You remember Heligoats, right? Of course you do: sweet, Bellingham-spun, beautifully delirious frontman of the band Chris Otepka was kind enough to grace us with his presence with a solo performance at our Imaginary Holiday Spectacular last year. Tonight, he's bringing the whole band out at the Comet Tavern {yep, tonight-tonight, Thursday the 27th} and you're all invited. All of you!

Go listen to Fishsticks on the band's Facebook page, or take a spin or two around any of the albums he's got on the internet, or listen to the Tiny Desk concert he did a bit ago on NPR:

or play this video from one of his old bands:

and seriously tell me you're not going to come to the show tonight.

{21+ / cheap / be there. Heligoats is second on the four-band bill. Photo of Chris Otepka by Victoria VanBruinisse.}

What better way to kick off October than with a double feature of animated Burton-y goodness? Look, I know the guy has made some mistakes lately (I can't even talk to you about Dark Shadows … it's just. I ... macrame?!?!?! yeah), but he sure does know how to create some beautiful animated films that fill my former teenage Goth girl heart with much barely beating, deep black love.  

One of those animated masterpieces is The Nightmare Before Christmas, which I am admittedly a bit obsessed with. I don't trust anyone who doesn't smile at the antics of the confused Pumpkin King, Jack Skellington, and his misguided attempt to take over another holiday. 

The second, which I have been highly anticipating, is the animated remake of Burton's beloved 1984 live-action short Frankenweenie. I recently unearthed my prized Frankenweenie cutout from my video store days, and just looking at it and thinking about the awesomeness of the new film makes me all squee-happy, wild-eyed, and jumpy. With an official opening date of 10/5, that means this is a sneak peek! yayyyyyyyyyyyy! 

You guys, I am an addict, and my drug is Tim Burton stop-motion animation. 

Anyway! For only $15, you can seat yourself at SIFF Cinema Uptown on Tuesday, October 2, and see these two features back-to-back in 3D -- with a special appearance by award-winning animation producer Allison Abbate (who has worked on all of Burton's animated films). I'm in. How 'bout you? 

{Tim Burton 3 Animated Double Feature | SIFF Cinema Uptown | October 2, showtime 6:30pm | No late seating | $15 GA, $10 for SIFF Members }

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It's like chocolate and peanut butter! Peanut butter and chocolate! However you like to do it, rad shows and killer posters are two great tastes that taste great together. Posters can be a tangible reminder of a night that changed your life, or a beautiful piece of art to commemorate a show, and in most cases, they're both. And in the last ten years of our existence, we have definitely had our hand in helping to assemble a lot of great shows, and subsequently, a lot of great posters have been birthed as a result.

We've had the good fortune of working with art shops and designers like at Seattle Show Posters, Corianton Hale, Pete Hilgendorf, Sam Trout, and Killorn O'Neill, among others. But you don't have to just take our word for how visually impressive this past decade has been -- you can get together with us for a very special First Friday at 112 Printworks on October 5th and come and see for yourselves... and Theo from two of our favorite bands, Nana Grizol and Defiance, Ohio, will be playing a set!

You guessed it: there's another anniversary event brewing, and you're invited!

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We've waxed on and on and on and on and on about All Things Father John Misty: the necessity of owning Fear Fun, the brilliance of the performances, and reason after reason why you need to see this band live to truly appreciate the jam that J. Tillman and Co. have got going on. But on the odd chance you haven't been listening (for shame!), here's a bit of an imaginary highlight reel that will hopefully convince you that this Friday's performance at Neumos is absolutely, hands-down, without-a-doubt the place you need to be.

First, Imaginary Victoria's take on our first listen of the leaked album, way back in February:

It's an incredible departure from anything we've ever heard J./osh Tillman involved in thus far, and a few of our first listens, it almost feel like a sampler of everything he's been waiting to play for the world, and everything we've been waiting to hear but didn't know we needed. Fear Fun is some kind of mad genius that we can't quite find the right adjectives for yet, as we're still waist-deep in absorbing both the lyrical content and sonic experimentation of it all: pure, clear vocals laden over with seventies-esque easy-listening key-change sensibilities and a side of jangly guitar twang, fused together with a full-frontal balls-out sound that takes time to digest and process. This album is smart, complicated, soothing yet uncomfortable, brash yet kind -- it doesn't sound like anything else we know, which leaves us with the overall feeling that Father John Misty just might be the Brian Wilson of the post indie rock set.

