I was on Youtube looking for the new Baroness video, the first off of their incredible Red Album that came out on Relapse earlier this year, when I inadvertently stumbled upon this heap. Apparently this band is also named Baroness, and their video… well, it speaks for itself. So I decided to just post this one instead. Enjoy.

Baroness
“Baby Wont You Kiss My Lips”

Tonight Nectar, The Stranger, and Light In The Attic Records present STUDIO, an evening of disco sweat and dancing mayhem with deejays Fucking in the Streets, Glitterpants(Club Pop resident), H.M.A., and TJ Gorton. We will be spinning Electro-Funk, Soul, Italo & Sleazy Disco all night long for you to drink, sweat, and dance to. Plus, vintage 70’s Playboy and Deep Throat LP soundtrack giveaways!!! This will be one of the craziest disco party the Northwest has ever seen, so don’t miss out on a night where we turn the Nectar into a 1970’s discothèque!

Here’s all the official info:

Saturday December 8th
Nectar, The Stranger, & Light In The Attic Records Present
An Evening of Disco Sweat & Dancing Mayhem…
“STUDIO”
w/ DJs FITS, Glitterpants, Heavy Metal Army, & TJ Gorton
Spinning the choicest Rare Soul, Electro-Funk, Italo & Gay-Ass Disco cuts this side of Manhattan!
$3! 9pm doors
*Red Carpet Entry! Vintage 70’s Playboy & “Deep Throat” Vinyl Soundtrack Giveaways!
*Hedonistic Dewars Drink Specials All Night!

Babyshambles’ Olympic champion lead man, Pete Doherty, didn’t show up for a secret Babyshambles set at London’s IndigO2 club. The bass player and drummer played a couple songs by themselves, then pulled a fan out of the crowd to take his place. They asked the people there if any of them knew how to play guitar. 18-year old Jamie Bell answered the call. He played and sang on a version of “Carry On Up the Morning”.

(Story from 411mania.com.)

This isn’t the first time a band has pulled an audience member onstage to fill in.

On the 1973 Quadrophenia tour, drummer Keith Moon decided to take fifteen horse tranquilizers before a show at the Cow Palace in Daly City, CA. This is almost four times the amount for a horse.

When informed of his overdosage, Moon said, “I’m fucking Keith Moon.”

He passed out in “Won’t Get Fooled Again” and again in “Magic Bus”. When Moon became completely incapacitated, Pete Townshend asked the crowd, “Does anybody know how to play the drums?” Audience member, Scott Halpin, said yes, and filled in for Moon for the rest of the show.

It was reported last week that Stolen Transmission (home to locals Schoolyard Heroes), was dropped from Island/Def Jam. JZ posted about the news here, he said it was “totally unbelievable,” and he was right. Folks at IDJ are saying label owner Sarah Lewitinn jumped the gun on spreading the news and Stolen Transmission is still part of IDJ.

Via Billboard.biz:

Despite reports that indie label Stolen Transmission has exited the Island Def Jam umbrella, the business relationship might be firmly intact. A source tells Billboard.biz that details need to be worked out and at the moment Stolen Transmission is still a part of IDJ.

“Meetings are scheduled for next week between IDJ folks and Rob Stevenson (the A&R man who was also let go and championed the indie at IDJ), and we plan on talking about how to move forward,” the source told Billboard.biz “(Stolen Transmission founder) Sarah Lewitinn jumped the gun when she wrote her posts over the weekend. At this point, Stolen Transmission is still an IDJ venture, and the expectation is that it will remain a venture.”

The indie’s staff was cut last week as part of IDJ’s wider layoffs. Afterwards, Lewitinn, via her personal blog, wrote that the label has started in her bedroom and “now it’ll just go back to being run from my apartment again. We plan on continuing with Stolen Transmission and are really excited to be returning to our indie roots.”

Of course we all know Repeal Day wasn’t last night but the night before.

What’s that? You’ve never heard of Repeal Day? Where have you been drinking?

At first, the notion stinks of Hallmarkery—a holiday contrived to sell crap, in this case booze instead of greeting cards and coffee mugs. Predictably, after a few rounds of discounted (or free) Dewar’s in Neumo’s VIP room, shameless calendric exploitation makes perfect sense. Good idea, Dewar’s! Make up a holiday! Drape us in goofy feather boas and plastic-felt pimp hats and take our picture with a pair of bra-popping burlesque babes! Do whatever you want, as long you give me free booze!

And free music. The lineup on Wednesday was promising and mostly delivered.

Kay Kay & His Weathered Underground was, in a word, wonderful. There’s a lot to love about their Vaudevillian baroque-pop, especially because the 11-piece band gets tighter and more explosive with every show. Their Block Party set a few months ago was endearingly swervy; tonight they were laced-up and full-speed ahead. It seemed at first that their music might just be snippets of big-band grandeur stiched together randomly, but as the set went on, a prevailing aesthetic emerged and the the band’s swooning compositional logic revealed itself. Strings, so often a band’s downfall, are used in all the right ways; horns embellish orchestrally, until a muted trumpet gets raunches up their dignity. These parts are almost busy but not, ultimately unburdensome, heavy but uplifing. Lead Undergrounder Kirk Huffman has one of those utilitarian voices that’s rich in character and low in technique, a scrappy, easily lovable combination. Cellist Phil Peterson has a theremin-like falsetto. The band looks like the love child of a punk rock carnie and a jazz band revolutionary. They will be fun to watch and to listen to in 2008.

