Well, it's Friday and you know what that means. Yes, my Oriental fille de shmeckel-bopping Fah Lo Suee and I will be heading to the Canadian border, where we plan to bar the suddenly unemployed Lou Dobbs from entering illegally. Sorry, Lou -- you will not pass!!! It'll be sort of like 300 , only not as screamingly gay and with health insurance. Sooo, as a result, posting by moi will be sporadic for a couple of days. But in the meantime, here's a fun [...]

We're halfway through the decade, so let's recap: Find Part One: 2000-2001 HERE , along with full bios of all contributors! Find Part Two: 2002-2003 HERE ! Want part three: 2004? Go here! THE BEST COMICS OF THE DECADE: Part Four: 2005 All-Star Batman & Robin Frank Miller/Jim Lee Sporadically from 2005-2008, currently on hiatus At this point in the [...]

Oh! 'Twas a stormy sea of unpredictable moods that night at the lonely Douglas Fir Lounge . One solitary bike clung indifferently to the otherwise deserted bike rack outside the venue. Raindrops fell with a shrug as if to say, "I don't know what the hell I'm doing here in August either." The box-office lady sat bored and disappointed, chin-in-hands, behind the will-call window. The ticket-takers chatted amongst themselves between the odd straggler demanding an ID check and the Doug Fir's signature 'antler' wrist stamp. The sleepy eyed bartender was actually brushing his teeth and putting on pajamas just [...]

Last week while I was listening to Kevin Cole on KEXP he played a song from Purrs ' new album followed by the Dream Syndicate 's Tell Me When It's Over which reminded me of a couple things. One, how much I love Kevin Cole's kid in a candy store approach to his daily show (you never know what he might grab off the shelf) and two: how much the Purrs seem to be influenced by the Paisley Underground. About a year ago when I saw them across the street from the Green [...]

While I went to punk shows on and off for a few years, it wasn't until 1987 or so when I regularly started going to punk shows all the time. At the time, in Seattle, the Teen Dance Ordinance made it hard to put on all-ages shows, so venues in nearby towns like Tacoma and Bremerton had success in drawing a lot of us from the city to shows. In Tacoma the primary all-ages punk venue was the Community World Theater, an old movie theater turned punk venue that hosted about three dozen shows in 1987 and 1988. [...]

After four long days, which featured torrential downpours, grueling heat, lots of mud, and over a hundred of music's best acts, the 2009 edition of the Bonnaroo Music Festival is now and will forever will be a memory. Join us, while we remember and review the festival that was Bonnaroo '09… Sun and The Boss. It was hard not to be excited about those two things as Saturday descended on the green fields of Bonnaroo. And that's without mentioning everything else making up day three. Trent? Wilco? The Mars Volta? A lack of mud, [...]
My grass is really green. I never have to water the flowers in my garden. Sunscreen is unnecessary. The roads are clear, the stores empty and the dump deserted. Naps are perfect to while away part of the afternoon. The house is cool, even cold, great for nighttime sleeping. I know. I know. It does seem superfluous, but I need to say it. We have another day of clouds, dampness and afternoon rain. I'm working hard here to take a positive approach. I loved my yellow slicker. It made crunchy noises when I walked. The rain drops dripped [...]
Were it the 1970s, this record would sell a million copies.
The Soft Tags - "Lunar Eclipse Song" Bio: Soft Tags are from the indie music hotbed of Portland, OR. It rains constantly. We live in direct sight of at least one volcano at any time. Sometimes they spew smoke. Under the volcanoes, we have been playing for sold out shows in the Pacific Northwest and writing music that we feel is pretty unique – acoustic guitars are fuzzed out through tube amps and melodic, chiming guitars carry the melodies we couldn't get out of heads back on college radio circa 1981. [...]
T he first new full-length CD of the Green Pajamas' 60s influenced psych-pop since Green Monkey/Bomp released the truly excellent "Ghost of Love" in 1990. Main songwriter Jeff Kelly has always been one of the US's finest practitioners of the psychedelic pop song, and over the last few years his songwriting has reached dazzling maturity and depth, as showcased in his most recent solo album "Ash Wednesday Rain". Believing that "Ghosts of Love" was the Green Pajamas "Rubber Soul" and that Kelly and Co still had a "Revolver" in them waiting to be drawn out, [...]
wake up your body, wake up your head Green Go - Brains For Breakfast Green Go hail from Ontario, Canada and play jump-up-and-down rock music like only people cooped up indoors all winter can. If Summer is taking it's sweet ass time to arrive where you are then put on your pajamas, crank up "Brains For Breakfast," and jump on your bed (or parents, if available). Just remember, it's all fun and games until somebody accidentally unplugs the stereo. Bury your face in MySpace
I've known Jeff Kelly (the creative dynamo who's stoked the fires of the Green Pajamas for the past quarter-century), his vivaci ous wife Susanne and their daughters Jane and Tess for about 12 years now. It was one of those relationships that just instantly clicked the first time Kelly and I spoke on the phone, then finally met in person [...]

Top Album Releases: April 2009 Nick's Top The Crocodiles: Summer Of Hate Wooden Shjips: Dos Casiotone for the Painfully Alone: Vs. Children Bat for Lashes: Two Suns Pomegranates: Everybody, Come Outside! [...]

Lots of new releases this week, but none that I'm particularly excited about. Though, I am a little intrigued with A Camp , a collaboration between Nina Persson of The Cardigans , and Niclas Frisk. At this point, I will pretty much listen to anything Persson is involved with. Some other notable releases include Bob Dylan's Together Through Life (his 46th album!), Thee Oh Sees' Help , Immaculate Machine's High , Still Flyin's Never Gonna Touch The Ground , and Japandroids' [...]
This is a fairly light week, relatively speaking. Releases of particular note, though, include Crocodiles' Summer of Hate , which we've got streaming all week , Japandroids' Post-Nothing , which Insound has the vinyl exclusive on (it's vinyl and digital only), and a few great new vinyl reissues of some classic albums, including Pulp's This Is Hardcore , Townes Van Zandt's Live at the Old Quarter , and two seminal Flipper albums . The sad news [...]

Try It Before You Buy It features free and legal mp3 downloads and full album streams from this week's music releases : A Camp: Colonia full album stream Ben Folds: Ben Folds Presents: University a Cappella! full album stream [...]
Do you care about this week? I sure don't. I'm having a hard time finding anything here that I won't be checking out purely out of curiosity. Okay, maybe with the exception of Bob Dylan and Paper Route , but even those are sketchy. I'd be all into the Wilco DVD if I had some way to preview it, but of course Buzzgrinder's not cool enough for such an honor. Now I'm depressed. :: A Camp , Colonia (Nettwerk) [ full album [...]

The Spider-Man(ifesto): Life Lessons From a Superhero By Sam Reeder Finish this sentence: "With great power there must also come ________." Now if your first impulse was to answer "extreme affluence, high quality means of transportation, and hot bitches," then not only are you a dick, but you need to brush up on your Spider-Man too. This is arguably the most famous line in comic book history. Written by the extraordinary Stan Lee and delivered by Uncle Ben to Peter Parker [...]

Bob Dylan releases his 46th album tomorrow, Together Through Life , and you can pick up the single CD , 2-CD plus DVD , or vinyl LP and CD versions. Of course, you could enter this week's Largehearted Boy contest and win the limited edition along with a couple of my favorite books about Dylan. A Camp's Colonia is a strikingly beautiful collaboration between the Cardigans' Nina Persson and Niclas Frisk. Among the rest of the week's new releases [...]