Music
The indie music landscape has shifted quite a bit since Minus the Bear formed in 2001. "Indie rock," as a label, is murkier than ever with the dozens of subgenres and mashups that have sprung up from cracks in the cement like so many gangly dandelions. Chillwave, shit-fi, ghostly R&B,
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There's a cliché in popular music about a band member getting too big for his britches and dramatically and huffily announcing that he's "going solo!" It's become a running gag, this idea that a musician would be so cocky as to quit a successful band to go and do his
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Pickwick succeeds almost entirely on the basis of Galen Disston's commanding lead vocal. The band is tight and in the pocket, propping up and supporting Disston, but the show is all ultimately all his, and if his voice faltered in the face of their '60s soul style, the whole thing
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A.Madman follows in the same lineage of sample-heavy electronica as groups like the Avalanches - groups that value texture and ambience in equal proportion to hooks and dancey grooves. On the remarkable "Lotus Eater," A.Madman mixes and matches classic soul elements and stuttering breakbeats with an oppressive sense of gloom
Music
There's a cliché in popular music about a band member getting too big for his britches and dramatically and huffily announcing that he's "going solo!" It's become a running gag, this idea that a musician would be so cocky as to quit a successful band to go and do his
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There are only so many new sounds in the world. Barring the possession of a completely unique motif, the marking of a good band is how they draw influences from the considerable and jumbled history of music as we have come to understand it. Portland's Strangled Darlings stop far short
Music
In the latter portion of 2010, on a Wednesday, I found myself drinking whiskey at The New Frontier Lounge and participating in the bar's weekly Rock ‘n' Roll Bingo. It's free to play, and winners get to peruse a table full of kitschy prizes. When my final number was called,
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Beneath Golden Ghost's quivering fragility and twee innocence, there is a vague creepiness. The lead singer's voice is childlike and small, but she gives the impression that she may be the kind of person whom you can get far too close to, far too quickly. Roundly muted guitars, gently brushed
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There are pockets of Tacoma well aware of just what exactly the Tacomen are and what they do so well. Regulars at the Antique Sandwich Company's Victory Music open mic will recognize the group as frequent closers or penultimate act of the night, and what a bizarre feeling they bring
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Some bands seem to hit from the word go. It seems from the moment Santee sleepily, casually emerged on the scene, there has been an uncommon level of excitement for what was originally just an acoustic two-piece. Now a full band, Santee is running on all cylinders and continually exceeding
Music
It seems that, around these parts, it's something of an ongoing task to keep track of where live music is being showcased. Venues pop up quickly and disappear even quicker, leaving venue-shaped clouds of dust in their wake. Over the weekend, I heard talk that the Peabody Waldorf Gallery -
Music
Some bands seem to hit from the word go. It seems from the moment Santee sleepily, casually emerged on the scene, there has been an uncommon level of excitement for what was originally just an acoustic two-piece. Now a full band, Santee is running on all cylinders and continually exceeding
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If we really wanted to, as a town, we could band together and make sure that the Nightgowns would remain Tacoma's "best kept secret." We could shield them from the outside world, ensuring that only we would know the strange power that their synth-pop possesses. We could dote on them
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There are some bands that have clearly spent a lot of time fantasizing about the live show they would one day unleash on the public. If the members of the Big John Bates Grindshow were younger, it might be permissible to imagine them in school, tracing the word "Grindshow" over
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Their music is a punk-rock-inflected stew of doo-wop, country, AM pop, blues and R&B. They excel on songs like "It Ain't Right," where the classic, strumming structure of Brill Building is paired with a stuttering beat that keeps everything just slightly off-kilter. Read an interview with the band
Music
If I may ... terrible breakups and lovers' quarrels within bands have inspired some of the greatest music of all time. We're talking about Fleetwood Mac's Rumors. We're gonna mention some 16 Lovers Lane by the Go-Betweens. We're gonna stretch things a great deal and include the Beatles' Let it
Music
If we really wanted to, as a town, we could band together and make sure the Nightgowns would remain Tacoma's "best kept secret." We could shield them from the outside world, ensuring that only we would know the strange power their synth-pop possesses. We could dote on them and come
Music
When I first heard Red Hex - a single, lonely song called "Run Like Hell" on their MySpace page - I decided to write a show preview simply based on that. I described the song as sounding similar to how I imagined the Sonics must have sounded to the bewildered
Music
It seems like just yesterday that Tacoma was called upon to attend an overabundance of rock shows (oh, the burden!) for a good cause. Come to think of it, while I'll readily admit it was most certainly not yesterday, it really was not that long ago that we bandied around
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Red Queen Theory takes its name from a hopelessly complex evolutionary hypothesis that finds its inspiration in the Red Queen from Through the Looking Glass - the queen who had to run as fast as she could just to stay in the same place. To get anywhere, she said, you'd