Every week we have Nova students show up to Hollow Earth Radio. Sometimes they take a stab at our massive collection of music. Jack grabbed the album Winter by Wax and Wane, this is what he thought:

Winter - Wax and Wane

This is pretty good! It's a short, folksy, acoustic album. The good kind of folksy and acoustic, though. There's some moments of genuine beauty here, and every track is at least pretty or pleasant. The basic sound of this is layered acoustic guitars coupled with atmospherics (I think) and lots of elegant violins in the background to up the whole "pretty" factor. Their Nick Drake-esque songwriting and guitar style coupled with their vaguely Bon Iver-ish production techniques make this a worthwhile listen.

MAGMA FEST 2012 SCHEDULE

This is gonna be unreal!

Friday, March 2nd @ the Josephine

Footwork w/ Jamey Braden!

Scumeating (Bellingham)

Older Women (PDX)

Zephyrs

(RSVP!)

Saturday, March 3rd @ Radar Hair and Records

The Drift (San Fran)

Gems

Fungal Abyss

Lowmen Markos

(RSVP!)

Friday, March 9th @ Grand Illusion: Queer Variety Show co-presented by Golden Daggers

Dave End

Theo Hilton (of Nana Grizol)

Film/projection by Clyde Petersen

Hosted by Jordan O' Jordan

Saturday, March 10th at The IN

Jtuttle

Cyanwave

The Automatic Message

Crown Hill Repeater

Algebra of Need

Saturday, March 16th - the Chapel Performance Space at the Good Shephard Center

Trumpets: Lesli Dalaba, Angelina Baldoz, Samantha Boshnack

Strings: Paul Rucker (cello), Tari Nelson-Zagar (violin), Byron Au Yong (erhu)

Clarinets: Paul Hoskin, Beth Fleenor, Jenny Zeifel

Percussion, toys, etc.: Stuart Dempster, Susie Kozawa, Paul Kikuchi

March 17th - Teen Showcase at VERA

Septics

Yellow Peril

Ton Null

Special Explosion

Marchantia

Echo 9

Seacats

Rat Riot

Deception Pass

March 18th - Hollow Earth Radio

S. Faergolzia

John Ludington

Red book

March 23rd - Party Show at 20/20

White Rainbow

Katie Kate

Metal Chocolates

March 24th - Chapel Show co-presented by Racer Sessions / Bad For Jazz

Figeater

King Tears Bat Trip

WA

T'th & Hare

March 30th @ Hollow Earth Radio

Roger Nusic

White Coward

Webs

Space Cadet 5

March 31th @ Black Lodge

Jan Terri

Don't Talk To The Cops

Slowdance

Wimps

Neighbors

Jamey Braden Performance Art

Nod & The Hobgoblins

Sip's Odyssey

In preparation for next month’s Magma Fest, I’m working toward locating online material from all of the artists who will be performing at Magma this year. In the process, I’ll keep you updated on my favorite discoveries.

Here are my top three favorite Magma finds at this time. Check these artists out live next month during Magma Fest...

1. Friends with Jane by Special Explosion. This is one of my favorite songs right now. If you like The Beatles, Built To Spill, and Neil Young, you should definitely check this song out. It has amazing pop hooks with a power pop edge. Special Explosion will be playing at the Teen Show on March 17th, St. Patrick’s Day, at The Vera Project . The song, ’ Friends with Jane’ (and 3 others) can be found on their website: http://www.specialexplosion.com/wp/tunes/

2. Jurassic Punk – Footwork. Footwork is a great noise guitar punk band in the spirit of Sonic Youth. They will be playing on Magma’s opening night (Fri. 03/02) at the Josephine in Seattle, with Older Women, Scum Eating, and Zephyrs. Here is their bandcamp page: http://footwork.bandcamp.com/album/footwork

3. Crown Hill Repeater. These guys have TONS of cool trippy electronic textural stuff on their soundcloud page. Here’s a link: http://soundcloud.com/crown-hill-repeater
They will be playing at The In on Sat. 03/10.

Check back soon for updates. There are tons of great bands playing Magma this year...

Now that the world has crowned a new Super Bowl champion, we, as a society, can get back to doing regular stuff. In an effort to help you in your transition from NFL season to post/pre-NFL season, here is a related book review:

2011 Official Rules of the NFL, published by Triumph Books

It is my understanding that the 2011 NFL rulebook doesn’t go into effect until the 2012 season. So I hope it’s not too late for the NFL to make a few changes to the rules before the start of the 2012 season.

A few months ago, I wrote a review for the 2010 NFL Rulebook and strongly suggested that some of the NFL rules be changed. My review was basically an open letter to the NFL commissioner and it outlined some specific rule changes that I would like to see made. Unfortunately, ALL of my ideas were ignored by the NFL. Not one of my suggested rule changes was used in the 2011 rulebook. So I can’t give this book a rating higher than ‘one star’.

It’s possible that the 2011 NFL rulebook was finished and ‘in the can’ before the NFL became aware of my ideas. So I will be willing to raise my rating to four stars for this book if the appropriate rule changes are made within a reasonable amount of time (by the start of the 2013 season.)

Also, I'd like to suggest another rule change. This is something that I forgot to mention in my previous review: In the NFL, I think that the out-of-bounds chalk lines should be widened by about one foot.
How many times has your favorite receiver made an awesome reception only to have it called back by the referee because the receiver's foot was "out of bounds"? Why not give the receiver a little leeway? It's hard to stay completely `in-bounds' ALL the time. But a great catch is a great catch. If a player makes a great catch, he shouldn't be penalized for stepping out of bounds a little.

An alternative idea to widening the sidelines would be to give the referees the authority to make judgment calls on sideline catches. The more difficult the catch, the more leeway the player would be given on the boundary calls. For example, if a player makes a catch with a difficulty rating of 10 (out of 10), but he steps out of bounds by more than a foot during the catch, the referee would have the authority to call it a fair catch, and the player could continue running downfield if not tackled.

The field boundaries were never meant to be ABSOLUTE in the first place.

Note to NFL commissioner: If you ignore your fan base, someday your fan base will ignore you.

As is, this is a one star book. I hope next year’s edition will be better.

We will be playing a live set from Edison, WA pop band The Daffodils tonight on The Corner Pocket! Tune in online at 6:45pm PST for that and an interview from the band at their thrift and antique and craft store, The Lucky Dumpster.

Probably my favorite pop band in all of the greater Northwest, the band has been around for several years and evolved out of the Bellingham based Language Arts before relocating to Portland and then back North to Edison, WA in beautiful Skagit Valley.

http://www.thedaffodilsband.com/