Siberian: professional, efficient, competent, and unremarkable. There’s nothing wrong with solid, mid-tempo ballad rock, but coming after the singular sweetness of KK&HWF and before U.S.E., you have to offer something more spectacular than what Siberian brought.

My first time seeing U.S.E. and fuck, what a blast—or better yet, a blast-off. By this time the Dewar’s had drowned any inhibitions and better judgement.

It should never be said again that Seattle don’t dance. All that’s needed for a full-blown dancefloor freakout is gallons of good whisky at low prices and a electro-dance spectacle like U.S.E. The crowd reaction was almost more stunning than the band’s performance—boas streaming through the air like feathered snakes, plastic fedoras arching through the room. By the time they brough 40 boa-ed revelers up on stage, the night had become a genuine, certified, out-of-control rager. On a Wednesday. That’s the only way to jumpstart a new holiday tradition.

3:50 on 3 Bands.

United State of Electronica, Siberian, and Kay Kay and His Weathered Underground played Neumos on Dec. 5th. Prohibition was repealed, inhibition was healed, and Dewar’s was don’t. (Dewar’s Scotch Whiskey sponsored the event.) Circus Contraption was on hand, doing hand-stands.

A rounded out evening of vocoded dancing songbird delights:

After finding out that tomorrow’s Sharon Jones show was sold out, I’ve spent the week since trying to convince myself that going to see the Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players instead will be just as good. I love the Trachtenburgs plenty, but it’s not working.

Someone hook a brotha up with some Sharon Jones tickets!

Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings - “100 Days, 100 Nights”

Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players - “You’re the One Who’s Made For Me and I was Made for You”

Tiny Vipers recently did a Concerts à emporter sesh with La Blogotheque while in San Francisco (hat tip to Stereogum)

Tender.

Apparently, Shaolin isn’t the only ‘hood that’s had ninja problems. From hot tipper mvp Matt Fuckin’ Hickey:

So back in late winter/early spring 2006, there was a spate of odd robberies at 4 bars on the hill. Madison street pub, CC’s, Bill’s, and the warroom. Someone somehow got in at night, despite the alarms, and stole all the top-shelf alcohol, and, when they could, unsecured cash.

At the maharaja, there was a waiter named Lucky. Lucky often had to close, then open the next morning. When he did, he’d sleep in one of the booths, not uncommon with food workers.

At about 4AM one night, Lucky heard commotion back in the bar area. He checked it out, turned on the light, and found four guys in full ninja gear about to make off with the cash register. They had a messenger bag with several bottles of quality booze.

He grabbed a baseball bat and attacked them. They quickly made their way up a rope they’d dropped quietly through a skylight. Lucky can’t climb ropes well, so he called the cops.

The cops had been patrolling the area, looking for anything odd at bars. They showed up quickly and tracked the ninjas back across to the Warroom roof, and then lost them.

There were several cop cars, but somehow they slipped away. The didn’t get anything from the maharaja, and they’ve never been heard from since.

It’s all true, and one of the coolest things I’ve ever heard of in my life. Lucky told me the story himself, and one of the cops was there and verified that he’d seen the ninjas.

Totally awesome.

Finally, here’s one for all the ninjas out there giving chase:

Yeah, that’s awkward: Fall Out Boy played a Grammy nomination party. And didn’t get nominated.

Remember John Lennon tomorrow at 11:15 pm: Yoko urges fans to take a moment of reflection, and display message of peace.

Unconventional Venues: A new show on Ovation will explore innovative music spaces such as synagogues and ships, (if only that channel were included in basic cable).

Stress is the new acid reflux: Bow Wow rushed to hospital after Cincinnati concert.

…Speaking of acid reflux: Ashlee Simpson digs Salvador Dali?

And another Mexican musician was murdered: The death of Jose Luis Aquino marks the third in a week.

Do you like Street Fighter II? Do you like new-wave rock operas about Street Fighter II? Then you’ll like Man Factory, a band of college students out of Arlington, TX who’ve released the first in a free, three-part EP series of surprisingly catchy odes to Chun Li, Ryu and M. Bison. Some of it is ridiculously stupid (E. Honda: “My passport is fake but my Thai food’s first rate”), but you’ll want to pretend otherwise once you start singing along to hooks that are Mates of State- and Weezer-inspired in all of the right ways. Considering the bar for game-inspired rock is generally lower than dirt, expect this solid EP to transform these kids into nerd lords (and maybe even PAX’08 concert headliners) within weeks.

Dude, everybody all stoked up for ID5? Looks like a real thriller. Did you hear all of those gnarly growls that the zombie/chud/mutants make? Those are courtesy of none other than Mike Patton, the vessel for some of rock music’s most interesting and occasionally irritating vocal stylings. I can’t wait for the part of the movie where Will Smith and the “dreaded creatures” finally come face to face, and Will Smith is all like,

“I’m the last man alive, I am legend, leave me alone!”

and the zombies are like, “Dude, we live here now too,”

so Will Smith is like, “But I’m the only human left, you guys don’t count,”

and Mike Patton gets all pissed off and starts going, “You want it all, but you can’t have it!”

and then he impales Will Smith with a giant spear.

(hat tip to Pitchfork)

Are you throwing a New Year’s party or event that’s open to the public? Wanna advertise it for free in our popular New Year’s listings?

