Going through my collection the other day, I pulled out a record by one of the artists below. What a ridiculous band name, I thought. But damn if I didn’t absolutely love their music! And that gave me an idea: what ridiculous band names should be in your collection?
Read More »10 Ridiculously Silly Band Names You Need in Your Collection
I haven’t had much time of late to write. The house project of repainting walls, painting trim, pulling up carpets, and laying down bamboo has absolutely dominated my time. That and working on my BMW, which in the past few weeks has received a full tune-up (with exception of replacing points and cleaning the carb).
Read More »Fense’s Radio Show: March 9, 2012
I got pulled over tonight. Nothing big, just a bad taillight. The cop may have thought I was trying to evade him, pulling into the dark, always vacant Skagit Valley College parking lot late on a Friday night. As soon as I rounded the corner, his lights went on.
Read More »Fense’s Radio Show: February 10, 2012
Being that my typical night consists of hitting the sack at around 10pm, and that my new radio show is Friday nights from 10pm to midnight, I figured that my second show would center around the theme of sleep. So I pieced together a playlist of bedroom pop, chill wave, dreamy shoegaze and what I’ve dubbed as psychedelic ambiance.
Read More »Fense’s Radio Show: October 14, 2011 
I am a huge Carissa’s Wierd fan. If you are too, you know exactly what I’m talking about — the die-hard fan gets a little extra out of the music, hears a little bit more, and has a deeper, seemingly one-on-one experience with it. New music, for a band that parted ways several years past, is enough to bring tears to your eyes. “Tucson” b/w “Meredith & Iris” is such material and Hardly Art has made the latter from the single available for stream. Read More »Carissa’s Wierd Release First New Song in over Seven Years!
If you spent any extended period alone in personal confinement during the early days of the century, and you had a predilection toward mopey, soft pop, you may have let the hours wane away dwelling on the heartbreaking bedroom-ish pop of Carissa’s Wierd. If you didn’t, you should have as it is some of the best music created both during and post 90s. Little known, and with even littler quantities of albums produced, many long-time fans cheered quietly when Hardly Art announced a cherished set of reissues. Read More »Carissa’s Wierd Reissues Update
“Die” ultimately picked up where Songs About Leaving left off, and it adequately summed up where the band was heading… Read More »Carissa’s Wierd: Die [mp3]
Tonight I hit the kitchen to compile the second FensePost podcast, or FenseCast, while cooking up one of my signature dishes: spicy steak enchiladas with homemade sauce. For desert, a delicious slice of gluten free cake courtesy Andi (the girlfriend), whose cake photo you can see in this post. Unlike the first podcast, this one had a range of bands that stemmed into several genres rather than focusing on garage rock and pop. Within I reminisce on one of my favorite bands of all time, occasionally hover around bedroom pop, and pass along one imperative ingredient in my homemade enchilada sauce. Read More »FensePost Podcast Series: FenseCast #2, Cooking With Fense
As one of the few individuals to own a copy of Ugly But Honest, You Should Be At Home Here and Songs About Leaving by Carissa’s Wierd (sic), let alone ALL THREE, including their super-duper rare tour album, Scrap Book, it’s only with a hint of sadness that I relay to you the news that Hardly Art will reissue all three of the band’s proper albums. But the probable decline in value of rarities is far below the excitement I have for all the world who has yet to experience what, in my opinion, is one of the most under-appreciated, well-deserved bands ever to have existed. Read More »Carissa’s Wierd To Reissue on Hardly Art
The third installment of A Retrospective, this time the focus is on 2002. The year of rebuilding, so to speak. It was the year I discovered Cider Jack (and did so plentifully) at the local Pullman bar Rico’s, and we all would rehearse Bill Brasky skits (from the SNL spots, and made up on the spot) as twenty feet away the university jazz combo performed excellent renditions of Van Morrison’s “Moondance” and various Motown favorites. As we see every year, 2002 saw several real great releases. Here are my favorites.
Read More »A Retrospective Top 15: Best Albums Of 2002
