Duck & Cover :: Indie rock music writing from Arcade Fire to the Zygotic Minci

I met myself at a bar last Thursday. It was cold and wet and the wind pushed against the pub door like a tramp out of stash. I was drinking doubles but my dopple drinks 3.2, he grabs a round and I shout "me too." We two got down to the business and we shot the shit like a preach with no witness. "Finn should have stuck with Lifter Puller," I holler over the out-of-whack juke. "They turned you inside out," I spout. It was a sour metaphor but he bit like a trout. "It's just like you to like 'em out of context." Jamie throws back both his head and the PBR. The bar is dark but we can see where we are. Jenny from the Fisch Haus plays pool with the skaters. We like to hate 'em but they ain't so bad at the skating. "But let me tell you about The Hold Steady." "Don't even start." I'm ordering bourbon now by fanning my fingers out. Only a couple down and we've already lost all our manners. "I think Finn...

A month ago, high from a whirlwind tour of the NW, Dakin posted two Arcade Fire videos from the show that he attended at the Arlene Schnitzer concert hall. He didn't film them, he just happened to be fortunate to find that someone else had filmed what he felt were the two highest points of his concert experience. So anyway, he found these on Youtube, and posted a url. Which was lame. Like way lame. So now he is undoing the stupid by doing things the way they should have been done in the first place. So enjoy!

Dakin's post reminded me of a unicorn divination tool that I saw on boingboing a few months ago. Whenever you're in doubt; whenever you're troubled by indecision; whenever you need to know the right path to take, just ask "what would a unicorn do?" Use the unicorn divination tool

First of all, a huge bow of appreciation to reader katiepo for the compliments on Jamie's Bachelorette post. Kat(i)e, you are our first comment ever* and we hope that you're still a reader, and continue to like what we're doing. (We would also like to apologize for initially thinking that you were a small Jewish lesbian with a lightening bolt shaved into the side of your head. That would be a different katiepo, and we do love her as well. Also if anyone is between Seattle and San Francisco and sees someone matching that description, huffing along on a bicycle, well, throw an apple at her and tell her that we love her.) We hopped over to Kat(i)e's blog to check things out, and came across this video, which is (and I'm just going to say it) absolute genius. Much love to the gay unicorns, and especially to Shannon for having the inspiration to wish them into existence. For the record, I think that my favorite is Cadillac, but that may be because he reminds me of a sou...

Ironically, the post that I had begun today was all about how difficult it is to talk about things that you love, and how we really don't like to talk shit at Duck & Cover, and how easy it would be to say negative things just to put a post up. (I mean, really. Just try to explain why you DO like something, and then compare and contrast with all of the things that you may have to say about something you DON'T like. ) Needless to say, not only is being a bitch much easier, it's also way more fun. Which, I suppose, brings us to Billy Corgan. Now really, who spends ANY TIME AT ALL thinking about BC? While there's no real way to accurately measure such a thing, I will hazard a guess that the answer is somewhere in the area of Not Very Many. Now, that said, I used to be a big Smashing Pumpkins fan in (and really, this is not meant to be catty) the early nineties. Yes, yes, I am old enough to have purchased Gish , Lull (ep), and Siamese Dream when they were new, and not...

Shit. It's June. When did that happen? I'm sure I woke up just the other day and it was May 10th. It's June? Shit. And here I was going to write heaps of reviews about all the wonderful Kiwi bands I've heard for New Zealand Music Month. Guess it's too late now. What's that you say? I don't have to relegate my ethnocentric reviews to particular times of the calendar year? You're right! And thanks for pointing that out because there's one more I wanted you to hear: The Bachelorette. One girl. One month alone in cabin by the sea. One incredible album. Just listen to the opening track--and don't forget to turn it up. Artist :: The Bachelorette Album :: The End of Things Song :: My Electric Husband

Duck & Cover is officially soliciting YOU, our readers, to contribute to our content, and have something of a hand in shaping the future of D&C. (Well, perhaps not "shape the future" so much as have the privilege of knowing us "back when", either way, cred such as that is beoming harder and harder to come by these days.) We would love to see record reviews, show reviews, vile gossip (we LOVE vile/salacious gossip, however, only on the grounds that it may be substantiated. No slander/libel please), book reviews, live music photography, and etc. (As a side note, we would very much appreciate at least ONE photo to accompany live music reviews -- worst case scenario, a shot of the venue, night of the show would suffice, OR, get creative. We love creativity, but remember, creativity stops being clever when it is not RELEVANT; we cannot stress focus enough, really.) We can't promise that we will print/publish everything that we receive, but we will definitely ...