News, reviews, interviews. http://www.nadamucho.com Fri, 25 Jul 2008 11:47:55 +0100 FeedCreator 1.7.2 http://www.nadamucho.com/features/odds__ends/whats_wrong_with_this_picture_brooks__dunn_make_the_cover_of_country_magazine_creep_out_reader.html Longtime reader Aaron Semer stopped by the office recently to drop off this thought-provoking issue of Country Magazine. The cover of the periodical – which was found on an end table inside Seattle's Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center – disturbed Aaron greatly, but he wasn't exactly sure why, so he decided to hand it over to us for further inspection. This turned out to be a wise move, as it took our experts just under three hours to determine the real problem with the magazine's cover. If you take a close look at Ronnie Dunn (the charming fellow on the left), you'll notice his beard is completely disproportionate to his hair. In fact, they're of two distinctly different follicular genres. Dunn's unfortunate condition is the direct result of improper management of the Norelco Maverick Beard Trimmer. You see, he clearly has his Maverick locked in on the number 7 setting. Any knowledgeable beard groomer knows that this is too... Features - Odds & Ends Tue, 22 Jul 2008 23:48:09 +0100 http://www.nadamucho.com/news/latest/en_memorium_estelle_getty_1923_-_2008.html Editor’s Note: We are saddened by the news that Estelle Getty died today at the age of 84. Best known for her work as Sophia in the hit 80’s TV show “The Golden Girls,” and for briefly holding down a spot next to Whoopi Goldberg on “Hollywood Squares,” Getty leaves a comedic legacy that will not be soon forgotten. Estelle, you devoted your entire lifetime to giving us the gift of laughter, and for that, we thank you. The following is a NadaMucho story that originally ran in April of 2005. We hope it brings back some of your favorite Estelle Getty memories. DVD Review The Golden Girls: The Complete First Season By Dan Lurie Fantasies can come in all shapes and sizes, and in some cases, ages. While young men across this great nation might claim that Kathy Ireland was their first obsession, they would be lying. Everyone knows that, when it comes to cream dreams... News - Latest Tue, 22 Jul 2008 23:35:45 +0100 http://www.nadamucho.com/live/music/adam_grant_to_seattle_enough_with_the_dick_rock_already.html ALive Kickin’ The Georgetown Music Festival June 11-13, Seattle WA Dear Seattle, Not long after moving back from New York City, I was fortunate enough to see some of Seattle's best bands at the Georgetown Music Festival. Unfortunately, I also had to face the fact that this city has not matured past its love of what I would call 'dick-rock.’ The most notable evidence of this assertion is the over-hyped and over-glamorized Thee Emergency, a band who relies solely on stage presence but lacks solid song-crafting or lyrical prowess.    I am offended that, in a city known for its embrace of incredible music, a band like Thee Emergency would be placed on such a pedestal; many individuals being solely impressed that someone has the guts to grow out an afro or that a girl fronts a garage rock band. Live - Music Sun, 13 Jul 2008 23:54:43 +0100 http://www.nadamucho.com/reviews/album_reviews/r.e.m._revive_aaron_burkhalters_adolescent_superfan_with_accelerate.html R.E.M.- Accelerate Warner Bros (2008) Let me paint you a picture. I'm about 15, walking down the artificially lit hallways of Nathan Hale High School in Seattle. No doubt I'm cradling some varied ratio of recently fired bowls from my pottery class and wet black-and-white photos wrapped in paper towels from my photography class. In addition to the layers of clay and the stench of chemicals, I'm wearing low-top red Converse All-Stars, stone-washed carpenter pants and, the cherry on top, an R.E.M. t-shirt. It might have been the brown one with a little red devil, or the black one with the faux-1950s nuclear family cartoon from their Automatic For The People tour, but most likely it was an orange t-shirt featuring the beheaded body of the bear from Monster, which I continued to wear even as holes developed between the silkscreen details. I wore those shirts to the point where I... Reviews - Album Reviews Thu, 10 Jul 2008 02:02:47 +0100 http://www.nadamucho.com/live/music/yes_you_are_old_sub_pop_turns_20_at_marymoor_park_this_weekend.html Sub Pop is 20 and aging Gracefully 20th Anniversary Festival Saturday, July 12th and Sunday, July 13th Marymoor Park, Redmond, WA Seattle record label Sub Pop came to fame in the late 80's/early 90's as the ultimate showcase in the Seattle sound, which later became known as grunge or punk/garage or whatever you want to call it. Over the years, the label has