In the pilot episode of Mike Judge’s sorely underrated music history series Tales from the Tour Bus, Judge explains he wanted to do the show because he found it funny that conservatives constantly bemoaned the violent, drug-fueled antics of gangster rappers when so many country legends were just as wild, if not worse. Any good student […]
Let’s Do the Panic Again: Phantom Planet Returns
It’s been seven years since Phantom Planet played a “proper show” in Los Angeles. But at the Lodge Room on Friday, May 10 (after a last-minute shift from Downtown’s Resident), it seemed like the band and Angelenos hadn’t missed a beat. The show, the second of a trio of Southern California reunion shows, drew a […]
Learning to Appreciate Life in Jim Jarmusch’s The Dead Don’t Die
The Dead Don’t Die is certainly a Jim Jarmusch film. In his career, he’s brought his own idiosyncratic approach to quiet dramas, mafia films and Westerns. It never quite approaches parody or deconstruction; Jarmusch is interested in and a fan of the tropes of genres, and he sees how they can be used to examine […]
A Million and One Places to Go: Revisiting the Art of the Hustle in Susan Siedelman’s Smithereens
Do you have a picture in your head of New York? Does it come from real life? Or the memory of art? I know the New York I see when I close my eyes. It is rooted in history but still basically myth, culled from photographic histories of the births of punk and hip hop, […]
Happy Rhodes’ Ectotrophia is a Gumbo of Moody 80s Musical Staples
While nothing groundbreaking, Happy Rhodes’ Ectotrophia remains a worthy dive into an engrossingly somber state of mind
Moodie Black’s Lucas Acid is an Unflinching and Powerful Album of Trans Anthems
Late into Moodie Black’s new album Lucas Acid, MB mastermind K Death growls “I ain’t really screaming/There’s no pain” and there’s a good chance you’ll think this is a lie based on what you hear around it. After all, Moodie Black are pioneers of noise rap, a subgenre defined by unholy howls, a scene with cacophony in […]
Friendship is Key to Survival in Katherine Lang’s Soul to Call
Rarely in discussions of apocalyptic fiction is friendship brought up. My personal observation is that the genre focuses on whatever topic is relevant in the current political discourse (i.e., Planet of the Apes). Whenever human interaction is brought up, it’s usually the worst ways possible. Many apocalyptic storytellers seem to think humanity’s negative qualities will […]
Vs #1 is a Captivating but Muddled Exploration of War as Entertainment
Almost exactly two years ago, Image Comics teased Ivan Brandon and Esad Ribic’s “space gladiators” series Vs, whetting the appetites of sci-fi fans looking for some Heinleinian exploration of military evolution to offset the wave of post-apocalyptic and cyberpunk works that had taken over the genre. That wave is still rising, if anything it’s grown larger, […]
Bingo Love has Laudable Aims but Its Storytelling Falters
Queer people don’t usually get to see themselves live happily ever after in most media. We get the love stories that end in tragedy. This is largely because non-queer people are making most of the media that represents us–which means we’re not really represented in it at all. So it’s refreshing to see a book […]
Anarchist Cody Wilson Takes on the Government in The New Radical
It’s difficult to watch a documentary like The New Radical without bringing in your own biases. That’s likely the point, considering the title and the subject matter. It’s supposed to feel alienating and disarming, to make you consider viewpoints that aren’t your own, and certainly to make you a little bit angry and defensive. And […]
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