Author Archive

Pelican and assorted friends at The Empty Bottle (12/11)

By Sarah Luczko on December 14th, 2009

Sarah Luczko’s recent foray into today’s underground metal scene, all bottled up together last Friday.

Cinema Sounds: Berlin Babylon

By Sarah Luczko on June 21st, 2009

Berlin Babylon is the sort of film you spend time telling your friends about, both because a) the images and slow tracking shots won’t shake from your head, and b) because there’s a solid chance that your friends won’t get around to seeing it because of a plain and simple lack of availability.

List ‘Em Carefully: Top 10 Songs About Break-ups (and a song of hope)

By Sarah Luczko on February 26th, 2009

Do you remember Dan Caffrey’s list of a few weeks ago? Didn’t it make you fall in love? Even if you didn’t want to do that.
Tom Wait’s “Take It With Me” makes me feel seasick-lovesick. That music box piano…
If you didn’t read it, please do, Mr. Caffrey’s list will warm your heart. Mine will [...]

Listen: Love is All

By Sarah Luczko on February 20th, 2009

With current temperatures in Chicago still sitting in the 30s, why not consider traveling further north? Heck, it might even be warmer.
Gothenburg, Sweden lies at 57º 47′ N, making it a good 16 degrees and then some closer to the Arctic Circle, and yet, its winter lows are moderate-right now, it’s 40º F out-and the [...]

YouTube Live: Jolie Holland’s “Mad Tom of Bedlam”

By Sarah Luczko on January 24th, 2009

The fiddle she plays on “Mad Tom of Bedlam” sounds like an old metal cereal box, the inside sounding resonantly hollow, like the acoustics you’d find in a cement-floored recital hall. This is enough to make me swoon, but you might say that these are minor details. Wait, let’s start again.
Jolie Holland knows her instruments, [...]

Where We Live: Cafe Annapurna – Tallahassee, FL

By Sarah Luczko on January 2nd, 2009

By a stroke of bad luck, Café Annapurna, Tallahassee’s first and only Nepalese restaurant stands at 666 W. Tennessee, nearly under the eaves of Tennessee Street’s ubiquitous 24-hour McDonald’s. But don’t let that scare you.
Café Annapurna, more simply called “Annapurna” by the locals, is conveniently located across the street from Florida State’s primary all-night Strozier [...]

Listen: Juana Molina

By Sarah Luczko on December 30th, 2008

Juana Molina must be a striking and weird woman. She appears completely candid and at ease in interviews and in some of her YouTube videos: there she is singing on stage, wearing her hair in a loose chopped-clean bob playing her guitar, and then yet, on the cover of Un Dia, Molina’s head doesn’t appear to [...]

Listen: The Terminals

By Sarah Luczko on December 16th, 2008

The Terminals sound like they’ve got one hand on the whiskey and the other on the church organ. If you’re out for sticky-sweet bar floor guitar & vox licks, you’ve arrived, so please look no further. (And please make your exit to the band’s site now. I don’t blame you. Just know that their posted [...]

Guilty Pleasure: Nine Inch Nails – Pretty Hate Machine

By Sarah Luczko on December 7th, 2008

Now, listen, I want you to understand that I am above listening to this record.
Yet…even as I type out this long, mentally-overdue review and hope to god (“Hey, God!”) I’m not accidentally ghetto blasting out Nine Inch Nail’s “Head Like a Hole” into the quiet library where I sit typing, I still have some difficulty [...]