Authors: Alexander Ortega
Bile Oasis: White Lung
White Lung’s Mish Way was running on four hours of sleep. “I just spent the last four days with porn stars in Las Vegas for a story, and I’ve barely slept, so my head is crushed,” she says. In the midst of her freelance journalism career, Way fronts Vancouver’s White Lung, who play fast-paced punk and deliver vitriol, yet incorporate virtuosic musicianship. Way adds grime to the band, and also conjures a squalid sort of glamour. … read more
Music + Beer = Family = The UBC Music Squad
If you’ve never met Utah Brewers Cooperative Business Manager Cindi Robinson, then you have never seen such a passion for local music. From tabling at shows for animal-activism promotion to organizing bake sales for bands to raise money to go on tour, Robinson now continues her superlative enthusiasm for the local music scene on a day-to-day basis at UBC, as she has surrounded herself with notable local musicians by hiring them to work for the brewery. … read more
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Written in Random: Parquet Courts
To me, “songwriting” usually evokes an image of deadbeat longhairs dinkin’ around on their instruments and crushing PBR cans one after the other, as any vestiges of the “creative process” dissipate into trite stereotypes of punk or indie musicians. Parquet Courts, however, generate images of notebooks and struggle. Guitarist and vocalist Austin Brown says, “[Andrew Savage (guitar/vocals) and I] both just write a lot … Through the practice of writing, sometimes, on those good days, I can sit down and a song will come out or a lyric will come out that I can feel inspired by later.” … read more
Smang Lake City Vol. 2: Turquoise Jeep is Riding through
“Lemme smang it, girl, smash it and bang”: If you don’t automatically know where these lyrics come from, you were either born into an anti-technology polygamist family or have parents that solely bought their kids educational toys for Christmas. Turquoise Jeep rolled through to SLC at Kilby last May, and they’re coming back Nov. 17 to Kilby AND Urban. … read more
Mallet Militia: Utah Bike Polo
Once I learned that Utah is home to two regular bike polo clubs, Beehive Bike Polo Club (BBPC) and Ogden Bike Polo Club (OBPC), I became enthralled by YouTube videos of the sport, with bicycle riders coursing across outdoor courts, whacking balls with mallets like how hockey players whack pucks with sticks. … read more
Top 5: Galactic Cannibal
Pist, agitated and frothing at the mouth, We’re Fucked erupts with jovial violence meant as a blueprint for shout-alongs at live punk shows. Reviewers—and the band itself—have dichotomized Galactic Cannibal’s sound as being “pop punk + hardcore,” which skirts that this record is a short, sharp shock of street punk with its catchy gang vocals and major-key progressions coupled with vocalist Peter J Woods’ snarling assault. We’re Fucked, however, transcends these sonic genre conventions … … read more
The World Smolders Within Us: Chelsea Wolfe and True Widow
“A lot of different forest habitats need to burn in order to germinate new life … I think that’s something that’s also reflected in us. We have to go through hard times and painful times in order to learn,” says Chelsea Wolfe in regard to the title and theme of her new album, Pain Is Beauty. … read more
Shred Cred: The Shred Shed’s First Anniversary
If you hit Downtown Salt Lake City near dusk most nights lately, there’s been a bustle that had been long absent from the city center. On 60 E. Exchange Place, The Shred Shed, an all-ages music venue and art gallery, has ignited flurries of color and culture where local and touring underground bands of all genres have sounded off in a space filled with street murals, graffiti and framed visual art. Thursday, Oct. 17, co-owner Jesse Cassar will begin to celebrate the first anniversary of what has already become a site of Salt Lake countercultural lore. … read more
Homegrown Hoppers
Buying a brewpub and hitting a hole in one in golf are each difficult feats—so is winning a million dollars. Hoppers Grill & Brewing Co. owner Jason Hargett has done all three.
Plated In Gold: The Strongest Man at Sundance
Beef (Robert “Meatball” Lorie) and Conan (Paul Chamberlain) are best friends who gracelessly and humorously carry out a Don Quixote and Sancho Panza–style journey in The Strongest Man, a 2015 Sundance film in the “NEXT” section. “I think I have a hard time not putting some comedy in there,” says Kenny Riches, the film’s writer and director.
Top 5: Pink Mountaintops
Get Back received mixed reviews across the board—some reviewers lauded the album as a rock n’ roll tour de force (Mojo, PopMatters) and others expressed wishy-washy reactions (Paste, Pitchfork). Most seemed, to some extent, to decry the sixth track, “North Hollywood Microwaves” because Annie Hardy (Giant Drag) raps about the joys of cum, declaring “I am a slut!” amid her blithe confessions of bestiality with donkeys and bears (because men no longer satisfy her). The prank worked. … read more
Mestizaje en Microcosmos
A December 2013 graduate from the University of Utah in Art History and Latin American Studies, Olmedo-González gravitates toward self-portraiture in fine art. He acknowledges, furthermore, that more pedestrian (nonart) forms of self-portraiture permeate our psyches as digital simulacra via Instagram, Facebook and Twitter. … read more
Art | Art and Fashion | LGBTQ+
