative household in Cary, Illinois (part of the suburban sprawl he calls “Chicagoland”), Conrad Kisunzu ‘16 was surrounded by classical music and gospel — hip-hop and R&B didn’t really have a place in his life. Unlike many music-makers of his…

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Originally published in print on September 15th, 2015. In the age of streaming and the collapse of copyright, finding music is not hard, but discovery remains a challenge. Too often we start our search knowing exactly what we’re looking for, and once we reach our destination, we stall. There are two ways to find music,…

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