The Tripwires' new (second) album House To House sounds jolting from joie de vivre even when crabbing about everything falling apart. The hale musical energy never weakens from drummer Mark Pickerel (Screaming Trees, Truly, Praying Hands), strummer and sizzling lead chef Johnny Sangster (Sharing Patrol and producer of Mark's other band, as well as Mudhoney, the Briefs, Steve Turner & His Bad ideas), elder brother Jim Sangster (Young Fresh Fellows, Thee Sgt. Major III) and John Ramberg (Minus 5, The Model Rockets). Wow, that's a whole lot of prestige between those parenthesis!

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This Tuesday, January 29th, the Comet is hosting a special benefit for Seattle rock icon Kim Warnick (The Fastbacks, Visqueen) in the form of a Replacements cover night.

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Just say "Fuck you, Loggins!" to the door guy, and the cover drops to a mere $5. Seriously, so smooth and awesome!

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Tonight's recommended show is a celebration of my favorite non-TIG music website in town. Gary Miller and his Seattle Powerpop blog have turned me on to so many great powerpop bands over the past 365 days or so that it isn't even funny.

Tonight his blog turns 1 and he's assembled some fine bands to celebrate. Even better, each of the six bands on the bill will be playing a cover of another loved local band. The lineup so far is:

Midnight -- Sgt. Major, paying tribute to: Young Fresh Fellows, Model Rockets, The Sonics and The Fastbacks
11:25pm -- Dept of Energy, paying tribute to: Harvey Danger and/or Western State Hurricanes
10:45pm -- Shake Some Action, paying tribute to: The Heaters
10:10pm -- The Small Change, paying tribute to: Green Pajamas
9:35pm -- Andy Werth, paying tribute to: The Color Bars
9pm -- The Knast, paying tribute to: Screaming Trees

I'm especially excited to hear Shake Some Action! cover the Heaters (Seattle's first powerpop band), but really you can't go wrong with any of them.

 

The tenderness of "Off My Shoulder" is like a nice Black Crowes ballad without all the left over hippie residue.

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Read AstroPOP! to see what's in the stars -- and the record stores -- for you for September 2003, featuring reviews of Terror Sheets, Dashboard Confessional, the Divorce, United State of Electronica, and more.

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at The Sunset

Don't miss an Unsmashable Records show — and I'm not saying that just because of Heather's home cookin' {Mmmm.... nummy veggie biscuits and gravy}.

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