All you need to do is send it in an email to music@thestranger.com. Make sure to write “New Year’s” in the subject line somewhere so I can pick it out of the crowd of “MegaDik” spams.

All events qualify, not just concerts or dance parties. Having a seance? Submit. Wine tasting? Submit. Bong-decorating gathering? Submit. (No NAMBLA gatherings, please.)

Your deadline is approaching fast—It’s TUESDAY, DECEMBER 18TH. Hurry hurry hurry!

So smooth, so delicious.

One of the bravest, boldest composers of the 20th century has died. I first heard about Stockhausen’s passing on a tiny listserv and just couldn’t believe it. Alas, now The Guardian and the BBC have the official word, though Ivan Hewitt’s obituary, much like his misguided reading of the avant garde in Music: Healing the Rift, misses the mark.

Earlier this March, I wrote a Turn You On column about the great composer. To my surprise and eternal delight, I eventually heard that Stockhausen was immensely pleased with the piece. My tribute is hardly complete and neglects to address Stockhausen’s contributions to improvised music, opera, and music notation; I also omitted his far-reaching influence as a teacher, but Stockhausen merits a book, not a blurb.

My favorite book on the man is by the man himself: Stockhausen on Music.

That’s right, before you get your disco groove on at STUDIO, come out and warm your body up to some cosmic grooves, sleazy funk, hi-energy italo, and tropical disco!!! Don’t miss out on another night of drinking, disco sweat, and love-dancing!!!

Friday December, 7th
Club Cabana @ Solo Bar (Lower Queen Anne)
w/ Deejay TJ Gorton
200 Roy Street, Seattle, Washington 98109
Cost : Free!!!
Dancing : 9pm-close

As tensions reportedly mount within the Wu-Tang Clan, as critics weigh the relative merits of the 8 Diagrams and the Big Doe Rehab, as the reunited Clan prepares for tour, a ninja is terrorizing the streets of Shaolin.

From the New Yorker:

In retrospect, it figures that a serial “ninja burglar” would turn up on Staten Island, a borough whose biggest cultural export, the Wu-Tang Clan, long ago nicknamed the place Shaolin, in honor of kung-fu movies. This particular bandit, who is now thought to have robbed eighteen homes on the island in the past seven months, acquired his honorific in September, when he encountered a Dongan Hills resident named Phil Chiolo while raiding Chiolo’s home. He was dressed all in black, with a black face mask, Chiolo said, and he carried nun-chucks, which he used to club Chiolo in the chest, head, and shins before Chiolo was able to retaliate by stabbing at him with a steak knife.

Meanwhile, at the Shaolin Kung Fu Temple, near the North Shore, Sifu Paula Wong, an instructor, seemed unaware of the burglar and his legend. “We’re not familiar with the ninja, since a ninja is an assassin,” she said. “Our training is more philosophy, with Buddhism and philosophies like Bruce Lee.”

Beloved local poster designer Jeff Kleinsmith donated over a dozen posters to Strangercrombie this year. The prints are from past shows featuring Spoon, Calexico, Minus the Bear, the Little Ones, Turbonegro, Mogwai, the Shins, the Wrens, and more, and as of 10:30 am this morning, some are going for the ridiculously low price of $1.99. Everyone can afford that. So, got a Spoon fan on your gift list? A Shins lover? Or maybe your brother-in-law is just a fan of fantastic poster design? Then check out all the Kleinsmith posters available, there’s something for everyone.

Fishboy plays the Comet tonight with Boat and Awesome, and just as Sam Machkovech wrote in his U&C this week, the band plays a great song about a discarded and forgotten Christmas Tree that decides to make its way back home. The song, “A Surprise Return” is a little something to think about (and sing in your head) while you pick out your tree this holiday season. Here they are performing the song “live” on Chicagogo.

Boat, “Awesome,” Fishboy, Eux Autres
(Comet) Since our pages have already poured praise upon local headliners “Awesome” and Boat, this brief recommendation is better served touting a memorable out-of-towner opening the bill. Fishboy the band is named after Fishboy the lead singer, a bespectacled dweeb-rocker from Denton, Texas, who currently writes and performs some of the most smile-worthy pop this side of They Might Be Giants. The 25-year-old draws epic-length comic-book fliers for concerts and four-tracks songs about anthropomorphic Christmas trees and Teddy Ruxpin, but lest you think this Fish is too much “boy,” he’s gotten help from members of Okkervil River and the Baptist Generals on his albums for a reason. Fishboy comes to Seattle on the strength of his latest record, Albatross, and he’s bringing a frenzy of horns, guitars, and giggle-worthy songs in his lunchbox. SAM MACHKOVECH

Don Caballero, Enablers, Thrones
(Crocodile) There was a point when Don Caballero were one of my favorite bands. American Don is still one of my favorite albums. It’s not like their newest release, World Class Listening Problem, was a bad album—there’s actually nothing particularly wrong with it—but there’s also something about it I can’t embrace. Damon Che is always going to be an amazing drummer, but it’s just not Don Cab without Ian Williams playing guitar. The original band broke up in 2000. Williams went on to form Battles, but Che started the band up again in 2003, keeping the same name but hiring an entirely new band that sounded remarkably similar to the old one. World Class Listening Problem is a good album. But it’s not a Don Cab album. And this isn’t really a Don Cab show. Don Cab broke up years ago. JEFF KIRBY

