Kate Izquierdo

Kate at Comic-Con

noreply@blogger.com (Kate) — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 23:29:00 +0000

Kate Izquierdo gives her thoughts on Comic Con San Diego 2008, and shares with us a slew of pictures she took at the event. Above, Lucasfilm's Bonnie Burton models the latest in Leiaware.

Well, what can I tell you? This is my first Comic-Con and the point that all the veteran attendees were trying to make has stuck: it’s like every other other Con on steroids. The costumes, the squarefootage, the star power - everything is exponentially huge-ified. While this is wonderful from a l33t geek consumer perspective (I purchased four t-shirts in two hours and haven’t even made it to the toys yet) it’s decidedly not so wonderful when you have to bypass big movie debuts because of the massive lines. By around 3pm you can see the weeping children, the smeared facepaints, the fighting Hans and Leias, and the floors littered with exhausted program clutching nerds.

But we geeks are a strong, resilient people. We will inhale our candy bars, suck down a 32oz beverage and slap our plastic helmets back on our heads. We will sally forth to toil thru bins of Golden Age comics, to drool over display cases crammed with new toys, and to get friendly with scantily clad superheroines. As for me, any trace of fatigue I had dissipated with the sight of the new Watchmen figures. Rorschach, people. I get to own a Rorschach. It’s almost too cool to bear. Out in the real world we might have to defend our passions to non-believers, but at Comic-Con more than anywhere else, Geek is King. Stay tuned - I’ll take as many pics as I can out there on the front lines.

To see Kate’s entire collection of photos from Comic Con, head over to her Comic Con gallery on Flickr.

This Geek Monthly piece originally appears here.

Erykah Badu

noreply@blogger.com (Kate) — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 06:29:00 +0000

An everywoman at war: Erykah Badu lets her 'fro, freak flag, and activist colors fly

Erykah Badu disappeared for a bit, taking her musical incantations and majestic head wraps on a retreat into motherhood. In 2006, she flitted back onto the mainstream radar in Dave Chappelle's Block Party, a concert film that takes place in a Brooklyn neighborhood and includes the comedian's closest muso pals. Badu's appearance stops the hustle and bustle of the event cold with her tiny frame and a huge glorious Afro, which blows off during her duet with Jill Scott during the Roots number "You Got Me." The movie audience I was with that day gasped in admiration as Badu let her trademark locks sail away while she continued to sing, her head and soul apparent for all to see — a diva whose resplendence and power does not rest on borrowed plumage alone.

Back then searching out Badu's whereabouts led to a stripped-down MySpace page with a selection of songs off her 2003 EP, Worldwide Underground (Motown/Island), and not much else. At one point an old press release showed up, but interjected between the normal publicist-speak were "additions" in block capital letters, which were gentle mockeries of her multiplatinum accomplishments and declarations about "paying bills" and other roadblocks appearing in her life. Her words had the feel of new life forcing its way up through the old. Two years on, that same page is a tricked-out site to behold: a dizzying pastiche of acid-rock tableaus and neo-propagandist political imagery that bears Badu's likeness — many a result of an art contest held for her fans. It was here that she chose to debut many tracks from her new album, New Amerykah Part One: 4th World War (Universal/Motown).more

Allen Oldies Band

noreply@blogger.com (Kate) — Thu, 15 May 2008 06:03:00 +0000

The Allen Oldies Band delivers a reckless tornado of classic hits, a retro dance party of Sham-tastic proportions. But don't make the mistake of considering this Austin, Texas, ensemble a mere cover band. The Oldies have amassed a cult following built on the strength of a talented group of classic session players, sprinkled with a heavy dose of punk-pit sensibility. They have punctuated the beginning of South by Southwest in their hometown with an infamous 9:30 a.m. breakfast shindig replete with French maids serving jalapeño pancakes. They will play literally anywhere — but they will not play just anything. From "Wooly Bully" to "It's Not Unusual," the Oldies are resolute in their mission to bring the dance tunes of yesteryear to your doorstep.

