Three Imaginary Girls - Fleet Foxes

These are a few of our favorite things: best all-around photos and moments of 2011 {pt. II}

imaginary victoria — Sat, 31 Dec 2011 01:03:13 +0000

{This is part two of two in our best-of photo series of 2011. Take a peek over at part one here, and don't forget to check out our festival best-ofs part one and two as well!}

Favorite photo #5: Ocean Shores :: In a get-to-know-your-roots {PNW edition} kind of road trip, we hopped in the car one weekend with esteemed sometimes-imaginary photographer and fellow transplant Laura Musselman for a ride out to the water -- Ocean Shores, to be exact -- with jaunts to Aberdeen and Hoquiam on the way. It was all at once melancholy and sun-filled, juxtaposing sad, semi-abandoned mainstreets with a big, bright, full-fledged kite festival once we were beachside. Strange as it was for those two worlds to meet, it was definitely a day trip for the books, yielding a half-dozen photos that easily made our best-ofs for the year (like the one above). {more field trip photos} {Laura Musselman}

Favorite moment #5: Eef Barzelay {at the Madrona Ale House} :: The night after Eef Barzelay's headlining appearance at our Imaginary Holiday Spectacular, he played a much quieter affair as part of a private party at the Madrona Ale House. Abandoning the PA after three-quarters of a song, he sat down across the table from us, where he proceeded to stay for much of the show. The result? A very front-row seat for one of our favorite performances of the year. You can even hear a moderately decent recording of one of his Journey project tracks from the show over here and relive the moment along with us! {more photos of Eef} {Eef Barzelay / Clem Snide bandcamp}

Favorite photo #4: Lovesick Empire at Neumos :: This one happened so early in the year that it almost slipped through the great sort-through! Way back in January, Lovesick Empire played an AMAZING set at Neumos, and even though they're pushing forward with a slightly different lineup than seen here, they are still making some of the most kick-ass music coming out of Seattle today. It's huge-sounding, dirty, full of guitars, and cuts right to the point -- another one to add to your "do not miss under any circumstances" list of live bands to catch so that you don't regret it forever the morning after they've played. {more photos from the Neumos show} {Lovesick Empire FB}

Favorite moment #4: John Roderick's pre-City Arts house show :: We were the luckiest of all ducks to not only attend, but actually host a super-intimate house show with John Roderick out in Ballard this past October, where less than two dozen folks pulled together a potluck and a city of tealights for one of our favorite shows of the year. John held court in front of the mantel, singing and storytelling and taking requests for more time than we could keep track of (minutes? hours?) while the room swooned away with delight -- like Eef's Alehouse show, we even managed to sneak in a homemade recording, which you can take a listen to here. Honestly, there's not much we can think of for 2012 that's going to be able to top it. {more photos from the house show} {The Long Winters}

Austin City Limits 2011: three days of sun, sweat, and total bliss! {pt. II}

imaginary victoria — Thu, 22 Sep 2011 16:57:32 +0000

{This is part two of our photo-coverage from the 2011 Austin City Limits festival -- check out part one here!}

The second half of this year's trip to Zilker Park was even better than the first, as ACL's chock-ful-o' bands and radness vibe kept on strong. Strains of Wanda Jackson and Cee Lo filtered through the late-day dusk as we crowded under the Vista Equity stage tent to catch a few songs (and a glimpse) of Gillian Welch. And was it ever worth fighting the crowd -- that sparse, stripped-away version of "Ohio" was absolutely one of the high points of our Saturday!

The night blew us away with huge sets from TV on the Radio, My Morning Jacket, and Stevie Wonder -- and in what felt like moments later we were back in the morning for more. Yellow Ostrich, Mariachi El Bronx, Dale Earnhardt Jr. Jr., The Head and the Heart, the Walkmen, Broken Social Scene, and Joseph Arthur filled our sweltering Sunday with amazement -- but the two best sets of the day {and the weekend, IOHO} went to Elbow and We Are Augustines. Hands-down, no contest.

Here's a few shots from between the raindrops!

