Gird your weary loins, as you have approximately one day after Bumbershoot 2010 to prepare for a multi-genre mini-festival at the Tractor. Shonen Knife is headlining, and after recently watching their live DVD Live At Mohawk Place 2009 about a dozen times (featuring excellent work by new drummer Emi), I am anxious to see the Japanese punk pop trio of goddesses light a fire to classics such as "Banana Chips," "Giant Kitty," and the new, no-need-to-explain band anthem "Super Group." I highly recommend getting the DVD (on MVD) to see the band touring behind the album has that last song as its title track, as it lovingly captures the band lo-fi with delirious high energy and sass.

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{Photo: Hot Avocados Photography from the Three Imaginary Girls Sparkly Flickr Photo Pool}

Being Friday night, there are so many stellar options of what to do! Thee Oh Sees at the Funhouse, The Pharmacy at the Comet, or Hey Marseilles all-ages style at Vera are all wonderful paths to take... but when the Young Fresh Fellows are in town (this time at the Tractor with Girl Trouble), I'd be remiss to recommend anything but a full night of their songs which, as our own Chris Estey poignantly wrote, connect the dots between "The Sonics and The Wailers to The Posies and Death Cab with that sweaty, fun, beer-soaked, Puget Sound-smelling, back-yard stomping garage band life."

Want to know all the options at your fingertips? Here's what we've got on the Friday imaginary calendar:

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The Pharmacy, a great punk dance punk band who recently moved to New Orleans at the beginning of the year, are returning to Seattle for two shows this weekend.

They are playing at Vera on Friday night with a lineup that we might call "unfuckwithable": Schoolyard Heroes, Black Houses, The Whore Moans and Keg. Saturday they are at The Comet with Sugar Sugar Sugar, Strong Killings and The Bugs.

{Photo by Chona Kasinger from TIG's Flickr Pool}

TIG staffers are a lot like you -- coming up with our list of faves for the year is a fun and gripping process. After comparing/contrasting/debating our individual favorites, we figured the sum of our imaginary parts would make for an interesting list.

While ChrisB and Keenan, among other things, brought in the power-pop elements,  Chris Estey stood by the smartie subtle elements of this year's Northwest offerings. Imaginary liz, as usual, loved the lo-fi and indie-pop songs, while imaginary dana spent much of the year obessed with Throw the the Statue and of course, the Fleet Foxes. And nearly all of us agreed that the Saturday Knights album was a force to be reckoned with. Here's our our staff votes tallied up...

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One of my end of the year rituals is to compile my favorites of the year into a single mix tape / cd / playlist. For me, this year has been ripe with songs I've listened to on repeat. So many so, I actually had to cut out some so that I didn't alienate the casual mix tape listener. After a casual polling of my friends, I found that four-cd mix isn't all that digestible.

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It's your Thanksgiving week imaginary podcast, featuring some of the most awesome Northwest bands (and a few non-NW bands we couldn't resist sharing). Enjoy this with your turkey or Tofurky feast!

Mark your calendars for the last local shows, 12/31 and 1/2

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As of today, we're officially in the second half of 2008. Welcome! To gear you up for another fabulous six months of local Northwest releases, we here at imaginary headquarters have brainstormed an imaginary mix for all of you, containing some of our favorite songs by Northwest artists released this year to date thus far.

No promises that each of these will make our Best of 2008 Reader's Poll final list, but at least this way you have the next six months to follow-up and listen to these releases before you have to decide. To paraphrase imaginary ChrisB, we feel like this list is pretty unfuckwithable. But that doesn't mean that we didn't inadvertently overlook something great. If you have additions for our list, please chime in with your comments below.

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After watching the sawweeeeet video and hearing the effing awesome new song, it's obvious why I adore them so.

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The Pharmacy and I had actually left the Sound Transit stage before Menomena went on because we had to hurry. The end is cut off because the security came and told us to stop; they needed to be on stage...

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