The Inner Tour dir. Alexandrowicz Thurs Jan 30 Whitsell Auditorium The state of Israel and Palestine’s constant struggle is in our faces daily, but only as an abstraction. While the drama plays out in the form of headlines, reactions, and reporting biased towards American interests, it’s rare that we are presented with a truly human, […]
Julianne Shepherd
Posted inMusic
The Haunted Heart
Spooky Dance Band’s Beautiful Guts
Spooky Dance Band Fri Jan 31 Blackbird & Sat Feb 1 Disjecta As more bands experiment and evolve with dance beats and art-punk, inevitably, there’s going to be some homogenization. Especially within the underground/indie/punk contingent–which has been obsessed with undiscovered ’70s and ’80s No Wave for oh about a year and a half now, by […]
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Aerobicide!
Anna Oxygen, Electro Scientist
Anna Oxygen Wed Feb 5 Satyricon Anna Oxygen creates a bass-heavy, bubbly electro/ new wave with synths, her voice, and a drum machine; musically, she’s similar to such electronic artists as Avenue D or Prance. However, Anna’s elaborate thematic content lands her squarely in the realm of conceptual artist. Too imaginative to be content with […]
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Most Eligible Bachelors
SE Songwriter House Gives Sonic Rubdown
Gentle’s Series Thurs Jan 23 The Birdnest 1532 SE 32nd Place If you’re like everyone else in this town lately, you’ve been experiencing some either A. major seasonal affective disorder or B. some major passive-aggressive repressed anger shit. Let’s give us all the benefit of the doubt and blame it on the crappy weather. You […]
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A Guy Thing Header Coming Soon
The Sweet Pain of the Melancholic Bourgeoisie
A Guy Thing dir. Lee Opens Fri Jan 10 Various Theaters When Rolling Stone profiled xXx star Asia Argento last summer, it mentioned her directorial debut, Scarlet Diva, in very enticing terms, making the reader think that the autobiographical movie was about a tattooed, drug-zonked, sexually rapacious jet-setter who keeps her lesbian love slave hog-tied […]
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A Smoke-Flavored Patty
Murder King Throws Meatless Bone to the Veg
Burger King’s BK Veggie Burger Everywhere The existence of the Burger King Veggie sandwich has posed somewhat of a moral and ethical dilemma for vegetarians and vegans. The sandwich was introduced last spring in the wake of the failed-then-resurrected (in Canada) McDonald’s McVeggie burger and, according to every authority on vegetarianism on earth, it sends […]
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Pick Your Poison
Cheating Fate in Intacto
Intacto dir. Fresnadillo Opens Fri Jan 10 Cinema 21 Imagine being in a plane crash that kills everyone on board, except for you. Or surviving a major earthquake, or a terrible car accident, or being gored by a bull. How many times can you escape death unscathed before you start to believe you possess some […]
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Yo, Watch Us.
Nudge Strikes Back w/ Bump in Trunk
Nudge Wed Jan 15 Blackbird I’ve always liked Portland band Nudge’s subtle, low-key recordings–which combine beat-centric ambiance, minimal bass lines, and a very pretty spectrum of wispy noise made with guitars and electronics–but for the most part, their live shows haven’t ever really put the bump in my trunk, if you know what I mean. […]
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See Hear
Reel Music’s 20th Anniversary
Northwest Film Center’s Reel Music 20 Jan 3-Feb 8 Guild Theater Twenty years ago, long before VHS VCRs were invented, much less home recording devices, digital video, or amateur porn, the Northwest Film Center started the Reel Music series. Far more than just a wacky play on words, the ReeMs was a showcase for representing […]
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The Dark and Sultry
Vanishing Kids, Now Found
Vanishing Kids Sun Jan 5 Blackbird I once owned a The Cure tribute record, titled 100 Tears, released by Cleopatra Records and now lost to the ages. The album embodied everything wrong with goth music in the ’90s (aside from having totally stupid names). They were a battalion of industrial/goth hybrid bands unabashed in their […]
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Cold War, Part II
Dancepunk, All the Way to the Apocalypse
Dance Disaster Movement Sun Dec 29 Blackbird Many people, myself included, expected and hoped America’s currently scary-as-fuck government would incite the underground music community back into the outspoken political force it was in the early ’80s (see above article). But something else happened: all the punkers wanted to do was dance, turning 2002 into the […]
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Yes!
A Kickass Explosion of Hobbits, Elves, and Ents
Lord of the Rings II: The Two Towers dir. Jackson Opens Wed Dec 18 EVERYWHERE DUDE, THE TWO TOWERS FUCKING RULES!!! In the interest of remaining somewhat utilitarian, I shall now elaborate on the above statement. The Two Towers starts where Fellowship left off, of course: Sam (Sean Astin) and Frodo (Elijah Wood) make off […]