Gillian Welch with Dave Rawlings, slaying a packed ~~house~~ tent:

Here we go, Austin! Here we go! clap! clap!

imaginary victoria — Thu, 15 Sep 2011 15:53:00 +0000

Yup. There sure are a lot of exclamation points up in that headline, and with good cause: we're heading off for Austin City Limits this weekend, to catch some bands and some tan in the near-hundred-degree sun. Between pre-trip laundering, hydrating, charging our camera batteries and getting all that three-ounce-or-less business handled for the flight, we thought we'd take a minute to let you know about some of the acts we're particularly excited about this year -- especially since there seems to be a particularly strong PNW presence to be reckoned with every single day of the 'fest.

The start of the fest on Friday is kind of like easing in to that hot, soapy, not-too-dirty-yet festival bath. Hometown heroine Brandi Carlile will be getting things going early in the day, and we're hoping her sweet sounds will put us in the right kind of mood to slide over into Ray LaMontagne's late afternoon set -- they're both playing at the AMD stage starting around 2p. As the day darkens, we hope to get a little more gritty with the Cave Singers, and while Cold War Kids and Bright Eyes blow their sets out back-to-back {on the Honda and AMD stages respectively, for those of you following along in your custom-made schedules at home}, we might have to weasel our way forward to get a bigger-than-Bumbershoot-sized helping of Charles Bradley as he closes out the Vista Equity stage just before forever-legend Mavis Staples. As to whether we end day one with Kanye West or Coldplay -- my vote's on Kanye. But seeing as the fest is all sold out except for a few Sunday passes, we might not be able to make it close enough for a photo report. Fingers crossed!

Pending crowd surges (and weather permitting), we hope to also make time to get a little Delta Spirit, Smith Westerns, Kurt Vile, and Santigold into our schedules too!

Fleet Foxes + Cave Singers = a mindbendingly beautiful night at the Moore

imaginary victoria — Wed, 04 May 2011 15:34:22 +0000

There's one word that comes to mind above all others in regards to Monday night's Fleet Foxes / Cave Singers show at the Moore -- and that word is simply stunning. The impeccable sound, lighting, and setup of the Moore made for a veritable breeding ground of amazing, as two of the Pacific Northwest's best alt.beardcore bands brought their respective brands of greatness to the stage. The Cave Singers let loose with a tight, polished, best-of catalog-spanning set that washed over us like the force of nature they are -- followed by this imaginary's inaugural live Fleet Foxes set.

Helplessness Blues

Chris Estey — Tue, 03 May 2011 16:40:48 +0000

9.5

http://www.amazon.com/Helplessness-Blues-Fleet-Foxes/dp/B004LL1HM4/?tag=wwwthreeimagi-20

FF.jpg

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.

The way the barbershop-of-monk's voices on this track float around Pecknold's hymn to himself, in ways musicians can describe but people who write about music alas can only describe and compare. "Oh man, what I used to be? Oh man, oh my, oh me." This is "Montezuma" and he sings of jewelry tarnished too quickly, thrown into the tomb too soon. It sounds like an endless Sunday, a kid stuck inside a house on a bright, sunny weekend day she can't be part of. It's all regret, but that doesn't mean it isn't awesomely beautiful.

Please trust me: This album is no burden. It isn't an album you have to like, or have an opinion of. You can leave it to others, it will be found otherwise. Its sonic riches never stop giving, so don't begin anything you can't finish. Morgan Henderson has brought in his upright bass and woodwinds since last we heard Robin's old friend Skyler Skjelset (acoustic and electric guitar, mandolin, water harp), Casey Wescott (keys, Marxophone, music box, Crumar bass, Moog, Tremoloa, Tibetan singing bowls, harmonium, etc.), Josh Tillman (vocals, drum kit, percussion), Christian Wargo (vocals, bass), and some additional players.

Musically, this is something to put on the shelf with Astral Weeks or Blue of anything any older friend set you on. Something comfortable, and maybe got you high or buzzed on caffeine, and played the full way through without speaking once (when they usually yammer all the time through everything else).

