Music | Street Corner Superstar: Matt White used to busk in parks; now he’s the new god of love rock

POSTED // Jan 16,2008 - At any given moment, there are regiments of guys sitting around a New York City park trying to strum dreams out of their guitars. They sing, scream and howl. They play for quarters, nickels and dimes. And they wait, hoping that one person comes along...

Music | Mr. Big Mouth: Kid Beyond can turn a few pops of the tongue into an electro symphony

POSTED // Dec 12,2007 - Kid Beyond has been waiting a lifetime for tomorrow. Today, it’s his birthday. In 24 hours: Well, that’s the present. And, even though he’s got a party planned in his new apartment—his first in his native San Francisco that can...

Music | Woman Seeking Man: Arthur & Yu create hazy and nostalgic folk out of a want ad

POSTED // Dec 5,2007 - There is little about what’s happening that Grant Olsen fully understands. “I’m trying to get my brain right with all this,” he laughs as he strolls around his Seattle apartment. And there’s a lot to try to grasp. Like the...

Music | Tribal Council: Celebration has found a way to make electronics sound primal.

POSTED // Nov 14,2007 - There’s no place to take a leak—which isn’t good. Katrina Ford has been on the road for—well, she’s not sure how long. She knows she and the rest of Celebration are somewhere between Phoenix and San Diego. That’s about...

Music: Into the Wild

The Cave Singers’ low-key licks might spark a revival.

POSTED // Sep 26,2007 - Pete Quirk has perfectly formed calves—the kind really vain guys dream about and plastic surgeons promise to deliver. His, of course, are real. And they should be. The guy has been sprinting up and down the steep hills of Seattle for years, delivering...

Music: No Shirt, No Shoes, No Service

It took a clothing store to keep The New Pornographers from going under.

POSTED // Sep 19,2007 - The New Pornographers would have called it quits if it weren’t for a clothing store. It was back in the late ’90s. The Canadian group hadn’t even played a show. It was just a loose-knit collective that mastermind Carl Newman had cobbled...

Reformatted

Music: The Format went from an indie rock upstart to pop maestros, turning its back on the music industry in the process.

POSTED // Sep 5,2007 - Within a couple hours, there may be several dead bodies strewn across the ping-pong table. Sam Means is hoping he’s not one of them. He knows that’s only wishful thinking. He’s got skills, that’s for sure. The Format multi-instrumentalist...

Coup d’État

P.O.S. isn’t trying to change hip-hop; he’s trying to overthrow it.

POSTED // Aug 29,2007 - Hip-hop hates Stefon Alexander. Just flat out doesn’t like him. Wouldn’t even notice the guy if he walked into a room. Hip-hop just can’t stand him. Thinks he’s low or something. An interloper—like Lindsay Lohan at an AA...

Front and Center

St. Vincent’s Annie Clark is no longer a bit player in someone else’s band.

POSTED // Aug 22,2007 - Annie Clark has never thrown a TV out of a window. She’s never ordered drugs by the bucketful or asked her groupies to please form an orderly line out the door and down the hall and patiently wait their turns. “Really, I don’t get much...

Pop Mart

Music: Fountains of Wayne may not be searching for the perfect pop song, but they seem to find it anyway.

POSTED // Aug 15,2007 - Two years ago, country singer Robbie Fulks wrote a song called “Fountains of Wayne Hotline.” It was a joke, of course. Based on a game that Fulks and his band used to play on the road, the track featured the country outlaw calling a fictional...