Music
There are certain bands that have oddly flown under the radar for entire generations of music snobs - bands that you've heard of, sure, but not any band that you'd ever be caught actively listening to. I saw one of those dopey "Did You Know?" factoids on a '70s music
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When I heard that some of Tacoma's best musicians were getting together to form the Northwest's premier (and only?) all-Filipino Hall & Oates tribute band, my question wasn't "why?" All I wanted to know was when and where I could see this magic happen. The new tribute band, known as the
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Minneapolis band Teenage Moods describe themselves as, interchangeably, "flower punk" and "floral rock." There's a fine difference between those two descriptors, but that little bit of distance is actually a bit of a gulf. The latter self-assigned genre may be the most accurate, as Teenage Moods take a flower-power attitude
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Octagrape like to describe their music with cutesy terms like "hazy rabbits foot jams," but what they really deal with is searing noise. The only way I can see a rabbit's foot as a metaphor for Octagrape is to imagine the silky fur as it transitions to the crusty ankle
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Olympia producer Smoke M2D6 raided the archives of legendary alternative record label K Records to put out an album of Pacific Northwest MCs rapping over K Records artists. The resulting compilation, All Your Friend's Friends, is gearing up for an album release show in Olympia. "(Eprhyme and I) got to
Archives
College theater programs are sort of known for taking risks and staging works that force audiences to think — and often even argue — about the goings-on in front of them. Maybe that is because colleges are places of change and thought, where students can expand their views of the
Music
Borrowing samples of other people's music for your own songs was once the most natural thing in the world. I doubt that anyone really thought of the implication that you might end up profiting off of someone else's work - if anything, it might be viewed as a flattering gesture
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For years, both in the Puget Sound area and in Brooklyn, Ben Roth has been a career musician, collaborating on countless projects and lending his guitarist talents to tons of bands. Taking a break from his role in Oberhofer and Crater, Roth has formed his own band, giving him the
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There's a slinkiness to the Harvey Girls that damn near undeniable. The Portland trio combines a music history lesson's worth of influences into something that resembles a soul-singing diva fronting an art-pop group from the UK or New Zealand. The arrangements are simple and sprightly, forming a skeletally charged structure
Music
It occurred to me, after living on this planet for 18 years, and after loving music for the majority of that time, that I had no earthly clue of how to actually play an instrument. So, being the lazy under-achiever that I am, I picked up a ukelele, figuring that
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Formed by longtime Tacoma music fixture Justin Tamminga and his two children, Dahlia and Lucien, Pig Snout is a testament to the joy and universality of rock 'n' roll. If it can be believed, Dahlia and Lucien are 6 and 9, respectively, and they just started learning their instruments in
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Montana-based garage pop band Buddy Jackson sure know their way around a good "woh-oh." While there's certainly a good amount of fuzzed-out thrashing, Buddy Jackson always give you plenty of sugar to let the medicine go down. Melody and a good sing-along chorus seem to always be at the front
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I have a soft spot in my heart for Jeffrey Lewis. I first saw him perform in a downtown venue - the long-gone Stereolounge - shortly after I started getting underage drunk and going to see punk shows. Someone from the Drug Purse (can't remember who) stumbled and fell through
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Tacoma Little Theatre's staging of the classic tale of crime and betrayal, Dial "M" for Murder, draws your eye chiefly to three things: a telephone positioned on a desk by a window, an apartment's front door looming in the background and a green handbag resting on a
Stage
Tacoma Little Theatre's staging of the classic tale of crime and betrayal, Dial "M" for Murder, draws your eye chiefly to three things: a telephone positioned on a desk by a window, an apartment's front door looming in the background and a green handbag resting on a davenport. These three
Music
There was a period of a couple years, when I was most entrenched in my exploration of music criticism and the brave new world of music classification, when I would introduce a band to my dad and attempt to describe them through a list of newspeak subgenres. My dad, being