"Bedouin Dress" is about debt that can't be repaid, "the only regret of my youth." This second song doesn't sound like it's heading anywhere too interesting in the first few bars, but then some weird pipes clamber about and the lyrical metaphor is extended about (eternal) returning and it's like those alarming Paul Simon ballads about reluctant prophets that glimmered all over AM radio among the novelty songs and riff rock. "One day that's mine," as if the moment can be held. "In a geometric patterned dress." You begin to notice the patterns, on returning.

The title of the album gets carried along by each track, and its obvious link to Young's own "Helpless," one of his most autobiographical songs. "Sim Sala Bim" is a burst of chimey exoticism closer to their long-ago debut, reminding us that Fleet Foxes did the sophomore auteur-in-the-70s-style, when rock music fans had to wait three years between masterpieces. A taste of D. Jurado is in there, though, telling us it isn't a reissue track from a lost gem of an LP. Next up abruptly, "Battery Kinzie" thrushes with imagery of physical decay and spiritual servitude, with a timpani-driven sand march walking through the dawn ("do not wander through the dawn").

If I was making my own high concept mix of this album to remember how I want to, the way that Scott Miller (Game Theory, Loud Family) does with Pro Tools for songs in his nifty song-by-year book "Music: What Happened," it would probably begin on the fifth track, "The Plains/Bitter Dancer." RIYL: Richard Thompson's end of the rainbow falling from grace death waltzes, a more mordant Crosby Stills & Nash than your gentle bearded uncle is used to, the kind of FM transmission that chills you at the beginning of a Saturday morning in which you are to face the first day after a shattered relationship. "Tell me again my only son / Tell me again my only one," reminding us of the rose and the briar and Lord Randall in its first half, the murdered girl, the slain love, your heart's martyr. The second half of the medley is an Ennio Morricone gospel shuffle, the choir voices not even needing Joan Baez to accompany the finale after the execution of a couple of anarchists on screen.

"Helplessness Blues" is back to the too-smart, allergic, anti-cog of Simon's songs, its strumming could be from an urban basketball court, sent to parents who never thought their wayward son had a chance. My own parents are dead, but I have the feeling Pecknold's folks can hear the Nic Jones and Bert Jansch and John Jacob Niles in all of this and be proud of their depressed, so aware child. If he was my kid I would play this album over and over, giddy from a lad admitting things we wait generations for songwriters to confess. "I'll come back to you sometime soon, myself."

This is the center of the album (not just its initial single). That you can destroy something beautiful, or watch it being crushed and thrown into a fire and thus complicit in its demise, and know that you will benefit from this destruction. Because it means that you will have something to say, a song to sing, because something was sacrificed for you. And it may have been your own happiness. In order to remain helpless. As Nick Cave told me for the Karen Dalton In My Own Time liner notes, "Artists are salty bastards." Sometimes salt preserves what you want to make, but is far too strong to taste for those who love us. Thus, according to the most recent issue of Uncut (in an interview with Allan Jones), we find out that Pecknold lost love during the creation of the album this song is the title track for. And he continues to wonder throughout, could there have been any other way? "Someday I'll be like the man on the screen." A hero, perhaps? Even merely a lover?

"The Cascades" is a string-swept space without words, in which the final half of the album begins. It starts anew with "Lorelai" which at first seems like the necessary transcendent pop song required for a wide-screen drive-in end of a decade album like this. "Norwegian Wood" and Dylan's "Fourth Time Around" has been noted (thanks, Mr. Jones), but I hear a lot of Fleetwood Mac too, before and after Buckingham/Nicks.

This track would have probably been my first pick as a single track, even before you hear "I can see now / we were like dust on the window. I was like old news to you then." The great thing about all these groups I've been comparing the Fleet Foxes to, especially Mac and Simon, is how sad and nostalgic they seem for a moment just occurring. As if you need that sadness, to make the love meaningful. The lover just out of reach must be miles and years away, for the reunion to be so warm, so wanted, so real. I once remember reading a Japanese short story about a woman who only thought about her lover when he was gone. That was the only time her heart could articulate itself, was when he was present only in memory. Wish I could remember the name of that story.

