Editor’s Note: Cut My Hair is the first novel from frequent Mercury music contributor, and current editor of Oni Press, Jamie S. Rich. Set in 1990, Cut My Hair focuses on the early adult life of Mason, a 19-year-old California native who is looking for his niche in life via the Los Angeles punk rock […]
Jamie S. Rich
Posted inMusic
Cooler in an Obvious Way
The Warhols Restart the Clock for Another 15
IS ANYONE FROM PORTLAND actually successful? This town doesn’t want our artists to get big, to leave us and actually have good careers. We love Gus Van Sant, but only because he screws up regularly enough to keep from really taking off. Similarly, we let the Dandy Warhols off the hook because they’re only big […]
Posted inMovies & TV
Misfit Cinema
The Geeks Get What They Want
IT’S NOT DIFFICULT to see why The Uncanny X-Men has been the best-selling comic book for, like, ever. With a primary audience consisting of teens and the socially handicapped, the Marvel four-color soap opera about mutant heroes who are shunned by society was just as much about the reader’s adolescent foibles as it was about […]
Posted inMusic
Soul by the Pound
The Redeemers Visit The Old School
BE HONEST. Are you one of those people who gets quadrophrenic dreams whenever you see a Vespa scooter? Do you long to put on a suit and slick fedora and get down like James Brown? But what do you do in a town that never seemed to notice that Sid Vicious and Kurt Cobain are […]
Posted inMusic
Darker Pastures
Bucolic Lucidity
DYZAN BLOOD is a great album to listen to, but a terrible one to write about. Bucolic is an underground, pioneering electronic consortium who warp the fabric of music as a matter of course. If I try to describe it any more, though, language fails me. I can’t use the words “bloop,” “bleep,” or “noodley” […]
Posted inMusic
Phenomenal Cat
Nine Musical Lives, Five-Finger Discount
ELISABETH ESSELINK is my kind of person. Not only is her musical nom de plume, Solex, the same as that of her cat, but said feline is named after a cool, European scooter company. The cat was christened as such because her mother–a larger version of Solex with a motorcycle engine-volume snoring habit –was named […]