Adam Pranica, filmmaker and principal over at Dorsia Films and true indie rock enthusiast, with the perfect opening line:

"In the winter of 2011, Victoria VanBruinisse came up with a crazy idea to invite John Roderick of The Long Winters over for a potluck dinner. He played a few songs, told some stories, and ate all of the food."

And that's pretty much the long and short of it. When I found out that I was going to be in New York at CMJ for this past year's City Arts Festival, and would subsequently be missing the only performance by the Long Winters for the 2011 calendar year, I almost cried. Not literally, but still. It was a huge disappointment, a sigh to end all sighs, the conundrum that comes from being vested in so many interests and not being able to be everywhere at once. And so I did what any fan would do: I suggested to John that perhaps he might want to play a show in my living room.  I base much of my interactions on the simple methodology of the old adage that it never hurts to ask, because as the lottery tells us, you can't win if you don't play.

Well, we played alright, and we won. All of us, and that's you {yes, you!} included, because we won something big: a beautiful, candle-and-twinkle-light-lit evening with two dozen of our closest friends, where we enjoyed food, comraderie, and a series of brilliantly performed songs by the one and only John Roderick. And because of the genius embedded in Adam Pranica, Tyler Kalberg, and Zach Varnell -- the latter two being names you should recognize from the Notes from Home series -- we get to share the collective product from that near-perfect night with the world.

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Well, is it? We sure hope so! Because one of our favorite parts of the holiday party every year is getting to grace the ever-lovable John Roderick's lap with our sweet jingle-bell backends, and getting the whole thing immortalized forever by way of Laura Musselman's brilliant camera skills. So, to get you warmed up for all the joy that awaits your rear this year, here's a few peeks back at the last few years of Indie Santa-ing (including last year's stand-in Santa, John Vanderslice).

2009:

2008:

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Pull up those bootstraps, kids, because The National isn't the only game in town that's got a double-decker lineup in Seattle this week. The Cave Singers are about to put on two nights of amazing sound-wall that'll knock you clear off your feet! Here's the deets:

Night One, also known as this coming Thursday, December 1st. The Cave Singers pack the one- in one-two by taking the stage for an all-ages night at the Vera Project {7:30p doors / $16 adv / buy tickets!}, with a stage-warming by none other than our pals The Young Evils -- who may very well be working on putting out one of our favorite local albums of 2012 as we breathe and type. It'll be a great room to catch both bands in with a music-focused, booze-free crowd.

If you're heading to the Neptune (or one of the other fine establishments in town) this Thursday, fret not: Night Two will be going down on Capitol Hill at Neumos on Friday, December 2nd. Sound-wise, it'll be a much darker-tinged night with openers The Builders and the Butchers taking the pre-Cave Singers stage spot, and also worth noting: this show is 21+. {8p doors / $18 adv / buy tickets!}

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City Arts Fest is looming, and with it, a Long Winters show at the Showbox this Thursday -- we'll get into that in a minute, but first we've got to take a minute to squee! about what a weekend we had!

We were fortunate enough to attend a house show this Saturday where none other than John Roderick himself came by to play a few hours of music. Talking about needing to pinch our 2003 selves! After a super homestyle vibey potluck dinner, John took the 'stage' in front of the fireplace and graced us with song. Our ears were privy to classics -- in no particular order -- like Car Parts, Cinnamon, Scent of Lime, Unsalted Butter, Medicine Cabinet Pirate, Mimi, Shapes, The Commander Thinks Aloud (and way more that we forgot to write down in our squee-like state), and some killer covers like The King of Carrot Flowers {Neutral Milk Hotel} and Solitary Man {Neil Diamond} among others. So much gorgeous song, coupled with some wonderfully intimate banter, quite literally made for a perfect night. Our friends from Dorsia Films were on hand to capture much of the evening on the A/V front, so hopefully we'll get to relive all that magic someday soon.

While we wait for the official set list, here's a few photos we managed to capture in our uber-elated state:

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Bands. Art. Comedy. Community. These are just a few of the things you can expect from the upcoming City Arts Festival, taking place at various venues throughout the city from Thursday, October 20th through Saturday, October 22nd. They've done a damn fine job of showcasing a ton of local artists as well as featuring some national acts, both sure to pack their respective houses -- and thus, it's through a sea of tears that we give you some of our picks for what you should do to make the best of those seventy-two hours.

City Arts isn't bringing us to tears, of course, unless you count tears of JOY at reading the full lineup! But we are a little sad to report that part of our imaginary team will be in New York for CMJ this year {for those of you keeping score at home, yep: it's the same week / weekend}.

THURSDAY

The Don't-Miss: The Long Winters / Campfire OK / Cobirds Unite / Cataldo
Where: Showbox at the Market
{tickets}

The Long Fucking Winters. At the Showbox. Seriously!! The rumors are true -- we're presenting this show, it's going to kick ass, the night will be full of surprises, and the lineup is killer. Cataldo will be warming up the night, fresh off the release of their latest album Prison Boxing, Cobirds Unite will send the masses swooning, Campfire OK will undoubtedly win the house over... and all of this before John Roderick and Company take the stage. Any night when he and Rachel Flotard are in the same house, whether they perform together or not, is sure to go down as one for the books.

