San Diego’s Barbarian are winding up their month-long Soda Bar residency. Continue reading…
Poetic Memory: Barbarian (List)
Tag Archives: the velvet underground
Poetic Memory: The Yellow Dress (List)
The planet known as twee might be in the Descendant at the moment, but no one told The Yellow Dress that.
The seven-piece San Francisco band wears its heart on its sleeve, fashioning adorable ballads out of acoustic guitar strums, hand claps, whistling, and frontman Dan Weiss’ delirious game-show-host vocals. On their just-released sophomore album, Humblebees, The Yellow Dress leave apathy and pretentiousness to the buzz bands, opting instead for relentlessly cheery, homespun ditties with a heartfelt edge. Continue reading…
Poetic Memory: Picastro (List)
MP3: Picastro – “Skullduggery”
Stream: Picastro & Nadja – Fool Redeemer EP
Toronto experimental trio Picastro has released four full-length albums since its 2002 formation, the latest of which is 2009’s Become Secret. This year, the band collaborated with fellow Canadians Nadja on a split called Fool Redemer. Unlike a traditional split album, with side A featuring tracks by one band and side B by another, members of both groups contributed to each other’s songs, creating a tour de force of atonal experimentation.
Picastro will join Scout Niblett at the Soda Bar on December 5; in anticipation of the show, band leader Liz Hysen sent us a list of her influences. Continue reading…
Live Review: Wild Flag at the Casbah, November 20, 2010
No one who attended Saturday’s Wild Flag show knew quite what to expect. The newborn supergroup had no recordings to its credit and only a handful of shows under its belt. All that was really known about the band was its prestigious lineup, which included two members of defunct riot grrl legends Sleater-Kinney. As the all-girl group teased on its Twitter account, “For all you know, we’re a polka band.” Continue reading…
Poetic Memory: Oh Mercy (List)
Is Australia the new Canada? When its comes to up-and-coming young indie bands who pride themselves on intelligent lyrics and a multi-layered sound, it sure seems that way. First, I was stopped in my tracks by The Middle East, and now the next Aussie wave is Melbourne’s Oh Mercy.
They’ve gained a lot of attention lately with their album, Privileged Woes. It’s a quirky pop album with expressive vocals that draws inspiration from bands like The Velvet Underground and Dionne Warwick. That’s a large spectrum to cover, but singer Alex Gow explains it all below. Oh Mercy’s Poetic Memory is below. Continue reading…