Ed note: We're reposting this to remind all you sweethearts the big comedy / music fest is TONIGHT! If you can't make it (there *are* other great shows tonight), make sure to check out the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society website to find out more about this worthy cause.

“Defriending Cancer” is not just a good idea but an excellent comedy and music benefit coming up. The night is hosted by comedian Todd Barry and features some of his funniest colleagues, like Neil Hamburger, Eugene Mirman, Tig Notaro, Natasha Leggero and Tim Heidecker (of “Tim and Eric” fame). It also features music from James Mercer of The Shins and Isaac Brock of Modest Mouse. The event takes place Thursday, February 11 at the Moore and the money raised benefits the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. Tickets can be obtained here.

The host, Todd Barry, is one of the funniest comedians I’ve ever seen perform. His rare intelligence and droll delivery always make for a hilarious time. He's also a great actor, appearing in films like the critics' favorite, The Wrestler. I spoke with him by phone about the event, what we can expect next Thursday night and about his experiences as a comedian opening for a loved rock band.

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On Wednesday, the Seattle Hard Rock Café opened its doors at First Avenue and Pike Street. Overall, I think it’s a very good thing for Seattle and Seattle music, but first let's talk about the Wikipedia/press release details.

The Hard Rock Café in Seattle will be one of more than 150 locations worldwide. In an economy where the unemployment rate has been hovering around 10%, this restaurant put somewhere around 150 employees through orientation. The space is two stories high and occupies about 14,000 square feet. Before the lobby of the Hard Rock was a lobby of the Hard Rock, it was a pawn shop; the second floor, where there is a bar and restaurant and music venue was previously an adult bookstore. While I’m not necessarily in favor of pushing pawn shops or porn stores out of the way to make room for a corporate chain of restaurants on principle (and one directly across the street from where another burger chain fizzled: Johnny Rockets), combined, I doubt either of those seedy businesses ever had payrolls approaching 150 people.

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{Nouvelle Vague plays at the King Cat Theater on Thursday, February 4 with Backnbloom; all ages.}

Playing other people’s music is always a risky venture, to be sure. You’re playing music that is (usually) familiar but the comparison to the original composition is always there and can often be unfavorable. With French band Nouvelle Vague, they rearrange songs from punk, post-punk and new wave eras to often bossa nova pop to the point where only the lyrics remain recognizable. Not coincidentally, “Nouvelle Vague” translates from French to English as “new wave” and to Portuguese as “bossa nova”.

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Gary Reynolds is putting out a song a week for the next year! Below I ask him about this ambitiously creative master plan and he patiently explains it all to me.

Reynolds and his band the Brides of Obscurity have been releasing records, playing KEXP's Audioasis and local venues, and supporting and recording with many other Pacific NW bands for a while. As local scribe/promoter Barbara Mitchell describes him, "Gary is a mad genius. He's the kind of guy who's great at crafting songs and collecting good people around him than he is at promoting himself. He's from Texas. He not only knows a great song, but he's skilled at assembling a great team."

Graig Markel (Animals At Night) adds, "Gary is the owner of Electrokitty Studio. I'm not really sure how he is going to pull this song a week thing off! But he is insane, however, and I don't doubt that he will do it. He is a creative lunatic who makes records for his own band in the vein of the Beatles, Nilsson, Emmit Rhodes, and other late 60s, early 70s classics. He also mixed the upcoming Head Like a Kite album."

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Here we are with Round Three of our interviews with all the main players (or at least their spokesmen) for this Saturday night's GRUDGE ROCK, which commences this at 10 PM, January 16 2010, at The Crocodile! For a little more background, check out Parts One and Two of this series. We've chatted with MC Jake Stratton and D. Crane of BOAT. Below is a Q&A with Dave Einmo of Head Like A Kite.

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This Saturday night, January 16, 2010, the Series Two, Episode One of live Family Feud style trivia and music blow-out GRUDGE ROCK commences! This time with indie rock romance Gorgeous Georges BOAT taking on the more Rowdy Roddy Piperish tech-soul rockers Head Like A Kite! Girls will scream! Boys will faint! The winner gets the Door Money and there are plenty of Consolation Prizes! And two sets by two great Seattle bands live on stage at the Crocodile. (Be there before 10 PM, because it goes on on time!)

I interviewed MC Jake Stratton in the first part of this three-chunk series covering The Event, and now comes a little chat with D. Crane of the pretty boys with the big batch of fans, the ever-loving BOAT.

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Grudge Rock, created by the brilliant ringleader Jake Stratton, leader of beloved first-ever sci-fi/hardcore band BloodHag), is styled as a 70s game show (Family Feud format) with bands playing and competing against each other. The winning band gets all the door money, but there are fabulous consolation prizes and more.

