If you were one of the lucky ones, you managed to get yourself some tickets to one of two sold-out shows at Columbia City Theater this past weekend to help celebrate the release of Lemolo's full-length, The Kaleidoscope. We were at the first night {Friday} kicking off the party with some friends, and our imaginary photographess extraordinaire Victoria VanBruinisse managed to snag this shot of Kendra and Meagan completely going to town two songs into the set. It was such an incredible night!

Check out more from Friday's show in our flickr pool here, and read all the words we saw fit to publish on the new album over here. And PS, the album officially drops today, so head on over to your favorite independent record store here in town and pick yourself up a copy, stat.

Happy Tuesday!

Seattle post-punk(ish) new wave band Hotels just released their latest EP Cinemascope I, the first of a series of three EPs that the band plan to put out. With this four song EP, Hotels sound as solid as ever; from the looping, jangly sound of album opener "The Reddest Rose" to the creeping bass line from front man Blake Madden on "Unknown Quadrant." Their 2011 release On The Casino Floor was a concept album about a casino in space (seriously!) and that aesthetic is returned to on the psychedelic, six-minute closing track "True Crime." You can listen to {and download} the entire EP at Hotel's Bandcamp page here.

In celebration, Hotels will be playing a show this Friday {4/27} at Columbia City Theater, and we'd love to send you and a friend to the show on us! Just shoot us an email to tig {at} three imaginary girls {dot} com anytime before the end of the day on Thursday -- yep, that's tomorrow! -- for a chance to win. Be sure to put "SendMeToHotels" in the subject line so we know it's you.

And ps, we'd be crazy not to mention that Noddy and Sports will be opening the show: in case you're not familiar, Noddy started as the solo project of former Man Plus front man Jared Mills, and has since evolved into a fully formed 5 piece band, releasing their 13-track debut album last fall titled Murder! Dance! Kill!. And Sports are equally synth-laden and just as influenced by 80's new wave, so be sure to wear your dancing shoes. Their latest self titled release can be found in name-your-price form at the bands bandcamp page here.

As an added treat, Hotels will be joined on stage by Adra Boo of Seattle soul/groove duo Fly Moon Royalty. All of this for a mere six dollars? Seattle, you'd be silly to skip this show. We'll see you there!

{9p / $6 advance, $8 day of show / 21+}

Perhaps some of the biggest news in local show-goings-on last week was the fact that our dear friends Lemolo sold out their record release show for their much-anticipated first full-length, Kaliedoscope {scheduled for June 29th at Columbia City Theater} in just under eleven hours. Eleven hours! The only time in recent memory that anyone's sold out the venue faster was for last year's Fleet Foxes performance, and the most on-the-mind show where a venue in town has sold out a local band in advance of a full-length was Pickwick's night at the Neptune -- and if those comparisons leave you wondering whether or not Lemolo can hold up to the hype their new album is generating, let us assure you: they absolutely can. We can't say it better than we've already said it, so here's a few tidbits of Lemolo love from months past:

As we stated last February, for their first headlining show in town that took place at the High Dive:

"Lemolo are Meagan Grandall and Kendra Cox, and never a more powerful duo from Poulsbo will you meet. (Well, at least this not this week, anyway.) Seriously though, the energy these two produce live is a force to be reckoned with: think seamless, light-but-powerful vocals over a sometimes soothing, sometimes stabbing set of piano keyboard sounds, with seperate-but-equal levels of percussion. Neither band member backs the other, neither takes center stage for more than a moment -- what you witness on stage during their performance is a union, an absolute partnership of sound that's familiar enough to be comforting while experimental enough to keep your interest."

And again, in anticipation of their set at Bumbershoot last summer:

"Beautiful, sparse, powerful Lemolo. Two girls, a kit / guitar / synth setup, and more force coming off of a stage than a pair of peolpe should ever be able to emit. Think all-fem White Stripes without the pomp and circumstance, think School of Seven Bells minus the too-hipster quotient. The best of those two worlds with the fat removed leaves this band: smart [and] ethereal, with stop-you-in-your-tracks lyrics layered over an in-your-face sound."