Allen Hill dreamed up this raucous, plaid-blazer-clad army of fun. Hill is a bit of a musical raconteur, a de facto spokesperson for the retro Austin scene who fronts his own combo with feverish enthusiasm and wisecracks. Wearing a tuxedo and tennis shoes, Hill rushes from one end of the stage to the other, employing a tongue-in-cheek goofiness with the group and the audience, recalling Louis Prima at his best. Always looking to spread the message of party rock, the Oldies are no strangers to either the wedding or corporate event circuit — please book three months in advance — and have played backing ensemble to the likes of Chuck Berry and Archie Bell. Lest their paying gigs sound too staid, the Oldies have the indie cred of a live WMFU album, Live and Delirious (Freedom, 2006). While their trips outside the Lone Star State are not as frequent as their fans would like, they are finally set to grace our fair city with a dose of hyperactive twistin' tunes.

ALLEN OLDIES BAND With the Barbary Coasters. Fri/16, 9:30 p.m., $6.

Hemlock Tavern, 1131 Polk, SF. (415) 923-0923, Hemlock Tavern
Written for the SFBG

Elbow

noreply@blogger.com (Kate) — Thu, 08 May 2008 06:16:00 +0000

What kind of universe renders the joys of love as equal parts worry and wonder?

"Darling, is this love?" asks Elbow's Guy Garvey quietly in the middle of "Starlings." He is answered by a deafening blast of horns, an apocalyptic brass rejoinder meant to warn the world of an oncoming storm of romantic uncertainty. What kind of universe renders the joys of love as equal parts worry and wonder? One that has fallen in and out of obsession — a planet of newly born babies, lost lovers, and fallen friends. Elbow brings this cast of characters and plots to life with Seldom Seen Kid (Polydor), its first album in three years, a study in carefully crafted atmospherics that intrigue without descending into melodrama.

Elbow began 17 years ago when the members met in college at Bury, England. They moved to Manchester and proceeded to release a series of critically lauded EPs before offering up 2001's Asleep in the Back (V2) followed by Cast of Thousands (V2, 2004) and Leaders of the Free World (Fiction/Geffen) in 2005. Along the way, the group became famous for clever, multilayered orchestral pop music and the evocative storytelling of Garvey's lyrics. For Seldom Seen Kid — a tribute to late singer-songwriter and friend of the band Brian Glancy — Elbow created the album on its own in a Salford, England, studio, giving production credits to keyboard player Craig Potter.more

NoisePop 2008: Cursive

noreply@blogger.com (Kate) — Thu, 28 Feb 2008 00:25:00 +0000

The group Cursive doesn't play indie rock – they reconfigure it, tearing melodies to pieces with sharp cello parts and stitching them back together with swelling guitar riffs. The Omaha-born quartet has spent the better part of eight years crafting a turbulent, orchestral rock that blooms, rumbles, and lurches to multiple pregnant pauses. But lest you peg them for precious artistes, Cursive's lyrics have a depth and directness that steer you straight. As lead singer Tim Kasher warns in their song "Art is Hard," "the art of acting weak" is part of an indie mythos that serves "to boost your CD sales." With their acerbically twisted morality tales and chaotically scored tunes, Cursive have become a cornerstone of rarified pop.

In the normal scheme of things, getting to open for the Cure -- a band Cursive have been favorably compared to more than once -- could arguably be called a career highlight. Acclaim from national magazines for their 2003 album The Ugly Organ (Saddle Creek) wouldn't be too shabby either. But back in 2004, after four albums and relentless touring, the members of Cursive were fried. "It was kind of like, 'maybe this is a good time to stop' because we'd been doing it for so long," remembers bassist Matt Maginn. "Ugly Organ's success was a surprise
for us. We had to get our heads clear." more

NoisePop 2008: Judgement Day

noreply@blogger.com (Kate) — Thu, 28 Feb 2008 00:18:00 +0000

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Judgement Day has arrived, and it sounds like ... stringmetal. For the uninitiated, stringmetal happens when you get a classically trained violinist (Aaron Patzner) who has worked with the likes of Bright Eyes, The Faint, and Audrye Sessions together with his classically trained cellist brother (Lewis Patzner), both of whom love deep, dark metal. After being forged in the heat of busking sessions on the streets of Berkeley, the band became a trio with the addition of drummer Jon Bush. Kings of arpeggiated madness, Judgement Day will soon be sawing away at a club near
you. more