Speaker Speaker, Velella Velella, Antelope, Immaculate Machine
(Vera) Kathryn Calder has tremendous stamina. When her indie-pop trio Immaculate Machine toured with the New Pornographers earlier this fall, she was onstage during every set of the night: cofronting her own band, sitting in on accordion during Emma Pollock’s set, and working the keyboards as part of her other gig in her uncle A. C. Newman’s supergroup. Beyond that, Calder can lead Immaculate Machine through a dozen or more sprightly, catchy tunes without getting tired or tiresome, only to push it that much further with the kinda-epic “C’mon Sea Legs.” It starts slow, hits a singsong lullaby hook that repeats, builds as Calder’s honeyed voice harmonizes with guitarist Brooke Gallupe, modulates, and pretty much explodes into four minutes of repeated bliss. JOHN VETTESE

Well, it’s better than anything the other American Idols have shit out. I could see this being a hit in the club.

(hat tip to idolator)

Pitchfork reports today on a bizarre new Greyhound ad campaign featuring photos of indie/noise acts including Wzt Hearts, Ruins and Dan Deacon. Deacon, for one, was never contacted to be part of the campaign, and his response to the campaign make it seem like he might not be the ideal spokesperson for the ol’ dog bus:

greyhound bus company is one of the worst run, bullshit companies i have ever had the misfortune to use. they are a total monopoly and take advantage of that with poor service and price hikes and route cancellation. they have bought all the other smaller companies and run them out of their office in dallas. they treat both their employees and customers like shit. they are a cancer.

since i do not drive i used to use them to get to shows (when nothing else was available). on many occasions i had to cancel shows because the bus would be late, my luggage would get lost/stolen, the over sell their buses, and fuck i fucking hate them.

it really upsets me that i am being used to promote them. if i had my way i would see all their buses transport guns to all the people they have fucked over.

like many evil companies they are trying to use subversive advertising and i will not allow myself to be a cog in their wheel of lies and deceit. these rats stink like rotten cum. fuck them with 1000 fires.

in case this message finds its way to someone in the advertising department of greyhound: eat my shorts you dickless pig fuckers.

Prefuse 73 and School of Seven Bells at Neumo’s
Prefuse 73 is the brainy glitch-hop alias of producer Scott Herren; School of Seven Bells are a new band featuring members of Secret Machines and On!Air!Library! Their soft-drug collage rock is a kaleidoscope of gorgeous female vocals, electronic grooves, stargazing guitars, steady rhythms, and warm colors. The band’s synesthesia is all organic; Prefuse 73’s is brilliantly digital, a busy mix of sharp beats and surround-sound samples. (Neumo’s, 925 E Pike St, 709-9467. 8 pm, $13, 21+.) by Eric Grandy

(Hear Prefuse 73 in Donte’s post from earlier today.)

Wildildlife, Doomhawk, Weirdlords
(Comet) If you describe Doomhawk to people who’ve never seen them, you are guaranteed to get weird looks and verbal abuse. “I swear, they are, like, fantasy metal, but there’s tons of ska breakdowns! And they are from the forest, but they also have this really complicated backstory about how they were discovered on an asteroid! And one time, they played an art opening at the Lawrimore Project, and Anne Mathern suspended herself above them and bounced around from the ceiling, taking pictures, except the pictures were fake.” See? Nothing about that makes any sense, but it’s all true. Doomhawk are fake and real at the same time. ARI SPOOL

Deck the Hall Ball: Modest Mouse, Jimmy Eat World, Coheed and Cambria, She Wants Revenge, Spoon, the Kooks
(Everett Events Center) When I saw Jimmy Eat World at the Showbox just a couple months ago, it was perhaps the most boring show of 2007. I’ve seen the band a number of times—in their early-emo Clarity heyday, during the band’s Bleed American wonder year—and they’ve always been sparkling, intense, and remarkably tight. But now, as the years have stacked on top of them, they’re just another band going through the familiar motions and they looked like robots onstage. Modest Mouse haven’t hit that point yet, however. So they’ll certainly put on a fantastic show as they usually do. But chances are it won’t feel worth it to stand through JEW’s “performance” and Coheed and Cambria’s annoying sci-fi prog rock to get to the one buried treasure in this desert of monotony (Spoon excluded, they’re the one oasis you’ll come across on the long, tiring trek). MEGAN SELING

This is Hank Williams:

He begot the Monday Night Football Guy:

Who then begot Hank III:

Hank Williams Sr. made music like this:

We’ll skip what Hank Jr. sounded like. What’s interesting is how far the Williams family has come in three generations. Hank III has also done his share of twang, but now he is the drummer of the band Arson Anthem, with Phil Anselmo of Pantera on guitar and Mike Williams of Eyehategod on vocals. They sound like this:

My how the rebellious south has changed.

It’s yours:

Brian Geoghagan and myself made this little mix. It is the sound of local hiphop, the sound of The Program.

The Tracklist
“Future Talk” by Physics
“I’d Never Met You” by Can-U
“AlottaRappers” by Dyme Def
“North By Northwest” (Jake One Remix) Blue Scholars
“Can’t Wait For The Hill” (Intro) by Khingz
“Stardust” (produce by Vitamin D) Gift Of Gab
“Joe Metro (Remix) - Instrumental” by Blue Scholars
“The Water” (produced by Sabzi) RA Scion
“This Is Why” by D.Black
“Perseverance” by Cancer Rising
“Future Talk” by Physics

It’s December 6th, time for the sixth song in our musical advent calendar.