The show this Saturday, January 16 is GRUDGE ROCK SEASON TWO - EPISODE ONE, and it will be "party-inspired electronic rock music vs. indie pop" with fan favorites Head Like A Kite and BOAT.

This will be the first time the event is hosted at The Crocodile, as it has been running successfully at the Re-Bar and now needs bigger digs. The first WWF-styled boast was sent out by HLAK: "OPEN LETTER TO BOAT: You guys are toast. You can’t match the mental prowess of Head Like a Kite. We’ve got a panda bear that recites “The Merry Wives of Windsor” and Trent can spin seat cushions with one finger. Prepare yourselves for the consolation prize."

Just look at who is sponsoring the show: Pabst Blue Ribbon, Jameson Whiskey, Scarecrow Video, Fantagraphics Books, Pierced Hearts Tattoo & Piercing, Singles Going Steady, Trading Musician, Hardware Salon, Snoose Junction Part Dieu and Verellen Amplifiers. It's $10 (over 21, sorry), with 9 PM and the show starting exactly at 10 PM.

Here's our interview Mr. Stratton about the history of Grudge Rock, to be followed by interviews with both BOAT and Head Like A Kite.

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I keep noticing that a lot of my favorite records coming out have the name Graig Markel associated with them -- production for and playing on Barton Carroll's melancholy new album Together You And I and the dark, dazzling debut of Terri Tarantula. Markel has his own milieu, comprised of cobwebby but vivid Americana or noir electronic pop, or often even blending the two. A great example of that would be the latest release with his own band, Animals At Night, which has a cool track, "We Are Lights On The Way Out," that was a KEXP Song Of the Day last week.

This Friday night at the Comet Animals At Night have prepared a deluxe live set with the band being joined by all sorts of special guests on stage, featuring material from the vinyl-and-download new album, Cut to Chase Chorus and Fade. Also on the bill are CMYK (ex-Long Ranger / ex Velella Velella), Mayors and Warriors (New York's John Bosch joined by Head Like a Kite's Trent Moorman), and NRDLNGR starting out the night.

"The official release was at the Crocodile on November 21st," Markel says. "It was a great show with Head Like a Kite and Foscil. It was nuts. But this one is going to trump it." Below are some more questions I asked him about the record, the show, and the carnival of excitement that apparently is Markel's daily creative life.

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The Marty Riemer Funny Festival has become arguably the biggest night for comedy in the Northwest over the past six years. This year’s event is this Friday (January 15) at the Paramount and features comedians Bill Burr, Kyle Cease, Nick Thune and Jeff Garlin, one of the stars of “Curb Your Enthusiasm”, which I think is the funniest program on television right now.

This year’s Funny Festival is being billed as “Wholly independent since 2009” after Riemer’s often very funny morning radio show was canceled on 103.7 KMTT (The Mountain) last September. I met up with Marty Riemer and his equally funny co-host and partner in crime, Jodi Brothers, at a coffee shop in West Seattle to talk about this year’s Funny Festival, what people can expect on Friday, wrapping the governor in a shroud, and sex with koalas. Goddamn it.

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{Lushy plays this Sunday (January 10) at Neumos with Dengue Fever, $15, 21+.}

For a decade now, Lushy has quietly been making some of the coolest and catchiest music to come out of the Northwest. Their sound and aesthetic immediately brings to mind retro, cocktail parties but with more international influences. You hear elements of swing, jazz, bossa nova and whatever the music was in Bond films back when Sean Connery was 007 and at the same time you want to dance in between sips of your dry martini.

As the band gets ready to release their third official LP, Spaced Out, they have just started playing with a new, full lineup and have sort of rechristened the band “Lushy 9”. While previously playing with a revolving cast of musicians and using a laptop to supply the remaining instrumentation, the band has just begun playing with an expanded lineup to that now has a steady rhythm section, synths, keys and a horn section. The principle members of Lushy are singer Annabella Kirby (who sings in an indie pop band called The Moonspinners), multi-instrumentalist Andy Sodt and guitarist Matt Nims, who I met for an interview over drinks at a cozy downtown bar. Some of the musicians that have played with Lushy over its history include the KEXP DJ Johnny Horn and Lynval Golding, now a Puget Sound resident who was a member of the hugely influential (and now reunited) English ska band The Specials.

Ten people in all complete the live Lushy band, but the name Lushy 9 will remain. Kirby joked that “we counted wrong and now there are ten people in the band.” While the principles agreed that Lushy 9 would be their name and liked the ring to it, Kirby added “it’ll never be the Lushy 10, even if we have ten or sixteen people in the band.”

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