NoisePop 2008: Darker My Love

noreply@blogger.com (Kate) — Thu, 28 Feb 2008 00:03:00 +0000

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Hailing from LA, Darker My Love is the sound of a fuzzed-out psych-rock dream seen through black sunglasses. With distorted guitars and echo-y, disaffected lyrics, the band generates layers of static and dissonant fog that envelope the steeliest of non-believers. For all their laidback behavior, however, they're an entertaining bunch who -- if you believe their Darker My Dudes blog -- enjoy driving convertibles into chain pasta restaurants and opening up for the Jesus and Mary Chain. Automotive mishaps aside, Darker My Love brings a rock that is sometimes shadowy and gritty, keeping them a tremolo bar above the rest. more

NoisePop 2008: The Blacks

noreply@blogger.com (Kate) — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 23:42:00 +0000

In the grand tradition of rock trios like Concrete Blonde and, more recently, the sexily angry Husbands, the Blacks have set up in your garage and they're gonna keep you up all night. Mixing reverb-drenched guitar, accusatory vocals, and big waves of tambourine, this sometimes local, sometimes New York-based ensemble brings their petulant shoegaze punk -- as heard on the recently released Tricycle Records album Nom de Guerre -- to a venue near you.more

Super Furry Animals

noreply@blogger.com (Kate) — Thu, 07 Feb 2008 01:45:00 +0000

Furries, for real: Venus! lays Gruff Rhys and company bare

Super Furry Animals are a mischievous lot. Having marked the universe with their tech-pop grandeur for 15 years, they must now keep the world wondering where their music will pop up next and in what form. For their new album, Hey Venus! (Rough Trade), the Welsh quintet maintain their love of vast, Donald Fagen–esque noodling but have stripped down into a craftily introspective niche. In keeping with their new sound, they have a secret weapon in the studio, and it isn't bleeding-edge sonic wizardry or Timbaland at the desk. It's a dulcimer — a hammer dulcimer, to be exact, and it's wielded on some songs with as much aplomb as any siren, blip, or squawk that's graced any of their previous seven full-lengths. What gives? "For some reason, [the album] has a 'band playing in a room' kind of mood," lead vocalist Gruff Rhys offers simply, speaking on the phone from Cardiff, Wales, in early January. "Nobody brought any samplers to the recording sessions."

Super Furry Animals emerged from the Welsh capital city amid a wave of other acts, effectively marking a movement that included bands like Gorky's Zygotic Mynci and Catatonia. The core members of the group had originally come together as a techno outfit — a background that set them apart from their contemporaries. The group's first album, Fuzzy Logic (Creation, 1996), saw the combo establish its mastery of cheekily strident pop tunes. Its next release, Radiator (Flydaddy, 1997), upped the ante with an inventive melodic complexity that the Furries had obviously already mastered.

The band made its mark by continuing to issue fearless, originally crafted indie rock that stemmed at least in part from Rhys's schizoid musical background: he was in a jangle-pop band called Emily before moving on to noise ensemble Ffa Coffi Pawb. The Furries' next release, Guerilla (Flydaddy, 1999), is a densely layered technorock symphony that ranges between the cheeky blips of songs like "Wherever I Lay My Phone (That's My Home)" and the introspective balladeering of tracks like "Fire in My Heart." Each disc since has been notable for a particular reason, whether it's an all-Welsh double album (2000's Mwng [Placid Casual]), a special DVD with a video crafted for each song (2001's Rings around the World [Sony]), or the quirky explorations into spaced-out country rock and überharmonic ruminating on recent albums Phantom Power (XL, 2003) and Love Kraft (XL/Beggars, 2005). Hey Venus!, Rhys explains, is partially based on the mellow mood he described earlier in our conversation. "In the past I wrote all the lyrics, and then the last two years [the band has become] more confident and has started to bring complete songs to the soup." He pauses, then confirms, "I suppose this was a songwriting kind of record."more

X

noreply@blogger.com (Kate) — Thu, 20 Dec 2007 21:45:00 +0000

Under their black sun - X marks the spot in punk's Cali past and a fantasized future

I have a fantasy that 100 years from now all formalized history as we know it will be lost. Museums will lose funding and fall by the wayside. Libraries will find their contents spontaneously dumped onto city streets. And those curious enough to wonder what came before will be left with the chunks of culture that have outlasted apartment moves and world wars: personal detritus and castaway junk. Eventually, this future generation will stumble upon faded photos of a queen in a tiara and a potato-sack dress. Her king had a pompadour, and their soldiers were regal. Her name was Exene Cervenka, and she was the queen of Los Angeles. Would it really be so bad for a band to be remembered as royalty?