continued to release quality material that spans the wide musical landscape. Everything from over the top noise destruction (Wolf Eyes) to electronic Indie-pop (The Postal Service) has been fair game. In more recent years, the label's roster has mellowed significantly with bands like Fleet Foxes, Grand Archives and Blitzen Trapper exemplifying a new, post-hippie folk vibe. No matter the musical style, the label's emphasis has always been on exceptional artists, regardless of their widespread commercial appeal. Luckily for the label, some of these great bands have... Live - Music Tue, 08 Jul 2008 18:20:41 +0100 http://www.nadamucho.com/reviews/album_reviews/excerpts_from_a_drunken_memoir_masquerading_as_a_review_of_the_roots_listening_party.html Excerpts from a Drunken Memoir Masquerading as a Review of the Roots' Listening Party for their new CD, Rising Down, at Neumo's on June 5, 2008 ...After we stumbled out of the Rendezvous into the backseat of the cab, I punched in the number for The Trucks' promotions pimp down in Portland, an avowed connoisseur of all things sexy and Scottish, and handed the phone to Kevin. While he purred to her in his Glaswegian brogue, I pulled my finished review of the listening party we were supposedly en route to from my jacket pocket and squinted at what I'd scribbled during Anita Goodmann's show. Not too awful, considering that it was more of a rambling love letter to my various demons and indiscretions than an imagined account of the events about to unfold at Neumo's. Reviews - Album Reviews Wed, 02 Jul 2008 13:59:44 +0100 http://www.nadamucho.com/columns/conflict_of_interest/we_made_a_cd_sounds_from_the_seattle_underground_release_imminent.html Global Seepej Records and NadaMucho.com began within a year of each other in the mid 90s, but it wasn't until 2003 that the two independent organizations crossed paths. Nada High Potentate Matt Ashworth received the debut At the Spine album, The Curriculum is Never Neutral, at his basement office in Kent, Washington and quickly invited the band to play New Music Monday, a weekly showcase for emerging local bands. Within months, Ashworth and ATS front man and Global Seepej head Mike Toschi formed an informal partnership based on their shared love of music and community. After discussing the idea for a few years, Ashworth caught Toschi on the phone drinking enough free beer to agree to put out the compilation. Songs from the Seattle Underground is the first recorded manifestation of that partnership. Columns - Conflict of Interest Tue, 24 Jun 2008 14:25:57 +0100 http://www.nadamucho.com/reviews/movie_reviews/stay_metal_chris_klepac_on_heavy_metal_in_baghdad.html Heavy Metal in Baghdad (http://www.heavymetalinbaghdad.com/) is a wakeup call for musicians, music fans, and Americans of all kinds who have grown numb to the terrible news coming out of Iraq. There have been so many powerful Iraq documentaries of late (Taxi To the Dark Side, Standard Operating Procedure, Body of War) that it's hard to imagine being deeply affected by one more, and even harder to look forward to the experience. However, anyone who loves bands or has ever been in one should consider this film required viewing. Acrassicauda (Latin for black scorpion ) is a heavy metal band made up of four friends from Baghdad who love Metallica, Slayer, and the release that comes from rocking out. The folks at Vice magazine became aware of them in 2003 and began to follow the band's progress, filming them in Baghdad and eventually Syria. Heavy Metal in Baghdad is built from four years of footage of Acrassicauda rehearsing, recording, performing, and simply trying... Reviews - Movie Reviews Tue, 10 Jun 2008 02:33:14 +0100 http://www.nadamucho.com/reviews/album_reviews/vacillating_meter_-_local_band_with_terrible_name_makes_solid_debut.html Indecisive Rhythm Tales from the Dumpster [May 2008; Self Release] Indecisive Rhythm is the brainchild of Amy Mustoe, who has been working the Seattle scene for more than five years with various incarnations of her power pop trio. The band’s sound (lovingly referred to as ‘dumpster pop’) has undergone a series of changes over the years, but with its current and longest-standing line-up, IR seems ready to prove itself as one of Seattle’s best performing acts. Reviews - Album Reviews Thu, 05 Jun 2008 17:33:44 +0100 http://www.nadamucho.com/live/music/folklife_preview_orkestar_zirkoniums_balkan_brass.html We can assume that many unusual and surprising things happened on Capitol Hill last Halloween. Even if bombs had dropped from the sky, though, it probably could not have overshadowed Orkestar Zirkonium (http://www.orkestarzirkonium.com/), a 14-piece brass marching band, playing the strange, sad, yet