| March 2, 2008 | ||
| 8:00 pm |
BALKAN BEAT BOX
DJ Joro Boro
Orkestar Zirkonium
$12 adv
8pm doors // 21+
Chop Suey
Balkan Beat Box is a high energy globe-trotting collective blending electronic music with hard-edged folk music from the Balkans, North Africa, and the Middle East. A very cool sound that is only to be appreciated in the live setting. BUT, you can check the sample below or on their web page to get a taste.
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Rockin the ass out of Valentines day in Fremont.
It’s all a bit hazy, but it’s slowly coming back to me in bits and pieces. Valentines Night in Fremont, I attended what I’ve dubbed as the Unintentional Valentines Music Festival. The High Dive and Nectar both had 8-band lineups peppered with local favorites-both were considerably cheap to get into ($7 and &10 respectively)-and both are practically across the street from each other.
The High Dive was home to the Great Valentines Day Massacre. MC-ing the going-ons, along with Coz from presenters, Nada Mucho, was the (in)famous KEG. KEG IS “The Lone Ranger of Rock.” Everything you could possibly imagine from a person with such a title is doubly true for KEG. We even more appropriately titled him the Mayor of Rockville as he introduced himself to almost every individual in the crowd, shaking hands with his right while tossing his hair out of his eyes with the left. He paraded around the place decked to the teeth in butt-rock gear complete with ankle bandannas, skull headband, wristbands, bangles, spangles and obligatory rocker mascara. Even fingering his flying V as he went. KEG thanked each and everyone for coming. He even introduced us to Lake of Falcons, (who knocked the back wall out of the High Dive, but more on that later.) And all that’s not even the impressive part. Aside from being the one-man glam-rock show that he is, playing drum tracks and looping them along with rhythm guitar, then thrashing the ever living crap out of the stage, this guy has the best “rock-kick” I’ve ever seen. Seriously, we’re talking entire boot above the head, like 10 times a song. Fuckin’ A! And in the tiny 1/2 hour set that he played KEG pulled out every quintessential rocker move imaginable. From leaping off of chairs and monitors, to playing the guitar behind his head and with his teeth (not at the same time of course, he’s just a butt-rocker, not a god). The set ended with Keg’s sing-along tune, “What I’m Trying to Say is - Bring Back the Rock!” and left us all completely dumbfounded.
And all of this happened after Lake of Falcons broke in the night with an incredible-albeit short-set. I haven’t even gotten to that yet. Frig, I haven’t even left the High Dive yet. There’s still another venue to visit here. But first, lets talk about this Lake of Falcons.
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The infamous Black Lips, in support of their rockin’ album, “Good Bad Not Evil”, played a Monday night at Neumo’s in early February. The show went kinda like this:
It’s not that they didn’t play their asses off. We just weren’t into it.
(p.s. someone STILL hasn’t sent me that King Kong track…)
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This Ed Vedder tour gets me thinking… “Some shows are just *worth* the expense.” Maybe you’re a huge Stones fan, and you have $300 burning a hole in the glovebox of your Bentley. Maybe you’re a broke college student but flying to Chicago for the Soundgarden fan club show wasn’t to be missed. Maybe it was stealing a twenty from your roommate for a night at the Offramp, and it eventually cost you the relationship.
Not to play Ross Reynolds here, but what’s your story? What’s the most you’ve ever shelled out?
OR conversely, what’s the least you ever paid for the best show you wouldn’t have otherwise gotten into?
My answer: NIN/David Bowie “INSIDE” tour. Shoreline Amphitheatre, San Jose, CA. $45 before incontinence charges. That was a mountain of cash for my broke college sophomore ass in 1995.
And someone in front of El Corazon (or whatever it was called then) dragged me into the sold-out Queens of the Stone Age show in ‘01 or ‘02. I was trying to buy tickets but this guy had a +3 and only two people showed up. “Follow me,” he said, and I got to witness a kick-ass performance with Mark Lanegan on vox and Dave Grohl on skins. Free-ninety-nine.
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From an email I just got from Vandenberg Communications:
SEATTLE — Eddie Vedder will embark on a small, West Coast, solo tour beginning April 2nd in Vancouver, BC and ending April 15th in San Diego (full list of tour dates below).
Tickets for the general public will go on sale on Friday, February 22nd at 10am* PST through www.ticketmaster.com and all Ticketmaster outlets.
Entire press release, dates and ticket prices after the jump…
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KEXP DJ, icon and all around presence, John Richards stabs another year dead and to celebrate the station has announced this year’s JITMAN lineup (that’s John-in-the-Morning- at-Night for those out of the Seattle hip lingo loop) happening Friday, March 7th at Neumo’s at 8:00.
This event continues the theme of previous JITMAN shows by showcasing the best up-and-coming artists who are getting significant air play on John’s morning show as well as being host to the John Richard’s Birthday Bash.
The lineup does not include any NW bands this time around, but John has instead invited some far away friends, that he has been touting for years, to come fill our hungry heads. At the top of the bill are the Duke Spirit dark, blues-tinged psych-rock from London. Also performing are stylish British indie-rockers The Voom Blooms, (KEXP has a free sample track from their EP-Nine Ships here) and Tulsa, the atmospheric indie-pop band from Boston. (KEXP has a free sample track from their 2007 EP here) Both the later bands are making their virgin pilgrimages to Seattle.
The show will be aired on KEXP’s Nite Life (Fri nights from 9-1) which also means that the station’s Friday Night Gem, Michele Myers will be there to DJ between sets and throughout the night. That is a party in and of itself.
Proceeds will, as always benefit the station and help keep KEXP listener powered. For more info visit the station at KEXP.org
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Like many of you readers who are KEXP members/donors, I received a vague and unexpected message from Tom Mara at KEXP on 22 January which alluded to some upcoming collaboration. It instantly though maybe inaccurately reminded me of the change from KCMU -> KEXP and the “outcry” that followed.
So what of this message today? This morning’s email brings the news of an alliance with Radio New York and I am left with… “So what?”
I carefully read the Q & A and didn’t find an answer to “How does my listening experience change as a result of this news?” There was a lot of preemptive defense for the hand-wringing types: “How much will this cost?” “Is John leaving Seattle?” and most amusingly: “Did Paul Allen/Michael Bloomberg and Greg Nickels make this happen?”
So here I am, confused. But not terribly anxious or upset. I anticipate a lot of dialogue as this thing is brought to the table.
See: http://kexp.org/newyork/qa.aspx for more.
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This Valentines day there is a strange anomaly happening in Fremont. Both Nectar and the High Dive have completely stellar line-ups scheduled consisting of sixteen, yes, count them, sixteen North West bands. 8 at each venue. Now the 2 places are not officially affiliated with each other, but they ARE officially right across the friggen street from each other. Now both are a great value on their own. Nectar is only running at $10 for the entire night. High Dive, even cheaper at $5 ($7 doors).
Now just consider this, pay the door fee at BOTH Nectar AND the High Dive. You would be dropping a total of $15 dollars and have access to all 16 bands. That means you can catch the Cops AND Partman Parthorse. Hell if you hate either, you have the option to head across the street and see someone you’ve never even heard of before.
It’s your very own valentines day music festival.
So, that’s the plan. Band listings are after the break. Both events start at 8:00
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