The Evens Tues Mar 1 Nocturnal 1800 E Burnside Ian MacKaye has a new band. Words enough to plunge the lives of the Fugazi faithful–spine-worn copies of Dance of Days on their nightstands like Bibles–into a sudden wash of all sorts of meaning and purpose again. And sure, I guess it’s a pretty big deal–so […]
Zac Pennington
Posted inMusic
A Snob’s Reprieve
Thank You, Jens Lekman
Jens Lekman Mon Feb 28 Berbati’s Pan 10 SW 3rd Although it might be a difficult matter for some people to wrap their heads around, the idea of being both pop music-obsessed and a discerning music fan aren’t always mutually exclusive. Like many other self-conscious music fans before me, I’ve suffered a great deal of […]
Posted inMusic
It’s Who You Know
Searching for Ashlee Simpson
With a fascination for teen pop starlets that’s as well-documented as it is unhealthy–we wasted a whole music issue on it, for godssake–it should probably come as no surprise that I nearly wet myself (not that way) when I read the preliminary dates for Ashlee Simpson’s first national tour a few months ago. Ceremonially circling […]
Posted inMusic
It’s WHO YOU KNOW
Band Command
Despite what you might have heard from Bob Seger or the Beatles or whoever, there should be very little sympathy held for the plight of the touring rock ‘n’ roll band. Sure, it totally sucks playing a show at a coffee shop in South Dakota on a Tuesday to four people. And sure, driving around […]
Posted inMusic
The New Next Bob Dylan
Fabricating the Great Indie Rock Hope
Bright Eyes Wed Feb 16 Roseland 8 NW 6th For those of you out there not fortunate enough to subscribe to cultural lightning rods like Spin magazine, have I got news for you: 2004 was–to borrow an appropriately inane turn of phrase–the Year Indie Rock Broke. (And all I got was this stupid chip on […]
Posted inMusic
Safety In Numbers
Of Simple Mathematics and Hidden Cameras
Hidden Cameras Sat Feb 5 Holocene 1001 SE Morrison Accountancy has a lot more in common with pop music criticism than most of us would likely admit. Tax codes aside, the main commonality the two share, however, has to do with a certain checking of the books–a simple matter of addition that serves to evaluate […]
Posted inMusic
it’s who you know
Creative Commons
I’ve known it from the day I began shoplifting the beginnings of my now-oppressive CD collection: when it comes to music, some petty crimes are justified by their ends. Go ahead, turn your nose up disparagingly–but if you’ve had the patience to trudge as deeply as you have into this fishwrapper’s music section, the fact […]
Posted inMusic
It’s Who You Know
Bowling for Redemption In the last issue of the Mercury, I wrote five forgettable, inflammatory sentences about a lowest common denominator pop punk band by the name of Bowling For Soup. By Monday morning, I had received roughly 500 lengthy exercises in impossible grammar and misquotations from email addresses like ChineseBeaver89@aol.com, LoLLyPoPGRrL21@aol.com and CuTexBuTxPsYkKo@cs.com–all of […]
Posted inMusic
IT’S WHO YOU KNOW
The Random Revolution
During the keynote address of the company’s annual MacWorld Conference, Apple computers announced the release of the iPod Shuffle, the latest addition to their endlessly successful iPod family. Capitalizing on one of the iPod’s most popular features, Apple’s new product plans to stretch the MP3 player market farther than ever before, suggesting something called the […]
Posted inMusic
It’s Who You Know
Meow Meow, R.I.P.
While I’m not exactly tasting the canvas toe just yet, I can sense the distinctly bitter taste of “foot” beginning to approach my lips. Not that it’s all my fault, you must understand. But when you author what amounts to a 1,700 word blowjob for a venue [What It Is, What It Was, What It […]
Posted inMusic
Scrabble Board Scholastic
Colin Meloy On Life, Love, and Dashboard Confessional
Colin Meloy Fri Jan 14 Doug Fir Lounge 830 E Burnside Whether it be the scrabble-board scholastics or the English-lit theme lifting, you can bet that the reason people are so drawn to the Decemberists’ wily productions has a great deal to do with front man and wordsmith Colin Meloy. There’s the drama–sure. The presentation […]
Posted inMusic
Alone In a Room
The Lingering Mystery of Jandek On Cornwood
Jandek On Cornwood Thurs Jan 13 at 7pm, Fri Jan 14 at 9pm Guild Theatre On October 17th of this year, at roughly five o’clock Scotland time, a slender man in a black suit and cap quietly took the stage at Glasgow’s Instal Festival–and with no introduction (and more than a little audience confusion), began […]