Maybe you’re a complete different from me. Perhaps you didn’t think that 2011 was an unspeakably good for music. Maybe you didn’t pull all-nighters narrowing down your favorite music of the year to a manageable– not concise, but manageable– length. Perhaps you didn’t have to tweak your lists dozens of times to make sure it […]
| Douglas Martin’s Dirty Shoes: Back in Bleached | November 29, 2011 |
To everyone’s enduring lament, Douglas Martin can’t dissect every single girl-group slanted single that slides down the information super highway. So, after taking a lengthy vacation of exactly one Bleached song, I’m back by popular demand (no Popeye). For the A-side of the forthcoming “Searching Through the Past” seven-inch, one of LA’s best new punk […]
| Douglas Martin’s Dirty Shoes: Hunter’s Moon, Ruffled Feathers | October 31, 2011 |
Douglas Martin only endorses the wearing of fur in rare circumstances. In the past three years or so, girl-group garage has gone from a flourishing sub-genre to a crowded scene. From the punk fury of Vivian Girls to the ethereal bliss of Costa Rican grunge band Las Robertas, it’s gotten to the point where it’s […]
Douglas Martin has a bridge in Brooklyn he would like to sell you. You’d be hard-pressed to find a single critically-acclaimed band that has garnered as much cautious praise and backhanded compliments as Real Estate. Due to their floating, easygoing nature, nobody really wants to be the critic who gives the hard sell on the […]
| Douglas Martin’s Dirty Shoes: Life Sux and the Return of Wavves | October 6, 2011 |
Douglas Martin originally had “triumphant return” in the headline. Riddle me this: Is there any musician that has gotten more mileage out of the divisive battlefield that is internet music fandom than Nathan Williams? Is there one who has managed to stay firmly rooted in the public eye by any means necessary? The Californian twentysomething […]
| Douglas Martin’s Dirty Shoes: Romantic Comedy, a Romantic Comedy Starring Big Troubles | September 29, 2011 |
Douglas Martin is sleepless in Seattle. From: [email address redacted] To: [email address redacted] Date: Tuesday, September 27th, 2011 Subject: Romantic Comedy Pitch Hey, [redacted]. Here’s that pitch for the romantic comedy I was talking about. You know how you were talking about wanting a movie that appeals to the ever-elusive indie-rock crowd? Well, I […]
| Douglas Martin’s Dirty Shoes: Only in Dreams and the Coming Down of Dum Dum Girls | September 22, 2011 |
Douglas Martin once went by the name Ray Ray Nickel. Dee Dee Penny is nowhere near as divisive as she could be. She’s the rare musician in indie rock to seemingly have it all. The unfettered admiration of the lo-fi/garage sticker set and the intrigued curiosity of mainstream-alternative media. She’s an outstanding curator of influences […]
| Douglas Martin’s Dirty Shoes: The Spellbinding Strangeness of Amen Dunes | September 20, 2011 |
Douglas Martin also enjoys Dunes. In spite of garnering comparisons to nearly every old “weird” singer / songwriter on the block (Skip Spence, Roky Erickson, Chris Knox, etc.), there’s something remarkably distinctive about the music of Amen Dunes. For starters, he sounds like he’s singing words from a different language. Sometimes it sounds like he’s […]
If you squint, you can spot Douglas Martin on the speedboat adjacent to the Golden Gate Bridge. What separates Wooden Shjips is their ability to take the template of classic-rock and push it far, far, far past its logical conclusion. While bands many of their fellow San Francisco bands have gotten by on well-played revivalism […]
| Question in the Form of an Answer: Bleached | September 6, 2011 |
After playing “Think of You” about seventy consecutive times, I emailed Jeff at what must have been 2:30 in the morning and breathlessly praised them a little longer than I should have. He received an equally long-winded rave in his box when I found out that Bleached principals Jennifer and Jessica Clavin– formerly of Mika […]
