THE SPRING ISSUE
Music
Music Changing with the Tides
Many may think that Seattle’s music scene ended with a shotgun blast when, in a spare room above a garage in a large house facing Lake Washington, Kurt Cobain killed himself. The lead singer of Nirvana left a suicide note for his wife, Courtney Love, and their baby daughter, Frances Bean. On April 8, 1994, […]
Eye Can Groove
What does a South African living in Australia do in his spare time? The DJ with the given name of Nick Bertke, but just known as Pogo, has for the past four years done something that other DJ’s haven’t—he has been mixing and scratching with not just music, but also with images. As Lewis Carroll […]
Gavin Friday
A tangible connection to the original punks is slowly being erased. In just the last year, Ari Up of The Slits and Poly Styrene of X-Ray Spex shed their mortal coils, Joe Strummer’s death in 2002 was especially poignant and even the seemingly endless supply of Ramones is dwindling. Gavin Friday is one of the […]
Loyal Divide
Adam Johnson is the songwriter and producer behind Chicago’s Loyal Divide, a young band that’s taking the blend of rock and electronic music in striking new directions. His band has generated a powerful street-level buzz in the past few years, but Johnson says he never intended to be a full-time musician, even though he grew […]
Zee Avi
Tiny Dynamo from Borneo A few years ago, singer/songwriter Zee Avi wasn’t sure what she was going to do with her life. “I studied law for my pre-college A Levels, then went to the American Intercontinental University in London for design,” Avi says from her current home in Brooklyn. “I dropped out of college after […]
Metal Mother
“I don’t like fluffy music,” says Tara Tati, the woman who records as Metal Mother. “I like music with a dark, elemental core. That’s why I chose Metal Mother as the name for my project. It’s not a reference to heavy metal, although I love that kind of music; it’s about the mother that lives […]
Hush Hush
Imagine Midnite Vultures-era Beck using the word ‘panties’ with a straight face. Now imagine him about a foot taller with a six inch beard. Berlin-based Hush Hush (aka Christopher Kline) frenetically writhes atop salacious dirty pop beats on his 2010 release Oh God and his forthcoming 12” Ooze. And he’s not afraid to sing without […]
Magnetic Man
The press in England is currently hyping dubstep, a mix of dub reggae, grime, garage, classic rave, techno and soul, as the most innovative sound to come out of British dance clubs in a decade. Magnetic Man, a trio of producers and songwriters from Croydon—ground zero for the dubstep movement—are currently the face of dubstep, […]
RYAT
All bands dream of creating sounds that can’t be pigeonholed. Philadelphia’s RYAT (pronounced riot) has done it with an innovative blend of electronica, jazz, pop and modern experimental music. Their dense asymmetric rhythmic textures, swirling multi-layered vocals, unexpected shifts in tempo and cryptic lyrics, produce music that inhabits an intoxicating twilight zone between sweet dreams […]
I’m From Barcelona
Emanuel Lundgren’s Wall of Sunshine Emanuel Lundgren had no intention of starting a 29 member group when he began recording his upbeat pop tunes in 2005. The band came together as the result of a series of unlikely events. “A few years ago, I’d accumulated five weeks of vacation time,” Lundgren recalls from his home […]
Bill Carter
The U2 Connection Bill Carter has had a long and varied career as an assistant director, bartender, adobe mason, firefighter, commercial fisherman, photographer, journalist and filmmaker. In 1993, he landed in Sarajevo during the Bosnian War and joined The Serious Road Trip, an unofficial aid organization that delivered food to children affected by the war. […]
Echo Lake: Drowning in Reverb
On their debut EP, Young Silence, Echo Lake’s expansive, hypnotic music is quietly overwhelming and completely irresistible. Bandleader and producer Thom Hill has created a sound that moves smoothly between icy, hissing guitar fuzz, keyboard textures denser than the atmosphere of Jupiter and tidal waves of psychedelic noise. When the delicately indecipherable vocals of Linda […]
Joy To The (Music) World