The Runner-Upper: Seateeth
Where: Theatre Off Jackson
{tickets}

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Yep, you read that right: the Long Winters' own John Roderick will be putting on a one-night course as part of 826 Seattle's Write Like I Do series. His installment, entitled How To Be A Musician When You're Not That Good Of A Musician, will be taking place on Thursday, August 11th. If you rack your dreary grey spring memories, you'll remember that we warned you way back in March that this was coming -- and as of today, there's still tickets available {depending on when you're reading this, take a moment to check here to see if there's still any up for grabs}.

On top of the obvious wins -- an excellent, creative night with John where your money's well-spent on both class content and the support of a worthy cause -- we wanted to know more about what to expect, so we checked in with John about it. "I just gave the same class at MaxFunCon a few weeks ago down in SoCal," he told us. "We'll all do a little writing and messing around, both with lyrics and general prose, and talk about how to push yourself beyond journaling into creative writing of all kinds." And regarding snacks? "I'm sure as shit not going to bake anything, though."

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{click on posters to see larger version}

We here at Three Imaginary Girls have a huge crush on local designer extraordinaire, Corianton Hale. We first met Mr. Hale when he was Art Director at The Stranger where he put together some of our favorite covers.

A few years back he struck out on his own to focus on his own design firm (Sleep Op), and has since designed a massive and varied array of projects like fabric design for a line of Faconnable (the Euro-fancy department store) swim trunks and summer-wear, a recent REM book, limited edition concert posters, and perhaps most notably, the Three Imaginary Girls logo and website banner!

This Saturday July 16, 2011, Cori will fill the walls of Company {9608 16th Ave SW in White Center} with his artwork, centered around a theme of daddies and beards and masculinity. From the looks of the sneak peak he sent our way, the collection of inspirational posters, graphic collages, and BEARDS is off the hook (mustache)!

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Nathaniel Rateliff. Tom Brosseau. Margot and the Nuclear So-and-Sos. Andrew Bird. The Mountain Goats. Death Cab for Cutie.

No, we're not announcing some kind of fantasy festival lineup -- we're talking about Daytrotter. Which is, simply put, one of the best free music download sites out there on the internet today. And if you're not hip to it already, you should be: the performances are live, the choices of bands are impeccable, the art is often brilliant, and the product doesn't cost a dime. It's as if every rad band that passed through KEXP took their in-studio performance and made it available for a download, for free, with no catches and no gnarly advertisements.

No shit.

Daytrotter is, in a word, rad. And to up the ante, over the last few months they've had a few of our favorite Pacific Northwest bands come through their doors -- so in the event you haven't popped your DT cherry yet, here's some sessions to start with, along with the lovely words penned by the fine folks at the site to accompany them:

The Head and the Heart

Seattle band The Head and the Heart lives for the lovely confusion of continuous misinterpretation of what it means when we feel certain things in the various spots where we feel them. They don't let dreariness creep into the conversation, but rather they find that the shafts of golden light that stream into their eyes when they're needing it most are signs that comprehension is overrated. There are places that are so familiar that they're healing, in some way. {more}

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We couldn't be more excited for our inaugural show at the Neptune this Saturday -- because none other than the mighty Okkervil River will be taking the stage, and we're planning to be there front and center (with bells on).

The combination of one of our favorite bands and the newest, most anticipated room-opening since Columbia City Theater has us chomping at the bit and ticking off the hours until show time, as this will likely be 2011's biggest and brightest example of two great tastes that taste great together. Emotionally speaking, it's the chocolate in the peanut butter moment we've been waiting for since news of the Neptune's reduxing process came to the surface earlier this year. And not only will we have a night with OKR on the docket, which could be taking place in a dilapidated flophouse and still be capable of melting our faces off, ps -- but we'll be seeing them perform fresh off the incredibly successful release of I Am Very Far.

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Our last day out at this year's Sasquatch! music festival went out with an absolute bang. The morning started out with the sweet, big guitar + indie.altpop sounds of the Young Evils on the Yeti stage, followed by a smash-up singalong set by the Old 97's on the main stage (where we promptly got our Rhett-o-sexual on, big time!). On the recommendation of some friends, we took on the only blind set of the weekend -- a band we'd heard of but not listened much to, Noah and the Whale -- and we were not disappointed. It's worth noting they absolutely took the win for style points out of anyone else we saw all weekend, buttoned up in three-piece suits in what felt like baking summertime sun.

The foreign invasion continued with the gorgeous, orchestral buildup-melodies of Stornoway on the Bigfoot stage, followed by a shift-up into the tie for best set of the weekend, !!!. These guys were an absolute full-force marathon of awesome, tearing into the crowd, hamming it up for the photo pit, and bringing some of the best beats we'd heard over our time at the Gorge. Keep scrolling for more of Monday's photos!

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