| Douglas Martin’s Dirty Shoes: King Tuff Puts a Spell On You | September 30, 2014 |
Douglas Martin is back from the dead like Tobey Maguire from Brothers. People who don’t listen to lo-fi music frequently talk about how the genre is merely an aesthetic crutch, how using slender means to record your music (as well as the tape hiss and distortion that often comes with it) is a way to […]
Douglas Martin has two pairs of Red October’s on layaway Nobody likes being wrong about something. It was announced in January that Thee Oh Sees, a first-ballot Dirty Shoes Hall of Fame group if there ever was one, would be taking, in their words, “a very long break.” Upon hearing that news and to my […]
| Douglas Martin’s Dirty Shoes: Warpaint and the Weight of Subtlety | January 31, 2014 |
Douglas Martin still has the strongest look on the Internet. Subtlety is a grossly undervalued quality in rock music. Ever since the advent of the volume knob, the sort of guitar music that gets us most inspired is either heavy as a brick or as shrill as a toothache. If you practice chiefly in the […]
| Douglas Martin’s Dirty Shoes: In Remembrance of Thee Oh Sees | January 15, 2014 |
Douglas Martin is pouring out a little Anchor Steam. I. One summer a few years ago, I went to a show in Portland — a girl I knew really liked the Dodos and wanted me to go with her. There was a man at center stage with a guitar. He was clawing and scratching away […]
| Douglas Martin’s Dirty Shoes: The 2013 Dirty Shoes Awards | January 6, 2014 |
What, you thought you weren’t gonna see Douglas Martin? He’s the Osiris of this shit. I’ve been away, but I’ve been watching. This is not going to be a long preamble to acknowledge what I’ve been watching while I was out of the office, because I’ve been running this column for almost five years; I’m […]
| Question in the Form of An Answer: Ripley Johnson of Wooden Shjips | November 19, 2013 |
Around these parts, Ripley Johnson doesn’t need an introduction. The psychedelic classic-rock of Wooden Shjips persistently blow our minds. Jeff has gone on record to say Johnson is his favorite guitarist. If his hypnotic guitar lines and follicle growth is reminiscent of that of a cult leader, it’s safe to say we’ve been drinking the […]
| Passion of the Weiss Mix Series: Monster Rally | November 1, 2013 |
If you’re at all familiar with his work, it’s fitting that Ted Feighan moved from Ohio to Los Angeles. Over the past handful of years, Feighan’s sublime solo project Monster Rally has evolved from the Seasonal Affective Disorder escapism of exotic loop-based psychedelia/tropicalia to the twinkly-eyed glamor of Old Hollywood. With each successive release, he’s […]
| Douglas Martin’s Dirty Shoes: Yuppies, Parquet Courts, and the Return of Smarty, Arty (Indie-)Rock | October 14, 2013 |
I. WHATEVER HAPPENED TO INDIE-ROCK? It’s telling that Parquet Courts are routinely described as a “punk” or “punk-influenced” band instead of an indie-rock group, because we’ve rendered the term absolutely useless. We’ve left it for the mainstream types to use the term on groups as disparate as Grizzly Bear and Beach House. Instead, the more […]
| Douglas Martin’s Dirty Shoes: “Teardrop Guitar” and the Value of Rock ‘n Roll Aesthetes | October 3, 2013 |
Crocodiles – “Teardrop Guitar” Video from stereogum on Vimeo. Douglas Martin doesn’t understand the hullabaloo surrounding @horse_ebooks. Maybe he’s just getting old. Crocodiles have always been the sort of “style over substance” band whose natty style and well-worn and carefully curated influences (Jesus and Mary Chain, Spacemen 3) are discussed at greater length than […]
| Douglas Martin’s Dirty Shoes: On Joanna Gruesome and Why “Twee” Shouldn’t Be a Four-Letter Word | September 23, 2013 |
Douglas Martin was a groomsman at Andy Samberg’s wedding. Where were you the first time you heard the word twee? Back in the glory days of AOL Instant Messenger, I was chatting up a friend when during our conversation, his older sister told him she wanted to listen to something with trumpets. After a few […]