It’s as tasty as chocolate and better than a excerpt from the bible, it’s the Kinks’ “Father Christmas.”

Also just announced were the nominees for the 2008 Plug Independent Music Awards.

Album of the year:
Arcade Fire - Neon Bible (Merge)
Band Of Horses - Cease To Begin (Sub Pop)
Battles - Mirrored (Warp)
Beirut - The Flying Club Cup (Ba Da Bing)
El-P - I’ll Sleep When You’re Dead (Definitive Jux)
Justice - † (Downtown / Vice / Ed Banger)
Of Montreal - Hissing Fauna, Are You The Destroyer? (Polyvinyl)
Panda Bear - Person Pitch (Paw Tracks)
Radiohead - In Rainbows (self-released)
Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings - 100 Days, 100 Nights (Daptone)
Spoon - Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga (Merge)
The National - Boxer (Beggars Banquet)

New Artist of the Year:
Bat For Lashes
Battles
Dan Deacon
Deerhunter
Justice
Los Campesinos!
No Age
Sea Wolf
St. Vincent
Vampire Weekend
White Rabbits
Yeasayer

There are a bunch of other categories including Female Artist of the Year, Male Artist of the Year, Metal Album of the Year (with former Seattlites Big Business on the list), Hiphop Album of the Year, and Americana Album of the Year (with current Seattlites the Cave Singers and Jesse Skyes & the Sweet Hereafter listed).

There are also more detailed categories for the “obsessive” music fans including best live act, music festival of the year (Bumbershoot and Sasquatch are in the running) best song, best music video, best live venue (Neumo’s got a shout out), best record store (Sonic Boom and Easy Street are up for that), and best college/non-commercial radio station (no surprise to see KEXP on the list).

You can see the rest of the categories and vote for your favorites artists/magazines/stores/stations at www.plugawards.com. The winners will be announced at the PLUG awards ceremony in NYC on March 6, 2008.

1) Prefuse 73 plays tonight at Neumos. I wasn’t that excited about the show until I heard this mix of his from September. This marks that difficult balance between heady and accessible - good stuff.
Prefuse 73 Live at Club Air - mp3

2) Hollywood Holt is in town for tomorrow’s Sing Sing. The Chicago rapper is part of a new wave of interest in Chicago rappers (it goes beyond just Common and Kanye). He’s got a mixtape available that I’ve listened to just enough to recommend it - the interspersed interview audio definitely shares Holt’s sense of humor.
Hollywood Holt Mixtape - mp3zip

3) Detroit promoters Paxahau have posted a mix from one of their residents Rich Korach. It was “made to take your brain on a journey through the abyss of deep techno/house.” Uh, sure. Either way, it’s a great mellow mix of tracks, more suited for a day in the office than a night at the club. (Thanks Eric!)
Rich Korach - Deep Mix - mp3

4) Mr. Romo and fellow KPSU radio show DJ 31avas compiled a half hour mix for XM Radio representative of the non-indie rock stuff you’ll hear on KPSU. It’s already getting radio play, but they’ve released the recording for Internet audiences as well. It’s a dense (40 tracks in 28 minutes) mix of glitchy, electro-y, robot music, with lots of hip hop early, drifiting into techno as the mix moves on. It’s a fun listen.
Mr. Romo - Mr Romo represents non indie rock KPSU - mp3

Mexican musician tortured: Sergio Gomez joins the ranks of over a dozen performers that have been murdered in the past two years.

Grammy Nominations: Kanye West and Amy Winehouse lead the pack with 8 and 6 respectively. Also, it’s Obama vs. Clinton in the spoken word category? Really?

Just Say No: Radiohead is talking with iTunes.

Mudcrutch: Tom Petty’s old band you didn’t know about reunites!

This is a once-in-a-lifetime gift! The winner of this auction will get to choose which song the Presidents of the USA cover. It can be “Achey Breaky Heart,” it can be “Macarena,” it can be “Baba O’Riley.” It can be any song you choose! The band will learn it, record it, and give you a copy to enjoy for all eternity.

The Presidents of the United States of America record any song you want. The winner will also receive a copy of their new album, These Are the Good Times People, due out this March. Priceless!

The price (as of noon today) is only $355.

Not a Presidents fan? That’s okay! You can also buy a song covered by other local artists including Dina Martina! Visqueen! The Posies! Say Hi! And Erin Jorgensen!

Bidding ends Dec 14 at 5 pm. And should you not already know, all the money Strangercrombie raises goes directly to FareStart. To find out more about this worthy organization, visit their website at www.farestart.org.

“Aw, it’s only a Grammy.” (throws statue off balcony)
“Hey, watch where you throw your junk!”

The Grammy nominees were announced today (a full list of all categories is here). So, who do you think should win?

Record of the Year

Album of the Year

Best New Artist

Best Electronic/Dance Album

Best Rock Album

Best Alternative Music Album

Best Rap Album

And, more importantly, who got shut out that should have been nominated?

A song that I’ve been listening to a lot lately, is Jackie Moore’s 1979 classic disco single “This Time Baby”. This chart-topping single was included on this Florida native’s CBS Records debut I’m On My Way that same year. “This Time Baby” was actually first recorded and released by The O’Jays in 1978, however the song never saw much success until Moore released her cover rendition a year later. The classic soul-grooving disco gem was actually reissued in 1984 with a previously unreleased instrumental version on it’s b-side and charted all over again with much success. A solid disco effort from a legendary and prolific soul diva. Definitely for fans of Loleatta Holloway and Carol Williams.

