Music
My first exposure to Old Age took me by surprise. The opening, titular track of their latest release, Rain Won't Ever Come, begins with a ragged lead vocal surrounded on all sides by boozy oohs and la las. The track is slightly reminiscent of the Beatles' "Don't Let Me Down,"
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My first exposure to Old Age took me by surprise. The opening, titular track of their latest release, Rain Won't Ever Come, begins with a ragged lead vocal surrounded on all sides by boozy oohs and la las. The track is slightly reminiscent of the Beatles' "Don't Let Me Down,"
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It's gotta be said: when it comes to bringing some much-needed stage presence to the act of being a performing DJ, Mothrider is about as compelling as they come. Perpetually hidden beneath a sort of black and white super-villain mask (or maybe the kind of face that would've been super-saturated
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Drawing inspiration from early electronica as well as gauzy '90s darlings like Mazzy Star, Stripmall Architecture sound beautiful, even if they don't particularly sound like shiny happy people. But never mind. What Stripmall Architecture do, they do very well: accompanying long, tear-soaked car rides; filling dark dance floors with lonely
Music
Sometimes I think about all of the music I've heard in my life. Hundreds upon hundreds of hours of sounds drifting into my head - albums, radio, live performances, passing someone on the sidewalk as they hum a tune to themselves. It's almost incomprehensible how much music I've been actively
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Having relocated to the South Sound, Jake Frye, an English teacher, found a bassist in one of his former students, Derek Reed. Suddenly, the prospect of sharing Jesus on the Moon became a reality. The two of them, along with a drum machine, began showing Jesus on the Moon to
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In case you were wondering whether Dog Jaw were as aggressive as their name might suggest, the answer is a resounding yes. The opening track on the Olympia punk outfit's album, Slow to Build, begins with what sounds like dogs howling and whimpering, before guitars slowly begin to emerge, and
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Roots music revivalists have begun to get a bad rap recently - especially thanks to the influx of banjo-strumming posers like Mumford & Sons and The Lumineers - but the Littlest Birds more than pass the smell test. Coming from the mountain town of Bishop, Calif., this cello-and-banjo duo does
Music
I had seen live music before, of course: "Weird Al" Yankovic from the nosebleeds at the Puyallup Fair; suffering through a migraine at a Jethro Tull concert; Paul Revere and the Raiders (I think), once more at the fair. But I had never been blown away by a live performance
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Pop punk made it to all the way to France, as it turns out. Xtramedium, hailing from the French Riviera, have mastered all of the little emo flourishes and all the punky switches from contemplative riffing to spiteful rave-ups. Thrown into the mix is a healthy dose of lively folk
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Mugen Hoso are a two-piece rock band from Japan. They sound like the perfect mix of the Clash and the Ramones. They do not sing in English, and their harmonies are outlandishly good. Needless to say, they are fucking awesome. Good? Fine, I'll say some more. Seen in concert, Mugen
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Describing them musically, Fox and the Law are easy to undersell. Basically, they're just a really good rock band. Genre-wise, they lean in a garage rock direction, but there's little in the way of the typical Nuggets or punk influences that usually characterize modern garage rock acts. As a four-piece,
Music
The past couple of years have been exciting ones for Lemolo. Last year, in particular, saw the release of the Seattle duo's debut LP, The Kaleidoscope - an appropriate title, evocative as it is of the band's dreamy, summery shimmer. Capitalizing on the steam that Lemolo had been building up,
Arts
Within the first few minutes of her latest album, I Heart Jokes: Paula Tells Them in Boston, Paula Poundstone lays out the groundwork for everything she's all about, comedically: she talks about the difficulties in raising her adopted children and her animals, she touches on her OCD, and, most notably,
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Hailing from Portland, Muscle and Marrow is the project of singer and guitarist Kira Clark. I want to emphasize those words: singer and guitarist. Muscle and Marrow is entirely concerned with the dance and interplay between Clark's tremulous voice and the fuzzy tones emitted from her guitar. The gauzy guitar
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The opening chords of "The Things I Say," by Sam Vicari, give me chills of recognition. With its gently chugging guitars and sugary sweet vocals, it is instantly reminiscent of decades of power pop, its melody even stretching back to the two-minute guitar heaven of early Beatles. Vicari is clearly
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Beginning her career at open mics in Boston, Paula Poundstone soon moved to San Francisco, which in the late '70s and into the '80s, was the hub for freethinking and unique comedians. People like Dana Gould, Jake Johannsen and Bobcat Goldthwait, among others, would hone their craft at places such
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The past couple of years have been exciting ones for Lemolo. Last year, in particular, saw the release of the Seattle duo's debut LP, The Kaleidoscope - an appropriate title, evocative as it is of the band's dreamy, summery shimmer. Capitalizing on the steam that Lemolo had been building up,
Music
In Alice in Wonderland, Lewis Carroll's Mad Hatter poses this riddle: "Why is a raven like a writing desk?" Alice asks for the answer, at which point the Hatter admits that he has no clue what the answer is. Yes, readers said to Carroll, ad nauseam, but what really is the
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An almost too obvious entry point for the kind of satirical Americana of Shotgun Kitchen would be their spiritual forefather, John Prine. Just as Prine had a tendency to almost undermine salient points in his songs by making stoned-out, hallucinatory jokes about chasing rainbows down the street and nonchalantly tossing