Douglas Martin is not interested in gold mines, oil wells, shipping, or real estate. October 2, 2003. Ten people deep, seated among my closest friends at a Red Robin, smiles circling as the staff performed their obligatory birthday announcement. Handclaps striking through the air like tiny shots from miniature cap guns. This detail's entirely unimportant if not been for the presents stacked in front of me. The most important is a CD that bears the image of two people sitting on a treasure chest, the man dressed in red like dapper Nashville cowboy, the [...]
Douglas Martin picks Cherries in Yakima , boxes with shadows, and managed to leave "In the Garage" off this mix-presumably as punishment for "Beverly Hills." You're out of school for the next two-and-a-half months. You don't have a job, and your parents won't lift a finger to help you get a car until you get one. You just checked the weather report, and it's supposed to be Hot as Hell Degrees. So, what do you do? You [...]
Douglas Martin normally blogs at Fresh Cherries from Yakima. He has never been to Yakima, but he can do the Watusi. Being the world's foremost blipster sure is a thankless job. Ever since I was given the opening quote in that infamous January 2007 feature in the New York Times about that new, cutting-edge subculture that long before had merely been known as "Afropunk" or "Tight Pants Wearin'-Ass Negroes" or whatever, my life's been a whirlwind of dust, from being a public representative of Pacific-Northwestern black kids who [...]
I've been meaning to write about Fresh Cherries From Yakima's debut LP, Buttons For North Carolina for some time now, but it's an elusive record to wrap your head around, a gnarled, slippery work that leaves you vainly groping for the proper adjectives. It's an acoustic art record of ghostly, skeletal folk songs, sliced open occasionally by a thin blade of gurgling electronic static and fleeting, plaintive piano lines. It's mood music, bad mood music, hissing shadows on warehouse walls, carrying an unsettling, serpentine slink in its rhythm. Martin's lyrics are both clever and caustic, [...]
If home is where you hang your hat then Silverlake is rapidly turning into the world's largest hat rack. Over the past 12 months, it has become de rigueur in hipster courting rituals for male hipsters (homo habilus hipstericus) to trot out increasingly ridiculous pieces of vintage head-ware in an effort to woo the female species of hipster (homo habilus hipstripesicus). A trend once confined to the deepest recesses of the Cha Cha Lounge has spread like wildfire, consuming most of Hollywood and threatening as far west as the Fairfax district. As a native Angeleno dedicated to the preservation [...]
Fresh Cherries From Yakima , the solo project of singer-songwriter Douglas Martin, has decided to make its debut album, Buttons for North Caroline, available as a free and legal download. I have been a fan of Martin's songwriting for several years (as well as his blogging ). If you enjoy the album, please help spread the word about this singer-songwriter with a lo-fi aesthetic. In his own words, Douglas Martin introduces the album and the individual songs: salutations, ladies and gentlemen. i'm douglas martin, singer/songwriter/virtually everything else for fresh cherries [...]
The Passion of the Weiss
largehearted boy
Commercial Watch: Bon Iver, Art Brut, Roxy Music, Kanye, M83 + more
New: Chelsea Burgin – Fade Into You (Mazzy Star Cover)
Spökraket; Serotonin
