Music
Before I had even heard Prince, I heard the lo-fi, gonzo appropriation of Prince's sound in Ween. Here were a duo of weirdos that loved progressive rock and early '80s funk, but who filtered that love through tape machines and more than a little bit of huffed Scotchgard. Even after
Critics' Picks
[SOFT ROCK] + FRI, FEB. 13 In 1983, I was a high school sophomore who spent many a weekend traveling to Oklahoma colleges for interscholastic speech tournaments. I was usually in vans full of neurotic drama geek girls, the only kind of girls to whom I knew how to talk. And
Food Matters
WINE AND CHOCOLATE Join Metro Parks Tacoma for their annual pre-V Day Wine and Chocolate event at the W. W. Seymour Botanical Conservatory (316 S. G St., Tacoma) at 5:30 p.m. Friday, Feb. 13. A $30 ticket includes an opportunity to sip on wine and champagne paired with chocolate covered strawberries
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I was surprised and delighted to hear the latest from Skrill Meadow, the one-man band of Mark Morrison. Private Memories is an album of straight-up slow jams, albeit jams coming directly from one shitty tape machine to your ear. Despite his limitations, Morrison embodies the consummate frontman, reeking of sex
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Underwhelmed comes to us from Dick Rossetti (formerly of 107.7 The End and currently the frontman of the Jilly Rizzo) and Isaac Olsen. Olsen should be known to fans of local music and film as the director behind Quiet Shoes, Ich Hunger, and the Girl Trouble documentary, Strictly Sacred. The
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Holy North American Motor Highway (also known as Holy Motors, if you're into the whole brevity thing) make experimental chamber rock that comes steeped in an intangible feeling of dread. Their only release, Live at Paper Street, contains two epic-length songs recorded in a kitchen in Olympia. In the liner
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After a brief respite from holidays that are improved by the consumption of mass quantities of alcohol, we have arrived at another doozy: Fat Tuesday, and the kickoff of Mardi Gras. It is always my suggestion to avoid the crowds during amateur nights like St. Patrick's Day and New Year's
Archives
If you’ve been up early enough in the morning — something I absolutely don’t recommend unless you’re still up from the night before — then you’ve seen it and perhaps even felt it. Summer’s done for, bubba. Better brace yourself for fall. Fall, mainly for pigskin reasons, is my favorite
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My friend Billy, a Puyallup resident, recently referred to his home town affectionately as “The Poo.” “Life is good in the Poo,” he said. I’ll never be able to think of Puyallup in the same way again. In 1982, The Puyallup Fair was a lot like it is now. It’s
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Early in my Volcano career, and in the history of Olympia's TUSH! Burlesque, I wrote a promotional article about the troupe in lieu of a review. Simply put, I bungled the job. I've learned much over the last few years - perhaps TUSH! has as well -
Archives
Thursday, Sept. 6 GOTH brigitte handley and the dark shadows Sydney, Australia-based Brigitte Handley is a bit of an enigma. Listing such bands as Sisters of Mercy, Bauhaus, the Dammed and Joy Division, she and her band, the Dark Shadows, draw from many influences to create a brand of lo-fi Goth that
Arts
Early in my Volcano career, and in the history of Olympia's TUSH! Burlesque, I wrote a promotional article about the troupe in lieu of a review. Simply put, I bungled the job. I've learned much over the last few years - perhaps TUSH! has as well - and I apologize
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I lucked out and caught the first car on the Wintergrass Music Festival roller coaster. I had Choices Entertainment Weekly in the greater Tacoma and Olympia area and was flannel deep in grunge and Chihuly. In 1993, I poked my head inside the first annual bluegrass festival at the Sheraton
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You can stick your American Horror Story, stuff your Walking Dead and ram your Grimm where the sun don't shine. There is one monster that has begun to stalk us daily - the chittering, flea-infested, nut-clutching, buck-toothed, beady-eyed demon-beast of the increasingly denuded urban treetop: our satanic friend the squirrel.