R.I.P. Showbox???

I heard it from a reliable source that the block that the Showbox currently resides is going to be razed in the name of “downtown development.” Can anyone confirm or deny? Any dates on this?
This would be a real blow to local music, no?
I wonder if they’ll save that etched-glass wall in the Green Room in a new club…
Chop Suey and Neumo’s have great sound, but there’s no alternative for a ~800-1000 person show. Not every mid-size show can cross over to The Moore or Paramount, and El Corazon, Neumo’s, the Croc, Chop Suey and Studio 7 cannot handle that capacity. Plus, the location has been great. (Close access to the Lusty Lady and Downtown Harley, which curiously does not sell motorcyles.)
I wonder if The Premier will pick up the slack? I have always had a good experience at that venue.

While I am thinking of it, if the Showbox closes, that’s also bad news for Pike Pub bartenders for those show nights.

Microphone check 1-206

• Silversun Pickups in studio today at 3pm Left Coast Time on KEXP.
• I’m not a big fan of hip hop, or reggae, but I’ll hear some gems every now and again and take notes. Blue Scholars‘ Inkwell is one of those. Mixed with Modest Mouse’s Float On and sprinkled with home-team-fan Seattle references (and the near-mandatory mention of Sir Mix-a-Lot), it’ll move your bones. Of course Blue Scholars is a Seattle band. (sorry, no YouTube vid found)

Deftones’ “Saturday Night Wrist”

A first spin (if MP3s spin…) and it’s good.
Detailed review to follow.
Disappointed that they had the chance to use “Santorum” in a Dan Savage-approved way, but dropped the ball on the track “Pink Cellphone”.
Their show at the Fenix is next Sunday night. Puzzling venue choice, especially for a Sunday I think.

Recommended Shows for November

Rock-Tober might be finished but that does not meant it is time for the rock to stop. It might even be said that one cannot stop the rock.

So November is no where near as Hip-Happenin as October was, but there are some true gems that are worth braving the crappy fall weather for. The #1 of the month being this:

Nov 10th at the Tractor $12
Split Lip Rayfield – nuthin but breakneck neo-bluegrass with a pissed off guy on a one stringed gas tank bass.
WITH extra super special guest
I Can Lick Any Son of a Bitch in the House – enilightened anti-establishment rednecks with a Portland sound stripped from the mud bogs of Arklansas

Upload/Offload 2006

Best Album of the Year: Silversun Pickups’ ”Carnavas” (thanks, Jules for the adv copy!)
Worst Album of 2006: DJ Shadow’s “The Outsider” (I wish iTunes Music Store had a return policy)

Top Ten Most-Played on my iPod

1. “On the Dub-ble”, DJ Krush from ”Krush”:  26 plays
2. ”Midnight in a Perfect World”, DJ Shadow from ”Endtroducing” also 26 plays
3. “Hott Bizness”, Lyrics Born, from “Later That Day” with 25 plays
4. “Vicarious” by Tool, from “10,000 Days” with 24 plays
5. “Digital Bath”, Deftones, from “White Pony” played 23 times
6. “The Hollow”, A Perfect Circle, from “Mer De Noms” with 22 plays
7. “I Am The Highway”, off Audioslave’s first album has 22 plays
8. A Bob Marley cover: “Sun in Shining” by DJ Krush from Ki-Oku with 22 plays
9. “Chicken Bone Circuit” from RJD2’s “deadringer” LP was played 20 times
10. “Building Steam w/ a Grain of Salt” by DJ Shadow from “Endtroducing”: 20 plays

Got these figures from my 10-month-old 30GB video iPod.

When I Think of 1980s Videos…

I think of Lucky in Love.

[youtube]UIvwsKM7T6Y[/youtube]

And a few others, but this Mick Jagger vid comes to the top of the heap for some reason. Maybe it’s because he puts his chips on 13 in roulette, or the lyrics:

late at night I lay in bed/with a pistol to my head
swear I couldn’t take no more/then she walks right through my door

Devin the Dude

My fav artist of 2004.
[youtube]odX4eJc78Ns[/youtube]

Gomez closes for Rodrigo y Gabriela

So Gomez played at the Moore theatre last night, but enough about them, let me tell you about the entertainment of the evening. 

Rodrigo y Gabriela – the name alone makes you kinda want to spend the first hour of the night exploiting the bar rather than heading into the show early to catch their opening act. On a whim (more due to my general feeling of being “pickled” after a long weekend of rock shows than my lust for culture, mind you) we headed into the Moore theatre to see if these bands opening for Gomez had any value. As the doors opened I hear what has to be an entire entourage of musicians on stage. There is an intense spanish/mexican rhythm being struck out with tons of bass and easily 3-4 guitar melodies. After finding a seat (not a big fan of the sit-down Moore shows overall) I found myself searching for the rest of the musicians. All I see are a man and woman on acoustic guitars hammering out all this music.

