Music Love Me or Hate Me…

June 24, 2009 - 12:00 pm

Lady Sovereign

I’ve decided I need to develop a Lady Sovereign complex. That’s right, you heard me, and if you don’t like it, then f*ck you!

Wow, that was easier than I thought. It turns out being loud, opinionated and a tad on the boastful side isn’t that hard. Doing it while rapping and while somehow maintaining a level of adorableness that makes you want to eat a bowl of rainbow sherbet just for the hell of it, however, is another story. But Lady Sovereign can pull it off no problem, which is why she’s got the record label and the fans and the rad silver Nike hightops, not me. Go figure.

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Music Chester French: If Pee Wee Herman Had a Cute Younger Brother…

June 22, 2009 - 8:26 am

Chester French

Nerd rock is back. Actually, I don’t know if it was ever gone, or if it ever existed in the first place, but suffice to say it’s here now in the form of Chester French. Formed by two Harvard freshmen in 2003 and named for the American sculptor who built the Lincoln Memorial, the nerdyness extends not only to their roots, but also to the duo’s stage presence.  Take their recent show at Hollywood’s El Rey Theater, opening for Lady Sovereign, for instance. Front man D.A. Wallach bounds on stage in ill-fitting red trousers (you know, the kind of pants your grandma would suggest you wear on your first day school), a somewhat dingy white t-shirt and a mop of unruly strawberry blonde hair. Guitarist Maxwell Drummey is a skinny white kid with a backwards haircut, sunglasses that engulf his face and a skirt.

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