Imaginary Rich hit the SIFF red carpet once again for the premiere of The Otherside last Friday night, and got some great photos of everyone who showed up to support the film, including Macklemore! Below are a some highlights, and you can see the whole set on Flickr here. 

{More photos after the jump}

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Imaginary Rich has done it again! His red carpet coverage is UNSTOPPABLE. This time he captured the arrivals for both The Punk Singer and Her Aim is True: two rock-related documentaries that screened at SIFF this past weekend.

We ♥ the spirit showing in these! Thanks, Rich.

{more photos after the jump} 

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We were elbow-to-elbow with all our best pals in the front row at Neumos Saturday night, in the name of love, fundraising, and the one and only Jenny George. Yep, this past weekend was the 8th annual Dancing on the Valentine fundraiser, and it was jam-packed with great local bands belting out our favorite Cure tracks. The money's still being tallied, but judging by the crowd, we're sure that the night went a long way toward the annual Leukemia and Lymphoma Society donation -- take a peek at the photos below and relive all the fun! We were particularly enamored with Lesli Wood (as usual), Adra Boo, NighTrain, Panama Gold, and those fellows in Fox and the Law:

Lesli Wood with Jupe Jupe

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Two Gallants played to a sold-out crowd at Barboza this past Friday night, showcasing their folk rock prowess from their latest release, The Bloom and the Blight (along with songs from their past albums). From the very beginning the room held an appreciative vibe, singing along to close to every song, and the band gave it right back. 

If you've only heard Two Gallants via album, you'd assume that they were a full (multi-piece) band. They produce a sound that is astonishing on the albums, and in person even more impressive as a duo. Adam Stephens (vocals, guitar, harmonica) plays with a unique finger style, reproducing the intricate folk sounds as well as the strong rock melodies off The Bloom and the Blight. Coupled with his raw vocal style and literary lyrics, it makes for an interesting and intimate show setting. Equally as astounding is Tyson Vogel (drums, vocals) who creaties a ferocious sound that's especially apparent on songs like "Ride Away" and "My Love Won't Wait."

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Last Friday was a pretty sweet little surprise for me (and for anyone else that was at the Crocodile). Maybe it's the shift in weather, but I always seem hungry for a intimate concert experience this time of year -- and this show was just that.

The headliner was Patrick Watson, Montreal Quebec's very own mix of Andrew Bird, Grizzly Bear and Jeff Buckley (???). Now, I had just been referred to Watson's recently released album, Adventures In Your Own Backyard, and had been hooked by the warmth and genuine emotion of it, almost right away. Watson and his band walked onto a completely blacked out stage with small lights strapped to each member's hand, casting a faint light onto their instruments and the stage itself, before starting off with the eerily beautiful opening track off of the new album, "Lighthouse." It served at once to draw everyone's attention to Watson's silky, ghostly vocals and the tasteful build-up of the band behind him. I knew about half the songs that were played as I have been listening to the latest album on repeat for the last week -- but every song I didn't know was just another reason to like the band even a little bit more. I was most taken by the craft of the band and their ability to manipulate their instruments in order to get sounds that truly gave the songs a personality of its own, the guitarist even using a toothbrush on his strings at one point in the show.

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Now that this year's City Arts Fest is over, I can take a step back and realize that I have been blown away by four solid days of an amazing array of (mostly) local bands, all giving Seattle some truly amazing sets. Each night showcased what the Pacific Northwest had to offer, and it was difficult to decide what venues to hit and who to see. Packing in as much as I could, I witnessed an incredible display of music spanning from pop to country to rock, and of course, took tons of photos.

The David Byrne / St. Vincent show was housed in the most perfect venue, that being the 5th Avenue Theater. The performance was brilliantly theatrical, with a choreographed horn section and Byrne and Clark's synchronized dancing (!!!) it really was entertainment of the highest caliber. It was almost overwhelmingly unreal. Love This Giant is one of my favorite albums that's come out this year and live, and I'm happy to report that the songs are even more over the top than they are on the record. What became clear about St. Vincent's songs -- especially those like "Cheerleader", "Cruel", and "Marrow" -- was how downright grand they became with the addition of an array of brass instuments. The crowd was pretty packed with David Byrne/Talking Heads fans or at least my section was; and yes, "Burnin' Down the House" was played in amazing fashion.

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I'm still recovering from the long week of bands, venues, and seemingly endless late-night photo edits, however: I wouldn't change one thing about my stay in Portland. Musicfest NW is the stamp at the end of a summer of festivals and they packed their lineup with some amazing bands. My schedule kept changing up until the day of shows, so I just decided that I was going to see bands I hadn't seen before and that worked out pretty well. The weather was perfect, if not a little on the hot side -- but for the last festival before fall, I didn't mind having to stand in the sun for the two or so hours before it set. So, without further ado: here are my highs from the shows I was able to catch during MFNW 2012.

I had to keep it pretty low key for Wednesday. After a day of bus travel and running around after arriving in Portland, I decided to stick to the Crystal Ballroom (my hotel was across the street) and I absolutely made the right choice. LP was brilliant, her voice alone cuts through the room with as much emotion as one could possibly imagine, and in every conceivable way produced one of those amazing, uplifting sets where all you want to do when you get home is listen to the album over and over again.

