After quite a bit of hmm-ing and hah-ing, I've finally come up with my favorite albums of 2009, listed in sort of numerical order, or at least that's how I feel today, including local favorites BOAT, Visqueen, and indie pop hearthrobs The Pains of Being Pure at Heart!

{photo by hot avocados photography}

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As you might have already heard in the podcast, one of the most impressive things to me about Telekinesis' rise to fame is the fact that they get to know Superchunk (one of my all time favorite bands). So you might understand why I nearly spit hot tea all over my monitor when I found this video this morning: Superchunk covering our dear imaginary favorites Telekinesis' "Tokyo" (collectively, one of our favorite songs of the year).

Please keep all electronics safe from any flying liquids due to excitement.

 

It's the weekend before Christmas which means holiday party season has kicked into high gear.  This weekend there are so many shows to choose from {it's like a mistletoe'd SXSW or something} that my eggnog'd head is spinning. Might we suggest:

***Friday, December 18***

BOAT / The Exploding High Fives / Concours d'Elegance at the Sunset Tavern
A holiday party with BOAT? I'll take that! Also on the bill is The Exploding High Fives who have a song "Since You're Not Here for Christmas" on their myspace which is Ben Folds cute and catchy.  This confirms I'll be in Ballard tonight for this show.

The Head & The Heart / Star Lake Drownings / Your Favorite Book at Conor Byrne
As you may know, Your Favorite Book is one of my favorite Seattle performers. Star Lake Drownings killed it at hour Holiday show last year. Also, YFB shows are rare, so I'm hoping to catch a wee bit of this show tonight.

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{photo: John E. Hollingsworth}

Day 2 of the countdown to the big huge wonderful Imaginary Winter Holiday Spectacular at Chop Suey on December 23rd {an evening full of big huge wonderful fun including, but not limited to Christmas Belles, free mega-raffle ticket goodness, MC David Schmader!}.

The band that is going to kick off the evening is the Special Places, a Seattle duo who recently started to take Seattle by storm with opening slots at BOAT's album release show and Aussie Darren Hanlon's recent visit. You might know them as 2/5 of imaginary favs Tullycraft, so you can imagine we jumped at the opportunity to sit down with them for their first ever interview as the Special Places. Jenny and Corianton spilled some deets on how they started out and whether or not they are secret (or not so secret) lovers. Now we're doubly looking forward to seeing what they have in store for us at the Spectacular.

 

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at The Vera Project

While Seattle Thermals shows in the past few years have been an ever intensifying, sometimes dangerous, almost orgy-like melding of bodies dancing and screaming along in a completely packed and joyful room, Seattle once again proved its often icy disposition and the half empty crowd stood quietly tapping their feet and nodding along, occasionally mouthing along the lyrics with little emotion. Was it too cold outside to dance? Were people tired since it was Sunday? I guess it made me feel a bit nostalgic, as years ago, my friends and I used to be the only ones up front dancing our asses off at Thermals shows. The one clear benefit of this, was the ability to stand up front without fear of being crushed to death or accidentally punched in the eye. Still, I missed the chaos, and it looked like the band did as well.

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We're counting down to the big huge wonderful Imaginary Winter Holiday Spectacular at Chop Suey on December 23rd {at which we'd be sincerely honored tol see your fine booty at}!

We are so delighted to have Seattle band Skeletons with Flesh on Them on the evening's bill with The Special Places, The Nightgowns, Wallpaper, and The Redwood Plan. On their 2009 album, All the other Animals, they've combined straightforward sweet pop guitar and songs vultures and lust that keep us on our toes and giddy.

I recently chatted with Scott of SwFoT about where that graphic band name came from and find out if they really are as nice as their songs suggest...

 

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Shopping for your loved ones can often be a daunting and stressful task. We here in imaginary land love to make your life easier. Here are a few mostly local itemsthat would make me squeal with delight if they popped up under my proverbial tree.

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From an informal poll of recent friends' twitters, it looks like it's been a rough week for a lot of us.

