Austin, Texas is not for want of very high quality musicians. It’s practically overrun with them (in a very good way). When an artist stands out, therefore, it must say quite a bit of their credentials. For an artist to get a city-wide holiday named after them, then, it must say more than quite a
Dearest Sup Pop Records: Happy 25th Birthday. You throw one hell of a party. On July 13, Sub Pop hosted its own Silver Jubilee in the Georgetown neighborhood. It was an all day party with food, drink and, of course, tons and tons of live music. It was a time for us to celebrate some
Not much could make me want to leave a cool Seattle summer for the grueling humidity and heat of the American southeast. I was just about ready to pack up my stuff and travel back to Athens, Georgia when Futurebirds played Barboza on July 10. Nestled cozily underneath the more prominent Neumos, Barboza hosted the
Sonic Boom Records in Seattle’s Ballard neighborhood is a pretty small record store filled with more new albums and CDs than your average Seattle shop. Although highly reputable, it’s a very small space so when new band Rose Windows announced its album release show at the venue it was as if they were selling themselves
There’s a new breed of Americana that recently has sold itself as a genre to stick. Years ago we were lauding bands like The Felice Brothers and The Avett Brothers as innovative strikers-out from convention and inventors of classically beautiful music. Luckily, creation in this vein hasn’t ended there. Can you remember when you first
Surf rock is perhaps one of the most imagery-generating music forms. The country guitar solos that accompany the beach riffs have the ability to inspire simultaneous pictures of driving through a bleak desert in the hot sun and under the hot sun by the water. In the aftermath of a sunny city day, then, a
A Constant Sea is the debut album from the Brooklyn quartet Heliotropes. Released June 18 on Manimal Vinyl, A Constant Sea is a sturdy and creative first album but moreover, it’s a remarkably dusky record that synthesizes the forces of metal, psychedelic, post-rock and just about any other type of genre which demands seriously high
The Tractor Tavern is typically the home of Seattle’s local and travelling folk and blues groups. The relatively small club has hosted acts such as Langhorne Slim and The Proclaimers. In the past few weeks, in a fit of summery surprise, the Tractor has seen psychedelic pop’s new star Mikal Cronin and Seattle’s dance-pop group
Surfer Blood might have set all future expectations a bit high for themselves with their 2010 debut album Astro Coast. The band’s immediate knack for hypnotizing hooks (“Floating Vibes” has been stuck in my head for about three years now) and a surprise cleanliness coupled with generally buzz guitars was impressive — very impressive. That
The last time I was at Neumos was for a night of British avant-garde spoken word and industrial post-rock. It was dark and felt like a theater. On June 8, I returned to Neumos for an evening of local music and almost didn’t recognize the club from the music; the doors were open to the Capitol