Jackie Moore - This Time Baby

Just a couple pics from Trent Moorman to tide you over before the review…

_U.S.E.

_{Kay Kay}

Slog/Line Out tipper Matt Hickey made this video of last weekend’s Belmont party chaos for those who weren’t there (and those of you who were too fucked up to remember anything).

First you hate on Van Halen. Fine by me, I’m indifferent. But now you’re doggin’ Journey?

I really hope you just mean the new incarnation of Journey. Or fuck, anything without Steve Perry. But c’mon, man, there are some classics you just can’t deny.

Photos by Morgan Keuler

JOURNEY—Neal Schon (guitar), Jonathan Cain (keyboards), Ross Valory (bass), Deen Castronovo (drums)—is proud to introduce fans all over the world to their new lead singer, Arnel Pineda (“pin-eh-da”). He replaces Jeff Scott Soto, who parted ways with the band earlier this year after stepping in for Steve Augeri, who had to leave the band in 2006 for medical reasons.

Arnel hails from Quezon City in the Philippines and has been singing Journey songs—in addition to original material—with his band, The Zoo, for the past couple of years in clubs all over his homeland. Joining the legendary band is a dream come true for him.

“It’s so exciting to sing with one of the best bands in the world. It’ll be a lot of hard work on my part and I’m actually looking forward to the scrutiny I’ll get from the hardcore JOURNEY fans. I know they’ll expect me to sound exactly like ‘the voice’ (Steve Perry), but that will never happen. I know there’s only one Steve Perry in this world.”

When it was time for JOURNEY to look for a new lead singer, the internet came to their rescue. Guitarist Neal Schon wanted someone new to the music business, so he turned to YouTube. After finding Arnel singing “Faithfully,” he knew he had found the perfect frontman.

Morrissey writes an essay.

This is a painting of the rapper Can-U:
His 2005 CD Stepping Stone is simply stunning stuff. Had he lived in Seattle, he would have been received more ink and attention. Tacoma can be hard on a musician’s career. Nevertheless, Can-U will be at The Program.

That’s what Jennifer Maerz told me years ago when recommending I check out Math and Physics Club. Or was it Dave Segal? He probably recommended them to me too. Because I love Belle & Sebastian, people are always telling me to check out Math & Physics Club. They’ve been around for years, they have a following, they live here in Seattle—and yet we’ve been ships in the night, M&PC and I. I always miss em.

Last night, I finally had a chance—they were on a bill with Tullycraft and Voxtrot at Neumo’s. But when I got there, I’d already missed them. I got to sing along to Tullycraft’s very great little ditty “If You Take Away the Make-Up (Then the Vampires They Will Die)” (hear it here), a song I liked so much I went over to the merch table and bought the new album. Then Voxtrot went on and… they seemed good, but I got bored, so I went over to Moe to meet some friends for a drink.

The first thing a friend of mine said was, “Oh, did you just see Math and Physics Club?”

I told him I’d missed their set.

“Oh, you’d like them,” said friend said. “They sound like Belle & Sebastian.”

“That’s what everyone tells me.”

“That’s the talking point,” he said.

Remember when someone made little YouTube videos illustrating misheard lyrics of Fall Out Boy songs? I still think they’re funny (though I can’t find the originals… now there are just a bunch of not-as-good copycats).

Even funnier, someone has made one for the infamously unintelligible Botch and their song “Japam.” (No, not Japan. JAPAM.)

Ol’ Blue Eyes: US Postage Stamp to feature Frank Sinatra.

Don’t cry for me Argentina: Stewart Copeland apologizes to the President of Chile for a confusing (apparently derogatory) remark about beer, implying she is unattractive.

I like it when my hair is poofy: Moldy Peaches reconvened for the premiere of Juno; Kimya Dawson, Peaches songs were the basis of the film’s soundtrack.

At the end of every In Rainbows is a pot of gold: Radiohead downloading to cease December 10, but the gift boxes have been shipped!

“In the Name of Love”: Africa celebrates U2’s contributions with a covers record.

Pimp C dead at 33: The man behind “Big Pimpin’” found unresponsive in his hotel room yesterday.

Yesterday I was at Sonic Boom, flipping through the used vinyl, when exactly the thing I had always been hoping to witness in an independent record store became a distinct possibility. I heard the door open and someone come in, and the guy at the counter welcome them to the store. The customer’s response:

“Do you have any Hannah Montana?”

Ding dong! If ever there was a perfect opportunity for a jaded indie record clerk to let a customer know in an obnoxious and condescending tone that there was no possibility that a record store like Sonic Boom, which sells primarily music by musicians, not corporations, would ever carry Disney-brand child sugar pop, and that it was insulting for her to come into his music store and ask for something that could never really be classified as “music.” I just kept playing the scene from High Fidelity in my head over and over again, where Jack Black chews out the guy who comes into the store to buy a cheesy pop record for his daughter. That’s every record clerk’s dream, right? To totally stick it to some oblivious parent who wanders into a den of pretension and asks, “Will you please make fun of me for the following reasons?”

