| Douglas Martin’s Dirty Shoes: The Dirty 30 of 2014 | December 23, 2014 |
Douglas Martin chose thirty great songs for 2014. THIRTY! (c) Danny Brown
| Douglas Martin’s Dirty Shoes: Amen Dunes “Song to the Siren” | December 10, 2014 |
Douglas Martin kicks the tires on Amen Dunes' cover of a beloved tune by Tim Buckley and This Mortal Coil
| Douglas Martin’s Dirty Shoes: Iceage Plows Into a Brave New World | November 10, 2014 |
Something's still rotten in Denmark.
| Douglas Martin’s Dirty Shoes: The Mantles Play the Memory Game | November 6, 2014 |
Douglas Martin loves board games. The Mantles may have been borne out of the same dive bar garage-rock boom that swept the San Francisco Bay area before high rents and tech yuppies forced most of them out, but they’ve always had this sweetness about them that belies their peers. I’m not sure if it’s Michael […]
| Douglas Martin’s Dirty Shoes: Mr. Noah if You’re Nasty | October 27, 2014 |
Douglas Martin knows what you did last summer at the Jetty. In the Year of Our Lord 2014, Noah is still the humble shepherd forced with the task of leading whatever we refer to as “indie music” to the fabled promised land. Whereas most of Tomboy felt more subdued and its best moments either […]
| Douglas Martin’s Dirty Shoes: Warpaint and the Weight of Subtlety | January 31, 2014 |
Douglas Martin still has the strongest look on the Internet. Subtlety is a grossly undervalued quality in rock music. Ever since the advent of the volume knob, the sort of guitar music that gets us most inspired is either heavy as a brick or as shrill as a toothache. If you practice chiefly in the […]
| Passion of the Weiss Mix Series: Monster Rally | November 1, 2013 |
If you’re at all familiar with his work, it’s fitting that Ted Feighan moved from Ohio to Los Angeles. Over the past handful of years, Feighan’s sublime solo project Monster Rally has evolved from the Seasonal Affective Disorder escapism of exotic loop-based psychedelia/tropicalia to the twinkly-eyed glamor of Old Hollywood. With each successive release, he’s […]
| Douglas Martin’s Dirty Shoes: Yuppies, Parquet Courts, and the Return of Smarty, Arty (Indie-)Rock | October 14, 2013 |
I. WHATEVER HAPPENED TO INDIE-ROCK? It’s telling that Parquet Courts are routinely described as a “punk” or “punk-influenced” band instead of an indie-rock group, because we’ve rendered the term absolutely useless. We’ve left it for the mainstream types to use the term on groups as disparate as Grizzly Bear and Beach House. Instead, the more […]
| Douglas Martin’s Dirty Shoes: “Teardrop Guitar” and the Value of Rock ‘n Roll Aesthetes | October 3, 2013 |
Crocodiles – “Teardrop Guitar” Video from stereogum on Vimeo. Douglas Martin doesn’t understand the hullabaloo surrounding @horse_ebooks. Maybe he’s just getting old. Crocodiles have always been the sort of “style over substance” band whose natty style and well-worn and carefully curated influences (Jesus and Mary Chain, Spacemen 3) are discussed at greater length than […]
| Douglas Martin’s Dirty Shoes: On Joanna Gruesome and Why “Twee” Shouldn’t Be a Four-Letter Word | September 23, 2013 |
Douglas Martin was a groomsman at Andy Samberg’s wedding. Where were you the first time you heard the word twee? Back in the glory days of AOL Instant Messenger, I was chatting up a friend when during our conversation, his older sister told him she wanted to listen to something with trumpets. After a few […]
