Music
Roxy Music taught us love can be a drug, but I don't think I've ever heard a song that depicts love and drugs coexisting together, and more or less equally helpful. "I couldn't make it without you-without you and codeine." So goes the chorus of "Codeine," one of six songs on the
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I admit to being slightly tired of the resurgence of the folk sound in indie music. Somehow, as resistant as I tend to be with that kind of stuff, I'm still a sucker for a Wall of Sound. Here's how I see it: It's fine if you want to do
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Facts on File occupy a pretty specific time in music, when people like Television and Talking Heads were on the scene. These bands were creating a brand new sound, but going about it in a roundabout way. They embraced punk to a certain extent, but what they seemed to
Scene It
It's March 26, 2010, somewhere around midnight maybe, and I'm clumsily trying to manipulate a Hula Hoop into making a full rotation around my beer gut. Standing in front of Chopstix's dueling piano bar, I take off my suit jacket to allow full range of motion. The shot of
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Olympia actor Morgan Picton has an easy, authoritative knack for comic timing, which made sense given his night job as a standup comedian. We saw him riffed on economics and ancient Rome for a dozen people, killing with insights that were probably too smart for most rooms, including that one.
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James and the Express is a twee-pop band that seems to be obsessed with tomatoes. That's as good a place to start as any, I suppose. Bouncy, impossibly sunny melodies carry the songs on Are Your Tomatoes Safe?, the band's debut album. Band leader James Mackison's voice is humble and
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Correct me if I'm wrong: Valis is a band made up of leather-clad, rock ‘n' roll Satan worshippers who live together in a giant interstellar vessel powered only by pure, gutturally wailing psychedelic metal and capable of leaping across time and space. Is that right? How goddamn awesome are these
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The Growlers are a surf and garage worshipping foursome with a punk streak. A great deal of the band's appeal comes from lead singer Brooks Nielsen's vocals. Though a young man, Nielsen sounds old and weathered - and possibly toothless - like a leathery, elderly busker by the beach. The Growlers
Music
It used to be that California was what people dreamt of. Something about its distance and impossibility bewitched young men and trapped adults, beckoning to them while simultaneously mocking them for their hope. No one, it seemed, ever made it to California. Oh, but if you did. ... In California, a man
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X-Ray Press is a band that - for better or worse - has been given the gift and curse of progressive rock - and uses it for evil. The band's interpretation of prog shows them taking their extensive musical backgrounds and smashing them all into a hardcore mold. "I'm a classical
Music
My father is getting more and more uncomfortable with the manner in which I portray him in this fine rag. He has asked me to print the following statement on his behalf: "Progressive rock is an art form that few appreciate, due to their inferior brain capacities. I, with my advanced
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I'm not sure just how seriously Reverse Dotty wants us to take them. Their music is a kind of melancholy electro-pop, driven by sandy female vocals. The synths sound '80s disco-ready, and the band's aloofness sometimes gives the air of electroclash or riot grrrl. Sometimes, though, like on "Off the
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Remember in the movie Casper when Winona Ryder asks the titular friendly ghost what his spectral body is made of? He replies that he thinks it's made of the same stuff that makes your feet tingle when they fall asleep. That's kind of how I think of World's Greatest Ghosts.
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Right On John is one man - John McColley. He's a one-man band, too. There's something so goddamn appealing about a one-man band, as Right On John is in the classical sense. He utilizes no looping contraptions. A man and a cavalcade of instruments is what he delivers. He
Food Matters
BREWER'S NIGHT 7 Seas Brewing is taking over Paesan's Kitchen and Bars' taps beginning at 7 p.m. Thursday, May 22. Festivities include brew tasting flights and growlers to take home. A perfect hops loving sea adventure is pairing 7 Seas brews with wood fired pizza pies. (1701 Dock St., Tacoma) COMMUNITY MEAL Trinity
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Sirens Sister is a band that succeeds in surpassing one's initial expectations. Despite having a certain air of mystical, Earth Mother uncoolness, the band's songs are wiry, nervy trains of crazed headlong rock momentum. They strike an easy balance of quite radio-friendly modern rock and a respect for dark
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The band's lineup, as we know it today, was formed in 1964 by Joseph Shabalala. Why? It came to him in a dream. He'd been the bandleader of a choral group specializing in isicathamiya, traditional Zulu music. But the sounds he heard in his dream were these gorgeous harmonies that
Music
It's unusual for a band to have been around for as long as Ladysmith Black Mambazo, and for me (and, I suspect, many people) to know next to nothing about them. I mean, this is a band that's been around since 1960 - 50 years! - in one form or
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Blowfly, a bedazzled super villain who specializes in salaciously dirty rap parodies of contemporary songs, began his music career as Clarence Reid. Beneath the Luchador mask is a man who lived above ground as a prominent R&B songwriter in the '60s and '70s. However, as Blowfly he's operated permanently underground,
Music
Here's something that you never really see any more: the certifiably insane recording artist. Well, not technically insane (unless you're talking about Wild Man Fischer) but certainly wacky to no end. They are generally described as having a world all their own - usually a "weird" or "crazy" one. Arthur