X is usually remembered as the collaboration between vocalist Cervenka and bassist John Doe, but the band was actually founded by guitarist Billy Zoom. Already an accomplished musician who had toured with the likes of Gene Vincent and mastered his own special blend of elaborately structured punkabilly, Zoom placed an ad looking for musicians in the Los Angeles Recycler in
1977. The guitarist, in his typically wry fashion, is reluctant to sprinkle the golden dust of nostalgia over his initial meeting with Doe and merely cracks via e-mail that the latter "had really cool shoes, clever lyrics, and looked OK."

Doe brought more than his songs and his shoes to the table, though. He had met budding poet Exene Cervenka at a writing workshop and, impressed by her work, had encouraged her to join a band. Although the distance between poetry recitals and fronting a punk group might seem like a quantum leap, Cervenka soon realized that the two are quite similar. "It was more like punk poetry," she explains over the phone on her way to Milwaukee with the Knitters. "You would allow yourself to get really angry while you were reading. It wasn't rigid sitting down. It was a free-for-all!" Cervenka exceeded the boundaries of her diminutive stature, evolving into a lyrical punk princess — a heady mix of tiaras, anger, and lipstick decades before the so-called kinderwhore girl bands of the '90s aspired to do the same. more

Jesu

noreply@blogger.com (Kate) — Wed, 31 Oct 2007 04:26:00 +0000

Hail "Conqueror" - The heavy evangelism of Jesu's Justin Broadrick

"Is that the venue? It looks like a shack!" Justin Broadrick says, and his bandmates laugh uproariously. They've just pulled up outside their venue in Austin, Texas, and it's not looking good. "Sorry," he apologizes to me on his cell phone. "It looks like a shed!" Broadrick is only joking, in surprisingly good spirits for being sick and a man who has a reputation as the king of bombast, the creative force behind the grindcore of Napalm Death in the '80s and the psychotic industrial blast beats of Godflesh in the '90s. Instead, he is disturbingly good-natured and genuinely concerned about taking the ethereal doom of his latest musical incarnation, Jesu, on the road while being ill. "It's infuriating," he confesses. "It's not like we're here every six months or anything." His words ring with a touch of wistful evangelism, as though there's a message that needs delivering.

That new missive is Conqueror (Hydrahead), Jesu's second full-length and a bleakly epic knight's tale where melodies spiral upward into ominous gray clouds of static to create ingenious, thundering shoegaze. It's a rude awakening for anyone expecting the tortured howls and demonic riffage of yore, but in many ways it's the obvious next step, particularly for someone looking to introduce pop music, his long-harbored love, into previously uncharted terrain. Conqueror, Broadrick explains, was created with an aim of "extreme prettiness and extreme heaviness at the same time. I guess we're taking melodies that are derived from popular culture and juxtaposing that with a sound which is basically rooted in extreme music." Where Jesu's last EP, Silver (Hydrahead, 2006), offered a more straightforward dose of anthemic pop crushed under the weight of plodding beats, Conqueror crackles and glows like a low-pressure system, trapping its dirgelike sound before releasing it into crashing cymbals and Broadrick's low, clear, mournful vocals. As pop music goes, it is nearly impenetrable, with hints of Broadrick's earlier works readily apparent throughout.more

KUSF's 30th Anniversary

noreply@blogger.com (Kate) — Thu, 02 Aug 2007 00:39:00 +0000

KUSF keeps on keepin' on, sending rad signals our way - Photo, Charlie Russo

The workroom of KUSF, 90.3FM has always looked just this side of combustible. It's a second home to the radio station's new-music volunteers, a tightly packed DIY office space papered with band posters from top to bottom. Ancient desks are pinned against each wall, one holding a beat-down stereo. Two huge metal-hinged lockers loom in the corner, monoliths stickered beyond recognition with archeological layers of rock 'n' roll's past. I stare at them and try to remember the exact location of a Barkmarket sticker I myself put up more than 15 years ago. No dice.

Down the hallway — KUSF is crammed into a lone walkway in the basement of Phelan Hall on the University of San Francisco campus — Program Director Trista Bernasconi is helping a cultural producer get his next show sorted out. Platinum records hang on the walls behind her, a reminder of the respect the noncommercial station has commanded from the musical community since its inception in 1977.

