Music
Ah, the Future Show Benefit Show: the local music scene's glorious feedback loop. "Want to see a great show? Well, then you need to see this great show." Awesome. If you're at all interested in seeing next weekend's Music and Art in Wright Park festival, it'd be best for you to come
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Let's talk about some badass girl bands, shall we? Saturday at Le Voyeur you're going to see two of them: Morgan and the Organ Donors and Portland's Cat Fancy! (Exclamation point included.) About the latter: Cat Fancy! rides the art-punk line between pop songwriting and fuck-you dissonance. There are several
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Tacoma has a problem developing bands like SEACATS. It seems like if you want power pop you have to leave Tacoma, and probably even pass by Seattle. You have to hit Kelso. Or Bellingham. Or one of many other Washington towns that's unselfconscious enough to nurture a Weezer-esque pop rock
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If you're at all interested in seeing next weekend's Music and Art in Wright Park festival, it'd be best for you to come to The New Frontier Lounge on Saturday, where you'll get to preview several of the bands that will grace the Wright Park stage - including Basemint, Cody
Archives
The Invisible The producers of “The Sixth Sense” bring a stylized thriller to the screen that bares the interesting tag line: “How do you solve a murder, when the victim is you?” Not quite as good as “I see dead people,” but it has potential. In “The Invisible,” Nick (Justin Chatwin)
Music
One of my fondest memories from a show I attended took place at urbanXchange. This was about three years ago when, along with my fellow under-agers, I watched the Blakes perform. What made this memory special wasn't so much the band that I was watching - I can't even remember who
Music
It's been five months since the untimely closing of the underground music venue, The Warehouse. In the months since, Adam Ydstie, Doug Stoeckicht and Katie Lowery - the then-residents and show-producers of the Warehouse - have struck out on their own and started arranging shows at various venues about town. "We
Archives
How much would you pay to see 10 badass, condemned-to-death criminals fight to the death for their freedom on a deserted island? What does the average pay-per-view boxing match cost? Would you pay that much — or more? Those types of questions will likely cross your mind if you fork over
Guides
The culture of heavy metal is one I may never fully understand. Metalheads are tough guys, but also nerds; they worship Satan, but also desperately long to ride a dragon. Heavy metal has been dissected and scattered into a million subgenres. My brother gives me a dirty look if I
Guides
Oh, what a strange and beguiling place, the record shop. Somehow, the assemblage of vinyl adds up to more than the sum of its parts. The advent of CDs and MP3s failed to relegate vinyl to the status of the 8-track or Betamax. There’s a beauty and simplicity in records
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A while back, I wrote about a band called Mr. Frederick that combined disparate genres like rap-metal, folk and chamber pop. The Speed of Sound in Seawater is similarly confusing, but in a more insidious way. Listening to their second album, Red Version, their weirdness sneaks up on you. For
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Spirits of the Red City make chamber-folk that leans toward the melancholy, though the wall of sound created by the wave of instruments has an uncanny ability to feel spirited even while the voices suggest otherwise. Also on the bill are Dovekins and Paper Bird, two bands that have been getting
Guides
When I learned Rick Gratzer and Isaac Olsen had tied for Best Filmmaker in the Weekly Volcano 2010 Best of Tacoma Readers’ Poll, it made perfect sense to me. It couldn’t really have been anyone else. Both young filmmakers (26 and 24, respectively), Gratzer and Olsen have consistently contributed standout films
Arts
When I call Doug Stanhope, I catch him swimming in a pool somewhere. "Let me dry off my head," he says, "crack open a warm beer and light a cigarette." For those not immediately familiar with Stanhope, you may remember him as the co-host (along with Joe Rogan) of the ill-fated reboot
Music
Built to Spill is one of these bands - like Animal Collective and Interpol - where I feel like I just totally missed the boat. I missed them when they first hit the scene, and have been playing catch-up ever since. And you know what? I've really tried, guys, but
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Edison Orange's "Flour Shortage" starts out sounding sort of like Pixies if they made bubblegum pop - that ba-ba-ba-bass, stiffly rhythmic guitar and thudding drums sounding brighter than Black Francis probably would've liked. About a minute in, a certain No Doubt flavor (including horns) kicks in, and Edison Orange's mission
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Foxtrot have a way of making somewhat difficult songs that eschew the conventions of normal pop songcraft. They sort of sound backward or upside-down. The guitars, the drums, the bass - they're all there, but being used in a way that sounds slightly foreign to the ear. Yet somehow it
Archives
Every once in a while an idea pops up that seems like such a no-brainer that you wonder why you never thought of it before, like putting French fries inside your bacon double cheese burger to save time on your lunch break, or offsetting the calories of the cherry covered
Music
I don't envy aging rock stars. It seems like, for the vast majority, aging in the music business is a lose-lose situation. Most likely an aging rock star will never make music that's as creatively satisfying - or "good," as we'll call it - as the music they made when
