Music
Sometimes, when I get a load of laundry done, write a couple of articles for this rag, make some dinner, send out some important emails, and finally relax to have a drink, I'll think, "Boy, did I get an awful lot done today. What a productive and energetic guy I
Music
From the first resonant chords of piano on Rockwell Powers's and DJ Phinisey's new album, BUILD, it's clear that this is an album that strives to be more than just another album of blustering and posturing. Accompanied by the reading of a poem by Jesse Ann Fouts, opening track "BuildxPoem1"
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I know next to nothing about Half Kingdom, beyond what I can hear in their two available songs online. What I can tell, just by listening to them, is that they embrace a moody post-punk that teems with energy even as it confounds expectations. Clattering drums and choppy guitars give
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Big Star, and Alex Chilton in particular, was a band driven to madness by a nation turning a blind eye to some of the purest pop music around. In typical fashion, Big Star were ignored in their time, but later discovered by several generations of power pop acts that valued
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Hailing from Austin, Texas, Crooked Bangs is a band that is quite adept at building expectations and smashing them. Initially reveling in the sounds of '60s garage and '70s punk, Crooked Bangs slowly folds in elements of post-punk. It's compelling enough, but then you hear the vocals of Leda Ginestra
Music
Over the course of music history, there's been a strong contingent of bands making beautifully melodic pop music with a bit of an edge, but not enough of an edge to ever really get the attention they deserve. If guitars aren't being wrecked, people tend to take the music for
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The trio of You Are Plural make music for the kind of people that need a little more propulsion in their chamber pop. Made up of cello, Wurlitzer organ and drums, You Are Plural construct perfectly lovely tunes that benefit greatly from the sort of nervous percussion provided by not
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I guess we should've seen it coming, ever since lo-fi recording became its own modest movement, that some people would take that ethic to its natural ending point. And so, we must say, the genre dubiously dubbed "shitgaze" was an inevitability. Testing the limits of tolerable listening conditions, bands like
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Their latest album, Green Light Go, is a nonstop exercise in full-on dance-rock combustion. The Redwood Plan is not fond of giving you a moment to breathe. From the first track, "Panic On," the album just does not rest. The style of dance-rock perpetuated by the Redwood Plan tends to defer
Music
A couple weeks ago, I threw a five-day music festival called Squeak and Squawk. One of the things that irked me most about the whole affair was how the crowds in Tacoma tend to react. Of course, all of the crowds were respectful and everyone had a fine old time,
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Zohra Atash and Joshua Strawn make up the dark post-punk duo, Azar Swan. As residents of the NYC-based goth label, PENDV SOUND, it would be easy to guess what Azar Swan are all about even before you saw a picture of the pair looking moody, black and intimidatingly stylish. That's
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This is a band that describes themselves as a novelty act, though their music is far too complicated and off-putting to land them a spot on a Dr. Demento compilation. A piano-punk trio more on the Don't Stop Or We'll Die side than the Ben Folds Five side, Swingset Showdown
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Magic Mouth recently got off tour opening for Gossip. It's easy to see why Gossip were drawn to them in the first place: Magic Mouth fold a myriad of influences into their sound, ending up with music that flies in the face of the recent trend of revivalism. Their funk,
Music
It goes without saying that the World Famous Bob's Java Jive is a thing of beauty. Sure, it's grimy beauty, the kind of beautiful thing that also features a trough to piss in, but it's beautiful nonetheless. Tacoma's most legendary dive bar has been home to decades of iconic bands
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OK, yes, there will be punk music. And yes, some of that music will be done by local favorites like Girl Trouble, Red Hex, Trees and Timber and The Jilly Rizzo. And yes, this is a function that will be held at a bar. But look, the real draw here
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Richard Album (along with his band, the Lifestyles) is a master of power pop, straight down to the sort of vulnerable songwriting that once defined the genre. Similar to those artists, his album covers feature faux-heartthrob poses. On the cover of Sophomore he poses as a college man circa 1955,
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The line between mainstream music and indie music has grown so thin that it's often hard to differentiate between the two. Recently, returning popularity of cheesy mainstream music from the '80s and the '90s have enveloped themselves in the output of indie artists, creating a kind of crazy verisimilitude where
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It gets to a point where differentiating between punk bands becomes a game of inches. It's all such a matter of feeling and the indescribable act of actually going out and seeing a show. Listening to punk bands and saying, "Hey, this is one to write about,"
Music
As long as there have been lonesome losers (and, honestly, long before), there has been power pop. From Weezer, back to Matthew Sweet, even further back to Joe Jackson, and then to Big Star, there has been an element in pop music that tended toward the gawky and unique building
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Two ardent supporters of the analog movement are touring up the West Coast, and will find their way to Olympia Friday. Calling their tour "Analog Resurgence," Rakehell and Go Pills are traveling with their salvation show, preaching the gospel of low-tech. Musically, they could reductively be described as pop-punk or New