Headlining the night was Passion Pit, and I thought to myself, what better way to get introduced to this band than to see them live? It was high energy, Michael Angelakos running from one side of the stage to the other; the crowd was phenomenal: jumping, dancing, singing. Passion Pit was the perfect electro-dance heavy-pop band I needed to kickstart me into the fest.

Thursday was the toughest day to decide whom to see. Do I venue hop? Don't I? It was a tough call. I finally decided that after missing every possible chance to see him in Seattle, my only certainty that day was to catch Reignwolf play the Roseland Theater. Every review I read up until this show had one thing in common: that the performance was absolutely mindblowing, and they are all telling the truth. My mind was blown from that first puff of fog from the fog machine to the last guitar solo. I was complete putty in the hands of Reignwolf! And as if it wasn't enough to play drums and guitar simultaneously, he then gives us a cover of Fleetwood Mac's "The Chain". Geez!

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What a killer weekend! It was so great, in fact, that it took me all week to (a) recover some semblance of time management skills and (b) sort through the nine zillion photos from three days of blood, sweat and booty-shakin'. Now that we're all back on track and gearing up for the weekend, let's take a look at all the fun we had: this year's Bumbershoot lined up a diverse range of sounds, collided with a killer forecast, and was packed to the gills with happy, band-loving fesitvalgoers (myself and a few other imaginary staffers included).

Here's a sliver of the bliss I was able to capture from some of my personal highlights from this year's festival, starting with the early Saturday groove-assault brought on by JC Brooks and the Uptown Sound -- complete with serious shout-outs to KEXP:

Sera Cahoone put on a gorgeous set at the Sub Pop stage -- there's lots of buzz around about her new album, out on SP later this month.

Have you ever been to a THEESatisfaction show? No? Let me sum it up for you: the whip-smart lyrics and undeniable beats that Stas and Cat dropped made for a non-stop bump-and-grind fest, punctuated only by realizations that I was in the presence of two people who manage to (somehow) simultaneously exude true greatness and absolute badassery. Were I able to stop shaking my ass for more than .02 seconds, I would have thrown my underwear at the stage. Yep. It was that kind of good:

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{This is part two of our Pickathon 2012 coverage. Be sure to pop over here to catch the first half, with photos of Thee Oh Sees, Langhorne Slim, The Mynabirds, Bowerbirds, and more!}

Our second full day at Pickathon kicked off just right on Sunday, as we strolled onto the grounds around high noon to hear none other than Gordon Gano himself, along with the Lost Bayou Ramblers, blasting out fiddle-mod-ed Femmes favorites like "Blister in the Sun" and "Add It Up" out into the sunshiney, dusty heat. The crowd, artists, and media folks alike stood grinning and thrilled, and few steps to the right, the set bled right into a breezy yet energy-filled performance by Portland's Y La Bamba. We're going to go out on a limb and say it was {damn near} one of the finest festival start-off mornings in recent memory.

Y La Bamba:

After a bass-heavy jam sesh from The War On Drugs, indie scene crossover favorites Shovels and Rope were up, and like the Gordon Gano set, it was much to everyone's delight. There's a hell of a lot of quality sound that comes out of these two when they take the stage, as they fuse good old-fashioned songwriting with smart melodies, a strong vocal sensibility, and an infectious energy. Seattleites likely caught their set pre-Pickathon at the KEXP Concerts at the Mural series last Friday, but if you didn't, they're playing just about every day between now and September 1st in different pockets across the country. Click here to see if any of it is happening near you!

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It was an incredible inaugural experience for us at this year's Pickathon, the once-a-year celebration of all things indie roots (and indie, and roots) down on Pendarvis Farm in Happy Valley, Oregon. While, at times, the heat made the festival something to be endured, rather than out-and-out enjoyed -- temperatures broke 100 degrees on Saturday and hit the mid-90s on Sunday -- we still managed to have a blast.

Pickathon is just... different, something you have to see to experience. It's somehow simultaneously appealing to hipsters, hippies, families, and heads. The production of the festival itself is one of the most sustainable we've ever witnessed, with a token-for-dishware trade and "no single use" policy, exclusively local vendors and no corporate sponsorship. And the curation is so much more than just indie roots, with everyone from Gordon Gano to Langhorne Slim to Neko Case to Thee Oh Sees to THEESatisfaction taking the stages between banjo-picking sing- and stomp-a-longs. Pickathon really is one of those festivals that's stayed true to its roots while growing in size and popularity, free from car ads and jumbrotrons. We were all just up to our armpits in farm dirt, digging on tunes and having a hell of a time. And isn't that how it's supposed to be?

Here's a few photo highlights of our first day at the fest, Saturday (the weekend actually runs from Friday to Sunday). The Mynabirds were the first band to catch our ear in the main stage area, with their ethereal, jammy, layered sound. They fused their vibe with about two percent tent revival and a heaping side of synth-hipster for good measure, and it worked like a charm:

Next up, we caught a set by the Bowerbirds, who delivered pretty prog.indie folk songs. Worth noting: the band has a new album out as of March '12, and will be touring this fall with a stop at our very own Neumos at the end of October. More info here.

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