To no real surprise, the clerk was nothing but nice and courteous, looked in the database to see if the store had it (which of course they didn’t and never did) and offered to special order it for the woman. There was no condescending back talk. There was no pretentious rant. What a wasted opportunity. If only the same thing could have happened while I was flipping through records at Singles Going Steady I might have had a better chance of getting the scene I wanted.

Sam Cooke

and…

Chet Baker

The fictional everymen, Kay Kay and His Weathered Underground are playing tonight at Neumos with U.S.E. They offer scenes inside a canary cage. A songbird perches, vaudevillian. Brass is tarnished but designated with anthem.

This past June, Kay Kay played on Carson Daly’s show Last Call. Singer, guitarist, Kirk Huffman tells us all about it:

What is it like to play a big TV show like that?
Kirk: First of all, I’m not even really sure how we got the opportunity to play on the show. Somehow our live record Live from the Pretty Parlor floated into their hands and we heard Carson made a push for us. It was definitely the biggest bit of exposure for anything musically that I’d ever been involved with. Getting all 13 of us down to LA was an experience in itself. It was $5,000 in plane tickets, a bunch of weird paper-work, and forms to sign. (Apparently television corporations really don’t like illegal immigrants and do everything within their power to make sure your tuba and bass player aren’t Chiclet selling, job-stealing, drug smugglers from Cabo.) I was just crossing my fingers that all of us would get to the airport by 5 AM to make the flight.

Was it tricky? Did you all have to change anything up for the taping?
The preparation for going down to LA was probably the most difficult part. And yeah, we had to change the songs around on the spot so they would be shorter. When we first went through the song “Hey Momma” during sound check, cameras were still being placed and shots set-up. Our manager was standing next to the show’s producer chatting and looked a bit frazzled. At first I thought maybe we sounded like balls, but they both came up and said, “Man, it sounds great, but do you guys realize you played for 5 and a half minutes and the maximum time limit you have is 3:45?” Instantly, I got testy cause they’re fucking with my songs due to precious advertising time. Phil Peterson (cellist) and I had to figure out what sections to cut from the song without confusing the hell out of the band. In order to do all that we had to play the song for about an hour over and over and each time we finished it was, “Nope, 4:45, nope, 4:28, nope 4:07.” Finally after some deliberation they budged on giving us 4 minutes total and all we had to cut was the guitar solo during a breakdown.

(See video of the show at the end of the post.)

Continue reading "Kay Kay’s Kirk Talks Carson Daly" »

That’s how many times I had to listen to this new Hot Chip song to decide that it’s totally awesome (it helped to hear it without watching the video). I am now officially stoked for Made in the Dark.

I ended up at Studio Seven last night. While it’s a show I wouldn’t usually go to—Walls of Jericho, As Blood Bleeds Black, and Belay My Last (they all sound exactly how you’d imagine them to)—I still had a surprisingly good time mostly because I like watching live music happen even if I’m not completely into it, mostly because I like watching how kids react to said live music.

Firstly, the Warriors didn’t show up. They got detoured and then lost thanks to the deadly flood in Southern Washington.

I forget the first band’s name—someone local, someone not too memorable. The second band, Belay My Last (I swear they introduced themselves as Filet My Love, a much better moniker), sounded like a crocodile attack. I didn’t like them at all.

The kids went nuts for Walls of Jericho, though, and I didn’t hate them. They danced, they moshed, they crowd surfed and stage dove (dived?)—but they really didn’t know how to maintain a circle pit.

Singer Candace Kucsulain kept calling for one: “Circle pit, circle pit, circle pit!” she’d chant. Some dudes started running, they’d make a few laps around the gaping hole in the center of the crowd, and then you’d see them hide away in the sidelines to catch their breath. Only 30 seconds into the song and the circle pit would be empty for a few long seconds. Empty. Then it’d morph into a loosely packed mosh pit. It’s easier to thrash in place than to do it while running around.

But Walls of Jerico, and the chaos they instigated, were entertaining. I’m not too into their slow mosh with cookie-monster vocals sound (I need more melody in my hardcore, I need more anthems. I need my breakdowns to not be scary.) but the kids last night (average age probably 16), were stoked about it. They pleaded for more, but I left.

On the way home, I ended up walking past Showbox SODO on the way to the bus stop. Flogging Molly was just letting out. Some girl mumbled something about “all the Irish fuckers in Seattle” and sweaty boys changed out of their torn up t-shirts and into their brand new green T’s with Flogging Molly written on the front. There were a lot of teens in the river of people pouring out onto the street, but that crowd looked tougher and older than the one at Studio Seven. They also didn’t smell very good. But I bet they had a wicked circle pit.

United State of Electronica, Seattle’s lovestruck answer to Daft Punk and the Vocoder are playing a free show tonight at Neumo’s in celebration of what Dewar’s is dubbing “Repeal Day,” the anniversary of the end of prohibition. (Dan Savage makes a good case that Repeal Day might be not only a good time to drink but a good time to reevaluate America’s miserable war on drugs.) If U.S.E. were an illegal drug, they would be ecstacy, duh. Openers Kay Kay & His Weathered Underground would be pot or maybe mushrooms. Siberian—I don’t know—Valium? Codeine? I guess those are both semi-legal. Anyway, get high, go to this show, get drunk, have a blast.

(And, yes, I know U.S.E. is stupid and fun, and I don’t care. Van Halen still sucks.)