"Someone You'd Admire" sounds like it would be a positive vibes song, but but it's really a chorale of resignation. A doomed one, at that. He probably won't be someone you admire, is what he's saying. Because the singer is trapped to this, to creating out of his pain and aloneness, and such a wish is as brief and hesitant to truly feel as this ballad. I once had a therapist who burst into tears -- twice -- because she said she pitied what my mind did to me. How it seemed to long to hurt me, to keep me from being good to myself, in her opinion. A counselor cries once, she might be having a bad day, you know? And another, a job counselor, who met with me after I got off the night shift, who said I smelled like death. I couldn't get that out of my mind (the smell of death) and she hadn't been emotional about it at all.

"When you talk you hardly even look in my eyes / in the morning." This will probably be the most popular song, "The Shrine/The Argument," which in its long, lean body cycles between near deathly quiet and big raga bursts of more timpani and chanting. "Green apples hang from the tree / they belong only to me." This is the song that sounds most like the world's casket lid closing, even if the earlier "The Plains/Bitter Dancer" was supposed to be the death dirge. The horns squonk and squirrel out from a black pyramid at the center of the track, like a slow dub of the ones in the Violent Femmes' notorious track "Black Girls," although I think Dolphy or Kenton's cacophonous work with Bob Graettinger might have been more in mind. No resolution, either, they just scamper off like half-stepped-on scorpions into the dimming corners of a sound-desert.

"Blue Spotted Tail" is still tear-stained, but it's a soft weeping after the long-pent burst, the blaze of sun faded behind the buildings now that you're back in the City. Pecknold softly hums, as it trains into Wargo's vocal arrangements for the only (near) straight-ahead rock song here, "Grown Ocean." This would probably be the easiest place for people to begin with the album, and it's telling about Fleet Foxes -- especially now -- that they chose to make it an anthemic epilogue, sweeter on the nerves and about licking wounds, but not beginning this inner odyssey with it. You have to earn it, the way that these musicians had to work so very hard to create something they would feel like owning. The most important thing to know is that they have. And now we have it, too.

{Fleet Foxes played to a SOLD OUT house at the Moore last night, and are playing another tonight (5/3)!}

GIVE-ing season arrived this week -- with a 30+ track local artist compilation

imaginary victoria — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 16:58:24 +0000

Fresh off the presses from our inboxes comes this week's launch of GIVE -- 30 downloadable tracks from a variety of Seattle artists, who are donating their songs to benefit Arts Corps and local area foodbanks. The $7.00 (!) compilation, which was produced, curated, and funded by Caffe Vita, will be available online here. Physical compilations can be picked up at all Caffe Vita locations, Easy Street Records, Sonic Boom Records, University Book Store, The Crocodile, EMP, Neumo's, and Sorrento Hotel. The in-hand compilations will include a physical card with a redemption code for the download, and a prettied-up sleeve to make it a ready-to-give present.

Here's the full track listing -- nearly all of which are exclusive to the compilation:

Photo(s) of the day: Robin Pecknold headlining the A Drink for the Kids benefit

imaginary dana — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 03:21:01 +0000

From the most lovely and talented Sarah Jurado, here's a shot of Fleet Foxes frontman Robin Pecknold, headlining last night's A Drink for the Kids Vera Project Benefit.

I've gotta admit, I didn't recognize him for a moment, what with the shorn locks. Nice new 'do, Robin! (Or at least, new to me.) And because I can't resist a tender sibling moment, check out this fantastic shot of Robin with his (likewise lovely and talented) sis, Aja, who joined him onstage to cover Fleetwood Mac's "Dreams."

The night also featured performances by local faves Grand Hallway and Throw Me the Statue. Sarah has a sweet writeup of the event over on her blog, and more photos over at the TIG Flickr pool. Enjoy!

Lumberjack Rock

heather b — Thu, 14 May 2009 16:55:24 +0000

Chris B's Schmindie News Roundup and it's ensuing comments lit a fire under me to write this little blurb I've been meaning to get out for a while. While some, Chris B included, may feel this way:

I'm regularly asked to define schmindie, so, to me, schmindie is boring indie rock that gets the benefit of the doubt because it's "indie". Generally, if it has guys with beards and/or acoustic guitars, you're probably going to need to wake me when it's over.

