by Chris Estey
For most of those we know, life has become about negotiating the grid. I am between a landline with a broken ringer and an iPhone. I handled PR for Betty Davis, who like Faust initiated pure desire as progress, in a long-ago new age of feminist-fueled riff-rock, on album-as-manifesto long players crafted around [...]
by Chris Estey
33 1/3 is a series of pocket-sized books, each volume focusing on a single album. This is the 23rd installment of our attempt to read as many of the books in the series as possible, and to scribble some impressions of each. As always, please keep in mind that it’s always just one [...]
by Chris Estey
It was recently announced that Neutral Milk Hotel’s two landmark Merge albums, On Avery Island and In The Aeroplane Over The Sea, will be reissued on 180 gram vinyl about a decade after they were first released. The latter achieved apotheosis even beyond the realm of critics and hipsters, becoming ubiquitous in the [...]
by Chris Estey
The Gaslight Anthem are coming to the Showbox at the Market on Sept. 23, but I am going to the show to check out their tour opener, a new discovery for me, British singer-songwriter Frank Turner. His recently released album, Poetry of the Deed, combines a bracing mix of grizzled yet positivist lyrics [...]
by Chris Estey
Fantagraphics was started by a couple of guys named Gary Groth and Kim Thompson back in the 70s, when the hipness of Marvel super-heroes had been around for more than a decade, and creators were leaving that company and DC, and kids inspired by the undergrounds, were all starting to publish on their [...]
By Chris Estey
There were some telling observations my friends made about the annual Seattle Center-based festival this year — the best one was, “Franz Ferdinand are playing? Really? When?”
FF are a fine band, but Bumbershoot 2009 is noteworthy in that even a working rock group with a quality significant fan-base and memorable hits from [...]
Posted in Bumbershoot, KEXP | Tagged Champagne Champagne, Eugene Mirman, Matt Braunger, Os Mutantes, Parenthetical Girls, Reggie Watts, Spencer Moody, Story Pirates, The Lonely Forest, The Whore Moans, Todd Barry, Wallpaper, Wyatt Cenac |
by Chris Estey
Maybe it’s how the bands bond intimately with who they know are big fans. (Last year, Two Gallants put on one of the best performances of the festival there.) Maybe it’s the excellent sound (hey, Kevin Suggs!) in the tucked-away special venue. Perhaps it’s the posh, comfortable seats in a cool setting indoors [...]
Posted in Bumbershoot, KEXP | Tagged Akron/Family, Black Joe Lewis and the Honeybears, Common Market, Elvis Perkins, Gang Gang Dance, Hey Marseilles, Holy Fuck, Metric, Os Mutantes, Raphael Saadiq, Sera Cahoone, Telekinesis, The Cave Singers, Vieux Farka Toure, Vivian Girls |
by Chris Estey
“My favorite new band!” Russell Simmons once proclaimed. Billboard praised “Plug Tunin’” on its release as a song that would “knock you for a loop.” And they brought “3 Is A Magic Number” to rap music in both personal affirmation, musical soul, and mystical suggestion.
De La Soul changed hip-hop forever 20 years [...]
by Chris Estey
Head Like A Kite’s Dave Einmo gives us the best of both worlds: With his musical comrades he creates perfectly sound-designed art-rock records that just get better with each play; and when he turns up with Trent Moorman and fellow artists like Graig Markel and Zera Marvel live, it’s a Stones-on-ecstasy soul revue, [...]
by Chris Estey
Scott McCoughey is ON FIRE! The Young Fresh Fellows and The Minus 5 singer-guitarist founder has two really fine new albums out from both these Pacific NW groups, as well as a thematic project with Steve Wynn, REM’s Pete Buck, and Linda Pitman titled The Baseball Project. On Monday, September 7, at 1:30 [...]
