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Author Archives: Jon Rooney
We are all Absolutely Kosher
Last week, venerable Bay Area label Absolutely Kosher announced that they would cease releasing new music this fall due to financial hardship and the inability to find a model that makes running an independent label viable. While not a mega-indie … Continue reading
Posted in Bands You Should Know, Community, Videos
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Album Review: The Foghorns – To the Stars on the Wings of a Pig
The Foghorns – To the Stars on the Wings of a Pig (2011, Knick Knack Records) Count this review as another in a long line of conflicts of interest here at the Blog ‘o Wax. The Foghorns are a Seattle … Continue reading
Posted in Album Reviews, Recorded Music
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Album Review: Carlos Forster – Family Trees
Carlos Forster – Family Trees (2011, HUSH Records) Carlos Forster once led a fantastic, woefully unheralded band called For Stars, about which I’ve written wistfully elsewhere. It’s been 7 years since the release of For Stars’ swan song, It Falls Apart, … Continue reading
Posted in Album Reviews, Recorded Music
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Album Review: Jack Shriner – Dismember/Remember
Jack Shriner – Dismember/Remember (2011, Self-Released) On Dismember/Remember, Seattle-based Jack Shriner (as heard on Ball of Wax volumes 12 and 17) augments some pretty classic pop song conventions with smatterings of fuzz, synth outbursts and largely interesting instrumental asides. Opener … Continue reading
Album Review: The Shivers – More
The Shivers – More (2011, Silence Breaks) The Shivers, whose many virtues have been extolled on these virtual pages, return with a new full-length, More, on a nascent Brooklyn imprint called Silence Breaks. On More, Keith Zarriello and Jo Schornikow have … Continue reading
Album Review: Art Deco Cathedrals – Every Pain & Every Pleasure
Art Deco Cathedrals – Every Pain and Every Pleasure (2011, self-released) Portland’s Art Deco Cathedrals makes sparse, purely instrumental music with plucked strings, reverb, and the occasional drum machine. Rather than the quiet->less quiet->kinda loud->loud loud->quiet comedown arc of contemporary … Continue reading
Posted in Album Reviews, Free Album of the Day
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Discover the Magic of Multiples
Brooklyn-based the Magic of Multiples (heard on Ball of Wax Volumes 19, 23, and the forthcoming 24) is one Alex Drum, a lo fi classicist in possession of the indisputable formula for fuzzy, charming bedroom pop. The goodness found all … Continue reading
The Lovely Sparrows at SXSW 2011
Even by Ball of Wax’s dubious conflict of interest standards, my writing about Austin’s the Lovely Sparrows constitutes some sort of grave transgression of conscience. Not only did I release their debut EP and LP on my little label, I … Continue reading
Posted in Bands You Should Know, Live Music
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Free Album of the Day: Brown Recluse – Panoptic Mirror Maze
Philadelphia’s Brown Recluse have a proper full-length, Evening Tapestry, coming out soon on the venerable Slumberland Records, which is currently home to indie pop darlings the Pains of Being Pure at Heart and the Dum Dum Girls but boasts a … Continue reading
Discover the Shivers
Somewhere beneath the visible layers of the indie hype machine lives a band from the outer boroughs of New York City called the Shivers. The Shivers are seemingly a band in the same way that the Mountain Goats, Destroyer and … Continue reading
Posted in Bands You Should Know
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