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There's a spot in my musical life that has been left dormant since the days of Bright Eyes and Death Cab For Cutie - these sensitive indie bands that constructed perfectly poppy songs that somehow managed to sum up how I felt as a lost, confused young man. I didn't
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At the opening for the art installation, "It's Alright To Cry," there will be performances from three Olympia mainstays who have nothing but killed it for a long time: Broken Water, LAKE and Karl Blau. I can't impress upon you enough just what a powerhouse lineup this is. In particular,
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By the time "Amy," the lead-off track on Red Jacket Mine's latest album, reaches the totally over-the-top organ breakdown, I'm completely sold on whatever Red Jacket Mine is doing. That organ solo hearkens back to the ballsy pop-mindedness of old guards like Joe Jackson, Elvis Costello and Nick Lowe. At
Music
I'll be the first to admit that the Tacoma music scene tends to work in waves, dipping down during certain lean periods, and overflowing with warmth and creativity during our fat periods. At this stage in Tacoma's continued march toward some vague future utopia of musical community, one entity that
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Kill Rock Stars artists Boats hail from Canada (Winnipeg, to be exact), home of all things bright, bubbly and indie pop these days, and Boats are no exception. With its barrage of hook-laden, buzzing pop gems, and lead singer's helium-enriched lead vocals of Mat Klachefsky, comparisons to Passion Pit will
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Werebearcat! self-identifies as an "elixerous mating of rockpop rapswagger jazzxuberance." Are they joking? Well, yeah, and no. The band is as right on with its own description as I could be, but the thing is that, even still, Werebearcat! seems like it is always joking. Everything it does is so
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The first song I heard by Unknown Relatives was called "New" - ironic, considering that it sounds like a dead ringer for song you'd find hidden in one of those Nuggets compilations of long-lost '60s garage gems. It's all bopping guitar and bouncy rhythms, with cute little stop-start dynamics that
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The Deep Wile make the kind of music that hits a sweet spot for me: that era in the late '70s when roots-y rock and humble pop were meeting up punk and DIY aesthetics, with the likes of Dave Edmunds, Nick Lowe and Wreckless Eric, to name a few. There
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As a mission statement, you couldn't find one much clearer than "Cruel Summer," the lead-off track on the latest release by Black Marble. As if the title didn't do well enough to harken back to the early '80s, from the moment that stiff drum machine meets up with those pulsing,
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The cover of The Albert Square album, Scared of the Youth, Scared of What's Next!, depicts two robots: one happy, one angry. It's an evocatively nerdy image, and once those first power chords come bursting out of "Sensational Programming," it becomes clear that this will all be a very nerdy
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One of the joys of being engaged in the local music scene for the past few years - both as a writer and an enthusiastic fan - has been to watch the growth and success of the Night Beats. For the uninitiated, the Night Beats consists of Danny Lee Blackwell,
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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
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There's a certain familiar moment when you're hanging out with very close friends, being giddy and silly, and there's a way that you make each other laugh that's so specific and so unique that it's hard to recreate anywhere else. For sure, it's hard to recreate in the setting of
Viva South Sound
There's a certain familiar moment when you're hanging out with very close friends, being giddy and silly, and there's a way that you make each other laugh that's so specific and so unique that it's hard to recreate anywhere else. For sure, it's hard to recreate in the setting of
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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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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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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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
