Only a few more hours and the weekend will officially be upon us (that is, unless you started it last night... is so, my hat is off to you!).

There are so many good shows to thrust us to and fro. Tonight, the Fruit Bats will be at the Vera Project with Sonny Smith and Tu Fawning while another TIG recommended show, Drew Grow and the Pasters Wives will be at the Comet.  And then there's Steve Earle at the Moore (zow!).  Here's the full list of tonight's choices:

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{Fruit Bats play on Thursday, August 20 at the Crocodile with Johnny & the Moon and Palmer Electric Co. and on Friday, August 21 as part of KEXP's Concerts at the Mural series at Seattle Center with Johnny & the Moon and The Moondoggies.}

It's hard not to cheer for Eric D. Johnson. Recent collaborating with The Shins and Vetiver just proved what good taste us early-Aughts fans of the Fruit Bats' debut Echolocation (2001) had. Our initial enthusiasm had been proved right by Sub Pop releases Mouthfuls (2003) and Spelled in Bones (2005), yet larger reception eluded the Chicago multi-instrumentalist who started in the band Rowboat. In the past few years, echoes of his hayride, clap-infectious, intelligent songs have streamed like fresh water through the body of wide-spread rock-pool, even to the point we may have forgotten about the Fruit Bats. Their music seems like just another shimmer on that great music surface. But their use of major keys, lack of drama or urgency or melancholy, seems like a world other kind of band sometimes, a "ruminant band." 

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In the four years since Fruit Bats last album, Spelled in Bones, I have found myself frequently wondering if this band was one of many that I discovered too late and would never get to see live. Originally I fell in love with "Seaweed" off 2003's Mouthfuls. That was in 2004 and something about the folky tinged nostalgia it inspired within me, made me think that Fruit Bats had formed and disbanded before I was old enough to experience nostalgia.

Thankfully, this is not the case.  In the interim of Fruit Bats releases, songwriter Eric D. Johnson has been keeping busy playing with bands like Vetiver and The Shins. In 2008 the band reformed and recorded the new album in the same Chicago studio where they recorded Echolocation, nine years ago.

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See all the winners in the TIG Best Northwest Releases of 2005 Readers' Poll (see winners #40-31 here).

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You're the antithesis to your Wolf Eyes labelmates, the fraternal twin to The Shins (people tell you apart as the calmer, nicer one, who moved to the country for a while)...

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See what's in the stars -- and the record stores -- for you for July 2005, including reviews from the Long Winters, Lisa Germano, Tableland, Fruit Bats, and more.

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at The Gorge

Make sure you get there early enough; Aveo and the newly reunited Harvey Danger are well worth it.

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