Frida dir. Taymor Opens Fri Nov 8 Fox Tower Frida Kahlo had the sexiest moustache and monobrow ever on a lady. They weren’t particularly fuzzy or fancily adorned, but the Mexican artist painted them on her self-portraits with a passionate, realistic determination (perhaps the only example of traditional realism in her artwork). This determination and […]
Julianne Shepherd
Posted inMusic
Neko Noir
Darkness Propels Case into Limelight
Neko Case Aladdin Theater Sat Nov 9 Neko Case has left the saloon. Shedding the honky-tonk swagger and more traditional, unmistakable Patsy Cline-isms that characterized The Virginian and Furnace Room Lullaby, she’s clearly ventured into darker places as of late–noir kinds of places, where the shadows carry the deepest secrets. Her newest record, Blacklisted, is […]
Posted inMusic
Jazz Rapper
To the Bebop and You Don’t Stop
Busdriver w/ Of Mexican Descent, Organics, Anaxagorus, Yadira Fri, Nov 1 Cobalt Lounge I ask Busdriver if he thinks the process of writing raps is more important than the end product, and he responds: “I think there are a lot of conscious rappers who tend to really beat to death a certain theme. I don’t […]
Posted inMusic
Face-Punchin’/Booty-Bumpin’
Headphone’s Dancey Hardcore
Headphone w/C.O.C.O. Tues Nov 5 Disjecta“Hardcore is really in the eye of the beholder,” observes Mark Rentfrow. Mark should know what he’s talking about; his band with Mikey McKennedy, Headphone, drops a big old bomb of hardcore through non-traditionally hardcore instruments: Korg, Moog, drum machine. The Olympia duo, which rose from the ashes of Necktie […]
Posted inMusic
Glamour, Glitter, Fashion and Fame
Is Electroclash Truly Truly Truly Outrageous?
Electroclash Tour: Peaches, Chicks on Speed, W.I.T., Tracy & the Plastics, Larry Tee, Panther Fri Oct 25 Hollywood Theater Straight up, Electroclash is the genre du jour. Its namesake comes from the New York music festival curated/devised by producer/DJ Larry Tee, who is also responsible for RuPaul’s 1993 hit “Supermodel (You Better Work).” (Chorus: “It […]
Posted inNews
MOVE IT!
Turning Your Living Room into a Den of Hellfire
Nothing can ruin a perfectly decent, upbeat party faster than some drunken reknob who decides it’s time to play all the depressing tunes of high school and mourn aging and the death of hope. Similarly, nothing’s worse than going to a dance party and realizing that people aren’t dancing and the reason they aren’t dancing […]
Posted inNews
So You’ve Been Roofed.
What Now?
If you’re at a party and your drink has been out of your line of sight for even a second, and you immediately start feeling euphoric and then very, very woozy, there’s a chance you’ve been roofed (someone put a dash of rohypnol, a powerful sedative/muscle relaxant, in your drink). Not to be a paranoid […]
Posted inMovies & TV
A Spanking a Day
How to Stay Happy and Healthy
Everyone I know wants to see Secretary because the trailer makes it look like a hot movie about two people in a sub/dom relationship. And believe me, it is–Maggie Gyllenhaal is hot, James Spader is hot, and the chemistry between them will require you to shoot a fire extinguisher into your loins. But Secretary is […]
Posted inMovies & TV
Stay True or Sell Out?
You Definitely Want Some Sugar
As the tagline goes, Brown Sugar is a love story about hiphop. Before you run away screaming with thoughts of its stars, Taye Diggs and Sanaa Lathan (and Queen Latifah and Mos Def), getting buttery and busy to some cracky Ludacris joint, don’t worry: Brown Sugar is REALLY about hiphop–real hiphop, and real love, and […]
Posted inMusic
Scramble Punks
Reigning Noise with Sleetmute/Nightmute
With their unrelenting battery of three guitars, super-hot, skittering drums, and screamed vocals, Sleetmute is bent up and ruling this chaos/noise thing, I think they’re the toughest band in town right now. “We are NOT the toughest,” protests lead guitarist Coldie. “Are you trying to get us beat up? Right now, the toughest band is […]
Posted inArt
Feature
Paper, Scissors … ROCK!
Next to the music, nothing more immediately conveys the fuck-all spirit of punk rock than show poster art. It’s cut-up, it’s pasted, it’s haphazard, it’s urgent and rebellious. And, more recently–as a response to the very anti-punk proliferation of graphic designers whose sole purpose is to sell product–it’s beautiful, or painstaking, or challenging. Poster art […]
Posted inArt
Art Chantry
I spend a great deal of time trying to ascertain the music’s and band’s personalities, and then attempt to accurately reflect them visually. ART CHANTRY is a freaking legend. Practically the inventor of punk poster art, Chantry moved from his longtime home of Seattle to St. Louis two years ago. Chantry is notorious for rendering […]