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Camp Out is a two-girl outfit, made up of Maddy Hanks and Jackie Law. Their music, full and harmonic, errs on the side of uber-sunny California pop. Utilizing looping pedals, keyboards and drum machines, Hanks and Law (sounds like a buddy-cop duo) flush out their sound and become much more
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A patchwork of agricultural lands, booming border towns, and fast-growing cities line the United State-Mexico border. Teams of border patrol agents cruise the landscape in white and green jeeps, hoping to stem the tide of illegal immigrants seeking to cross into the United States. Against this backdrop, Peg Bowden, a
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Toucan Sam and the Fruitloops seems like a perverse exercise in buckshot blasts of gimmickry. Made up of a Polyphonic Spree-level assemblage of musicians, the Fruitloops specialize in orchestrated punk rock explosions of popular songs done in ukulele. See where I'm coming from? Still, one can only scoff so much
Arts
What you first must understand about TW, AKA Thomas William Smith, owner and proprietor of Renegade Muscle, is that he's the true embodiment of a character. The man talks a mile a minute, has devoted his life to the restoration and customization of vintage bicycles, and seriously digs calendar girls.
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Aloha, my good friends! This is Carmen Jones coming at you live from a Waikiki lanai that overlooks the busiest golf course in the world, and is a stone’s throw from the beach and the sand that I love to sink my pedicured toes into. Yes! I’m here visiting my dear friend from
Music
Recently, I watched a television program called Seven Ages of Rock. Among the many issues I had with the show (only seven ages of rock, ending with '90s Britpop?), chief among them was the coverage of late '80s, early '90s American alternative music. Only R.E.M. and Nirvana were discussed.
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Directed by Issac Olsen, written by Olsen and Kurt Kendall, and starring Dale Phillips, the film centers around a private dick by the name of Savage - Rick Savage. When a suspicious-looking dame enters his life, the dick is thrown into a world of intrigue, cigarettes, shadows,
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When you’re riding herd on one of the largest indoor and outdoor extravaganzas in the state of Washington and you’ve been doing it twice a year since just about forever, it might be a little difficult to keep it fresh and exciting. But the city of Olympia somehow does just
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There are eight million stories in the City of Destiny. This is one of them. In February of 2006, Isaac Olsen got together with Kurt Kendall and Dale Phillips of Girl Trouble at a deserted farmhouse in Orting. They had broken into the house for their first day of shooting; the
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Kathryn Bamford has a green thumb and an eye for one-of-a-kind pots. Her store, Bamford and Bamford Pottery, is an amazing place to visit with eye candy at every turn. Though the pottery is the main attraction at Bamford and Bamford, in the upcoming June edition of Sunset magazine it
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Rock music history is littered with Anvils - bands that failed despite the successes of their contemporaries. For whatever reason, though they possessed the talent and ambition of their peers, fame never found these bands. Proof of their existence can be found in discount bins at your local record store.
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Bacon Moon's name may conjure up the fleet of psychedelic bands that sound as if they picked their names from words in a hat (Strawberry Alarm Clock, et al.), but Bacon Moon's music is firmly planted in the lo-fi alternative rock of the early '90s. Upon listening to Bacon Moon, after
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Deborah Page seems to reside in that confusing period of the mid to late '90s, when singer-songwriters were itching and tearing to breach the borders of more adventurous music. Some of her songs sound like they could be accompanied by a fuzzy, saturated music video of Page in a
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There's something to be said for keeping a foot or two on the ground. For as much as aspirations may urge them to rise into the sky, Destruction Island keeps their feet planted on Earth. Every arena ready element that invades their music is always tempered with a ground
Archives
I’m always strolling the malls, boutiques and thrift stores for the next big thing. My latest discovery — flower power is back, man. It’s everywhere — on shoes, shirts, skirts, and glasses. I personally love the look. I don’t know if that makes me a flower power kind of person,
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Unfortunately I missed the days when one could smoke in a bar or club. Shortly before the law was passed to ban smoking indoors, an underage me snuck in a smoking session inside a local lounge. It was grey and candlelit, and it felt right to feel so bad. It
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James Jenkins played a big part in initiating me into the world of Tacoma music and Team Unicorn. His now-defunct band, Mama Loves Daddy, was and still is one of my favorite bands to come out of this city, and long nights spent at the "Gloom House" served to throw
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I think it's safe to say Myths want to fuck your minds and leave them feeling dirty. Myths make confrontational music that leans toward art rock but never displaces its ambition of alienating its audience. The band is made up of two women who perform to a backing track and
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There are some bands that cut straight to the quick. The Pica Beats are smart enough to put lead singer R. Barrett's voice front and center. Listening to the Pica Beats, it's almost as if Barrett is sitting on the opposite end of a campfire with you, singing right at
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Performing Friday at the Squaek and Squawk Music Festival will be Pwrfl Power, an odd presence in indie pop. "When I started out," says Kazutaka Nomura, AKA Pwrfl Power, "(I was playing) mostly silly songs, shorter songs just about daily topics. ... After about three years of playing,