Just when I was about to start self-medicating with diet soda and a bucket of leftover Halloween candy, Nana Grizol emailed us and offered a brand-spanking new, never been posted, beauty of a song that is going to be on the next Nana Grizol album Ruth (Orange Twin Records, January 12, 2010)!!!

As I was hoping, "Galaxies" is a brass horn-filled, jangle-ridden, heart-wrenching sing-along piece of pop wonderment (download it now!) and is a great follow up to the first sneakpeek from the upcoming album, "For Things That Haven't Come Yet" (download it).

If you're outside of Seattle, looks like you might be in Nana Grizol luck:

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{photo from Darren's press kit}

It is my pleasure to announce that Australia's unbelievably talented and charming pinball champion/songsmith Darren Hanlon will be joining us in our fair city on Friday, November 13th at the Fremont Abbey! You may have caught Darren when he opened up for the Magnetic Fields on the i tour in 2004 (which happened to be where I fell in love with his songs myself). His songs are beautifullly penned stories, sometimes sad, sometimes silly, and often feature a "punchline", just as you're about to succumb to weeping on the floor. Here's a video of one of my favorites of his, "The Unmade Bed" from 2004's Little Chills.

And, to top it all off, we have a pair of tickets to give away! E-mail tig@threeimaginarygirls.com by Thursday at 9am with the subject line "WeOnlyTouchedElbows" (all one word please), and please include your full name, especially if your e-mail address is something like darrenrules@iwishthatiwerebeautifulforyou.com.au. See you at the Fremont Abbey!

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Pale Pacific-er and all around engineer super-star Cam Niklaus sat down with Dave Crane (aka D. Crane, guitar/bass/vocals/

songwriting) and Jackson Long (aka J. Long, drumming/recording) for some insight into the world of reptile boy vocals and redefining imperfect pop on their latest release Setting the Paces.

Cam Niklaus (CN): Could you give us a brief history of boats origins and where it's at now?

Dave Crane (DC): BOAT started as me making tapes on a [red] 4 track in Chicago. I would get home from teaching (and eat frozen pizza [and] drink regular Coke) and record songs. When I moved back to Seattle at the end summer 2003, I started making more and more songs in my basement. Z. Duffy (our now webmaster/east coast touring member/Chicago member) would trade tapes of songs we wrote with me [and] it was never intended to go beyond him. At the Pixies Bumbershoot reunion show, Mark McKenzie told me the songs were good. Josh Goodman joined (playing crazy drums and having babies) and we started recording for Magic Marker Records, a very cool supportive label in Portland. J. Long joined up in 07ish and has been the anchor for the band. He has a wicked work ethic [and] he has pushed us forward with recording and making sure we know the songs.  He is also an avid baseballer/cookie eater.

CN: Jackson, let's talk about recording BOAT. I had the pleasure of recording basic tracks for several songs in addition to doing some mixing. Do you want to talk about the recording process with and without me? A lot of the recording was done at a house in Tacoma, right?

Jackson Long (JL): Our ultimate dream was to assemble a faux-studio in a spare room at Dave’s house in South Tacoma and chip away at LP3 over long weekends and evenings. It didn’t go down exactly like that and I, as defacto-producer, annoyed more bandmates, wifes and cats than I wanted to in the process, but I think it was worth it. We started recording (at Dave’s) during a weekend in February. I attempted to record my drum parts for a dozen songs in a weekend, while we had the gear we need – all cobbled together from multiple generous people.I thought I could power through and wear the “drummer hat” and “engineer hat” simultaneously. Not until 3 weeks later did I realize that some of the songs lacked the energy the songs should have.I suggested that we abandon a few nearly complete recordings….and try recording them new way. This didn’t go over particularly well with the dudes, but ultimately they were willing to try my new plan. I said: “Let’s go into Two Sticks  (the studio I work at) for one evening, with my friend Cam at the helm and try recording with all of us playing together.” This was BOAT’s first time recording in a proper studio and I think we were blown away at the efficiency and how much we sounded like ourselves. From this point, we took these “basic” tracks BACK to Tacoma, our space in SODO, Mark’s apartment, etc. and BOAT-ified them. As Dave says, “just turn them into a sloppy mess.”

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