listen, reviews, san diego

Review: MAN/MIRACLE – THE SHAPE OF THINGS

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On their LP, THE SHAPE OF THINGS, MAN/MIRACLE have done away with minuscule letters and churned out a solid thirty minutes of all-caps, genre-hopping power pop.

The first half of the album is catchy as hell. The lo-fi, major-key island hook and afrobeat of album opener “ABOVE THE SALON” sounds like Vampire Weekend playing inside a sealed U-Haul trailer.

“HOT SPRAWL” and “UP” maintain that energy, with toms like a locomotive driving hollering, energetic sing-alongs (provided you don’t mind making up words to approximate the mostly unintelligible lyrics). Continue reading…

reviews, san diego

Review: Quasi with Explode Into Colors; March 14, 2010; Casbah, San Diego

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Nobody really likes seeing opening bands. Unless the band in question is someone you already know and/or like, sitting through an opening act is usually something people do to be polite or because they got to the show too early. Openers can be awful, boring, or, at worst, awfully boring. In their slot as opener for indie rock heroes Quasi, fellow Portlanders Explode Into Colors could have been just another in that mediocre tradition. Instead, the unassuming trio upstaged Quasi. Continue reading →

listen, reviews, san diego

Review: The Clientele with The Wooden Birds; March 4, 2010; Casbah, San Diego

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Photo credit: MySpace

The Thursday night crowd that came to see The Clientele at the Casbah was bubbling. Half of them had just come from a successful SoundDiego launch party; the other half were presumably just happy to be celebrating the unofficial start of the weekend with syrupy pop exported from England. It was a fun crowd to be a part of, and especially fun to hear the chatter peppered by the English accents of a few of The Clientele’s San Diego British expat fans. Continue reading…

interviews

Poetic Memory: Tobacco (List)

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Photo credit: MySpace

Tobacco, also known as the mastermind behind the O&B Best of 2009 band Black Moth Super Rainbow, is an interesting fellow. From both his personality (evidenced below) and music, one gets the sense that his brain is unlike yours or mine.

We’re eagerly awaiting Tobacco’s March 24 show at the Casbah, and you should be too. To tide you over, here is Tobacco’s Poetic Memory — a list of influences that includes everything from amusement park rides to grotesque puppets. Continue reading…

music news, video

Big Star Singer Alex Chilton Dies at 59

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What can I say? Alex Chilton is dead. As part of Big Star, he wrote some of the best music of the 1970s, and his work has influenced so many — Jeff Tweedy, Califone, Elliott Smith, The Replacements. The list goes on.

I’m just sitting here playing the YouTube video for this old song over and over again. Those harmonies get me every time. Goodbye, Alex.

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