Johnette Napolitano is best known for her role as lead singer & bassist for Concrete Blonde. When I sat down to do a phone interview with her recently I wasn’t sure what to expect. What I discovered is how easy she was to talk to. I felt like I was calling an old friend and …
Month: April 2014
Friday night on Seattle’s happenin’ Capitol Hill, the Highline hosted the 11th Annual Seattle Ska Fest. Two of my favorite locals, The Georgetown Orbits and Natalie Wouldn’t were headlining. Tres bliss! The Orbits were the last band to play, and again, many seemed to have left before the end of the show. What is it …
My daughter Jillian turned 16 just over a week ago. The day coincided with the San Francisco Giants’ first Orange Friday game of 2014, complete with a fireworks show afterward, so we naturally decided to go to AT&T Park to celebrate. The Giants had started the season reasonably well, winning six of their first ten …
On April 9 I bore witness to five bands at El Corazon who were beyond fabulous. Though the headliner was Creepshow, from Toronto, there really were two headliners — the other being The Phenomenauts. Hailing from the East Bay area, The Phenomenauts are part corny fifties TV sci-fi show, part comedy troupe, part rock band …
The Dixie Hummingbirds, one of the great Gospel vocal groups of the past half century, are perhaps best known to listeners as the background vocalists on Paul Simon’s “Loves Me Like a Rock.” (I’m posting their own version below.) One fact about the group has always fascinated me: After one of their members, William Bobo, …
Denyse Tontz is the darling of the Disney TV show “Dog with a Blog” and soap opera “All My Children” where she plays Erica Kane’s granddaughter and for which she won a pre-nomination for a Daytime Emmy. She describes this song as, “My weird little way of saying you’re awesome and haters aren’t.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eQ_9Gfu2sI4
Having walked past various coin-op kiddie rides in the neighborhood, I sometimes wonder if these contraptions provide a child’s first experience of being underwhelmed. Toddlers eagerly climb atop the plastic horses as their exhausted parents fish out the coins and drop them into the slot. Then, as soon as the canned music starts and the …
Hannah Lou Clark (TAPKA FOE) – new song, new video. Yup, different, but all still there for sure. – Mike Hughes
This is worthy-ish:
Jeff Tweedy, of Wilco fame, learns how to write an honest folk song on Portlandia:
On Friday April 4, Seattle band Poke Da Squid played a concert to celebrate the release of I Honestly Had Higher Expectations (click to see my earlier review of the CD). Poke Da Squid is a young band. I’m positive all members are under the age of 30. They’re also adorable and ooze charm from …
Hailing from Long Beach, CA, This Wild Life is Kevin Jordan and Anthony Del Grosso. Jordan and Del Gross grew up in the tightknit DIY punk scene in Long Beach. They quickly became friends after working at the same musical instrument store, bonding over the music of their teens. The conversations were about hardcore, punk …
Storied rock experimentalist and well-traveled collaborator, Brian Eno, is set to release Someday World, a spritely album undertaken with Karl Hyde of house and electronica juggernaut, Underworld, in May. The first two songs off the work are available for listening below. Eno and Hyde describe the work in this way, “Someday World is an album …