frenetic music of Southeast Europe’s Roma to people out in the streets that night. Marching down 12th Avenue from Cal Anderson Park, the percussion rattling and the tuba adding inertia with syncopated bass lines, the band paused outside True Value Hardware, had “a rousing time” in The Wild Rose, the famous Capitol Hill lesbian bar, and stormed down the aisles of QFC before the night was over. “You can imagine what people thought,” said Kevin Hinshaw, clarinetist and founding member. “Not just a 14-piece marching band, but 40 strange people following us—who then paraded through the produce aisle and back out the door.” Live - Music Thu, 22 May 2008 16:54:59 +0100 http://www.nadamucho.com/reviews/album_reviews/tax_-_some_gypsy_folk_to_buy_with_your_stimulus_check.html Aranos (http://brainwashed.com/aranos/) - Tax Pieros 2007 Capitalism. The word provokes serious political debate. The kind that is best avoided in the company of surly foreign nationals at your local watering hole. Nevertheless, the topic has made for some great anti-establishment songwriting, even if it is hackneyed and polemic these days. Or is it? It's safe to say that 21st Century America wasn't deceived (http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=6107) for the first time when the phrase fuzzy math driveled from our fearless leaders' lips in 2000. See, today's free market economy has plenty of new virtues. Like rewarding corporate America for disguising our sweatshop textile dependency with arrogant globalization tactics. Like utilizing today's trade programs to exploit cheap labor abroad. Meanwhile, tell folks in Detroit that unemployment is better now (http://www.ppionline.org/ppi_ci.cfm?knlgAreaID=108 subsecID=900003 contentID=253800) than in the 1980s and you might find yourself walking away backwards...very slowly. Reviews - Album Reviews Thu, 15 May 2008 22:39:05 +0100 http://www.nadamucho.com/reviews/album_reviews/the_celebrity_orphans.html The Celebrity Orphans - The Celebrity Orphans Self Released (2008) If sex came in tubes of toothpaste, The Celebrity Orphans (http://www.myspace.com/thecelebrityorphans)squeeze out 39 minutes worth on their new self-titled album. Up-tempo rocksters like Hello, You Got Nothin, and Let Me Tell You are ferociously danceable with BC Campbell (http://www.bccampbellmusic.com/) and company telling the entire world just who's doing the messin' around now. Take a listen to slinky Hello and you can imagine mister broken-heart deciding he was done being the victim: notify my next of kin...cause you and me are gonna sin. Or take the delta-bluesy Let Me Tell You where BC announces, Listen my pretty to my little ditty cuz what do you got to lose? Slow burners like Broken Night and I Need You (with beautiful, haunting back-up vocals from... Reviews - Album Reviews Tue, 13 May 2008 01:38:13 +0100 http://www.nadamucho.com/reviews/album_reviews/tapes_n_tapes_sophomore_release_nestles_nicely_in_modern_indie_category.html Tapes n' Tapes - Walk it Off Beggars Xl Recording (2008) The buzz around Tapes n' Tapes (http://www.tapesntapes.com/) is that they were one of the first blog bands brought to real world fame by an enthusiastic Internet campaign. The truth is that they are just some nice boys who met at Minnesota's Carleton College and put out a couple of albums of catchy indie rock that is somehow both austere and funky. 2005's The Loon introduced a mix of earnest, slightly goofy confusion and tight, ornate rock songs that hearkened back to Spoon, The Feelies, and The Pixies. Their second LP, Walk It Off, is more lush but hardly more subdued. Reviews - Album Reviews Tue, 13 May 2008 01:26:31 +0100 http://www.nadamucho.com/reviews/album_reviews/back_to_the_future_black_mountain_revive_stoner_rock_release_album_of_the_year.html Black Mountain- In the Future Jagjaguwar Records (http://www.jagjaguwar.com/) (2008) If you would have told me six months ago that I’d spend the first half of 2008 gushing over a record steeped in the classic rock sounds of the 70s I would have probably scoffed pretentiously and muttered something about the forthcoming Magnetic Fields album. Enter In the Future: the sophomore release from Canadian retro-rock revivalists Black Mountain (http://www.blackmountainarmy.com/). Ten perfectly executed tracks of booming, intricate rock and spooky folk woven in to a flawless tapestry of awesomeness. Reviews - Album Reviews Fri, 02 May 2008 00:22:06 +0100 http://www.nadamucho.com/reviews/album_reviews/the_beltholes_-_probably_stuck_gum_under_your_desk_in_high_school.html The Beltholes (http://www.thebeltholes.com/) For Whom the Beltholes Burn Burn Burn Records (2007) By Red Lehman I had no idea how to start this review. I considered an