But high-caliber programming was almost no match for the university's management, which sought to sell its license in 2006. "Last year the university tried to sell us, and their main thing was that we were not connected to the students," says Bernasconi, a 10-year station veteran and former USF student. "It's hard because San Francisco is expensive and [students] have to work so many jobs, but there's been a major push to get more involved." more

The Horrors

noreply@blogger.com (Kate) — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 01:45:00 +0000

UK band the Horrors freshen up the Goth aesthetic

Gazing disdainfully from the cover of their album Strange House (Loog), the Horrors greet listeners with the air of Edward Gorey characters on a smoke break. Together, they are a scarily beautiful organism: a slick plastic spider with 10 spindly legs and a penchant for manic, blood-soaked coffin rock. Their shows, in contrast, are short, riotous affairs that revolve around a schizoid brand of gothabilly and the shrieks and antics of lead vocalist Faris Badwan. The Horrors have graced the cover of NME, dumped garbage on industry bigwigs at South by Southwest, and amassed a throng of fans worldwide. They've also, of course, sent the pointy-shoe market skyrocketing.

The Horrors were born, appropriately enough, in the bowels of a rotting Victorian hotel, the home of the fashionable Junk Club in Southend-on-Sea in London's neighboring Essex County, in the summer of 2005. Rhys "Spider" Webb, keyboardist for the Horrors, recalls that the transition from clubgoers to band was not a prolonged one. "We were actually sitting around a table, and it was, like, 'Let's go into the studio for rehearsal next week.' Faris had a couple of cover versions he wanted to work on. We've been playing ever since, to be honest."
more

Konono No. 1

noreply@blogger.com (Kate) — Wed, 25 Apr 2007 17:35:00 +0000

Konono No. 1 prove that good things can happen in Kinshasa

Electrifying a thumb piano sounds about as unlikely as, say, strapping a jet engine onto a surfboard. That very action, however, explains the central mystery behind Congo's Konono No. 1. But don't expect an esoteric creation myth from founder and likembe virtuoso Mawangu Mingiedi, who explains that his feedback-rich music exists simply "because it's a very soft-sounding instrument and Kinshasa is a very noisy town."

The likembe has a gentle, waterlogged twang, like a mouth harp encased in Jell-O. It is as native to the Congolese sound as the ancestral hum of the Bazombo trance music brought to Kinshasa by Mingiedi when he left his hometown on the Angolan border after the death of his father. Answering questions with producer Vincent Kenis via e-mail, Mingiedi describes Bazombo as "the cradle of our music. There's a little bit of it in whatever we play." more

SXSW - Sat, March 17th

noreply@blogger.com (Kate) — Tue, 20 Mar 2007 05:52:00 +0000

Live from Scotland: Shitdisco

Every year, you swear to yourself that you will find alternate routes to maneuver the Sixth Street on St. Patrick's day, and every year you forget or get too loaded and find yourself backstroking through a sea of jello-shot hoovering, stiletto-tottering, verdantly outfitted U of T students looking to whoop it up. They're a surreal injection into the conference populace, who are now starting to show the effects of four solid days of drinking, schmoozing, rocking, and ricocheting from venue to venue. Our forearms are purple from wrist to elbow with stamps, the plastic day party wristbands are cutting off our circulation, we're sunburnt, and, oh, yeah, maneuvering on about four hours of sleep. We're all ratcheting up to that level of cranky that can only be healed with a two-day nap or a lot of valium. more

SXSW - Thurs, March 15th

noreply@blogger.com (Kate) — Tue, 20 Mar 2007 05:42:00 +0000

The Horrors' Faris Badwan

By Thursday, the rainstorms had gone, the sun was blazin', and the Black Lips have lost their bass player. In Mexico. No matter, as they bring a good facscimile of their Sandinista flavor replete with a boy-on-boy guitarist make-out session. How can you suck face with a big ass gold grill? Very carefully.

