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Mike Engstrom

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Latest Articles

A Family Tree

Though rooted in some legendary punk and rock bands, Banyan's free-form style extends far into the future.

By Mike Engstrom
Jan 25, 2001

As anyone who's ever suffered through a band audition can confirm, good musical help is hard to find. Players who are tolerable in confined spaces like tour vans and recording studios are scarce enough, never mind details like the compatibility of musical visions and styles. Of course, if you are...
All the World's a Stage

Blonde Redhead combines Japanese and Italian influences into a compelling concoction that's so New York.

By Mike Engstrom
Nov 23, 2000

It's November 9, two days after the American presidential election, and the media is simply delirious, scrambling to provide the latest updates on the as-yet-undecided race, reveling in the chance to use words like "historic" and "unprecedented." Almost everyone in the United States has their eye on Florida, waiting --...
Mouse on the Moon

Modest Mouse, the band that would be indie rock's king, navigates a major-label existence.

By Mike Engstrom
Sep 7, 2000

It's 3 o'clock in the afternoon. Isaac Brock, lead singer, guitarist and lyricist for Modest Mouse, wakes and wipes the sleep syrup from his eyes for the second time today. After a morning spent drinking beer and a mid-afternoon nap, Brock has awakened to discover he has a strange, unattributable...
Stage Fright

...And You Will Know Us By the Trail of Dead makes impeccable recordings in the studio -- and a mess of the bars and clubs where it performs.

By Mike Engstrom
Aug 3, 2000

There is something both chilling and beautiful about chaos and destruction, like watching a 21-story building implode. In a live setting, the Austin, TX-based foursome, ...And You Will Know Us By the Trail of Dead, live by this notion: The band takes the established order and structure and pulverizes it...
Critic's Choice

The Automaton Adventure Series

By Mike Engstrom
May 25, 2000

The Automaton Adventure Series, with Fast Action Revolver, Friday, May 26, at the 15th Street Tavern, is another Northwestern outfit that makes you wonder if the same daylong misting that cultivates mushrooms, moss and lush scenery in that region also breeds some of todays more compelling bands. Combining the postmodern...

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