Music Review: Seasick Steve, Hubcap Music

By Melissa Bratcher

Seasick Steve is an analog man in a digital world. He makes guitars out of hubcaps and garden implements, and makes rustic, bluesy music that feels pulled from the earth itself. The irony here is that I only have his music digitally, save for a 45 that I probably should play on a hamster powered Victrola.

Hubcap Music is Seasick Steve’s second album for Third Man Records, and he’s a perfect fit for Jack White’s label. He’s doing something different and interesting, and it’s fascinating. Besides, Hubcap Music begins and ends with the sound of a tractor, and how could that be anything but interesting?

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Music Review: Joe Tex, Bumps & Bruises

By Melissa Bratcher

For a while, Joe Tex billed himself as “The Clown Prince Of Soul.” He was a gifted mimic and on one occasion, annoyed James Brown so badly that Brown tracked Tex to a club and shot it up while Joe Tex hid outside. That part isn’t so funny. The collection of songs on BBR’s reissue of 1977’s Bumps & Bruises, however, is often hilarious.

Joe Tex converted to Islam at the height of his career, while still riding high from 1972’s chart success of “I Gotcha.” He quit recording for five years and came back during disco fever. Bumps & Bruises is disco filtered through Tex’s unique sense of humor and funk.

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Music Review: After The Ice, Thick Snow Magic EP

By Less Lee Moore

It isn’t often that a band like After The Ice comes my way, so when it happens, it is the best kind of surprise. Their new EP, Thick Snow Magic, starts with a tight, classic metal sound but subtly transforms into something more akin to Radiohead, and then back again to metal. What’s most remarkable is that the shift doesn’t feel abrupt but completely natural.

With a sound like theirs, it’s even more impressive that After The Ice is just a trio, comprised of singer/guitarist Paul Lisak, drummer Tomek-Tomek, and bassist Hamzah Bashir. Lisak has an amazing metal wail and a terrific vibrato but he doesn’t overuse either. Oh, and his guitar licks are hot.

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DVD Review: The English Teacher

By Less Lee Moore

Withing the first ten minutes of The English Teacher, I thought, “This is a good, light-hearted comedy.” It’s the tale of Linda Sinclair (Julianne Moore), a high school English teacher who decides to help her former student, a failed playwright suffering from a crisis of confidence, produce his play with the help of the high school’s drama teacher Carl (Nathan Lane).

The film immediately sets up Linda’s character as a single, middle-aged woman—plain but pretty—who watches A Room With A View at home while eating organic food, and its clever voice over narration won me over. Then things got weird. I don’t mean David Lynch weird, but The English Teacher was definitely not the movie I thought it was going to be.

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Assemblog: October 4, 2013

Locke

New this week on Popshifter: Jeff is terrified of V/H/S/2, besotted with Sunset Graves’ Variant, and a little embarrassed about “Torn Between Two Lovers”; Paul provides a fascinating treatise linking Blade Runner to The Weeknd and Janelle Monáe; Melissa might be in love with both Blitzen Trapper’s VII and The Wood Brothers’ The Muse albums; Chelsea thinks Just Desserts, the new Waitresses retrospective, is quite tasty; and I thrill to White Lies at Toronto’s Opera House, and recommend new music from Blouse and Terry Malts.

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Music Review: Terry Malts, Nobody Realizes This Is Nowhere

By Less Lee Moore

Terry Malts isn’t a person, but a trio from San Francisco. Their new album, Nobody Realizes This Is Nowhere, recalls the easy, breezy days of the early ’90s, before everything was labeled grunge and focused on that blond haired guy with blue eyes and everyone who went on to rip off his band.

No offense to that guy and his band, by the way, because I like them just fine, but there was a whole lot more to the decade than Nirvana. I had a lot of good times back then, and at the risk of sounding like your uncle who waxes nostalgic about the ’70s whenever he hears The Eagles, there was a lot of good music to accompany those times.

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Music Review: The Wood Brothers, The Muse

By Melissa Bratcher

I’ll just put this out there now: I think I’m in love with The Muse. The Wood Brothers’ new album is pure auditory bliss and I might never stop listening to it. Recorded “the old fashioned way,” with the band circled around microphones and all in the same room, The Muse has warmth and analog coziness. There’s a loose-limbed, ramshackleness to it that is delightful.

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Music Review: Blouse, Imperium

By Less Lee Moore

Not sure how Blouse’s debut passed me by, but I’m certainly glad to know of them now. Their second album, Imperium, is a shoegazer’s daydream: echoey, deadpan vocals and layers upon layers of reverbed guitars and bass. From a lyrical perspective, Imperium is fixated on looking and seeing, themes that recur frequently in the band’s clever lyrics.

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Concert Review: White Lies at The Opera House

By Less Lee Moore

Toronto, ON
October 1, 2013

Waiting for White Lies to take the stage on Tuesday, I think I might have been trembling just a bit. If you’ve heard me raving about their recent (and third) album Big TV then it won’t surprise you (review). If you haven’t, then you need to hear the album immediately, but only if you love sweeping, mildly melancholic pop with damn-near-poetic lyrics.

Opening act In The Valley Below had a cool look and a sound to match. The male members of the band were dressed in shirts, pants, and leather suspenders, while singer Angela Gail showed off a stunning white prairie dress and a black hat. She and guitarist/singer Jeffrey Jacob had lovely, mournful harmonies and their music was just dark enough to provide a nice appetizer for White Lies.

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Waxing Nostalgic Connecting The Dots: Mary MacGregor, “Torn Between Two Lovers”

By Jeffery X Martin

1976 was the year of America’s 200th birthday. We walked smugly around our little town in ugly red, white, and blue shirts. We shot off fireworks while Europe rolled its eyes and told us to stay the hell of its lawn. Jingoism, patriotism, and parades were the order of the summer. Eagles and sno-cones, commemorative quarters and flags, colors that refused to run. We picnicked under the shadow of thousands of unseen missiles, our thin windbreakers and bravado enough to shield us from the chill of the Cold War.

As fall crept in and the charcoal grill fires slowly died, something insidious began to snake its way through the country. I see it now as a virus, its simplicity masking its evil intent. By the time winter rolled around, we were all infected. We wouldn’t be the same for years.

You know what 45s were, right? They were like full-length vinyl records, except they were singles. One song per side, and they had to played at a faster speed then LP’s, for reasons that I don’t know enough science to fully comprehend. The first 45 I ever bought was Mary MacGregor’s “Torn Between Two Lovers.” I was seven years old.

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