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As I'm sure we're all aware, there's a sort of renaissance happening right now with young bands rediscovering and reinterpreting the sunny, fuzzy garage pop sounds of the past few decades, particularly in California. These are bands that have the benefit of an enormous back catalogue of music to sift
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As I'm sure we're all aware, there's a sort of renaissance happening right now with young bands rediscovering and reinterpreting the sunny, fuzzy garage pop sounds of the past few decades, particularly in California. These are bands that have the benefit of an enormous back catalogue of music to sift
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For the release of Umber Sleeping's latest CD, there's no better pairing to go with one of Tacoma's favorite bands than Gems. Both emphasize rhythm - with Umber Sleeping's frontman, Peter Tietjen, sitting behind the kit, and with Gems utilizing two drummers. And both are lead by strong, fat synthesizer
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The evocativeness of the name Tender Forever is unusually representative of the music that Tender Forever (AKA Melanie Valera) creates. It may be somewhat hard to track amongst the invigorating percussion that permeates the music, but Tender Forever's lyrics have a strong center in the intimate and revealing. Valera's slick
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The evocativeness of the name Tender Forever is unusually representative of the music that Tender Forever (AKA Melanie Valera) creates. It may be somewhat difficult to track amongst the invigorating percussion that permeates the music, but Tender Forever's lyrics have a strong center in the intimate and revealing. Valera's slick
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As an MC, Macklemore is somewhat difficult to pin down. His lyrics can venture into proud declarations of heritage ("Irish Celebration"), sentimental ruminations on his hometown and childhood ("My Oh My," which he recently performed on the grass of Safeco Field, in honor of Dave Niehaus), or the absurd (as
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There's a marshal beat that overtakes Peter Wolf Crier, filling the insides and edges of the band's songs with a stuttering, clanging rhythm. These are break beats that fizzle and surge beneath the kind of tuneful indie rock that has come to be expected from the Jagjaguwar label. The juxtaposition
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Hailing from Mexico City, Mexico, Los Headaches makes crisp and catchy garage pop that nominally vacillates between the notions of love and lust - with regards to girls. Sometimes these feelings are expressed with a kind of blushing, bashful naivete; other times - as in "Never Again," which finds Los
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The string of words that make up the name Death by Stars sounds at once full of portent and utterly frivolous. This dichotomy seems to seep into and help define the band's music as well. Combining the biggest, most direct qualities of punk, electronica and psych-rock, the band has cooked
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The string of words that make up the name Death By Stars sounds at once full of portent and utterly frivolous. This dichotomy seems to seep into and help define the band's music as well. Combining the biggest, most direct qualities of punk, electronica and psych-rock, the band has cooked
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For the past 11 years, in honor of Halloween, the Olympia Film Society has hosted an event simply known as Night of the Living Tribute Bands. These shows are rare windows into the musical lives of local performers whom we may know from seeing around town, but haven't yet learned
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At the heart of the tribute band phenomenon is a disarmingly naked sense of adulation. In order to properly emulate an established and (presumably) talented band, it requires talented musicians. These are people who can (and, in the case of Night of the Living Tribute Bands, do) spend large amounts
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I Low is the latest persona of Colin Reynolds, a local Tacoman who cut his teeth in the Dear Records community under the name Tree Roots in the Basement. Reynolds later refined his considerable skill for performing in the subways of New York. Initially beginning his musical life emulating indie
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Friday's show at Hell's Kitchen is advertised as a benefit for some people named Bianca and Joe. The proceeds will go to help offset their medical costs. I don't have much more information than that, but I'm in. It would be good to do something nice for strangers even if
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On each of the band's albums, the Bismarck credits the vocals to a "team effort," which, upon listening, couldn't sound more accurate. Seemingly nobody has stepped into the role of frontman, and even when a lead vocal surfaces it is surrounded by enthusiastic shouts from the other band mates. One
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True to the name, the Bismarck is made up of friends who met while growing up in North Dakota, though the band was formed in 2002 after they had individually made the trip out to the Pacific Northwest. Bismarck's songs are raucous, jumpy affairs, dominated by overdriven guitars and an
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Was it always destined that bluegrass and punk would make such a happy marriage? In hindsight, it seems like a natural fit, but the first person to bring a banjo or washboard into a punk band had to have had such brilliant intuition. The Load Levelers continue in this tradition,
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A proper burlesque show - in the vaudevillian sense of the term, not the hipster reclaiming sense - is all about excess and spectacle. It's a variety show, featuring not just the burlesque dancers, but music, comedy and oddities. Tacoma's resident burlesque troupe, the Gritty City Sirens, will be throwing
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Tallest Tree has been steadily establishing itself as an accomplished indie rock band in these parts since 2009. Taking cues from more math-leaning acts like Built to Spill, as well as the angular freakouts of Modest Mouse and indie touchstones like Death Cab for Cutie, Tallest Tree has established a
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There's something to be said for how far a modicum of confident swagger will take you. Rooftop Warrior understands this principle and uses it to good effect when employing classic-rock-indebted gutter-blues. Echoes of other great bar acts like the J. Geils Band can be heard. Rooftop Warrior seems to have
