Tullycraft

Details

Plays on Friday, July 15

Also playing Saturday, July 16, at both the Stork Club (510/444-6174 or www.storkcluboakland.com) and Mod Lang Records (510/486-1880 or www.mo dlang.com) 546-6300

www.thehotelutahsaloon.com

Hotel Utah

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More About

• Stella Stevens
• Sean Tollefson
• Dorothy Parker
• Ska
• Relationships

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While Tullycraft is responsible for two of the best indie-pop anthems of all time -- "Pop Songs Your Boyfriend's Too Stupid to Know About" and "Twee" ("You can keep the punk rock, ska, rap beats, and house/ Fuck me I'm twee") -- the Seattle quartet has rarely put together a fully satisfying record. Until now. The band's fourth LP offers up the usual abundance of catchy punk- and surf-derived riffs, wonderfully adenoidal vocals, and kitschy nostalgia (Stella Stevens, Bunny Yeager, and the Murder City Devils all get a mention), but it also contains a newfound sardonic edge. Describing a has-been rocker chick, Sean Tollefson sings, "She lives in a flat way up in the sky/ Goes out with a boy into the MC5/ He'd be OK if he didn't hit her/ Or go to bed with the baby sitter." Elsewhere, he channels his inner Dorothy Parker, skewering record-collecting hermits, AC/DC wannabes, and "swastika girls, who fall back on their looks." This is bubblegum with an acidic center -- a concoction that tastes great.