{On Sunday, October 9th, Dum Dum Girls are playing at 6 p.m. with Wavves at 7 p.m. at the Pacific Industrial Center, 2960 4th Avenue South, Seattle, WA 98134. And then later on at Neumo's the same night with The Crocodiles and Colleen Green, doors at 8 p.m., $13 advance, 21+.}
"I do not pray but tonight I am begging," she sings on "Heartbeat," five tracks into Only In Dreams, the Dum Dum Girls' second album. Dee Dee of Dum Dum Girls writes songs out of longing. For a boy, the feeling of when she first got high, the kiss that felt like a punch. All pop music is probably about longing, and I hate to bring authenticity into anything, but "Bedroom Eyes" (on the DDG's intimidatingly glistening, nervously adult sophomore set) sounds like she really wants (him/the love object/you) there.
She wrote the song when she was lonely, according to the bio, after returning jet-legged from a European tour, and lonely. Really fucking lonely. She says she was alone at home, and insomnia was grinding in her bones, and she read a poem by Rosetti, and she had to bum some zonk-pills off her pop and she scribed this aching, ennui-stricken anthem -- thus we have the audio-poetic equivalent of "Ambien zombie sex."
{Shabazz Palaces play on Thursday, 6/30 AND Friday, 7/1 at Neumos!}
Once you do something extraordinary, the universe gets in the way. People almost seem to be willing you to fail by praising your breakthrough effort, the burst of vision that placed you inside (the center of the world). Near the end of Black Up -- Shabazz Palaces' first full length but second major statement -- evolution is described as passe. Cyberspace controlled by profit-cops and the grid lurked on by the greedy are corny topics, but fools still eat anti-matter and trifle. So we proceed with icy and persistent recognition.
But Palaceer Lazaro (revealed to be Ishmael "Butterfly" Butler of 90s jazz-rap Digable Planets, now in the backyard of cyber-barons and baristas) sprawled cosmic surveillance and urban physical backwaters all through Shabazz Palaces' primary EP announcements, too. Those two discs featured "Kill White T" and "4 Shadows" and "Sparkles" and if electronically throat-modulated / mbari percussionist Tendai Maraire (the Billy Cobham of beats) didn't slyly perplex your attention with his very precise rhythmic pointillism, then Butler would wipe you out with very detail-oriented short stories about Barbara, cocaine, and partying in a Death Star (because it's no longer a rocket for science fiction rock and roll, it's all earth hip-hop and the ship has flown).
{Hey Marseilles photo by Jason Tang from the Imaginary Photo Pool}
Huge thanks to the folks that have put together the Nic at Nite party for letting us share a special invitation to their big soiree on Monday, May 23rd at the Fred Wildlife Refuge (128 Belmont Ave E ) in Capitol Hill. The evening is a celebration and fundraiser for Nicole Pieratt, amazing Seattle stylist, lady, etc. Earlier this year, Nicole was diagnosed with stage 1 breast cancer (at the age of 27) and has spent the last few months in treatment. To mark this special milestone, a group of her fans and friends have organized a fancy party complete with performances and silent auction prizes featuring a who's who of Seattle:
Special Live Performances by:
Hey Marseilles
Pearly Gate Music
DJ Erika White
Silent Auction Contributions from:
Mathews Winery, Mark Ryan Winery, Sub Pop, Teatro Zinzanni, Pacific Northwest Ballet, autographed works by Lance Mercer and Charles Peterson, photographic prints by Hayley Young, original artwork by Stacey Rozich, Drew Christie, Daniel Carillo, autographed vinyl from The Cave Singers, Campfire, Ok, and many more
Autographed vinyl! Original artwork and photographic prints! Sub Pop!
{Fleet Foxes played to a SOLD OUT house at the Moore last night, and are playing another tonight (5/3)!}
Say you're trapped. By illness, by isolation. When I was an asthmatic kid, trapped in my parents' trailer on hot, pollen-piled summer days, the best thing I could think of was the Cascade Mountains. We would drive from the Tri-Cities to Seattle a few times during the year, and it was so refreshing to the spirit to see the snow-capped peaks, feel the brisk air pulling into the lungs, the 70s sounds of soft rock swirling on the car radio.
It was the perfect antidote to being the youngest in a family of hard-drinking black sheep, alone in the noise of my rebellious siblings, the deep bass of my father's jazz, the yelling between my parents. I would shroud myself in my sister's Neil Young albums, and dream about the next time we drove over "the Pass."
"So now I am older / than my mother and father," Fleet Foxes' Robin Pecknold sings on the opening track to their new (second) (Sub Pop) album, the (Shins, Built to Spill, et al) Phil Ek-produced Helplessness Blues. "Than they had their third daughter / Now what does that say about me?" Yeah, adults seemed to get older faster back then, right? But for those of us with so many burdens, health-wise, of spirit and body, we seek that bracing clear and clean moment.
If you were lucky enough to catch The Head and the Heart's sold-out show at Neumos a few months back, you know just how excited we are about this Friday.
Back in January, THatH took the stage at Neumos with Lemolo and Curtains For You, one of the first shows they played where we stood with fellow "I saw the Sonic Boom set last summer" fans and realized we didn't know most of the people in the room. Well, as the nation's well aware (yes, the nation, not just the Pacific Northwest anymore), this band has been going onward and upward on a steady pace since -- up to and including the current west coast tour that has them playing two nights in Seattle this weekend. On Friday, April 29th, THatH will be playing to a sold out Showbox with Lemolo and the The Devil Whale, and the next night finds them at the Moore (yep, that's sold out too) with Grand Hallway and Ivan & Alyosha. Both nights are sure to make the mark, but we're definitely excited that we've got tickets in our hot little hands for the Showbox version of this latest breeze-through-town installment from one of our new favorite hometown bands.
