Making A Lot Of Noise For The Needy

Seattle’s annual Noise for the Needy music festival kicked off yesterday with two great local bills including Slender Means, Coulter, Skeletons With Flesh On Them, Fences and New Faces. The festival is made up of local and national acts and features shows at venues all over town including Neumos, The Comet, Chop Suey, The Sunset, The Tractor Tavern, The High Dive and more with all the proceeds benefiting Transitional Resources. Basically, you the people get to experience great music AND help those in need. Everyone wins!

Tonight offers do-gooders/concert goers three great shows to choose from and luckily all based in Ballard so you CAN double your karma points by hitting all three:

The Tractor: Throw Me The Statue, “Awesome,” and Velella Velella.
The Sunset: Adam Stephens and the Finite Plan (from Two Gallants), Widower, Jack Wilson & The Wife Stealers, and Shane Tutmarc
Conor Byrne: Half Light, Trentalage, Cataldo, and the Cosmic Panther Land Band

Friday’s action is centered in Belltown with two great shows at the Underground Events Center (The Whore Moans, Speaker Speaker, Wallpaper and more) and the powerhouse line up at The Croc with Grand Archives, See Me River, and The Curious Mystery.

Saturday, most of the action is on Capitol Hill but good shows to note are Furniture Girls, Hotels, Born Anchors and Anomie Belle at The High Dive and tons of great guest DJs for the Emerald City Soul Club at Victory Lounge. If you choose to hang out on the Hill on Saturday, be prepared for some tough choices.

Neumos: Art Brut, & Miike Snow
The Comet: Brent Amaker & the Rodeo,* The Valley, An Invitation to Love, The Beautiful Confusion, The Thoughts
Chop Suey: Point Juncture, WA, The Pica Beats, Black Whales, and Grant Olsen (Arthur & Yu)
Wild Rose: Black Eyes & Neckties, Telepathic Liberation Army, Loving Thunder, and The Beats, Man

*According to the Brent Amaker & the Rodeo myspace page the Rodeo is cooking up some extra hoopla down at The Comet including a costume and photo contest, a dancing girl, cheap whiskey, and more. If you’re planning on catching this show, get advance tickets and don’t forget your cowboy hat as we hear prizes are involved.

If you somehow make it through Saturday night (extra points if you survived the Rodeo) don’t forget to check out Neumos who will host a helluva closer with the Constantines, Crystal Antlers, Hey Marseilles, and I Was A King.

Good luck and thanks for doing your part!

Thee Emergency-The Hands and The Valley at King Cobra

Thee Emergency (Record Release),
The Hands,
The Valley
9pm

Three of Seattle’s Superstars are gathered up here at Capitol Hill’s hottest new digs, King Cobra. Be sure to get here early and stay late. Nothing on this bill is going to disappoint. Thee Emergency is going to be celebrating the release of their new CD Solid due out in May

NWMB Recommends – Seattle Concerts and Shows for April, 2008

OK, I know I’m waaay behind getting the rock out to you kiddies this month, but I have been so sidetracked with the upcoming Black Keys show at Showbox on the 5th that I just coudn’t come up with any other shows. Regardless, with a little help from LB, I’ve got a great list of shows for April. Highlights are… well the Black Keys of course, but also look for Scott H Biram coming to El Corozon on Sat the 19th, RJD2 on the 12th playing at Chop Suey and my recommended show of the month (besides Black Keys) is Thurs the 1oth at Neumos. Shackletons, The Hands, New Faces and Born Anchors all playing together for $8. YEAH!
Have I mentioned the Black Keys yet? Well they’re playing Saturday night the 5th.
The rest of the recommendations are after the break, full with band llinks so you can listen before you go! Please let us know if there are any others you recommend.

The Valley Headlines ‘Piss Your Pants’ at the Sunset

Yes, that’s right, folks—the Sunset Tavern’s “Piss Your Pants” show is back (third Thursday of every month). Two-freakin’-bucks for some hardcore, local, high-quality rock bands. The Valley is the main attraction for this installment (last one I was at in January featured the Purrs, the Heavy Hearts, and Hypatia Lake!), and to be able to see them blast the eardrums for such a low-low price is tremendously far-out.

The Stranger, Sonic Boom, and PBR ($2 pounders!) dutifully present.

Also playing:
The Small Change
guests

9pm, $2, 21+

Sights and Sounds of The Valley

Just a quick and dirty posting. Last night, The Valley popped my Jules Maes cherry. I was doubly eager to check out the show because I had never seen a band there, and ever since I heard “Come Down” on 90.3, I have been chomping at the bit to see and hear the band’s thunderous assault. In between pints down at the 9LB, I caught a bit of Bacchus’ set and they made a fan out of me, too. Heavier, faster-tempo than The Valley, and possibly more sweat. What struck me most about their presence was how good they made the room sound. Thicker-than-Texas toast kinda sound, the way this kind of music should be expressed. When the headliners stepped up, the volume naturally increased but the fidelity remained. Too bad this isn’t the norm *everywhere*, right?� And while some audience members near me bemoaned the crowd’s fixed gaze and lack of any kind of activity (are we supposed to waltz? what the…?) I thought it was a perfect scene – dark, loud and full of people that were stoked to be there. As for the sounds/sights part, video is to be uploaded to YouTube and will be available later this weekend. In the meantime, visit thevalleyrules.com or pick up their latest EP. And catch them at The Comet on Friday, 22 February.

Feral Children Go Wild For Yule Benefit, Yeasayer Lights Scented Candles

I’ll be honest, I was a bit under whelmed by a few of the performances during the KEXP Yule Benefit this past Saturday night (12/8).  The 5th annual installment of the holiday show took place at the Showbox after three consecutive years of being held at Neumos; and frankly, the venue might have been a bit too large for the lineup the listener-powered radio station chose to feature.  Either that, or they botched it by not booking Sharon Jones & the Dap Kings (who sold out up the hill at Neumos the same night).  And for all the brazen self-promotion listener-powered KEXP continuously doles out over the airwaves (seriously, do they have to push Live At KEXP during every freakin’ airbreak?), you’d think they could at least drum up a bigger headliner.