Photography by Cathryn Farnsworth In many ways, Marla Joy is a throwback. Channeling artists like Janis Joplin and Aretha Franklin, she sings with a power and rawness rarely heard anymore. In stature, she’s diminutive, which makes the magnitude of her voice and stage presence truly surprising. She’d fit in seamlessly at Woodstock or the Chelsea […]
Holy Fuck
Unholy noise from Toronto After a few unsteady gigs, Holy Fuck exploded out of Toronto’s indie rock scene in 2004 with a sound that blends driving rock rhythms with wailing synthesizers and a grinding pulse generated by a 35mm film synchronizer, broken toy keyboards and an array of effects pedals. Their music mixes elements of […]
5 minutes with Maus Haus
As a self-proclaimed “Craigslist band” with Brian Wilson, Aphex Twin, spaghetti westerns, Tortoise, Dr. Octagon, Tom Waits, Captain Beefheart, ‘80s synth-pop and Miami bass among its myriad influences, San Francisco’s Maus Haus finds tension at the core of its experimental pop music. After the band—consisting of multi-instrumentalists Joseph Genden, Jason Kick, Joshua Rampage, Aaron Weiss […]
No Age Grows Up
Post-punk role models of tomorrow As L.A. post-punk/noise rock duo No Age was recording its third album, Everything in Between (released September 2010 on Sub Pop), drummer/vocalist Dean Spunt was going through a difficult stretch. “I was breaking up with my longtime girlfriend, I had family members that were sick, and I had a, I […]
Neighborhood Vibe With a Hi-Fi Sound
Audyssey’s SoMA Inspiration South of Market, SF—It’s late in the afternoon and the streets of this San Francisco neighborhood brim with an eclectic mix of individuals who are, once again, reinventing a modern urban landscape. Nine-to-fivers filter into watering hole hotspots for happy hour concoctions. Up and down the street, new restaurants buzz with managers […]
Reggie Watts
I first saw Reggie Watts perform at Rififi, a now-defunct nightclub in the Lower East Side. It was about a year ago, and I was there with a couple friends to watch a random line-up of comedians do their 15-minute sets. Everything was going along just fine until Reggie got up to do his thing. […]
Sarah Blasko
Australian singer Sarah Blasko is an unlikely pop star. Her confessional songs are full of complicated feelings and tangled emotions, and her subtle vocal style owes as much to jazz and gospel singers as it does to any current diva. She croons her dreamy lyrics in a breathy voice, coming in before or after the […]
Phantogram
Josh Carter and Sarah Barthel, the duo who make up the group Phantogram, bring to the table a new sound, one that is filled with mystery and sex appeal. The undercurrent of hip hop beats, lilting vocals and intense emotional lyrics would bring any listener to their feet, swaying to the dreamlike tracks. Unlike most […]
Foster the People
Foster The People got together in LA less than a year ago. The band’s songwriter and front man, Mark Foster, had been doing solo acoustic gigs, but the songs he was writing needed some full band power. Everything clicked when he found drummer Mark Pontius and bass man Cubbie Fink. The first song they put […]
Fred Schneider & The Superions
“I never thought I’d have a career as a disco singer,” says Fred Schneider, chuckling softly. Schneider’s backstage at Chateau Ste. Michelle Winery, a few miles north of Seattle. He’s getting ready to go on stage with the B-52s, the band he co-founded back on Valentine’s Day in 1977, but he’s doing phone interviews to […]
Blood Red Shoes
Blood Red Shoes may be England’s best looking band. The photogenic duo is guitarist Laura-Mary Carter, possessor of a dark, evocative beauty and blonde drummer Steven Ansell, a young man with a classic just-got-out-of- bed-at-four-in-the-afternoon rock and roll aura. Their appearance hasn’t hurt their meteoric rise to the top of Britain’s alt. rock scene, but […]
Campfires
Jeff Walls hints at nostalgia when he speaks of his wayward musical beginnings: driving around the woods in western Michigan high, listening to The Gories and The Olivia Tremor Control. He has spent years accruing a collection of obscure tape recorders and cheap microphones, culled from thrift stores and garage sales, yet bought his first […]
