Authors: Ryan Michael Painter
Cold Cave: Pomp and Discontent @ Urban Lounge 01.13 with...
Friday the 13th: an ominous and seemingly perfect date to watch Wesley Eisold and friends rattle the cage of discontent with a sound that takes the electro-punk aesthetic of Suicide and merges it with the songsmith of New Order—a discordant pop that references the past, but feels comfortably progressive. Everything that is old resurrected for future use. … read more
Midge Ure, the Once and Future New Romantic
My introduction to Ure was somewhat untraditional in the sense that I knew him as a solo artist before I learned of his work as a member of Visage and Ultravox. … read more
Morrissey: Rumors of My Demise Have Been Greatly Exaggerated @...
I’ve left many Morrissey concerts in something of a daze. It’s that strange sensation where you’ve been treated to something special, but had it snatched away from you before you were ready to see it go. … read more
Cyndi Lauper: Fearless, Reckless Friend @ The Depot 09.20 with Charlie...
With her multi-colored and ratted-out hair and bizarre fashion sense that bridged aspects of punk and new wave with something entirely her own, Lauper was the most outrageous person I had ever seen, and the world admired and celebrated her for her uniqueness. … read more
Garbage: Star-Crossed and Dreaming @ The Complex 09.16 with Cigarettes...
There’s always been an extra edge to Garbage live, an element of chaos that doesn’t typically come through on the records, and tonight, there’s a particularly aggressive undercurrent as Shirley Manson stalks the stage. … read more
Culture Club: It’s Love in Stereo @ Red Butte Garden...
Once upon a time, I saw Boy George at the Royal Albert Hall in London. Toward the end of the concert, a pair of his Culture Club collaborators joined George onstage. It was the first sign in years that a Culture Club reunion was not only possible, but entirely probable. … read more
Somewhere Out in the Dark: The Psychedelic Furs with The...
I love The Furs, but they hadn’t released new material since the 2004 single “Alive (For Once In My Lifetime)” and had set lists that were dominated by the same material—so, going into Saturday night’s show at The Complex, it was the opening act, The Church, that I was really looking forward to seeing. … read more
Nostalgia, It’s Not What You Think It Was: A Flashback...
For the better part of a decade, Salt Lake City was home to a thriving underground goth scene. It was goth before goth was pigeonholed into being something defined by Hot Topic or mainstream media. … read more
Paul Humphreys + Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark: The Future,...
“We were always budgeting for failure early on until we started having hit after hit after hit in Europe, and we thought, ‘Well, maybe we’re here to stay for a little bit.’ I never imagined 40 years.” … read more
Review: Haunted Histories Collection
Haunted Histories Collection History Channel Street: 09.25 This five-disc collection features the History Channel produced programs “Hauntings,” “Vampire Secrets,” “Salem Witch Trials,” “The Haunted History of Halloween” and the A&E-produced “Poltergeist.” The programs on the Salem Witch Trials and the history of Halloween are the most straightforward, presenting a fair amount of historical information regarding
Drawn OK: An Interview with Badly Drawn Boy
When Damon Gough and his alter ego Badly Drawn Boy rolled into Salt Lake City’s Zephyr Club in support of his debut album The Hour of the Bewilderbeast he had already taken the Mercury Music Prize (the UK’s Album of the Year) beating out Coldplay’s Parachutes and The Doves’ Lost Souls. When he left he had set up residency as one of the top ten bands I’d ever seen live. … read more