Dusk led us to Jon Langford and Sally Timms "recalling the Mekons," which loosely translated meant playing a few Mekons songs and commenting on how being in a seminal punk band didn't exactly put them on the map. Introducing a cover, Langford commented that it was not a Mekons song, "like most of the songs in the world aren't. And not on the radio. Like all the Mekons songs." more

SXSW - Wed, March 14th

noreply@blogger.com (Kate) — Thu, 15 Mar 2007 05:14:00 +0000

I'm running way behind schedule today - nursing the first jack 'n' coke of the day, and watching Dirty on Purpose from Brooklyn. It's a wide-open, delay-drenched moodrock, a mercifully good start to Thursday afternoon.

We got in last night amidst horror stories of flashflood warnings and t-storms. Of our intended hitlist, we nabbed moments with the Pipettes, Matt and Kim, Illinois, Hank IV, and Cyann and Ben. more

Band of the Week: Land of Talk

noreply@blogger.com (Kate) — Wed, 06 Dec 2006 06:29:00 +0000

Hometown: Montreal, Canada
Fun Fact: If you call the band out on popular indie blog, Brooklyn Vegan, expect a reply.
Why It’s Worth Watching: The band specializes in sparkling, complex rock with pristine, come-hither vocals.
For Fans Of: Blonde Redhead, Metric, Cat Power, PJ Harvey

There currently seems to be two camps of people out there in the world - those who have never heard of Montreal buzz band Land of Talk, and those who absolutely adore the group. The trio has been slowly amassing a base of devotees thanks to a relentless touring schedule. Case in point: the band members spoke to Paste by shouting into bassist Chris McCarron’s mobile en route to Ontario where they were wrapping up a string of opening dates for the Dears. High-profile gigs in their adopted secondary home base of New York have made them darlings of that city’s blogerati as well.

more

Ettrick

noreply@blogger.com (Kate) — Wed, 29 Nov 2006 07:09:00 +0000

Black metal, free jazz, and improv skronk — these are the things Ettrick are made of

"Ever heard of Wisconsin Death Trip?" Jacob Heule asks. Ettrick's alto sax–playing half and I are in my living room discussing the rigors of life in the Midwest as they pertain to the metal-listening youth of today. Heule, a Wisconsin native, has jokingly — or maybe not so jokingly — cited Michael Lesy's book about the disintegration of the 19th-century town Black River Falls as we make loose connections between freezing cold weather, insanity, and locales that death metal and its fans call home.

He's certain of one thing: "Black metal is the perfect stuff when you don't feel like a human anymore. When I was a receptionist at a medical center, I got really into it because I just felt terrible about certain things. It was a dehumanizing job. Cold, bleak black metal — I could relate to it." more

Archie Bronson Outfit

noreply@blogger.com (Kate) — Thu, 09 Nov 2006 19:11:00 +0000

The Bottom of the Hill, San Francisco, CA, 10/18/06

On nights like this, The Bottom of the Hill hangs open like an empty doll house, black and littered with detritus of play dates past. Strands of Christmas lights illuminate the bar and twinkle over a small, tightly knit crowd. Restlessness in this space is contagious - it’s possible that people will stick around for half a song, chug their beers, and bolt. The band shuffles in quietly, a British trio with one drum kit, two guitars, and three beards between them. People shift their beers and stare expectantly into the void.

It's impossible to say what arrives in the ear first. Is it the skittering, relentless drums that drive the Archie Bronson Outfit onslaught? It might be the guitars that clang and clink like hollow bottles thrown across a room. Then there’s Sam Windett’s voice - a rattling wail that pierces the percussive waves with no sign of letting up. Either way, after about thirty seconds worth of “Cherry Lips,” the crowd is about as rapt as cynical indie rocker types can muster. more

In Bed with the Long Winters

noreply@blogger.com (Kate) — Thu, 12 Oct 2006 05:29:00 +0000

Masterfully eloquent longing -- of the drunken rapist kind.

It's become popular to characterize the Long Winters' John Roderick as an intellectual ronin of sorts: a librarian without master who travels the countryside lending his songs and wisdom to brainy 826 benefits. Others reject this stuffy veneer outright, preferring to embrace him as a lovable vaudevillian rogue of the "song, dance, seltzer down the pants" variety.

