ON SEPTEMBER 9, Corey and Joey Ficken stepped on stage at the Doug Fir and closed the doors on the Swords and seven years of their lives. Three months later, the brothers are debuting Bauman, Ficken, and Sparks, a pared-down, “guitar rock” foursome. Over a series of lengthy email interviews, I chatted with Corey about […]
Noah Sanders
Posted inMusic
I Used to Hate Him…
My Newfound Like of Jeremy Enigk
BEFORE I’D EVER EVEN heard a lick of Jeremy Enigk’s high-pitched wail of a voice, I was already a hater. I missed out on the Sunny Day Real Estate buzz in the mid-’90s, due to youth and a regrettable propensity for, ahem, ska music. When the band split in 1995 (amid internal problems rumored to […]
Posted inMusic
Never Idle
The Busy Times of Manuok
SCOTT MERCADO is not a man with a lot of free time. One-third of the San Diego experimental rock band Via Satellite, an on-and-off again member of indie-stalwarts Black Heart Procession, and in the opening stages of forming what will be known as Mr. Tube, Mercado is seemingly constantly involving himself with yet another new […]
Posted inFeature
Play it Again, Maaan
Guitar Hero Videogame Makes YOU Rock
Pullout: “Gods of Guitar” Music Issue
Posted inMusic
Change Is in the Air
The Shifting Sound of the Velvet Teen
THE VELVET TEEN has a sound that is slippery, bound to jump from genre to genre, unchecked by the boundaries of consistency. Over the course of three LPs, the Santa Rosan trio has taken a chameleon-like approach in finding the defining aspects of their sound. While Out of the Fierce Parade (2002) was a haunting, […]