What started as a side project from a happenstance meeting with a next-door neighbor has become more of a full-time gig for Brad and Andrew Barr. The brothers, once core members of The Slip, a consistently changing band built on improvisational jazz and indie rock, also played in side projects, among them Surprise Me Mr. […]
Mark Shikuma
Posted inArts + Scene
The Black Power Mixtape 1967-1975
The making of the excellent documentary, The Black Power Mixtape 1967-1975, an artfully edited collage of unearthed archival film footage, came by accident. “There was a rumor around for years among filmmakers that Sweden had more archive material on the Black Panthers than the entire USA,” said Göran Olsson, the film’s director, interviewed in the […]
Posted inMusic
To the Death of Fun
Having stumbled upon a cleverly crafted, hook-filled pop single, “42 West Avenue,” by Northern Ireland singer-songwriter Danny Todd (under the moniker of Cashier No. 9), I looked forward to more. After three years of writing new songs and putting together a band (of mainly Belfast friends/musicians), Cashier No. 9, is now a bona fide band. […]
Posted inMusic
Darling Specimens
It’s apparent that Oakland-based singer-songwriter Zoe Boekbinder comes from a theatrical background. In 2005, she started performing with her sister Kim as one half of a cabaret duo, Vermilion Lies. However, since her 2009 solo release, Artichoke Perfume, Boekbinder has slowly grown from her vaudevillian and musical theater influences, without losing her thespian roots altogether. […]
Posted inMusic
The Kids Eat It Up: The Best of Robert Pollard 2010-2011
Age has hardly slowed down the hyper-prolific nature of artist and songwriter Robert Pollard, the 54-year-old leader of Guided By Voices. After disbanding the legendary indie group in 2004, he reunited with the “classic” mid-‘90s GBV line-up for a brief 2010-11 tour and recorded a batch of new songs, Let’s Go Eat the Factory, due […]
Posted inMusic
Shikuma’s Top Shelf Music Picks 2011
The year 2011 brought a bumper crop of excellent recordings, so many it was difficult to narrow the field to 10. An overwhelming number of female artists led the charge with superb eclectic releases. There were a plethora of outstanding solo releases: the innovative hybrids of tUnE-yArDs (aka Merrill Garbus), the dark, intense lyricism of […]
Posted inMusic
The SMiLE Sessions
When Brian Wilson convinced skeptical members of The Beach Boys to explore a more artistic, experimental form of pop, the band recorded Pet Sounds, released in the spring of 1966. Packed with sophisticated and eccentric orchestration and arrangements, Pet Sounds was a pop masterpiece, garnering high praise from his peers, notably The Beatles. Soon thereafter, […]
Posted inArts + Scene
Meek’s Cutoff
The hand-drawn map of southern Oregon that opens the new Kelly Reichardt film is subtly foreboding and apt. Reichardt, best known for smaller independent films set in the Northwest, such as Wendy and Lucy and Old Joy, has stepped up production values with her exceptional period work, Meek’s Cutoff. The film, availalbe on DVD, focuses […]
Posted inMusic
Only in Dreams
When Kristen Gundred (aka Dee Dee) started Dum Dum Girls from her bedroom, her influences were pretty much tattooed on her arm: ‘60s garage, culled from the Nuggets collections, ‘60s girl groups, especially from the Phil Spector/Brill Building hit factory, and ‘90s lo-fi pop. When she released her debut, I Will Be, a collaboration with […]
Posted inMusic
Bad as Me
When Tom Waits was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame earlier this year, he noted, “They say I have no hits and I’m difficult to work with, and they say that like it’s a bad thing.” For his first studio album of new songs since 2004’s Real Gone, Tom Waits seems to […]
Posted inMusic
Obscurities
Best known as the leader of The Magnetic Fields, eccentric singer/songwriter Stephin Merritt has also written Chinese operas, musicals and film scores. For Obscurities, a terrific collection of rarities and previously unreleased material, Merritt looks back and cherry picks a number of obscure gems — not without a price. “It was agony to put together,” […]
Posted inMusic
The Old Magic
Nicknamed “Basher” in the late ‘70s for his quick, immediate recording methods, Nick Lowe, often pictured these days in a white dress shirt, cardigan sweater and black-framed Buddy Holly glasses, may strike you more as an eccentric elderly uncle rather than a pioneering musician, songwriter and producer who was in the center of a thriving […]