Pay It Forward Directed By Mimi Leder Warner Bros. By: Eric G. Haley Joel Osment needs to be a crack dealer in his next movie if he wants to avoid being the most hated kid in Hollywood. I recommend hooking up with Bobcat Goldthwait for Shakes The Clown 2: Clowns get Gonorrhea Too. If he […]

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Melt Banana Teeny Shiny A-zap By: Eric G. Melt Banana has perfected its simultaneous deconstruction and homage to both punk and noise with a gleefully spasmodic onslaught of some of the fastest riffs ever put to tape. You know what bands sound like when you're dubbing a cassette on high speed? Well, Melt Banana can […]

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Death Cab For Cutie Forbidden Love EP Barsuk By: Eric G. If it weren't for Benjamin Gibbard's melancholic lilt Death Cab For Cutie might seem like your average indie pop band, but Gibbard's voice lifts the weepy guitar pluckings out of mediocrity and makes them seem grand and eloquent. Even on a maudlin song like […]

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Elf Power The Winter Is Coming Sugar Free / Elephant 6 By: Eric G. Despite whatever you may think of that whole Elephant 6 scene in Athens, Georgia, Elf Power deserves a closer look. I'm not a big fan of hippies, and the image surrounding Elephant 6 and its brethren is that of one big […]

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Blur Music Is My Radar- Single (cd1 Cd2) Food / EMI By: Eric G. So the anti-pop stance wasn’t a fad after all. Music Is My Radar continues Blur’s experimental explorations, making songs like “The Universal” and “End Of A Century” seem very long ago indeed. Many critics lambasted Blur’s 13 for being dilettante-ish and […]

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Joy Division The Complete BBC Recordings Strange Fruit By: Eric G. What's left to say? By turning the mirror onto itself, Joy Division led punk out of its socio-political rut and into the realm of personal disaster and the art of falling apart. It all happened so fast. Joy Division hadn't even released its second […]

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Photon Band Oh, The Sweet, Sweet Changes Darla By: Eric G. When bands cover such a small, predetermined niche, particularly one that has been beaten into our subconscious for so long, it’s hard to appreciate the subtleties and nuances without immediately referencing other bands. The Photon Band doesn’t seem to care. Its brand of mod […]

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