Music Writing

I started out in the mid-1990s as a music writer for places like Addicted to Noise, the San Francisco Chronicle, and ROCKRGRL. In more recent years, I've contributed pieces on music to the New Yorker, Bitch, the SF Weekly, PopMatters and Invisible Oranges. Here's a taste of that work. 

An Unusual Heavy Metal Love Story

Women heavy-metal musicians are increasingly common in the West, whereas in the Middle East and North Africa, you can typically count a country’s female metal performers on one hand—but that’s changing. 

Smashing Through the Boundaries: Heavy Metal's Racism and Sexism Problem—and how it can Change

“I’ve had slurs thrown my way. I still get the up-and-down looks,” she says. “I respond by making space for myself regardless.”

Fields of the Nephilim's 'The Nephilim' at 25

The Nephilim “has an instantly iconic quality, almost like a tablet of stone handed down from some alien mountain. For the first time, the pagan and esoteric themes were foregrounded—almost as if the album were a manifesto or mission statement.”

Where the Thunderclouds Are Rolling: Baroness, Sludge, and Southern Rebellion

"The part of us that speaks to an audience, there’s a spirit at work, trying to communicate something like that between band and audience—it’s very much more pronounced in the southern styles of music whether it’s country, rock, gospel, blues. It is that raw, unfettered, exposed songwriting I’ve always gravitated toward.”

Flamboyant Darkess: Female-Fronted Goth Bands Subvert Gender Norms

“As a young teenager I was definitely attracted to goth and new wave in part because of the androgyny, and that aesthetic gave me a way to explore my gender expression before I could even come to terms with being transgender.”

Are you talking to me: Respecting women in metal

There are no quick fixes for the misogyny that’s been rampant in the metal scene since Ozzy sang “Evil Woman”. Partly, that’s because the sexism in metal mirrors (and distills) the sexism in larger society.

Interview: Eric Quach (thisquietarmy)

"I’m pretty introverted by nature, so it just goes hand in hand with that kind of personality. I don’t suppose the extroverted ADDers are particularly attracted to the zen, but the world might just be a tad quieter if they were."

Patrick Wolf: An English (Were)Wolf in San Francisco

"I have a fascination with natural disasters, and San Francisco feels like an island of natural disasters waiting to happen. It creates an aggressiveness for wanting to live."