Still, Roderick is well aware of his reputation as a mysterious dude, explaining, "It's never been clear, even to the people close to me, whether or not I might actually be an emotionally abusive, exploitative, drunken rapist posing as a sensitive singer-songwriter, and that's an ambiguity that I cultivate." more

Lily Allen

noreply@blogger.com (Kate) — Wed, 11 Oct 2006 21:21:00 +0000

UK ska-pop princess Lily Allen rules the Euro-singles school

For those of you living in a cool-free cave out by the FM tower, Lily Allen is hot property. Her first single, the ska-tinged "Smile," has topped Britain's charts and has been oozing out of iPods and shopping malls alike as the song of the summer across Europe.

Allen's album, Alright Still (Regal/Parlophone), is a collection of rocksteady pop that veers between sweet crooning and sassily blunt day-in-the-life raps ? la "Cool for Cats." (In fact, she covered Squeeze, citing "Up the Junction" as a favorite song.) Like Squeeze lyricist Chris Difford, Allen doesn't shy away from the seedier side of London life, taking on would-be suitors in bars, catty girls in clubs, the occasional crack whore, and an obvious favorite, the loser ex-boyfriend. On "Smile" she laments, "When you first left me I was wanting more/ But you were fucking that girl next door/ What ya do that for." more

Writing Wrongs

noreply@blogger.com (Kate) — Fri, 06 Oct 2006 19:27:00 +0000

Billy Bragg keeps the progressive home fires burning and cynicism at bay

If there's one person you would expect to condemn the present state of America's political affairs, it would be Billy Bragg, right? Surely Britain's punk poet laureate should be grabbing every microphone within reaching distance to decry the evils of our current administration. But surprisingly, his reaction is quite the opposite. "I'm encouraged by the results of the last two elections, because I believe that America has not yet decided what kind of country it's going to be in the 21st century," he says on the phone from Winnepeg.

Bragg is currently on a bit of a multitasking tour to showcase his two latest works: Volume II (YepRoc), a box set, and The Progressive Patriot, a book. While Volume II is an expected retrospective that covers the second half of Bragg's career from 1988 onward, The Progressive Patriot is uncharted territory for the singer-songwriter, a treatise that addresses Britain's national identity, the emergence of organized racism, and the political road that weaves between the two. more

This tune's for you

noreply@blogger.com (Kate) — Thu, 17 Aug 2006 17:26:00 +0000

Catching up with What Made Milwaukee Famous

We've all been there. You're entranced by some wonderful song that you can't live without,only to buy the album, hunker down to listen, and find it full of duds. Your purchase ... sucks. What a weird and wondrous experience, then, to cram What Made Milwaukee Famous into the stereo and be greeted with a crayon box full of pop, each song shaded a little differently than the last and highlighted with quite arguably some of the best pop vocals around.

Named for a line in a Jerry Lee Lewis song, Austin's WMMF formed when vocalist-guitarist Michael Kingcaid put out ads in the Austin Chronicle. Kingcaid, having survived the demise of previous bands, eschewed live performances for a year, opting for an extended period of introduction. He explains, "I had the blueprints, at least in pencil, for a long time. None of us knew each other initially. We didn't want to jump out and play any shows when we weren't ready to sound our best." more

Jason Lytle of Grandaddy

noreply@blogger.com (Kate) — Fri, 11 Aug 2006 19:03:00 +0000

Photo: Debra Zeller

Café Du Nord, San Francisco, 8/09/06

Jason Lytle once mentioned in an interview that as a child, he would draw playmates for himself in dirt with a stick. A creative solution to an emotional predicament like loneliness, and one that goes a long way toward explaining the music that would spill out of him in later years with indie giants Grandaddy. While the demise of the band is heartbreaking to many, what survives is a long legacy of storytelling, of stainless steel covered in ivy, dusty roads and drunken robots, and melodies that question technology even while celebrating it. While it’s an indelicate dance to maneuver, Lytle has recently embarked on a series of shows that acknowledge Grandaddy’s past while hinting at his designs on the future.

This show, the first of two at San Francisco’s Café Du Nord, had all the familiar trappings of a Grandaddy show in microscale. The stage was a makeshift campsite of keyboards, a card table, and the requisite beer cooler – itself re-purposed to hold more keyboards. Lytle invited Rusty Miller, lead singer and guitarist of Jackpot, to round out the sound and harmonies. Up to their ears in guitars and appliances, the two faced each other in the near-darkness, illuminated by a small, antique-looking lamp. “From Target”, Lytle explained, lest anyone in the crowd find his set-up too refined. more