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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It's only ten days until our 2011 Imaginary Holiday Spectacular out at Columbia City Theater? Holy ____! If you haven't done so already, take a moment to mark your calendar and pop on over here to pick up your tickets. Done? Great!

As we whittle away the days until then, we thought it might be nice to give you a little more background on the artists that have graciously agreed to join us for this year's event. First up: Heligoats, aka Chris Otepka. Currently functioning as a one-man show, Chris Otepka hails from Bellingham and had the honor of being featured last year as NPR's Tiny Desk Concert's 100th performer. Here's a little more from them on his performance:

He may be a lone guy with an acoustic guitar, but Chris Otepka gives fans a lot of ideas to unpack. Even his backstory necessitates some explanation: The former lead singer of a criminally underheralded band called Troubled Hubble, Otepka now performs solo and unplugged as The Heligoats — a strange name for a guy strumming a guitar, but oddly befitting someone who stuffs his songs with so many sideways ideas and observations. Given the yarns he spins here, it's easy to imagine Otepka envisioning a herd of goats with propellers and setting the concept to music.

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Whether you're ready or not, the holidays are upon us! Seattle is gearing up to be softly aglow as neighbors light up the block with LEDs and the flavors of peppermint, ginger spice and eggnog infuse themselves everywhere.  But, best of all, it means it's time for the Imaginary Holiday Party!

This year's shin-dig will be Friday, December 16 at the Columbia City Theater and feature all the important elements of a fabulous holly jolly time:

***MUSIC!***
-> Eef Barzelay (of Clem Snide) will beautifully croon poignant vignettes against a backdrop of holiday melancholy.

-> Seattle supergroup Mal de Mer will dirty it up with their catchy, no holds barred post-garage-pop. With members of Slender Means, The Divorce, Lila, the Amazombies, and Ms Led / The Redwood Plan, you know it's gonna be good.

-> Heligoats come to us by way of Bellingham and bring a road-trip-worthy stash of exuberantly bittersweet songs.

***SANTA RODERICK!***
As is the imaginary tradition, Santa John Roderick will be on hand to spread holiday cheer with amazing photographer Laura Musselman ready to take your photo on his lap.  Yes, you read that right. You can sit on Indie-Rock Santa's lap and get your photo taken by an amazing photographer like Ms. Musselman.   We do our best to make your holiday wishes come true!
 

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Hear ye, hear ye! The annual imaginary holiday wintertime spectacular is right around the corner, and we want YOU to save the date! Get that sharpie out and put a big ol' star on Friday, December 16th. We'll be swooning the night away at Columbia City Theater and we'd love it if you and your pals came out to join us in the festivities!

This year's show features none other than Clem Snide's Eef Barzelay, along with Mal de Mer and Heligoats. We're especially excited to announce the return of Santa himself, John Roderick, who will be holding photobooth court with the esteemed Laura Musselman in the Bourbon Bar for the earlier part of the evening. That's right -- we'll be taking over the whole venue!

So get that snappy holiday gear out from the back of your closet, shine up your shoes, and get ready to spread some holiday cheer with us.  Tickets are only $11 and are available for purchase over at Brown Paper Tickets. And if you're as excited as we are, you can RSVP over at the Facebook event page too.

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