// Category Archive for: Issues

The Darkest Of The Hillside Thickets: An Interview With Toren Atkinson

Interviewed by Megashaun

I first heard of The Darkest of the Hillside Thickets at last year’s Penny Arcade Expo. The band was there and had a booth set up because they were playing at one of the concerts during the convention. Around this time, their song, “Shhh…” was introduced as downloadable content for the video game Rock Band. Although initially drawn to them by the visual aesthetic of their album designs and the scruffy yet handsome appearance of the band’s members, I was pleased to find out upon listening to their album Cthulhu Strikes Back that the band has a great deal of musical talent and that their music has a lot more going for it than catchy hooks and bellowing vocals.

When I later listened to The Shadow Out of Tim, I was even more impressed. The album’s dark undertones are a perfect complement to its catchy, even poppy, foundation. It’s also just a little bit scary, but more importantly it kicks a lot of ass.

The Darkest of the Hillside Thickets are known for their energetic live shows. While I’ve sadly never had the opportunity to see them play live, I can tell just from looking at photos that the shows must be a great deal of fun. That, and Toren Atkinson, lead singer of the band, tells a good story about the origins of their live shtick.

Photo from thickets.net
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Wave Of Adulation: Black Francis

By J Howell

The Riot Room, Kansas City MO
July 27, 2009

Sometimes the universe works in peculiar ways. Barely a week before Black Francis’ solo show at the Riot Room was announced, my girlfriend and I were having a discussion about the best shows we’d seen, during which I raved about the Pixies live and she related a story to me about sneaking into an amazing sold-out Frank Black gig in San Francisco years ago. We both lamented that the Pixies were playing shows in the UK at the time, but none Stateside. A few days later, I was in joyous disbelief that Black Francis was not only coming to town, but also playing in a tiny venue where we could be literally two feet away. Thanks, universe!
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Five Faves: Sherlock Holmes In TV And Film

By Lisa Anderson

There is a new Sherlock Holmes movie coming out in December, and I for one am a little nervous.

Now, I’m no Holmes expert, even though I read some of the original stories by Arthur Conan Doyle when I was younger. And I was actually excited about the project at first, because of the involvement of Robert Downey, Jr. and in spite of widespread skepticism over the director, Guy Ritchie. It was the trailer that really concerned me.
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Buzz Aldrin, Magnificent Desolation

By Emily Carney

We’re all BFFs! REALLY!

As a kid I was absolutely obsessed with the Apollo missions from the late 1960s and early 1970s. As an adult, I still am.
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We Came, We Saw, We Want It To Go Away

By Pearce Holland

Another Halloween approacheth, and with it, for some inexplicable reason, another Saw movie is poised for release. Many people think the Saw movies are terrible. Others see them as torture porn. I love horror movies and agonized over what to focus on for this particular season of fright, and with the downswing of torture porn’s popularity as a horror subgenre, I think the Saw movies (I through V) are a pretty appropriate choice.
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Moon: Does Sam Bell Dream Of Electric Sheep?

By Christian Lipski

SPOILER ALERT: I saw the movie, and am going to refer to specific things that happen in it. If you are looking for an article that will let you know if you should go see this film, here it is:

Yes. Go see it.

The rest of this article will be about my impressions of the movie and its major topics.
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Electric Six, KILL

By Christian Lipski

“You can’t run away from your legs, because that’s what you’re trying to run away from them with!”
—unknown SubGenius

In “Waste Of Time And Money,” the second track on the new Electric Six album KILL, Dick Valentine sings: Take this back to where we started. It’s not possible to avoid your origins forever; eventually you’re going to have to accept that your beginnings are part of what makes you unique, and embrace them. Or in Electric Six’s case, you just plug them in and dance along with them.
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The Eternal (Sonic) Youth

By J Howell

Uptown Theater, Kansas City MO
July 18, 2009

On some level, it must be hard being one of the most influential bands of the last thirty years. It goes without saying that at this point Sonic Youth is definitely that. Having (almost unbelievably) never seen them prior to their stop at the Uptown for the Eternal tour, I wasn’t quite sure what to expect. Sure, I’d heard stories about how raucous their sets were, about mind-numbing feedback, and about how in recent years their shows had become more beautiful than pummeling. Somehow, their performance turned out to be simultaneously everything and nothing I’d expected it to be.
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My So-Called Teen Movies: Five Fave John Hughes Moments

By Laura L.

Recently, the world lost a talented writer/director in John Hughes, who died of a heart attack at the age of 59. Hughes defined 1980s adolescent teen angst, writing and directing such movies as Sixteen Candles, Weird Science, The Breakfast Club, Pretty in Pink, and Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. Yes, it’s true that the quality of his work eventually went downhill (Maid in Manhattan. No, seriously!), but those of us brought up in the ’80s—or, in my case, afterward—his high-school-era films really seemed to strike a chord. Here are my five favorite scenes from five John Hughes movies.
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Thirteen Thrilling Tales: More Halloween Movies

By Less Lee Moore

Last year I recommended ten films to watch in “Ten Instruments Of Evil.” In this issue of Popshifter, I’ve upped the ante to a baker’s diabolical dozen.
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