All of that said: if our words aren't enough to woo you into picking up tickets this morning for the just-added night two of the album release celebration, just take a gander at this video, directed last year by James Bailey -- and then tell us honestly that you don't think their release show will be worth your hard-earned ten bucks.

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It was a great weekend for the music books, with so many good shows going on around town -- and you can call us biased, but we really do think Friday's Imaginary Holiday Spectacular took the cake as the weekend-starter to top them all. We spent the night flitting between Santa Roderick's lap and the gorgeous theater proper with a hundred and fifty of our closest imaginary friends, with heartmeltingly good sets from some of our favorite bands: Heligoats opened the night up and managed to slay us with the achiest, best kind of hope; Temp Score and Mal de Mer kept the indie-pop party going mid-lineup, and the evening closed out with a solid, gorgeous set from Eef Barzelay. Between the bliss of getting to spend a party-show with such good folks, the full frontal ache of Eef's catalog, and the transition into "Wal-Mart Parking Lot" about midway through the set -- our polka-dotted holiday mixtape hearts were just about done-for.

Heligoats {Chris Otepka}:

Temp Score:

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Thank you all so much for making our holiday wishes come true! Last Friday's Imaginary Holiday Party was so much fun--all thanks to you and yours for coming out to the Columbia City Theater to toast the season and 2011 with us.

We had to call in an audible and our friend John E. Hollingsworth took care of all the Santa Roderick photography duties at the last minute. He is an amazing photographer and we can't thank him enough for the last minute favor.  His talent, combined with the cutest Santa ever {John Roderick of the Long Winters} and all of our saucy imaginary friends and their poses, have made it hard to pick a favorite Santa photo of the night!

To see them all, head over to our Three Imaginary Girls Sparkly Indie-Pop Flickr Page.  You can download printable versions {perfect for next year's holiday card!} and "favorite" the ones you like best.

Come back in the next few days as we hope to post photos of the evening's fabulous performers {Eef Barzelay, Mal de Mer, Temp Score, and The Heligoats} soon soon soon.  I haven't seen any yet, but know they will be as stunning as our Santa photobooth shots.

Here are a few of our favorites... which ones do you like best? 

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Well, there's just about a day's worth of hours left until the party officially gets started, and it's time to talk about Eef. Eef Barzelay, mainstay of Clem Snide, heartstring-yanker extraordinaire, producer of subtle genius with every touch. On top of killer studio albums, he put out an EP recently of Journey-only covers, a second of fan-request outtakes, and has longstandingly offered to pen you a custom song or record a few live tracks of your choice in an only-yours kind of session.

But rather than wax poetic about all the reasons why you need to come and see Eef Barzelay headline our holiday party tomorrow, we're just going to flood this post with gorgeous songs and videos so that you can let the love light shine in your own personal way. You're imaginary, just like us. You know Eef. You love Eef. Just bathe in it, feel all the feelings, and then come and stand in the front row with us tomorrow night and experience it all in person, for the first or fifteenth time.

You won't be disappointed -- we promise. (But you already know that.)

Hear more of Eef here, and for the love of all things good-music-y, get tickets for tomorrow's show already. They're only eleven dollars and you can pick them up with minimal fees over at Brown Paper Tickets.

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Well, is it? We sure hope so! Because one of our favorite parts of the holiday party every year is getting to grace the ever-lovable John Roderick's lap with our sweet jingle-bell backends, and getting the whole thing immortalized forever by way of Laura Musselman's brilliant camera skills. So, to get you warmed up for all the joy that awaits your rear this year, here's a few peeks back at the last few years of Indie Santa-ing (including last year's stand-in Santa, John Vanderslice).

2009:

2008:

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You may recognize the handsome gent in the photo above as Michael Lee, a critical piece of one our favorite things to happen in the music scene of late, The Young Evils. And you'd be absolutely correct! But what you're looking at in this particular context is Michael Lee as lead singer of the band Mal de Mer, the third band on our lineup for Friday's Imaginary Holiday Spectacular.

