Earlimart Thur Oct 7 Dante’s 1 SW 3rd It’s difficult to imagine a death that has resonated deeper in the indierock community than Elliott Smith’s apparent suicide. Smith possessed a voice of hopeful desperation, and though he constantly denied connections between his art and life, suicide somehow seemed both an unsurprising end for his characters […]
Jennifer Maerz
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Institutionalized
The Hives Big Schtick Wears Thin
The Hives Sat July 31 Roseland 8 NW 6th I think it may be time to start seeing other people. Something’s changed. The energy’s there but it feels more like the ghost of momentum than something happening right now. You keep saying you’re the best band in the world, and I keep forgetting I no […]
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Crimson Tide
The Icarus Line are Industry Antichrists
Icarus Line Thurs July 22 Dante’s 1 SW 3rd The legend of guitarist Aaron North precedes the Icarus Line. He’s the incendiary, corrosive-tongued cofounder of the caustic music and gossip site/ record label Buddyhead. At 2002’s SXSW, North plundered a case containing Stevie Ray Vaughan’s guitar and invited a homeless man to sit in his […]
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Charming 3-D Teens
Napolean Dynamite Gets it Right
Napoleon Dynamite dir. Hess Opens Fri July 2 Various Theaters Most teen comedies barely scrape the pimpled surface of adolescent drudgery. Even “unpopular” silver screen kids are usually still attractive enough for your average Noxzema commercial. There are plenty of laughs to mine from the pseudo-tortured lives of more realistically nerdy, unpopular, and just plain […]
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Pissed-Off Penance
The Icarus Line’s Seedy Soiree
The Icarus Line Penance Soiree Out now on V2 Young Hollywood hellions the Icarus Line have already emblazoned their name into music-world consciousness. Guitarist Aaron North is co-owner of the label/website Buddyhead, ground zero for skate-punk-styled pranks, among other things. Not content to be outdone by their buddies, the Icarus boys have done their share […]
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Sexy Beast
Young Adam‘s Tense Encounters
Young Adam dir. Mackenzie Opens Fri May 7 Various Theaters Much of the driving force in the new Ewan McGregor drama Young Adam hinges not on seeing McGregor’s modestly sized penis or his frustrated, unquenchable kinkiness (both of which lend this movie its NC-17 rating), but on what should be guilty erotic excitement surrounding nearly […]
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Chemically Imbalanced
The Ponys Ride Into the Red
The Ponys Thurs March 11 Berbati’s Pan 231 SW Ankeny Certain labels are like Christmas: You can bank that most of the music will hit like a holiday, with albums that’ll stand out in your collection for years to come. L.A.’s In the Red is one of those mainstays, home to a diverse, garage-soused roster […]
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No Two Are Alike
Deerhoof Leave Footprints on Post-Pop
Deerhoof Fri Feb 27 Meow Meow 320 SE 2nd If all of Deerhoof’s music was as softly structured as singer Satomi Matsuzaki’s wafer-thin falsetto, the band would lull even the most twee members of the cardigan set into a standing stupor, glazed with the confections of her candied tones. But the chirps and purrs of […]
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Momentary Silence
The Wrens Take Flight Again
The Wrens Tues Feb 25 Berbati’s Pan 10 SW 3rd Bands that critics parade around to the public can end up falling off the face of the earth when a label decides it doesn’t like a band’s unwillingness to bend to the corporate line. Such was the case after the Wrens’ release of their sophomore […]
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The Easy Surrealists
Country Teasers Put Conformity Out to Pasture
Country Teasers Thurs Jan 8 Dante’s The beauty in the Country Teasers’ music seems to have sprung from the clutter in a dusky antique shop, with beats alternately like clacks from a rusty typewriter and claps of tin kitchenware–distorted, muffled, and swollen. Keyboards morph into B-movie laser battles, and primitive sound effects are created with […]
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Baring Fangs
The Distillers Turn Thorns into Gold
The Distillers Thurs Dec 18 Aladdin Theater When I call the Distillers’ frontwoman, Brody Dalle, she’s couch surfing in Los Angeles, taking a rare break from touring. Although she’s been in the spotlight almost nonstop since the release of 2002’s Sing Sing Death House, the 24-year-old Australian sounds upbeat and candid, a combination of social […]
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Murky Waters Run Deep
D…lek Distort the Face of Hiphop
D…lek Sat Sept 6 Berbati’s Pan D•lek create a dense, murky hiphop sound–one congested with dirgy, traffic-heavy noise, ghostly shoegazer atmospherics, and skronky free jazz–set to distorted, drop-kicked beats, fusing the adventurous mechanics and aggression of avant hardcore with PE’s hiphop blueprints. Their work (the 1998 debut Negro Necro Nekros and the brilliant From Filthy […]