at Tractor Tavern

The working subtitle for this photoessay was almost Fuck Everything Else, Indie Rock Wins Forever. Because there's no other way to say it: Nada Surf puts on one hell of a pulsing, swoonworthy, face-shredding rock show. And not just any kind of rock, mind you -- this is fully legit indie rock, a term that gets tossed around way too loosely these days. You just have to know it when you see it: in this case, Nada Surf delivers their particular take, with the kind of big-guitar storytelling madness that keeps the crowd moving for the duration of the set, while blowing out eardrums in the most beautiful of ways. Without hesitation, I'll even go so far as to say that Nada Surf comes damn close to giving bands like the Wrens a run for their money -- and those of you who know my personal dedication to all things Wrens know the {musical} gravity with which I speak when I make that kind of a statement.

To wit: the setlist was flawless, and opener Eric Elbogen {nee Say Hi} did a tremendous job warming up the crowd with his batch of attention-grabbing, carefully delivered songs. I only wish more people would have stopped their yammering to pay more mind to his set, but with a sold-out venue that's on their tip-toes readying to rock the fuck out, there's only so much you can expect past the first five or six rows.

Say Hi:

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{This is part two of two in our best-of photo series of 2011. Take a peek over at part one here, and don't forget to check out our festival best-ofs part one and two as well!}

Favorite photo #5: Ocean Shores :: In a get-to-know-your-roots {PNW edition} kind of road trip, we hopped in the car one weekend with esteemed sometimes-imaginary photographer and fellow transplant Laura Musselman for a ride out to the water -- Ocean Shores, to be exact -- with jaunts to Aberdeen and Hoquiam on the way. It was all at once melancholy and sun-filled, juxtaposing sad, semi-abandoned mainstreets with a big, bright, full-fledged kite festival once we were beachside. Strange as it was for those two worlds to meet, it was definitely a day trip for the books, yielding a half-dozen photos that easily made our best-ofs for the year (like the one above). {more field trip photos} {Laura Musselman}

Favorite moment #5: Eef Barzelay {at the Madrona Ale House} :: The night after Eef Barzelay's headlining appearance at our Imaginary Holiday Spectacular, he played a much quieter affair as part of a private party at the Madrona Ale House. Abandoning the PA after three-quarters of a song, he sat down across the table from us, where he proceeded to stay for much of the show. The result? A very front-row seat for one of our favorite performances of the year. You can even hear a moderately decent recording of one of his Journey project tracks from the show over here and relive the moment along with us! {more photos of Eef} {Eef Barzelay / Clem Snide bandcamp}

Favorite photo #4: Lovesick Empire at Neumos :: This one happened so early in the year that it almost slipped through the great sort-through! Way back in January, Lovesick Empire played an AMAZING set at Neumos, and even though they're pushing forward with a slightly different lineup than seen here, they are still making some of the most kick-ass music coming out of Seattle today. It's huge-sounding, dirty, full of guitars, and cuts right to the point -- another one to add to your "do not miss under any circumstances" list of live bands to catch so that you don't regret it forever the morning after they've played. {more photos from the Neumos show} {Lovesick Empire FB}

Favorite moment #4: John Roderick's pre-City Arts house show :: We were the luckiest of all ducks to not only attend, but actually host a super-intimate house show with John Roderick out in Ballard this past October, where less than two dozen folks pulled together a potluck and a city of tealights for one of our favorite shows of the year. John held court in front of the mantel, singing and storytelling and taking requests for more time than we could keep track of (minutes? hours?) while the room swooned away with delight -- like Eef's Alehouse show, we even managed to sneak in a homemade recording, which you can take a listen to here. Honestly, there's not much we can think of for 2012 that's going to be able to top it. {more photos from the house show} {The Long Winters}

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There were so many great times in 2011 that we've had to divide them up into little compartments just to review them all: there are the photos that captured everything in the perfect just-so kind of way, forever burning the days and nights into the backs of our minds and our notebooks, and the moments where the light was less than perfect but we were swept off our feet nonetheless. Even though we're likely forgetting some key {literal and metaphorical} snapshots from both categories, we've taken a crack at listing our favorites spanning back to January of this year.

