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Earlier this year, Pat Doherty, lead singer of local favorites the Wheelies, released his solo debut via the quickly up-and-coming local record label, Swoon Records. On Doherty's Rail Car EP, he breaks from the nervy indie rock practiced by the Wheelies and embraces easy-going, indie folk-pop. As a frontman, Doherty
Music
Spindly guitar pricks open up History Speaks, the debut LP from Seattle's Deep Sea Diver. Soon, they're joined by thudding drums, a plaintive voice and, eventually, the kind of lush, full instrumentation that personifies Deep Sea Diver. The voice belongs to Jessica Dobson, a long-time musical entity in these parts. Deep
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Wes Sp8 (aka Wes Speight, natch) strikes me as a ravenous consumer of pop music. Though he nonchalantly identifies himself as a singer-songwriter, he seems eager to experiment with just what the term means. From song to song, he tests out different personas of the classic singer-songwriter - whether showing
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It might be hard for me to judge Sam Russell objectively (like I do with all other music, clearly) because he just hits such a sweet spot for me. His laconic baritone immediately brings to mind the National's Matt Berninger, but the swooning country that surrounds his voice suddenly calls
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The gimmick of looping one's instrument to create an orchestra of one has been done many times, but the novelty of this tactic can only go so far. People like Andrew Bird or Reggie Watts have boiled down the practice to its essence, creating beautiful and delightfully creative ways to
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James Jenkins is a singer/songwriter who's been on the scene in Tacoma for quite some time. Whether in his own band (Mama Loves Daddy), or as former keyboardist in Umber Sleeping (now known as I Like Science), Jenkins has been known for creating music that nods to '60s and '70s
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Let's just cut to the chase, here: Charlyne Yi (who you may know from movies like Knocked Up and her own quasi-documentary Paper Heart) will be swinging through town on Saturday. Yi, a resident of the out-of-control great Los Angeles indie comedy scene, is a true original. Bizarre, hilarious, and
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Much has been said (by me, at some times) about how Elbow Coulee sounds like the meeting between pop-punk and dancey synth-rock, but the truth is that the band's range is larger than that. I mean, yeah, lead singer Andrew Tuller's voice does tend to sound pretty similar to that
Arts
"When you eat pancakes out of a bag in a semi-public place, there are rules," says comedian Kyle Kinane midway through an eight-minute story about watching a man on an airplane eat pancakes out of a grocery bag. You or I might see such a sight and, upon reporting it
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"When you eat pancakes out of a bag in a semi-public place, there are rules," says comedian Kyle Kinane midway through an eight-minute story about watching a man on an airplane eat pancakes out of a grocery bag. You or I might see such a sight and, upon reporting it
We Recommend
Manhattan Murder Mystery - despite taking their name from a light Woody Allen comedy - follows in the tradition of other lovably scuzzy acts like the Rolling Stones, J. Geils, the Replacements and countless other bands that revel in the smoke and the sound and the drink of a bleary,
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When I first was made aware of the existence of a band called Miss Massive Snowflake, with song titles like "The Doctor, the Thief, and the Poet Versus Confetti," I was given pause. Happily, instead of the kind of treacly, sneeringly cutesy indie rock that I expected, I was met
Music
The culture of outsider art can be a difficult one to navigate. Take a band like the Shaggs: three sisters - the Wiggin sisters - in the late '60s, at the behest of their deranged, overbearing father, put out an album of utterly insane music that can be generously described
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To reductively describe what Matt Wheeler, AKA Teardropcity, does, his music sort of sounds like a hip-hop/country hybrid with vocals that sound straight out of Beat Happening. But let's let the Olympia local describe it himself. "I have several catch-phrases that I use to describe it, the first being ‘music for
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After living and traveling in Europe for the past year or so, singer-songwriter Heater Loepp has finally made her return to Washington. As the frontwoman for indie folk-pop outfit Santee, she started turning heads with her intimate lyrics, endearingly scratchy vocals and the warm bed of instrumentation provided by the
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The idea of soul and rock becoming increasingly intermingled and on the mainstream radar, with bands like The Heavy and the Black Keys, is one that I've wrestled with over the past couple years. Of course, the issue of credibility and appropriation are always going to be present in the
Live & CD Reviews
Ah, these anger-baiting year-end lists. Let's get this on the table right away: this is my list of the best live performances that I saw in 2012. All of these performances were in Tacoma, but not all of them were bands from Tacoma. A couple of them are from the
Live & CD Reviews
As a songwriter, Allan Boothe has always had a vulnerability about him. As a performer, he more frequently comes across as a bundle of nerves than a rock star. On record, he has a way of revealing so much of himself in such a melancholy way - even as he's
We Recommend
As a songwriter, Allan Boothe has always had a vulnerability about him. As a performer, he more frequently comes across as a bundle of nerves than a rock star. On record, he has a way of revealing so much of himself in such a melancholy way -
We Recommend
As a songwriter, Allan Boothe has always had a vulnerability about him. As a performer, he more frequently comes across as a bundle of nerves than a rock star. On record, he has a way of revealing so much of himself in such a melancholy way - even as he's
