Stage
Wait Until Dark is a strange, daring choice for Lakewood Playhouse to open its 79th season -- a fairly nasty thriller that features harsh violence and some truly disquieting moments. Far from the standard crowd-pleaser that tends to open a season of theater, Wait Until Dark is a pulpy suspense piece whose entire engine
Music
The whole notion of indie or alternative music being vastly different -- in some way, from mainstream music -- has always been a little bit flawed. Yes, the further you dive into indie rock, the likelier you are to encounter music that will never find itself on the radio, through
South Sound Cinema
It's another new month, meaning it's time for another edition of Three Easy Pieces, where I examine a particular subgenre of pop culture from its birth, through its development, and seeing where it stands today. Music is powerfully capable of reflecting the world's state of mind at any given moment.
Music
One of the greatest joys of being a music critic -- including the ability to work tipsy, in my underwear, on my front porch -- is getting the opportunity to stump for bands. Because of the need for variety in this fine rag, and the eagerness to spotlight something novel
Online Newspapers
A truly healthy, happy city, I think, is never quite complete until there's a consistent place for cult movie enthusiasts to converge. While The Rocky Horror Picture Show has been doing its level best to hold down the oddball fort every second and fourth Saturday at the Blue Mouse Theatre, things weren't
Music
One of my favorite indie rock bands of the late 2000s appealed to me through their stylish ransacking of foppish opulence and their studied desire to challenge listeners. This band is called Wild Beats, and their first album, Limbo, Panto, was upper-crust poshness rendered grotesque, aided in heavy part by vocalists
South Sound Cinema
One of Tacoma's best new traditions for its summer months is the arrival of the Destiny City Film Festival. Coming at the end of August, the Destiny City Film Festival (DCFF) helps to usher in the period of the year when we get to enjoy cooler temperatures and, by and
Music
At its best, music possesses this uncanny ability to unite people. Whether it's in the unconscious desire to move, or in a coordinated effort to affect change, or in the riling up of people with designs on blowing off steam, music works its magic to imbue our bones with action.
Stage
The summer months may be good for many things -- 90-degree weather notwithstanding -- but what they tend to find lacking is the general abundance of local theater that we enjoy in the South Sound the rest of the year. While this is most certainly a bummer, that radio silence
Music
A music scene is only as good as the people that engage with it. Great bands can perform to nobody, or to disinterested people who take smoke breaks during the acts they don't know. Having interested, devoted people hanging around the music scene is never a bad thing, and some
Music
It's been pointed out by many people who think way too much about music, including me, that the steady adoption of ironic detachment among both bands and fans in the indie scene may have done some real damage when it comes to the environment of live shows. Beginning something around
Stage
I confess to having a bit of a cultural blind spot when it comes to Frankenstein. I've generally absorbed the beats of the story by dint of existing as a person for almost 30 years, but I've never read Mary Shelley's iconic novel, which stands tall as a metaphorically rich property
Music
It will never make sense to me how people tend to shun oddities in their art. Even if something may not be the sort of thing you'd ideally like to listen to on any random day, that's what makes a little jolt of the unusual a special thing. I cherish
South Sound Cinema
Three Easy Pieces returns for another month, once again examining a type of pop culture, from its beginning, through its formative years, and landing where it exists now. A recent 10-day tour through Montana and Idaho got me thinking about road movies - those films that capture the dreamy, exhausting,
Stage
Summer is not known for its overabundance of plays being put up by local theaters. Generally, productions are being cast and assembled for the forthcoming season, leaving a bit of an entertainment gap in the hotter months. This doesn't mean, though, that your summer needs to be completely devoid of
Music
Consuming music on a semi-professional basis - as I have done for the past eight years writing for this fine rag - has a way of distorting one's taste and inclinations. I grew up in a cocoon of air-tight pop songs from the ‘50s, ‘60s and ‘70s. These three-minute modern
Music
It's a funny thing, in music, for certain bands and sounds to be stamped with a label that will forever tie them to a time and scene. This labeling can come from without, or within, as observers might sometimes be more qualified to identify the qualities that bands share with
Music
I've written before about the relative positives and negatives that come along with honesty in songwriting. In general, I'm in favor of bearing as much of yourself in your art as you feel comfortable doing. Whether or not these admissions help or hurt your work is an entirely other matter.
Music
Certain musicians thrive on stepping out of their comfort zone, of embracing a genre that the audience might expect to be out of reach for that artist. Joe Jackson left behind the frenzied punk and New Wave of his earlier albums to explore ‘40s swing with Jumpin' Jive, before eventually landing
Music
Welcome, once again, to Three Easy Pieces, the monthly column in which I guide you through three distinctive, defining and demonstrative periods, people and products of a certain topic. This month, we're talking break-up albums, taken here to not mean albums that help to soothe the aftermath of a relationship,