Favorite photo-and-moment #10: Michael Lee {of The Young Evils} :: Just the other month -- was it November? -- we found ourselves at the Rendezvous in Belltown for a most-excellent set from our friends The Young Evils, who put on a performance so good that it left us practically beside ourselves at the thought of new music coming from their camp sometime in 2012. While they shook and swayed the stage, we managed to snap our tenth-most-favorite shot of the year in between applause and hollers of bass player Michael Lee, who was looking particularly dapper that evening all dolled-up in a suit and tie. His whole vibe had a very alt.indiepop.McCartney-esque slice to it, and we're so glad we managed to capture it in a photo! {more photos from the show} {The Young Evils}

Favorite moment(s)-and-photo(s) #10: the Market in the summertime :: Right around the time of the Eddie Vedder / Glen Hansard shows this year -- July, to be exact -- we found ourselves with a bit of free time and some friends visiting from out of town {namely one of our imaginary Austin liasons, Amanda}, which made for an excellent excuse to get our tourist on down at Pike Place Market. Even though the sun this summer was moderate and fleeting, we were able to soak up some of it on the sidewalks and benches on some of the most picturesque spots in town, by far making it one of our favorite little slices to remember 2011 by! {more photos from the Market}

Favorite photo #9: Heligoats :: Ah! Heligoats may just be our favorite knew-about-but-didn't-know-about-until-this-year act, which we happily discovered during his sets over the weekend of the Imaginary Holiday Spectacular. Seen above performing at Columbia City Theater earlier this month, Heligoats {in this incarnation as Chris Otepka, solo} stole our hearts and our kneesock-clad tapping toes all at once with his wordy, smart storylines and earnest, upbeat sound -- and to have this photo to remember it by makes it all the better! {more photos of the Imaginary Holiday Spectacular} {Heligoats official}

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{This is part two of our one-two punch showcasing the best in festival moments and photos from 2011. Start from the beginning here, where you can see picks #10 - #6!}

Favorite photo #5: Wye Oak :: Standing in the pit at Sasquatch! at the small stage is always a treat -- you're right up next to the performers, and unless someone's career has exploded between the time they got booked and the time the festival rolls around, there's not too many people mobbing the area surrounding the stage. Such was the case for Wye Oak, and while they were already a good, established band then with a solid crowd turnout, we were able to get up-close-and-personal for their set to capture this mid-song moment. If you haven't seen one of their many appearances -- Sasquatch! 2011, the shows with the National at the Neptune last month, or from the "HOLY SHIT" file: that time they played with Shearwater at the Triple Door in 2010 -- get out to see them on mid-sized stages while you can. {more photos from Wye Oak's set at Sasquatch!} {Wye Oak official}

Favorite moment #5: Del :: So, technically, this happened *during* Austin City Limits and not *at* Austin City Limits proper, but we couldn't compile a best-of without mentioning Del.

One morning, while loading up on espresso and bagels while uploading photos pre-fest on a hundred-degree day in Austin, we met Del. And as it turns out, Del is just an artist in a corner at a cafe, akin to those writing furiously in a notebook -- only he doesn't blog it, "show" it, exist anywhere on the internet, or have openings in art galleries. This is just what he does, and after getting permission to take his photo and chatting with him for a bit, we learned that this inky artpile is Del's form of art-therapy journal-y processing. While it wasn't a We Are Augustines set or a moment in front of the stage with Elbow, it was nonetheless a highlight of our ACL trip and well-worth preserving here in our 2011 storyline!

Favorite photo(s)-and-moment #4: Sharon van Etten

Favorite moment-and-photo(s) #4: Aloe Blacc

What an amazing, amazing pair of sets these two put on at Sasquatch! this year. Sharon van Etten's sparse, gut-wrenching performance rang out all the way into the darkest corners of our hearts where the best reverb lies, and Aloe Blacc held up to every expectation we had going into the set. The fact that they both looked good doing what they both obviously love {and are so, so well-suited} to do just made capturing it in photo-form all that much easier. {more Sasquatch! 2011 photos} {more about Aloe Blacc} {SVE official}

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It was a great weekend for the music books, with so many good shows going on around town -- and you can call us biased, but we really do think Friday's Imaginary Holiday Spectacular took the cake as the weekend-starter to top them all. We spent the night flitting between Santa Roderick's lap and the gorgeous theater proper with a hundred and fifty of our closest imaginary friends, with heartmeltingly good sets from some of our favorite bands: Heligoats opened the night up and managed to slay us with the achiest, best kind of hope; Temp Score and Mal de Mer kept the indie-pop party going mid-lineup, and the evening closed out with a solid, gorgeous set from Eef Barzelay. Between the bliss of getting to spend a party-show with such good folks, the full frontal ache of Eef's catalog, and the transition into "Wal-Mart Parking Lot" about midway through the set -- our polka-dotted holiday mixtape hearts were just about done-for.

