Saint Etienne - Foxbase Alpha

This may not be news, but today is the last day of 2010. As we all hustle and bustle through today in anticipation of the great parties and questionable decisions of tonight, and we all make our resolutions; looking always forward, we have to remember to look back too. Since New Year's is always about the perpetual forward motion of existence, albeit arbitrarily concocted via our perception and construction of time,...

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Atlas Sound - Bedroom Databank Vol. 1

Bradford Cox has wowed the music world countless times before, under the moniker Atlas Sound, and via his excellent four-piece ambient band Deerhunter. The difference in sound, between the whispering, sound-wall generating, softness of Deerhunter, and the work done as Atlas Sound is subtle, but it boils down to an increased feeling of intimacy and naturalness when comparing the latter to the former. Atlas Sound always...

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Top 25 Tracks of 2010

It's that time of year again. A time when every major pop culture site, blog, station, magazine, et al., produce lists that sum up the year in various media. Last year, I threw down a very personal three-parter that covered the previous decade, but this year, we're gonna try something new. This is my list of MY top 25 individual tracks of 2010, and I'll tell you up front that the order is a bit specious. On any other...

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The Walking Dead - "Wildfire" & "TS-19"

Let's wrap this up shall we? The final two episodes of this short premiere season of The Walking Dead were both essentially solid ones, despite reports that the ENTIRE writing staff is now turning over for next season. The reason for those firings (or shit-cannings, the term I prefer) could well lie in the way poignant reveals and new information seemed to give themselves away (like Merle's hand removal and Jim's grave...

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KBCO Studio C Volume 22 - Various Artists

One of our local rock stations, KBCO, to which I listened for 99% of my formative years, and less so now, has over the last decade skewed in that Clear Channel way toward basic, repetitive set lists and limited DJ control, but there is one thing they still do amazingly well, and that's the annual Studio C live album. These albums have been produced for 22 years now, covering incredible, intimate live performances by...

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December 4: Tame Impala

Sometimes, it's the time spent around the show that define it. On the 4th, Tame Impala played the Bluebird, and I attended the show with friends (one old and one newer). The show itself was a raucous jam session by the Aussie psychedelic indie band. My relative unfamiliarity with Tame Impala didn't hurt the experience at all. Instead, it was a show that perfectly accompanied an evening. We missed the opener, opting for...

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Notable Text: Eating the Dinosaur

Chuck Klosterman is a genius. I won't mince words here because it's just fact. I even wrote a comic about him. While I haven't devoured his entire literary catalog (I have previously read Sex, Drugs and Cocoa Puffs: A Low Culture Manifesto and Killing Yourself to Live: 85% of a True Story.) but there are few, if any writers I enjoy reading, and rereading more. Klosterman uniquely parallels popular culture phenomenons...

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Words On Film: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part One

This newest, and the second-to-last installment in the film exploits of Harry Potter has met with an array of mixed reviews. Detractors cite the film's slow pace, meager plot, and lack of full resolution, while the people who love it seem to do so primarily out of affection for the book/film series. Praise also seems to heap most fully in the form of appreciation for the aforementioned slow pace, artful brooding and...

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