R y G come from Mexico City and what they play is NOT Flamenco. They were adamant about that. Rodrigo maintains all of the leads while Gabriella with-what have to be hands of steel-thumbs, thumps, and punches her guitar into submission. She does not play it as a guitar as much as she plays it as an entire drum kit with handy guitar attachment. Upon listening for a song or 2 I began to pick up on little snippets of other songs I recognized. The first-and most impressive-being Orion by Metallica, then One by the same, and eventually some White Stripes and Rage licks. No, this is certainly NOT flamenco. 

It was easily the best performance of the night. Even the second band… who’s name was not even worth noting.. likened their upcoming set to that scene in Karate Kid where Ralph does his thang, and it’s their turn and they just know damn well they’re going to lose. 

Well, they did… badly. 

Gomez played too. Enough said.

You can check out Rodrigo y Gavriela here on their MySpace page. The Orion cover is the shit-though it pales in comparison to the live show. Keep an eye out for RyG to tour through Chop Suey in Dec.. Dates not yet decided.

My Bus

Am I allowed two busses? Because to get Jerry Garcia, driver of the bus, along with his Warlocks/Dead/JG Band/etc ilk on one bus, I have no room for ticket-holders 2-5:
2) Rush. Canadian Fantasy Rock. Pul-leeeze.
3a) Ween (the measure of their influence on other musicians is questionable and compromises their eligibility)
so I have oversold this route and leave space for
3b) Queen. More Fantasy/Drama Rock. Deplorable.
4) Celine Dion. To borrow a line from David Cross, “I’d rather hear the death rattle of my only child than listen to that shit. I’m not taking this lightly.”
5) Crash Test Dummies, ironically enough, are set to take the plunge. Schtick rock.

Rock on, Ringo.

Periodically, as an avid music listener, I hit a lull and wonder where the next great sound is going to come from. And though I saw two high-energy shows in the past month, I am in the doldrums of a season change and suffering a lack of inspiration in the new-music-on-my-iPod department. So I am looking backwards. Like a favorite pair of jeans that you know will fit just-right, I have opened up the Olde British Pop Guidebook and am rocking to the sweet, sweet sounds of Pink Floyd, The Who, The Beatles and a little Dire Straits too. The North Seattle Community College library just acquired the two-disc sets of The Beatles 1962-1966 and 1967-1970, so I checked ‘em out to load ‘em into my library. And someone at work left out a copy of “Echoes: The Best of Pink Floyd” (including such tracks as “See Emily Play”, “The Happiest Days of our Lives”, “Bike” and “The Fletcher Memorial Home” yet leaves out “Fearless” and “Goodbye Blue Sky”? Befuddling.)

So to go forward, I must go back. In light of the upcoming mid-term elections, “Won’t Get Fooled Again” sounds so much sweeter.

Missed out on Ghostland Observatory last night :(

So I was invited to go see Ghostland Observatory last night. Once again, I missed out. I was supposed to see them originally in Austin this year — then my second chance was last night when they played a 2 show set at the Croc. By the looks from this video captured by my buddy Alana — that seems like a difficult feat considering the energy exuded from their lead singer, Aaron Behrens who has been described as Willie Nelson on crack which I find so funny. GLO is one of the newly cropped up 2-member band juggernauts who rock more than many multi-musician bands around. Check out this video to see what we missed last night! 

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Death Bus

!!This blog was originally posted on 10/13 but mysteriously disappeared off the site!!

So a couple of us NWMB “writers” had a discussion last night regarding what 5 *influential* bands we wanted to put on a bus which would in turn then drive off the side of a cliff, and best of all, never to be heard from again! It’s such a good question, every time I ask it, people take it completely seriously and put a lot of thought into it. The answers and reasons why are always entertaining and intriguing.

At any rate, when this topic came up last night, I found that this question is also referred to as “Death Bus”. I was shocked and horrified! I’ve been asking this question over the past 6 years — NEVER running into anyone who has ever heard of it. How could it be, someone other than me is asking that all important question? Ok, I’m just kidding (sort of) but truth be told, it did come to me by my friend Dan Blasko in Chicago… I first heard it while hanging out and drinking with Dan and  some friends at the Red Lion Pub. Such a great bar in so many ways. Plus it’s haunted. I could digress here and tell you how my friend Amy and I  (after drinking a few Boddingtons)  would try to summon the ghost in the upstairs women’s bathroom. Never worked. Maybe we had to be sober and take it seriously??? Who knows, but back to the topic at hand, what I’m trying to get at is that I guess I can’t take credit for the “Death Bus” quesiton anymore -oh well, it was fun while it lasted. So after all that, are you curious to see who’s on my bus, well here ya go:

1. Phish

2. U2 (yes, shocking and bold move, I know, but I can do without ever hearing anything from Bono and is it “The Edge”? again)

3. Steely Dan, i don’t get them at all.

4. Bruce Springsteen, he made me cringe when I was 10, he still makes me cringe today.

5. And last, but surely not least The Dave Matthews Band! I really wish I could just use one category and put all “jam” bands on here but there’s not enough room on the bus to fit them all.

