If the album and/or compact disc bellies up DOA in contemporary music biz dialogue, someone better tell the locals and all the small-town acts from across the state submitting their audio ambitions to this paper by the mail crate. With the novel declared dead early last century, mark the new millennium as fatal to the album and keep those sonic manuscripts coming.

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San Francisco native Raoul Hernandez crossed the border into Texas on July 2, 1992, and began writing about music for the Chronicle that fall, debuting with an album review of Keith Richards’ Main Offender. By virtue of local show previews – first “Recommendeds,” now calendar picks – his writing’s appeared in almost every issue since 1993.