I tend to disagree. I totally love me some good ol' acoustic indie-folk rock and I feel like there is so much quality stuff coming out of Seattle right now. For the past year or so, I've often found myself in discussions with other local music lovers regarding the post-grunge Seattle sound and I've heard it called several things: "Campfire Rock", "Trucker Rock", "Beard Rock" and now this "Schmindie" label.

Schmindie News Roundup

ChrisB — Tue, 05 May 2009 15:31:14 +0000

Judging by how fast tickets for The Shins' and Iron and Wine's two night stands sold out, everyone loves their schmindie. So, as a public service announcement, I'm compiling some schmindie-related news stories in one neat post.

2008 Pazz & Jop poll is online

ChrisB — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 17:00:46 +0000

This year's Pazz and Jop poll had 579 critics voting - and the consensus said that TV on the Radio's Dear Science and MIA's "Paper Planes" were the best album and single, respectively.

Fleet Foxes on SNL

imaginary stella — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 21:26:41 +0000

Just a quick head's up that Fleet Foxes will be the featured musical act on Saturday Night Live this weekend, with host Rosario Dawson!

Best of 2008: Top Northwest Releases of 2008 Readers' Poll Winners

three imaginary girls — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 21:08:31 +0000

Upset. The word of the our 2008 Best Northwest Releases of 2008 Readers' Poll is upset.

With the Fleet Foxes winning readers and critical polls alike, who would've thought they wouldn't get top honors in our humble little Northwest poll? But they didn't -- they placed a distant second to New Faces, another debut record from some very talented, very young Northwest fellas.

We had other surprises as well, with unsigned newcomers such as Hey Marseilles, the Kindness Kind, and Kaylee Cole cracking the top ten, beating out Northwest heavyweights such as Death Cab for Cutie. We did not expect that. And we love it when you surprise us, dear readers.

We imaginaries like to champion the up-and-comers from the Northwest, and our results indicate that you do as well. We think you all also have fabulous taste, as always. Thanks to everyone who participated in our poll. We couldn't be more proud or thrilled to present the top 50 winners on your behalf...

Winners of the TIG Top Northwest Releases of 2008 Readers' Poll:

50. Michael Vermillion - Last Night on Earth {info}
49. Jared Mees and the Grown Children - Caffeine, Alchohol, Sunshine, Money {album review}
48. Destruction Island - Destruction Island Preaches the New Wilderness
47. Boy Eats Drums Machine - Booomboxxx
46. The Apple War - Alarm Bell City {live show review}
45. The Hungry Pines - Golden You {info}
44. Hypatia Lake - Angels & Demons Space & Time {info}
43. All Girl Summer Fun Band - Looking Into It {live show review}
42. The Dandy Warhols - ...Earth to the Dandy Warhols... {info}
41. By Sunlight - By Sunlight
40. Blue Scholars - Butter and Guns {info}
39. Parenthetical Girls - Entanglements {album review}
38. Your Heart Breaks - Love is a Long Dark Road
37. Isobel Campbell & Mark Lanegan - Sunday at Devil Dirt {info}
36. H is for Hellgate - Come for the peaks stay for the valleys {info}
35. Andrea Wittgens - In The Skyline {info}
34. Common Market - Black Patch War {album review}
33. Colin Meloy - Colin Meloy Sings Live! {album review}
32. Chris Walla - Field Manual {album review}
31. Head Like a Kite - There Is Loud Laughter Everywhere {album review}
30. Lake - Oh, the Places You'll Go
29. BOAT - Topps {info}
28. 31 Knots - Worried Well {info}
27. Gutter Twins - Saturnalia {album review}
26. Moondoggies - Don't Be A Stranger {info}
25. Mark Pickerel & His Praying Hands - Cody's Dream {album review}
24. Tea for Julie - The Sense in Tying Knots {album review}
23. Central Services - Central Services Presents... The Board of Education! {info}
22. These Arms Are Snakes - Tail Swallower & Dove {info}
21. Speaker Speaker - Call It Off {info}
20. Sera Cahoone - Only As the Day Is Long {album review}
19. Dutchess and the Duke - She's the Dutchess, He's the Duke {live show review}
18. The Saturday Knights - Mingle {album review}
17. Throw Me The Statue - Moonbeams {album review}
16. Helms Alee - Night Terror {live show review}
15. Natalie Portman's Shaved Head - Glistening Pleasure {live show review}
14. Death Cab for Cute - Narrow Stairs {album review}
13. Voyager One - Afterhours in the Afterlife {album review}
12. Shane Tutmarc and the Traveling Mercies - Hey Lazarus {album review}
11. Black Nite Crash - Array {info}
10. Damien Jurado - Caught In The Trees {album review}
9. Blitzen Trapper - Furr {album review}
8. Grand Archives - Grand Archives {album review}
7. Hey Marseilles - To Travels and Trunks {live show review}
6. Helio Sequence - Keep Your Eyes Ahead {album review}
5. Man Plus - Hungarian Suicide Songbook {album review}
4. The Kindness Kind - The Kindness Kind {info}
3. Kaylee Cole - We're Still Here Missing You {live show review}
2. Fleet Foxes - Fleet Foxes {album review}
1. New Faces - Two Years {album review}

