Anavan is out from the cold

ILLUSTRATION by JOE MCGARRY
Anavan drummer and singer Aaron Buckley left hometown Ketchikan, Alaska (famous for its salmon and Senator Ted Stevens’ botched “bridge to nowhere” project) in 1998, but he never regretted his Alaskan childhood: “It was a really really fun experience,” he says. “All kids should grow up there!” [...]

Look listen vibrate Red Pony Clock

PHOTO by LIZETH SANTOS
Gabe Saucedo sings and plays guitar, organ, banjo and trombone in San Diego’s Red Pony Clock, an enormous cheery pop band famous for its everything-but-the-kitchen sink instrumentation, theremins, sousaphones and marimbas, and earnest if goofy lyrics. He grew up in San Diego—humorlessly describing his neighborhood as “the [...]

PWRFL Power vs. Parenthetical Girls

ILLUSTRATION by JOE MCGARRY
Kazutaka Nomura is the accomplished jazz guitarist with the naïve voice who leads Seattle’s PWRFL Power. Actually, naïve might be too broad a term—he sounds naïve, but his lyrics run to darker topics like child-beating (against), online dating (for) and drugs (position ambiguous). Which proves again that you’re [...]