And Chris Estey's full review of Fear Fun, our only full "10" of 2012 thus far:

It involves a lot of reading Beats and bards and bohemian travel writers; writing reams of visions and observations and humiliating admissions; listening to a whole lot of great albums from the later Vietnam era created by PTSD-shaken troubadours; perfervidly working on demos with producer/singwriter comrade Jonathan Wilson, and bringing on board Phil Ek to help mix it. Also: treehouse living with spiders, Canadian Shamans who share a little too much intoxicant, Adderall and weed otherwise, a lot of funerals, fumbling drinks, and novels needing to be written as one lives life like a "You take your chances here, pal" roller coaster.

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So far, the self-titled first full-length from Poor Moon hasn’t received as much notice as some other Fleet Foxes-related acts, but that is certainly no fault of its own: on Poor Moon, deceptively simple arrangements of lilting vocal melodies and folksy instruments float just above preciousness in a macramé hammock.

Containing sounds drawn out of every aisle of a vintage record store – from Neil Young to barefoot, school bus-dwelling hippies and long-forgotten glossier pop groups – Poor Moon unsurprisingly bears a lot of resemblance to Fleet Foxes, especially on album closer “Birds.” If we're going to generalize, for the most part, this side project is Fleet Foxes shorn of their more experimental and psychedelic elements. I could forgive you for considering Poor Moon to be Fleet Foxes declawed, but I couldn't agree. For my money, the restrained elegance of Poor Moon is exquisite.

You don’t have to take my word for it, though. Poor Moon will be playing at Neumos with Tom Eddy + Pollens on September 20. Tickets are only $12, but if you’re feeling lucky enough, you might get in for free! Just shoot us an email at tig {at} threeimaginarygirls {dot} com with the subject "SendMeToPoorMoon" anytime between now and 2pm on Monday, September 17. We'll choose a winner Monday afternoon, and send you an email letting you know that you (and your choice of +1) are on the list for Thursday's show.

Good luck!

{Neumos / 21+ / $12 adv / 8pm doors. Tickets and more info available here. Photo credit: Kyle Johnson.}

If you live in Seattle, dig live music, consider yourself in the know, and haven’t yet seen Champagne Champagne -- seriously, what have you been doing? Well, fret not: now is your chance. There's no excuse not to get your pretty self down to Neumos this Thursday {yep, that's the 13th} to get your mind blown.

On their self-titled first album/demo, MCs Pearl Dragon and Sir Thomas Gray took us in all directions, from sampling Mr. Rogers to hazily rapping about Molly Ringwald girls. They opened for Macklemore back in 2011 and graduated up the ladder to touring with Wu Tang Clan and a gig on Warped Tour. And somewhere in-between, they had time to release the EP Private Party on French label Platinum Records, bringing producer/instrumentalist DJ Gajamagic onboard. Champagne Champagne certainly keeps busy, getting all kinds of shit done and finding time to play their hometown on a regular basis.

If you want to get more familiar: the track “Four Horsemen” has a Daptones-style horn-heavy beat, giving an exuberant backdrop to the apocalyptic lyrics. Our favorite raucous genre-bending trio throws everything at you: punk, electro pop, hip hop, and socially conscious rhymes, sometimes all in the same song! They've also collaborated with THEESatisfaction -- listen to “Bird Lives” and you will want to move to an ashram and do hookah-fueled yoga all day. Guaranteed.

Seriously, if that isn’t enough incentive to be at Neumos on Thursday, I just don’t know what is.

