Douglas Martin briefly beat-boxed in Department of Eagles. Listening to Grizzly Bear inspires adjectives usually foreign to critically-acclaimed, avant-garde New York City bands: pristine, nuanced, sophisticated. The Big Apple is supposed to be dirtier than everywhere else. Its artists are supposed to be darker, weirder, more damaged, more openly self-destructive. The Velvet Underground. Sonic Youth. […]

Douglas Martin’s favorite slow dance is the Southern minuet. You better ask somebody. Though perhaps not long and slow, the career of the Fresh & Onlys up to this point has certainly been a dance. It started off in whirlwind fashion, not even half a decade ago, with the rapid-fire release of both their self-titled […]

An American Flag. A drum kit laden with flowers. A blurry lens. A scarecrow that dresses a lot like yours truly. Chasing geese. Playing baseball with a red guitar. A mysterious, gorgeous lady on a rowboat. Mike Donovan playing guitar for the lady. The lady playing guitar for Mike Donovan. Mike Donovan swinging from a […]

Douglas Martin is loosely affiliated with the Kinski Assassins. Ask no more questions. I. PROLOGUE When we last left Ariel Rosenberg, he was laughing his way to the bank. After over a decade of being underrated, misunderstood, and sometimes downright loathed, he released 2010’s fascinatingly cracked Before Today and the world of indie music finally […]

Douglas Martin is back with scuffed Chucks. Now that we’ve reached the Age of Iceage, it appears Americans have uncovered a side of Northeast Europe most have been unaware of. After the Danish teens released my second-favorite record of 2011, we’ve experienced a wave of loud guitars and heavily accented English. With bands like Vår, […]

Douglas Martin is Russell Westbrook’s spirit animal. Not to undercut my entire post before I even start it, but if you plan on listening to either volume of White Fence‘s Family Perfume, you should listen to both of them all the way through. I understand that you are likely a very busy person with a […]

Art by Paul Hudson A year ago, White Fence was the best-kept secret of California’s hyper-fertile psych-rock scene, turning in a promising self-titled album in 2010 and 2011’s phenomenal “Is Growing Faith.” Somewhere between then and now, Tim Presley started touring regularly, hooked up with Ty Segall– the reigning crown prince of garage-punk– and had […]

Douglas Martin is considering a move to Baltimore. Maybe. We all have our preconceived notions of what great artists do and how they go about adding to their canon of great work. I think the most important thing an enduring artist can do is fuck with the expectations of their audience while satisfying themselves creatively. […]

Ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Douglas Martin. Dum Dum Girls covered them. At the height of their popularity, The Shins titled a noisy 56-second song after Pam Berry. The Pains of Being Pure at Heart should have to have their Slumberland paychecks garnished and paid back to the band they bit their whole style from. For […]

Douglas Martin has finally returned from an exclusive summit, where he drank limited-edition microbrews with Waldo, Carmen Sandiego, Machiavelli, and the members of Eat Skull. He is happy to be back. In spite of my absence from the music writing world for the past couple of months in favor of occupying myself with mental restoration […]