2013 — The Monarch Review — Page 20
BOAT’s Pretend To Be Brave
Tuesday, April 9, 2013 12:21 — 0 Comments
I’ve been eating Ramen noodles for three days straight. My eyes are red and puffy (not because of anything I smoked, but because I am sick with the worst cold on earth – or so it feels). I have every right to be in a crappy mood, but I’m not in a crappy mood. The towers of tissues don’t have me down, the coughing either. Why? Because of one thing, really, BOAT’s new album, Pretend to Be Brave.
People Who’ve Done Real Things vol. 1 – Kermit J. Wilson
Monday, April 8, 2013 13:33 — 0 Comments
My name is Kermit Wilson, and I grew up on a farm in Southeast Oregon. Â Vale, Oregon, specifically. We eventually moved to Tieton, Washington just outside of Yakima where I went to high school. Â After graduating I messed around for a couple of years working for a construction company, mostly in Twisp, building a new school, but my home base was always the Yakima area. Â Within a short time of graduating high school meth started to show up in my circle of friends, so I joined the Army when I was 20. Â Kind of an emergency parachute to get away. […]
Truth Be Told – Spekulation
Wednesday, April 3, 2013 11:12 — 0 Comments
I received an advanced copy of Spekulation’s newest record, Truth Be Told, two months ago. That version of the record did not include the final song, “Nothing Left To Doâ€. That sixth and ultimate track is as sweetly composed and important as any I’ve heard in recent memory.Â
The Monarch Drinks With Christopher Frizzelle
Tuesday, April 2, 2013 12:20 — 0 Comments
I’m a big guy, but Chris Frizzelle is bigger. His presence loomed over me the moment I met him. We were in Vito’s on First Hill. I was late to The Stranger’s Silent Reading Series held at the Sorrento Hotel, having got caught up in a conversation at work about music. I raced to the Sorrento, asked someone sitting in a chair if his name was Chris, to which the man said, “No, Tim.†Feeling sort of defeated, I sipped down a gin and tonic in the hotel bar. I left. I walked to The Hideout on Boren, thinking maybe […]
Our First Audiobook ft. Zac Hill
Monday, April 1, 2013 10:03 — 0 Comments
I’ve been known to relish the sound of my own voice, so it was only a matter of time before I convinced someone to let me record an audiobook.  After a suitable amount of nagging, the fine folks at The Monarch Review arranged for Seattle music mainstay Robb Benson to lend me his studio for a couple months.  What you see here is the result: a collection of four fictional narrative essays in the style of popular celebrity interest pieces.  They’re 100% made up, of course.  Why this particular subject matter?  It could be because real life is far more fantastic than […]
Seattle Music TV
Friday, March 29, 2013 13:20 — 0 Comments
It might come as a surprise that rooms in Robert Lang Studios, a building adorned with gold and platinum records and a 40-year history of producing world-famous music, are in need of serious reconstruction. Rubble, cement blocks and two-by-fours line the floors of back rooms and the stage of the former Queen Anne Easy Street Records waits there to be used again. But now, thanks to David Reigns and Scott Mckinley, along with their partner Robert Lang, there is a plan to refurbish the unused studio space. That reason: Seattle Music TV.Â
The Monarch Drinks With Matt Watson aka The Bitter Barista aka Spekulation
Wednesday, March 27, 2013 15:57 — 0 Comments
In the storm of attention following Matt Watson’s launch of the now-infamous “Bitter Barrista†website earlier in 2013, precious little was said about a meaningful fact one thinks would predominate media coverage of the man and his relationship to words: he’s a rapper.
The Craft of Pony Time
Monday, March 25, 2013 11:51 — 0 Comments
Seattle band Pony Time are known for their ability to mix modern lo-fi with punk and Big-Muffed garage shredding, and on their sophomore release Go Find Your Own they’ve honed this style to near perfection. While other current punk rock indie darlings such as Wavves or Howler rely on a more finely distilled affectation, Pony Time manage to sound fresh even while hammering through track after track of what is ostensibly blissed-out garage pop. Â
La Luz Tour Kick-Off Show
Friday, March 22, 2013 12:58 — 0 Comments
On a dank Wednesday night I find myself in the very back of Heartland, a new and tiny performance gallery on Roosevelt and 53rd in the former Andrews Guitars Lutherie Workshop. The venue has only been around a few months but I feel as if I’m in the hipster nexus of the universe. The seventy-five-plus audience members are dressed in dark colors, skullcaps and thick-framed glasses while ethereal rock music emanates from the stage. I can see nothing but bodies and none of them the performers. The floor is concrete, painted grey, the walls a plain white. I am waiting […]
The answer isn't poetry, but rather language
- Richard Kenney