Kristin "Dee Dee" Gundred and her in-shades art-babes are at the #2 spot in the current Billboard charts for this EP for a rare but giddy reason: a quick-change, yet supremely matured, transitional moment between full-lengths -- sounding bold and elegant after dense, terse debut I Will Be. And, telling from the three intoxicating originals and firm-shouldered cover of a Smiths classic, what I think will probably end up being one of the very best albums of 2011: Coming up next.
Since she left Rilo Kiley-mentored Grand Ole Party in the indie rock band glut of the past decade, Gundred has put on the paint-spattered motorcycle jacket and had quite a gas-choked rip around the music scene since. Probably figuring out that with her easy skills and fuzz-rock finesse she could dominate the rest with ease, her one-time one-gal band Dum Dum Girls first gladdened synthetical seven inch collectors with a smattering of singles and buzz. Then getting Link Wray/Blondie/Strangeloves band-baron Richard Gottehrer to help out with I Will Be, the latter must be thrilled to help produce an EP that is as bold a mini-/between album statement as fully fleshed out and dapper as He Gets Me High. I was there for the beautifully fat Gang of Four's Gold EP, for the absolutely assured one between the first two Pretenders albums; these were albums that took the magical mix of discovery and danger of their first records and went deep groove audacious in the post-punk era, perhaps proving that rock and roll really is an Extended Play medium. (Buy me a whiskey and we can argue those details.)
This is probably an oversimplification, but it often seems that some bands are merely a great idea, and some bands are full of great ideas. Ideas are great, but they shouldn't be half-drawn caricatures simplified in order to sell, sell, sell. San Francisco's Papercuts is a band (the band being Jason Robert Quever and whoever and whatever he's playing with) with a lot of great ideas going on, echoing Moogs, the mnemonically unsettling Mellotron, shivering guitars, tape chopping, and apparitional (yet somehow apple-cheeked) vocals. Its pouty prettiness sure sells to me, but it doesn't appear to my ears anywhere near crypto-Warholian sold-out.
Having toured with Beach House, Grizzly Bear, and Camera Obscura (all like-minded bands in that they frolic wit song-form but still fulfill the emotional obligations of the songwriter), and gotten big ratings from the press (hello, 8.3 from Pitchfork for 2007's Can't Go Back; and "Good day, squire" for MOJO's four stars on last time's Can Have What You Want), I predict the California dream-rock of Fading Parade is soon going to find many a happy home. Get into it and perhaps get it out of your system early before you start hearing it in as many Barnes & Nobles and bistros as Teen Dream.
{Shabazz Palaces photo from the Three Imaginary Girls Flickr Pool by Jason Tang}
Through sheer quirk of fate and possibly my own fatally quirky tastes, the top spots for my four favorite records of the year were given to two separate EPs by two different bands. I'm going to start my Top 20 of 2011 list with a cheat; combining two albums for placement at #1 and #2. Just to obnoxiously make you utterly vigilant of it: the first two spots are taken up by two separate releases, but they're EPs that if combined with each other, tie with/become one release.
Oh, and I'm keeping all hype to 20 words to mirror the Top 20 list. And then I cheat again by having the first two releases described in 40 words, a combination of two 20 word reviews. (No, I haven't been studying Kabbalah with the Wu-Tang Clan.) Also: Mostly in order, but ask me again tomorrow. (The Damien Jurado could be anywhere on this list, for example.) And regional preference takes precedence (call that "fanzine love").
1. Shabazz Palaces, Shabazz Palaces & Of Light EPs
Cracked, uncanny hip-hop collages of unsettling mind-movies, Clockers meets Company Flow. "Juxtapositions of the digital and analog, hard drum-machine beats set against softer bongos or the resonant sweetness of an mbira." -- Jon Caramanica, The New York Times
Latest comment by: Chris Estey: "
That list could just as well as be mine today, KAC. (And yeah I really do need to see PG live.) Both Sufjan releases just keep unfolding for me too -- I assume you put "Adz" first, and the EP second? I am now under brain-siege by the full-length, ...
It's far from hyperbolic to say that *the* place to be this Saturday is the Showbox. SubPop has put together an amazing line-up for an even more amazing cause: to celebrate the life of Andy Kotowitz {beloved member of the music community and SubPopper} and, more importantly, raise money for the Andy Kotowitz Family Foundation, which supports Andy’s wife, Jocelyn, and young daughter Anna.
The benefit show is this Saturday (December 4th) at The Showbox (Market) and will feature performances by some of the bands Andy was the A&R representative for, including: A-Frames/AFCGT, Fruit Bats, Mudhoney, Michael Yonkers, Pissed Jeans, Shabazz Palaces, Vetiver, and Wolf Eyes. This is an all-ages event, with doors at 7pm. Tickets are $20.
The music community is still reeling from the passing of Andy Kotowitz, a beloved member of the music community. It's wonderful to hear that his SubPop family has put together an amazing show to celebrate him and raise money for the Andy Kotowitz Family Foundation, which supports Andy’s wife, Jocelyn, and young daughter Anna.
The benefit show will be December 4th at The Showbox (Market) and will feature performances by some of the bands Andy was the A&R representative for, including: A-Frames/AFCGT, Fruit Bats, Mudhoney, Michael Yonkers, Pissed Jeans, Shabazz Palaces, Vetiver, and Wolf Eyes. This is an all-ages event, with doors at 7pm.
A line-up like that should not be missed and it will surely sell out quickly. Tickets are $20 and go on sale at noon today {11/12/10} via Ticketmaster.
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