{Champagne Champagne with The Knux / 8p doors / $10 adv / 21+. Photo courtesy of Last FM.}

Wild Nothing is the dream-pop solo project of Blacksburg, Virginia native Jack Tatum. The project started in the summer of 2009, while Tatum was a senior in college, and by the spring of 2010 he already had a much-heralded debut album under his belt. On Gemini, Tatum’s vocals are pleasing and even keeled, never reaching a fever pitch, yet never completely falling out of the picture either. Comparisons to Bradford Cox’s projects Deerhunter and Atlas Sound aren’t far off -- you could also put Wild Nothing in the same ballpark as local act Craft Spells or even the more laid back work of The Radio Dept., just to give you a general idea of their sound.

Tatum followed up Gemini with the EP Golden Haze, a title that, for me, most accurately encapsulates the sound of Wild Nothing, as these songs do indeed sound like a beautiful golden haze. Last month Wild Nothing released their sophomore album Nocturne -- take a listen to the first single (and the album's most instantly likeable track), “Shadow”:

If you like the sound, you can catch Wild Nothings at Neumos this coming Sunday, September 9th.

Of note: opening up the Neumos show are Brooklyn band Diiv. Diiv were formed by Beach Fossils guitarist Zachary Cole Smith, and named after a 1990 Nirvana B-side “Dive”, although they’ve since changed to the phonetical homonym “Diiv” because a 90s Belgian act already had the name. Smith is an avid fan of Kurt Cobain and Nirvana, although Diiv’s sound bears little resemblance; and Smith has also confessed an affinity for Kraut rock, citing Can and Neu! as influences. Those influences show up in a number of the tracks on Diiv’s debut album Oshin, which came out earlier this summer on Captured Tracks, the label also responsible for all of Wild Nothing’s releases.

Listen up and make your way to Capitol Hill for Sunday's show. I'll see you there!

{Wild Nothing, Diiv, Naomi Punk / 8:00 doors / $15 adv / all ages. Photo courtesy of Wild Nothing.}

Sometimes he who says it pretty much first, says it best. As underground music maven Byron Coley (Forced Exposure zine) scribed on Swans in the January 1987 issue of SPIN, "Records by the Swans have so little to do with pleasure, fun, and the, uh, joy of living that it's no off-a-log-explainin' that they always suck at my ear like some wax-hungry insect.  ... It sounds dumber than vom to say the Swans are 'important' and thus worthy of your time, money, attention; but unfortunately this statement is truth."

I don't remember what "dumber than vom" means, but this was the 80s and it was scary - and Swans were even scarier! Headed Lord of the Flies-style by a tabasco-in-his-veins Michael Gira, these musicians weren't the trippy folky cult rock cool bands he'd been luring kids to listen to the past couple of decades. This Swans was as influential to my tribe of now-geezers as Xiu Xiu has recently been in spawning a certain ennui-infused art rock thang, but massively, all-muscley more-so. 

And that Swans -- the evil sounding, barbarically control-freakish tribe of clatter and grunts which released epics like Holy Money (which BC was describing up there), is taking further swings at God on their new double CD, The Seer. Following up classic Swans on 2010's My Father..., the cosmic daddy issues just won't die. Lots of victims, mostly of their own cocky/cockeyed misguided faith, gassily losing their religion on lit-cigarette-butts-in-the-backyard-on-your-feetsoles "93 Ave. B" and "Song For A Warrior" (guest starring Karen O!). I just picked the package up this weekend and it's like a bad acid trip during a botched assassination that never runs out of ammo. Jarboe, Michael's toughened-up, band boot-camp broken PTSD-partner, has come back to put come "voice collage" on it too, so it's throat-bliss and blood all the way. 

If you think you dig the dark stuff, come out and see a Master handle it. I don't mind being tortured as long as it's by someone who truly knows how to do it and hasn't gone soft. This Mad Man Michael knows exactly what buttons to push; he's not hiding out playing the same campy game over and over again. His various experimentations with sweet musical carrots have made his punishment stick sting that much harder. Thus, it's no exasperated, desperate hoax attempt at noise-trauma: it's the real thing. Think you can handle it? Then drop us a line at tig {at} threeimaginarygirls {dot} com with the subject line "IWantToSeeTheSeer" sometime in the next week. We'll close out the submissions at 5p on Wednesday, September 5th and pick a winner +1 to head to Friday's show.