Your turn! Who’s on your bus?

Bobby Bare’s Jr’s Band Bares Their Souls and Then Some

October 14th
Saturday night, sipping away at a Miller Highlife and trying to save the perfect vantage point I somehow landed on the balcony of Neumos. Of course any time such events come into perect alignment something has got to go wrong, and this time it ws getting through the opening band… as it usually is. It was almost enjough to make me release my deathgrip on the railing. Once clear of the melancholy that Tim Sealy brought to the stage, things fell back into place.

Enter Bobby Bare Jr. normally touring with his band The Young Criminal Starvation League, but tonight being backed by Ghostfinger. BB Jr. is known for his alt-country songs about dysfunctional situations and relationships, and even though I’ve previously been dazzled by Bobby’s catchy lyrics and sticky hooks, I gotta tell you, I wasn’t feeling it. Bobby shuffled his “Croc”-clad feet onto the stage, barely picking them up, head hung low. First glance would lead you to believe this set was to follow in the footsteps of the last.

Then the music began.

This was not your typical Bobby Bare show. Jangley crowd favorites like Valentine, Girlfriend were suddenly turned up to 11. Typical riffs got lit on fire and rocketed out on the audience by Ghostfingers guitarist Richie Kirkpatric and Van Campbell beat the livin shit out of his kit. These guys had brought out the big guns.

Eventually, Bobby removed his Crocs and the sentiment was evidently catchy. One minute, Kirkpatric was a rock star, then he was a NAKED rockstar, well all except for a little pair of “man-panties” as Bobby called them. Apparently not very shy, Richie maintained through the more relaxed songs requiring a sit down slide, all the while emulating a very Zappa-esque style. Bobby, apparently fed up, suddenly left the stage, abandoning the partially naked band to fend for itself – only to return with a fresh 6-pack of Carona. Crisis averted. Please let us continue to rock.

Although naked slide is a bit tough to swallow, the overall set was top notch. Maybe it was the initial taste of sour tht made it so sweet but man, I’m glad I hung around.

Some Deep Thoughts

Some Deep Quick Thoughts:

KEXP’s John Richards (a fine, fine dj) plays really good music during pledge drives, like Suicidal Tendencies, Black Flag and the Dead Milkmen, but those bands are played only during pledge drives.

Portland’s The Thermals have been rocking my socks for a few weeks now. Loud, fast, get in/get out. Perfect.

A short summary of the sweet, submissive sounds of Big Business

Deranged gorillas cutting scrap metal with rusty chainsaws.  Volcanic eruptions spewing forth discharging semi-automatic weapons.  Dinosaurs emerging from extinction all at once to raise their gigantic heads in a collective roar of protest, only to crumble violently under their own weight. 

If these images sound familiar to you, then you’ve heard Big Business’s 2005 release, “Head for the Shallow” (Hydra Head Records).  The powerful, ear-bleeding sounds of bassist Jared Warren (Karp, Tight Bros from Way Back When), and drummer Coady Willis (The Murder City Devils, Dead Low Tide) will make you want to destroy public property, or crouch fearfully in the corner and weep.  Either way, you may want to wear some kind of protective helmet. 

Also, be sure to look for their new record (to be released on Hydra Head in 2007), which will likely pack the same nose-breaking punch. 

We heart Big Business.

 

You Say Party! We Say no!

Last Sunday Vancouver punk wonderkids You Say Party! We Say Die! were booked for a show at Chop Suey with Thunderbirds are Now!, Detroit’s newest touring crazy dance-rockers. Everyone who showed up at the show expecting three exclamation points worth of music were disappointed, as 2/3 of the punctuation had been held up at the border for lack of work visas. As a result the band has had to cancel all of their West Coast shows, and the situation appears to have escalated to the point where one member of the band may have been barred from the U.S. for five years.

This has happened several times this year, bands having to cancel or reschedule their shows because of problems getting into the United States in time for a soundcheck. It isn’t as though YSP!WSD! hasn’t played in the States before, because of course they have–they’ve played SXSW and toured the midwest with Pretty Girls Make Graves.

They’re talking to their lawyers now, but the crowd at Chop Suey had to be satisfied with White Gold and TAN!, and in the meantime YSP!WSD! will be touring again in Europe. Any plans you might have to see a band from outside the borders will depend on the whims of the guards, so don’t get too attached. (On the other hand, Australia’s adorable Architecture in Helsinki managed to break into the country and play a couple of fantastic shows this week.)

Clap Your Hands Say What?

Clap Your Hands Say Yeah is playing with Australian group Architecture in Helsinki tonight at the Showbox here in Seattle. The two also played to an all-ages audience at the Showbox last night, and the reports so far are good. I didn’t go.

So what, right? Here’s what: in my opinion, CYHSY singer Alec Ounsworth sounds too much like David Byrne. Eerily like Byrne. So much I thought their first single was the Talking Heads’ Lost Session Tapes or something.

BBC calls Ounsworth’s voice a “euphoric nasal yelp“. I call it something I’ll have to get used to.