Heligoats {Chris Otepka}:

Temp Score:

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This past Saturday, we said goodbye to our dear, dear Visqueen. The duo of Rachel Flotard and Ben Hooker (with a rotating team of equally disarming and talented friends on bass and rhythm guitar throughout the years) charmed a sold out crowd one last time. The evening couldn't have been any more sweet, or touching, or amazing. It's the night that we will all be talking about for years to come, about the last time Visqueen rocked our socks off: the final Rachel in-between song banter that made us laugh so hard we cried, and a final song that was so stunning, I weep buckets at just the mention of it. 

Rachel was able to cajole Broadcast Oblivion into reforming for this special night.  I'll admit, it's been a while since I've listened to my copy of Transmita Olvido to sing along to "False Starts for Blackened Hearts" (on repeat), but it was magical to enter the showroom as they were working up a sweat. Capping off their set with a drum off between Ben Hooker and Coady Willis (who you might have recognized as a Murder City Devil), they really set the tone for the rest of the night: the next few hours were going to be full of surprises, and the fun of a good ol' fashioned party among friends. Visqueen entered the stage to “I Had the Time of My Life” from Dirty Dancing, hugging and laughing and taking the edge off of the finality of it all, and cementing the fact that when it comes down to it, we're all still going to be BFFs -- nomatterwhat.

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Lucky, lucky us! In the midst of an incredibly well-timed trip to the east coast, we found ourselves front and center for a slice of CMJ at the Ace Hotel in New York City last week. Our fine friends over at KEXP had lined up a great few days of performances, with in-studios from bands like Widowspeak (above), Givers, WATERS, Dum Dum Girls, We Are Augustines, Zola Jesus, and so many more. The daytime performances were undoubtedly the best of the fest, and we're so happy and grateful we got to help out and contribute some time, love, and photography skills to some of the best seventy-two hours Rocktober has ever seen:

John in the Morning and Zola Jesus, day one:

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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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at Columbia City Theater

Jens Lekman, with his new EP An Argument With Myself out on Secretly Canadian continued his tradtion of trademark immaculate-style storytelling as he launched into the title track "An Argument With Myself," spilling the beans on a literal argument he had with himself while walking the streets of Melbourne. "Waiting For Kirsten" preceded Jen's explanation of how the song came to be with Kirsten Dunst's mention of Jens in a past interview, which led to a chance opportunity in his hometown of Gothenburg to stalk Kirsten at a hotel (but sadly, with no luck).

Jens fervently dove into his back catalogue with the classic "I Saw Her In The Anti War Demonstration" and then quickly springing into "A Sweet Summer's Night on Hammer Hill." By now, many fans were swaying their hips and singing along to the chorus of "Bomp-a-bomp-a-bomp-a-bomp-a-bomp-a-bomp-a-bomp / can you the beat of my heart..." With no full band accompanying him -- a contrast compared to his past tours -- Jens introduced his lone companion on stage, drummer Addison Rogers to much applause. New songs "I Broke Up A Fight" and "Cowboy Boots" (a new one about having a dream about cowboy boots) were met with approval. And the crowd's favorites continued with "Black Cab" and "The Opposite of Hallelujah," with Jens stepping to the frontmost part of the stage mimicking the ringing of the bells at the end of the song, closing his set with "Sipping on Sweet Nectar."

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{This is part two of our photo-coverage from the 2011 Austin City Limits festival -- check out part one here!}

The second half of this year's trip to Zilker Park was even better than the first, as ACL's chock-ful-o' bands and radness vibe kept on strong. Strains of Wanda Jackson and Cee Lo filtered through the late-day dusk as we crowded under the Vista Equity stage tent to catch a few songs (and a glimpse) of Gillian Welch. And was it ever worth fighting the crowd -- that sparse, stripped-away version of "Ohio" was absolutely one of the high points of our Saturday!

The night blew us away with huge sets from TV on the Radio, My Morning Jacket, and Stevie Wonder -- and in what felt like moments later we were back in the morning for more. Yellow Ostrich, Mariachi El Bronx, Dale Earnhardt Jr. Jr.,  The Head and the Heart, the Walkmen, Broken Social Scene, and Joseph Arthur filled our sweltering Sunday with amazement -- but the two best sets of the day {and the weekend, IOHO} went to Elbow and We Are Augustines. Hands-down, no contest.

Here's a few shots from between the raindrops!

Gillian Welch with Dave Rawlings, slaying a packed house tent:

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