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by Nick

The Pharmacy, “Stoned & Alone” LP

cover-stoned-and-alone-pharmacyEvery so often, an act writes a song so good, they’ll spend the rest of there career being judged by it. Think “Big Country” by Big Country — a song so superlative, so perfect, that nothing else — no matter how good — would ever measure up to it. Such is the case with the Pharmacy, whose “Dig Your Grave” has seen more play in the Nuthouse this year than any other song.

The single on which that song appeared, and from which it drew its name, came out earlier this year, and pretty much secured its position as my favorite thing to come out in 2012, with the EP-ending track, “Burn All Yr Bridges” coming in a close second as my favorite song for the better part of six months.
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by Nick

Wherein I talk with some people you might know

Over at the Pitch‘s Wayward Blog, I get to use the nature of a major metropolitan free weekly to speak with all kinds of people who are slightly more well-known than the people with whom I speak over here. That’s not to say that anyone’s better than the next person – just that the people whom I interview for the Pitch are probably gonna garner a few more hits than the indie bands and label heads here at Rock Star Journalist. In the interest of making my writing work for me twice, here’s a brief compendium of folks from the past few months.

* Valient Thorr’s Valient Himself on politics, bad flicks, and Thorriors.
* Director Gorman Bechard on his Replacements documentary, Color Me Obsessed.
* Bryan Cox talks up Soft Lighting’s debut, Slow Motion Silhouettes.
* The State‘s Kevin Allison takes a Risk with his podcast.
* The Pharmacy want you to Dig Your Grave.
* Omaha’s Conchance on the trials and travails of indie hip-hop.
* KU’s Paul Laird addresses the racial and gender politics of South Pacific.
* Alive Records founder Patrick Boissel on his label’s new compilation, Where is Parker Griggs?