Overview
Sacramento News & Review (SN&R) was — and, in significantly reduced online form, still is — the defining alternative newsweekly of Sacramento from its founding in 1989 through the suspension of its print edition in January 2021. At its peak it had a print circulation of 80,000 and a cumulative readership of roughly 330,000, making it one of the ten most widely circulated alt-weeklies in the country. For three decades SN&R was the principal venue for serious, sustained music journalism about the Sacramento scene, and its annual Sacramento Area Music Awards (SAMMIES) — launched in 1992 — served as the region's most prominent music recognition program. SN&R continues publishing online. [1][2][3]
Founding and print era (1989–2020)
Publishers Jeff vonKaenel and Deborah Redmond — already running a sister paper in Chico — launched SN&R in Sacramento in 1989, with Melinda Welsh as founding editor. [1][2] The paper quickly became the principal competitor to the Sacramento Bee's cultural coverage, staffing a dedicated music desk and running weekly album reviews, show previews, venue columns, and long-form artist features.
Through the 1990s and 2000s SN&R's music section was the primary documented record of the Sacramento scene — the Cattle Club era, the rise of Deftones and Cake, the all-ages punk and metal undercurrents, and the shifts in local radio and venue ownership. Music writers through the years included Jackson Griffith (notable for his 2000 reporting on Deathray and the post-Cake orbit) and Jonathan Mendick (prolific reviewer through the 2010s). [4][5]
The SAMMIES (1992–2020)
The Sacramento Area Music Awards — universally called the SAMMIES — launched in 1992 as SN&R's annual reader-voted music awards. Winners were selected in more than two dozen genre categories (folk rock, funk, hard rock, blues, punk, hip-hop, world, and others); the awards issue was one of the paper's most-read editions of the year. [6][7]
In 1995 SN&R created the SAMMIES Hall of Fame to handle repeat winners: the tradition began when Mumbo Gumbo won World Music two years in a row. For most of the program's run, three wins in any category inducted an act into the Hall of Fame and "retired" them from future competition. In 2017, for the awards' 25th year, SN&R dropped the retirement rule — three wins still made an act a Hall of Fame inductee, but they remained eligible going forward. [6] Notable SAMMIES winners and Hall of Fame members include Cake, Deftones, Oleander, Brotha Lynch Hung, and Las Pesadillas. [6]
At peak participation in 2019, SN&R reported more than 40,000 votes cast across 29 categories with 250+ nominated artists. The 2020 SAMMIES winners were announced in March 2020, days before the pandemic shutdown; the program has been suspended since. [6][8]
COVID shutdown and online-only era (2020–present)
Publisher Jeff vonKaenel told staff on March 16, 2020 that print was being suspended due to a pandemic-driven advertising collapse on top of an already-declining revenue base. [1][3] Print briefly returned as a monthly in July 2020 but was suspended again in January 2021. SN&R has operated online-only since. [3]
SN&R is a founding member of Solving Sacramento, a nonprofit collaborative-journalism consortium that also includes CapRadio, the Sacramento Observer, and others. It continues to publish music coverage — including reviews and obituaries for Sacramento figures such as the February 2026 remembrance of former Cake and Deathray guitarist Greg Brown — but at a substantially reduced cadence from its print era. [3][9]
Why it matters for Sacramento music
For 30 years SN&R was the only dedicated, weekly, region-specific platform for Sacramento music journalism operating at any meaningful scale. Its venue previews, reviews, and SAMMIES ballot built the regional cultural map that every artist, booker, and promoter relied on. The paper's 2020–2021 near-collapse — and the suspension of the SAMMIES — opened the gap in local music media that prompted the creation of new outlets and platforms (including Sac Setlist) to fill. Understanding SN&R — its 30-year archive, its institutional voice, its limitations, and the shape of what it left behind — is the foundation for understanding the current Sacramento music-media landscape.
Sources
- News & Review, Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/News_%26_Review
- Meet Our Members: Sacramento News & Review, Solving Sacramento. https://solvingsacramento.org/meet-our-members-sacramento-news-review/
- Sacramento News & Review Lives to Write Another Day, Comstock's Magazine. https://www.comstocksmag.com/web-only/sacramento-news-review-lives-write-another-day
- Muck Rack — Jonathan Mendick articles. https://muckrack.com/jonathan-mendick/articles
- SN&R archive — Jackson Griffith, Deathray reporting (2000). https://www.newsreview.com/sacramento/
- SAMMIES Hall of Fame, Sacramento News & Review, March 28, 2019. https://www.newsreview.com/sacramento/sammies-hall-of-fame/content?oid=27927495
- Sacramento Area Music Awards, LocalWiki. https://localwiki.org/sac/Sacramento_Area_Music_Awards
- The 2020 SAMMIES winners, Sacramento News & Review, March 23, 2020. https://sacramento.newsreview.com/2020/03/23/the-2020-sammies-winners/
- Sacramento mourns the guitarist who went the distance: A remembrance of Greg Brown, Sacramento News & Review, February 8, 2026. https://sacramento.newsreview.com/2026/02/08/sacramento-mourns-the-guitarist-who-went-the-distance-a-remembrance-of-greg-brown-former-cake-and-deathray-centerpiece/