Bestof2008-180.jpg

Upset. The word of the our 2008 Best Northwest Releases of 2008 Readers' Poll is upset.

Best of 2008: Top Northwest Releases of 2008 TIG Editorial Picks

three imaginary girls — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 20:10:11 +0000

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...

Top Northwest Releases of 2008, TIG Editorial Picks:

25. The Nextdoor Neighbors - Magic Vs The Machine {live show review}
24. The Dead Science - Villanaire {album review}
23. H is for Hellgate - Come for the peaks stay for the valleys {info}
22. Kay Kay and His Weathered Underdround - Kay Kay and His Weathered Underdround {live show review}
21. BOAT - Topps EP {live show review}
20. LoveLand - The Beautiful Truth {info}
19. Damien Jurado - Caught In The Trees {album review}
18. Common Market - Black Patch War {album review}
17. Chris Walla - Field Manual {album review}
16. Hey Marseilles - To Travels and Trunks {live show review}
15. Jared Mees and the Grown Children - Caffeine, Alchohol, Sunshine, Money {album review}
14. Grand Archives - Grand Archives {album review}
13. Man Plus - Hungarian Suicide Songbook {album review}
12. Wallpaper - On The Chewing Gum Ground
11. (TIE) Young Sportsmen - If You Want It {album review}
11. (TIE) Doll Test - Mosque Alarm Clock
10. The Pica Beats - Beating Back the Claws of the Cold {info}
9. Team Gina - Products of the 80s {album review}
8. The Kindness Kind - The Kindness Kind {info}
7. The Pharmacy - Choose Ur Own Adventure {info}
6. Throw Me The Statue - Moonbeams {album review}
5. Dutchess and the Duke - She's the Dutchess, He's the Duke {live show review}
4. The Old Haunts - Poisonous Times {live show review}
3. All Girl Summer Fun Band - Looking Into It {live show review}
2. Fleet Foxes - Fleet Foxes {album review}
1. The Saturday Knights - Mingle {album review}

Peruse some of individual staffer favs:

Amelia Gydé
ChrisB
Chris Estey
Erik Gonzalez
keenan dowers
Kyle Johnson {his photos} {other's photos}
imaginary dana
imaginary liz
Shrie

skwinner.jpg

imaginary dana's top Northwest picks for 2008

imaginary dana — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 19:45:05 +0000

I'm a chronic procrastinator, so here it is, January 5th, and I'm finally ready to make sense of the musical chaos and wonderment that was 2008 and compile a list of favorites.

Don't even try to make me rank these releases in order, or I'll never, ever finish my list. Let's just say these were some of the very best local bands in my iTunes list this year, presented alphabetically.

