Category: Features

  • interview by Michael McCarthy When I lived in Glendale, a suburb of Los Angeles, a decade ago, I went through a long period of being anorexic. During this time, I read every eating disorder related book I could find. I suppose I read some of them because they were triggering and encouraged me to restrict…

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  • interview by Michael McCarthy It’s funny how everything is connected. Earlier this year, I was listening to a random artist on Soundcloud – I can’t remember who – and the next thing that came on was a song by Brandyn Burnette, who I wound up interviewing. During that interview, he mentioned that he was doing…

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  • interview by Michael McCarthy In a perfect world, Molly Moore would need no introduction. Her elegant pop songs are a perfect mix of both catchy, mainstream and pensive, artsy pop. At her core, Molly is a singer/songwriter. It just so happens that her songs are exquisitely produced pop. Well, most of them. Her latest offering,…

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  • interview by Michael McCarthy I’ve been a fan of the hugely popular Scottish band Biffy Clyro since the release of the trio’s sophomore album, The Vertigo of Bliss, back in 2003. I was flipping through an issue of the British magazine NME at a Borders bookstore – R.I.P. – and read a positive review then…

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  • interview by Michael McCarthy I have a confession to make. I’ve been getting pretty bored with most of the music that’s coming my way via publicists. Everything starts to sound the same after a while. You get so many bands all going for the same sound. Lately it’s a lot of indie bands whose records…

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  • Back in June, Brooklyn-based piano composer Andrew Shapiro released his third piano album, appropriately entitled Piano 3. (Perhaps you are one of the six million people who streamed his song “Mint Green” – from his 2008 debut, Numbers, Colors and People – on Pandora?) That he was releasing another piano album was hardly a surprise…

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  • review by Michael McCarthy all photos by Joshua Bernard This week I caught Garbage with opener Kristin Kontrol at the House of Blues in Boston on Thursday night (July 28th, 2016). It was something of a dream come true because the last couple of times Garbage passed through Boston they played venues I’m not crazy…

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  • The debut album by S T F U, the collaborative project by Dean Garcia (SPC ECO, Curve) and Preston Maddox (Bloody Knives) is out today and is an electronic music gem that meshes trip-hop and classic ‘90’s electronica, resulting in a truly hypnotic delight. Read our recent interview with Dean here: https://loveispop.com/interviews/an-exclusive-interview-with-dean-garcia-of-spc-eco-s-t-f-u-and-m-a-d/ Buy the album on…

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  • interview by Michael McCarthy Although they’ve never been a household name like Blink-182 or Good Charlotte here in the States, Zebrahead, who’ve released a massive 12 albums during their 20 year career, are still a band that most fans of rap rock or punk rock would cite among their favorites. In Japan, however, they are…

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  • by Michael McCarthy If you like Florence + The Machine, you have to check out Lyra’s W.I.L.D (Wake – Induced Lucid Dream). It’s one of the best EPs I’ve heard all year. Truly breath-taking tunes that erupt like the kind of volcanoes that burn cities to the ground. Her verses can be subtle, almost gentle…

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  • I was recently introduced to the music of Mallrat, a really cool young woman hailing from Australia. She immediately reminded me of Lily Allen, who’s one of my top ten artists of all time, so naturally I fell in love with her music and had to inquire about interviewing her. As you can see, the…

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  • As those who follow me on Twitter already know, I have spent much of my time lately working on my first novel in years. It’s called Book of Shadows and I’m hoping it’ll prove to be a successful young adult series. This is for a couple of reasons. 1. I love my characters so much…

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  • interview by Michael McCarthy If the sound of Kristin Kontrol’s voice seems familiar to you, there’s probably a very good reason for that.  You see, prior to going solo, Kristin was Dee Dee, lead singer/songwriter of the popular rock band Dum Dum Girls.  More recently, she decided to go back to using her real first…

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  • Tuesday night – 6/21/16 – I was fortunate to catch Ladyhawke on the opening night of her North American tour, her “first time playing here in ages,” at Brighton Music Hall in Allston (Boston), Massachusetts. First, I must say that I was very impressed with her opening act, Polyvinyl labelmate Psychic Twin, otherwise known as Brooklyn,…

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  • Last month I was introduced to Brandyn Burnette’s music via his pensive single “Karma,” which already has 20k plays on Soundcloud alone. He categorizes his music as neo-soul, but to my ears “Karma” was sheer electro-pop bliss. In any case, I had to hear more after that taste and was lucky enough to get an…

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