{Swans play Neumos on Friday, September 7th with Xiu Xiu. $25 advance, doors open at 8 p.m.}

There's plenty to dig into at this year's Bumbershoot Music Festival outside of the big-draw acts (Gotye, anyone?) that make the daily ticket price well worth every hard-earned dollar you're going to spend. There's an impressive comedy lineup, KEXP's always-awesome "secret" Music Lounge, endless vendors, and the sunny goodness of the Seattle Center grounds -- and it all awaits us as another Labor Day weekend looms around the corner. You can head on over to the official Bumbershoot site to go over the schedule and fine-tune a personal lineup, of course -- but here's a few of our hot picks anyway, just in case you find yourself with a case of multi-stage overwhemsion.

SATURDAY

Bumbershoot kicks off strong this year with some feel-good bands breaking us in on our first day, like JC Brooks and the Uptown Sound (fingers crossed-times-infinity that they do their killer cover of "I Am Trying To Break Your Heart"), Sera Cahoone, and the Barr Brothers, still fresh in our mind from their performance at Pickathon. THEESatisfaction is sure to electro-groove our very souls before we get a good shredding from the Heartless Bastards, and later on we'll gladly close out day one with a bit of Jane's Addiction and M. Ward:

2:30p, Fisher Green Stage: JC Brooks and the Uptown Sound
3:30p, Sub Pop Stage (Fountain Lawn): Sera Cahoone
4:30p, The Promenade: Barr Brothers
5:15p, Sub Pop Stage: THEESatisfaction
5:45p, Starbucks Stage (Mural): Heartless Bastards
9:00p, The Promenade: Damien Jurado
9:30p, Mainstage (Key Arena): Jane's Addiction
9:45p, Fisher Green Stage: M. Ward

There's tons to do in that gap during the dinner hour, including the Stranger's Guide to America, grabbing actual dinner, checking out Flatstock, and seeking out one of a bazillion killer comedy acts before picking back up the tunes.

SUNDAY

Chugging along into day two, we'll gladly get take our wakeup call from Eighteen Individual Eyes (and a side of the-good-kind-of-bite from Katie Kate) before we ease into a mainstage set at Key Arena from Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings (hell yes!!). There's a run of favorites and Sub Pop all-stars through the afternoon, with blissy sets from the Young Evils, the Fruit Bats, and Mudhoney; and another day'll easily get knocked out of the park with a closing set from Wanda Jackson and those Dusty 45s:

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photo: Zach Hollowell

It's only in the past few weeks that I've been able to come to grips with the reality that Conor Oberst and his Bright Eyes-side project band, Desaparecidos will take the stage this Saturday at the Showbox (Market).  

It's been over 10 years since I first saw them at the Paradox on February 18, 2002 (in the pre-TIG days).  The show was packed but, as with most Paradox shows, it felt intimate like a underground basement show. The band played through their (only and beloved) album Read Music | Speak Spanish and the Happiest Place On Earth single.  While still only semi-confident in their indie rockstardom, the band bolstered the shy crowd into a ferocious and unrelenting fever with each song they played.

Now it's 10 years later and although so much has changed in their (and our) lives, so much has stayed the same. Their rage against the machine is still justified and connects with every one of us (at least those of us who are reading this post).  Names and workplaces have changed, but the white-hot distaste of injustice and over-consumption still permeate our conversations (and Facebook threads).  

Sure all of us have had our moments in which "there is hope, and there is joy, and there is acceptance" (as illustrated in the Bright Eyes' "Kathy With A K's Song"), but a Desaparecidos reunion show and a couple of new songs is just the spark we need to reignite the fire that for some of us is apt to grow cold now and again when faced with mortgages and career paths.  Desaparecidos songs weren't crafted to make us feel guilty about adulthood, but rather, guide us into an adulthood centered around happiness, selflessness, betterment and compassion.

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