Kyle Johnson's Top Ten Live Music Photos of 2008

Kyle Johnson — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 01:05:43 +0000

TIG photographer Kyle Johnson has been quite busy this year. Taking the impeccable press and editorial photos as well as covering shows and festivals for TIG, Kyle has amassed a great portfolio for 2008.

Here's a recap of his personal favs from the past year.

Best of 2008: Top 10 Albums from Pete Greenberg of Chop Suey

ChrisB — Sat, 03 Jan 2009 20:18:16 +0000

The top 10 albums "that made my head spin (in a good way)" from Chop Suey booker Pete Greenberg.

Erik Gonzalez's best o' 2008

Erik Gonzalez — Fri, 02 Jan 2009 21:57:04 +0000

It has now been 2.5 years since I moved out of Seattle for the Golden State. I've slowly drifted out of the NW music culture, so sometimes I wonder if I know what to say on TIG these days.

Combine that with the fact that I was so distracted from music for a lot of 2008, this year's "best of" lists were especially difficult. Heck, I don't even think I can make a Best of NW music list this year, not because there was insufficient music, but because I just missed so many of those important-but-not-well-known releases that make these lists. I did enjoy Fleet Foxes, Common Market, Colin Meloy live, Malkmus and the like, but really, that isn't a "Best of the NW" list but rather a list of albums I liked that happened to be from the NW.

That being said, I did get a last minute music revival for the year. Maybe it was the election being over (and the good guys winning), maybe it was finally getting a faculty position after many years of trying (lets just say Erik will be moving east in 2009), maybe 2008 just didn't mesh with me musically. Who knows? However, there was a lot of great music anyway, and here are my top 20 (for your praise or fist shaking). Feel free to read the full commentary.

Live At KEXP Volume Four

Chris Estey — Mon, 22 Dec 2008 07:05:08 +0000

8.5

http://www.kexp.org

kexpVol4-08dec.jpg

For a perfect sampler of the contemporary non-mainstream rock radio aesthetic, and rare versions of what's out there to boot, this is an essential holiday purchase (and only available for purchase through 12/31/2008).

This fourth volume of the Live At KEXP series is possibly my favorite in the series, because not only is it filled with inspired in-studio recordings from many of the best artists the beloved radio-Internet station has in rotation, but it flows with a particular rhythm and cadence that is both what makes these bands great on their own and why their strongest songs stack so well together.

Yes, Fleet Foxes and Vampire Weekend are here (be rather silly if they weren't, but the VW song is going to force me to buy the album now, after a long time of being on the sidelines in its hype-backlash war), and The Hold Steady is as well (with one of my favorite tracks of theirs already), but so is Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings and Elbow's current single. Like with KEXP's broadcasting itself, it's a combination of the most progressive and appealing current indie music styles mixed with timeless and/or mature cult band presences.

One could fantasize about the Live At KEXP series having more tracks from some of the brilliant, more marginal DJ voices (shouldn't the Roadhouse and Sonarchy have limited run releases themselves, on 180 gram vinyl? Greg Vandy interview Books On Tape?). But this compilation is in no way pedestrian or redundant, as it turned me on to several performers/groups I don't always catch when listening to my favorite DJ shifts (Angelique Kidjo, Pela).

There's lots here, and if I'm still craving more, it's probably because someone is doing something right in the first place.

Very tight and exciting mix of some of the best on KEXP.

Photo Essay: Fleet Foxes at The Moore Theatre

Kyle Johnson — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 15:03:44 +0000

19 Oct 2008

Fleet_Foxes_moore-7773.jpg

What can I say that hasn't already been said about the Fleet Foxes. Love them or hate them the band has received a lot of talk in 2008.

Sunday night marked the home coming for Sub Pop's celebrated group. The setting was perfect and the songs were the best I've heard them. My two personal highlights were enjoying a stunning version of "Mykanos" with J. Tillman's vocals really bringing the end of the song to life. Robin's solo version of the folk tune "Katie Cruel" also had the packed house in awe.

The triumphant return of our Seattle Fleet Foxes.

I pledge allegiance, that I will vote…

imaginary stella — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 05:35:34 +0000

Wilco is offering up a free MP3. All you have to do to get it is pledge that you'll vote in the upcoming election.