analogy to being “on the last belt hole” after eating too much turkey or mentioning that the album has a sample of “Stayin’ Alive,” mentions Eddie and the Cruisers and ends with the word “cocaine” and a cat’s meow. None of these sounded opener-worthy. Thankfully, when the band took the stage during a recent Tractor Tavern appearance, guitarist Kurt Bloch summed it up nicely: “If the last song wasn’t your thing, then your song is coming up next.” Reviews - Album Reviews Tue, 22 Apr 2008 02:16:43 +0100 http://www.nadamucho.com/features/peep_p-town_yo/peep_p-town_a_quick_look_at_the_portland_music_scene.html Derby Derby (http://www.myspace.com/derbyrock) has spent the past four years in virtual training, preparing and patiently waiting their turn to fight for the prize and win the girl. However some have wondered if Derby is ever going to really reach their moment of truth. Well, dear Derbsters, your time has come! By the time their new record, Posters Fade, hits iPods and record stores this summer, you'd better take cover and try to catch one last glimpse of the Derby rocket as it blasts off. Features - Peep P-Town Thu, 17 Apr 2008 00:53:28 +0100 http://www.nadamucho.com/features/promote_this_beeyatch/promote_this_-_a_kid_named_paul_on_a_kid_named_thompson.html A Kid Named Thompson I Want To Wake Up Self-released, 2007 A Kid Named Thompson (http://www.myspace.com/akidnamedthompson) brings to the collective rock table a uniquely Texas-punk meets emo-core CD that delivers the goods. I Want to Wake Up features quality production and thoughtful lyrics backed by a three piece that sounds like they’ve been around, although I suspect these Texas kids are new to the rock game. The lyrics have the polish that reflects the agility of an Xbox generation eager to add to the already crowded room that holds Emo bands in the highest regard. I distinctly hear the talent and agility, but I also hear reflections of Sunny Day Real Estate arm wrestling with Motion City Soundtrack in the back-stage parking lot at a Van’s Warped Tour show in SoCal.... Features - Promote This, Beeyatch Tue, 15 Apr 2008 13:09:04 +0100 http://www.nadamucho.com/reviews/album_reviews/the_pack_a.d._-__two_rugged_cowgirls_make_their_mark_on_rock-n-roll.html The Pack A.D. - Tintype 2007 Mint Records The Pack A.D. (http://www.myspace.com/thepackad) is a duo from British Columbia championing the old-skool sound. Each track on their 2007 release Tintype, on Vancouver's Mint Records (http://www.mintrecords.com/), is a blast of raw emotion and minimalist technique. Maya Miller Becky Black, drums and guitar/vocals respectively, have managed to bring together a unique vision for the tried-and-true duo-rock approach (White Stripes, Black Keys, The Shotgun). They keep it simple and maintain a blues ethos that could be traced straight back to the likes of Robert Johnson by way of Howlin Wolf, Etta James, Tammy Wynette, and Chan Marshall. Reviews - Album Reviews Tue, 08 Apr 2008 01:54:49 +0100 http://www.nadamucho.com/live/music/dropkick_murphys_bring_out_andy_bookwalter’s_secret_skinhead.html Dropkick Murphys at Showbox Sodo (http://www.showboxonline.com/newwebsite/fullcalendar.html) February 28, 2008 Dropkick Murphys (http://www.dropkickmurphys.com) are the greatest band in the world, and I’ll stab anyone who says otherwise. Lumped in with plenty of great-but-inferior street punk bands like The Swingin’ Utters, Flogging Molly and The Bouncing Souls, DKM remind me what punk rock meant before my life crushed my delicate spirit. I was a small town teenage slacker in the early 80’s, and punk promised me a community and an escape from suburban mediocrity. Punk then broke that promise, as will any subculture based on teen angst and beer. After a few years of watching one dive punk bar after another become condos and parking lots, I got bitter. Then one day I heard “Cadence To Arms,” the opening shot from DKM’s Do or Die and it all came back to me. Live - Music Sun, 30 Mar 2008 19:38:54 +0100 http://www.nadamucho.com/live/music/south_by_southwest_diary_day_3_-_ecstatically_peaceful.html SXSW - Day 3 Recap Friday, March 14 It's Friday morning and the bloody marys are flowing like mountain spring water at the Red Eyed Fly. We show up as the club doors open and start chugging the vegetable-fortified beverages, a plastic cup in each free hand. Eight essential vitamins plus vodka, what more could you ask for? The Magic Bullets, hailing from San Francisco, take the stage. There's nothing new about their sound, but the gangly lead singer (whose wingspan might rival Kevin Garnett's) does a nice job of captivating the crowd by swaying back and forth like an alder tree in a windstorm. Live - Music Mon, 24 Mar 2008 00:00:00 +0100