Mal de Mer first popped full-force onto the imaginary radar earlier this year, when they took the first-of-three spot opening for Telekinesis at the Crocodile back in March. Like we said then, we knew of MdM but didn't quite know enough about MdM, so we set to do some digging -- and immediately fell in hearts. Allow us to refresh your memory of what we penned up about them then:

"The vibe varies from a Henry Clay People-esque alt.dirty-pop on songs like "Bubble Bobble" to the more melancholy, moderately anthematic sad-pop sound of "All I Want" -- but there's a running consistency through all the songs they've put out, and that consistency is one of No Bullshit. MdM isn't out to please the herd or become the next-best-something-or-other, they're just making the sounds that they need to get made. This, coupled with their all-star lineup (Michael Lee, Lesli Wood, Jimmy Curran, and Eric Wennberg), would make it appear as though the band itself could do no wrong. And based on the attention they've gotten so far, that might just be the rightest thing we've heard all week."

All of that still rings true, and tenfold at that. While The Young Evils have been keeping Lee busy, he reported in recently that he's almost done writing the next Mal de Mer album (!!!), and he's not the only one -- The Redwood Plan has a new album in the works as well, and Lesli Wood and Eric Wennberg have been rhythm sectioning for Wood's husband's new band, Lazy Animals.

We're stoked to hear them at the show, and hope you are too! If you haven't gotten your tickets yet, you can still take advantage of the advance price: just pop on over to the Brown Paper Tickets page here, and you can get some more digs about the show at the Facebook page here.

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There's plenty more to talk about this week as we count down to our imaginary holiday party: we've already filled you in about the goodness that is Heligoats {and Chris Otepka's previous incarnation, Troubled Hubble}, and our most recent addition to the line up, Sean Nelson and Kyle O'Quin's Temp Score. We'll have a little more on Mal de Mer for you before Friday, of course, along with some of our favorite John Roderick photos from years past to get your holiday backend ready for his lap -- but this morning, we just needed to gush a little bit about Eef.

Eef Barzelay {and the wide world of Clem Snide} has a rich, multi-layered catalog of studio work, to say nothing of crazy cover projects, various musical sidebars and brave creative endeavors. However, one of our absolute favorite media-marrying results were the contributions Eef made to the score of Rocket Science, a perfectly heartbreaking little indie film that you should absolutely go pick up / queue up this instant / rent on the way home from work today. Here's a little more about Eef's role in the process:

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We are incredibly pleased to announce an addition to our (already uber-groovy) holiday party lineup!

Sean Nelson {Harvey Danger, The Long Winters} and Kyle O'Quin {Kay Kay and His Weathered Underground} along with Thomas Hunter and Aaron Benson {Kay Kay / Wild Orchid Children} -- who are currently performing under the working title of Temp Score -- will be taking the stage second-slot at our party, taking place on Friday, December 16th at Columbia City Theater. You may already be familiar with their new project, which made its Seattle debut during KEXP's Rekyavik Calling showcase at Neumos earlier this fall. We asked Sean to give us a little more on the band, for those who aren't yet familiar:

This will be our second show. It's piano + vocals + bass + drums. No guitars. Fairly up. Rather catchy. Very nimble, mid-'60s-esque, British-influenced piano pop in the Zombies/Kinks/Rubber Soul-era Paul mold, with a few droplets of solo Graham Nash, my usual tablespoon of Morrissey, and maybe a soupcan of pre-rock melodic influence. Mostly it's just pop songs about the usual rock subjects: girls, feelings, blame, regret, suicidal despair, milkshakes cold and long. It's a good band. Kyle is amazing.

The combination of me and him doing the writing, and those three guys (who play together ALL THE TIME) with my very different performance style, makes for a very exciting hybrid of stuff. We're hoping to make a record next month.

As if Heligoats isn't enough of a reason to get there early! Just a reminder: tickets available here, Facebook event page here.

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