There are so many amazing, one-of-a-kind things to bid on in this year’s Strangercrombie, The Stranger’s annual charity auction. Starting right now, you have until December 14th to bid on fantastic presents like Cat Power’s guitar! Karaoke with Blake Lewis! A private concert with Joshua Roman!

Today’s item of the day is a golden one—you get to go to a show and get rock photography tips from one of the best rock and roll shooters in town, Charles Peterson!

An individual tutorial for aspiring music photographers with the legendary Charles Peterson. He’ll look at your work, give you some tips, and go to a show to shoot with you. Priceless!

Starting bid: $1.99.

Auctions close Friday, December 14 at 5 pm. Click here to view the other Strangercrombie auctions.

Welcome to the festival of lights!

“So let’s get-get-get-get-get-get-get-get-get it on!”

Point taken, Grandy.

It’s not often that I’m actually excited about a drum and bass act, but tonight is a very rare exception to that rule, as the UK’s Commix are playing the Baltic Room tonight. Here’s what I say about them in the paper:

The press info for the new Commix album, Call to Mind, says that it’s going to change the face of the genre the same way Goldie’s Timeless or Roni Size/Reprazent’s New Forms did. Incredibly lofty claims—surprisingly, the name-checking duo have created a drum ‘n’ bass album that actually represents new ideas for the genre, with synth washes and bleeps that point to a definite techno influence. You may have given up on drum ‘n’ bass, but this album shows that there’s still life outside of the overly aggro techstep that rules the day.

Here’s a set of theirs from earlier this year (Thx Jizosh!): Commix @ Drum and Bass Arena 11th BDay

So long as “Japanese Electronics” is played, I’ll be leaving happy (you can hear it on their MySpace). Even if you don’t make it, check the album. It’s seriously one of the best albums of the year.

Chad Butler- AKA Pimp C, 1/2 of the legendary Port Arthur, TX rap group UGK, was found dead in his hotel room at the Mondrian in LA this morning. The coroner believes Pimp passed due to natural causes.

Pimp C is forever immortalized by the classic Dirty South grind-rap he and partner Bun B originated- perhaps even more than the Geto Boys, UGK was the blueprint for today’s hardcore Southern hiphop; the younger generation of Dixie spitters paid nonstop homage to Pimp during his incarceration years back, putting ‘Free Pimp C’ in the mouths of rap lovers worldwide.

As I write this, a song off of UGK’s long-awaited 2007 double-disc reunion album Underground Kingz came on my Ipod. Toast to a pioneer, the very definition of trill. Rest In peace, mane.

Van Halen = Endless breadsticks.

Hot Chip = Refilling your water glass.

Posted by Diver Down | December 4, 2007 2:19 PM

The section, titled “Indie Rock Universe,” is designed to look like doodling in a student’s spiral-bound notebook, with drawings of planets made to look like animals and characters. It features Camel’s name and logo.

Connecticut, Illinois, Maryland, New York, Ohio and Pennsylvania filed suits. Maryland and Connecticut said in statements that the states of California and Washington also planned to file suit.

Via Idolator.

Recently, I’ve been getting into anything and everything that I’m discovering from Peter Brown and Patrick Adams’ legendary P&P Records. I recently did a post on the many labels that producer Peter Brown has run, however in my opinion P&P Records has to be my favorite releasing disco mixes by Kenny Dope and Danny Krivit, along with releasing original disco gems like Cloud One’s 1976 classic LP “Atmosphere Strutt”, Marta Acuna’s erotic 1977 disco classic Dance, Dance, Dance, and Jesse Gould disco-funk 12-inch jam “Out of Work”. The P&P release that I’ve been listening to the most lately is Queen Yahna’s 1976 disco-diva gem “Ain’t It Time”. With its amazingly uplifting vibe and ‘ain’t it time you went home’ lyric, this track has ‘last tune’ written all over it. The song also includes some nice percussion work that really rounds out Queen Yahna’s “Loleatta Holloway-like” vocals. Another classic release from a legendary disco label.

Queen Yahna - Ain’t It Time

“I’m from the suburbs. You know the suburbs? That’s where they pull up the trees and name the streets after them.”
—David Lee Roth

I envy Northwest natives. Even if you grew up outside of Seattle or Portland, if you grew up in Bellinghan or Olympia or Eugene, you had good music. Tons of it: K Records, Sub Pop, Phil Elvrum, Built to Spill, riot grrrls. You physically grew up alongside it—you saw those young bands in 100-seat clubs and you’re still seeing those not-so-young-anymore bands in 100-seat clubs. Maybe they were even your friends. It’s an intimate, personal connection that you’re fortunate to have had and even more fortunate to maintain.

I’m from West Palm Beach, Florida. Musically, we had almost nothing to grow up alongside of. What we did have didn’t survive graduation. Even if I was somehow hipped to K Records and Sub Pop early on, the bands they featured weren’t my bands—they were someone else’s, someone three thousand miles away. I didn’t have K Records or Phil Elvrum. I had Led Zeppelin and the Doors, Billy Joel and the Beastie Boys. I had Van Halen. The connection wasn’t intimate or personal; it was pop. It was loud and buzzed on cheap beer and bad weed and riding around in a Chevy Beretta listening to 1984.

So there was a fair amount of nostalgia going on in last night’s concert. It came to a palpable, weirdly cosmic point suddenly, maybe an hour into the show: I was 16 again, back in West Palm Beach and feeling my brother and my dad and my friends, back in a moment that was actually a only a memory of accumulated moments from way back when. It was as vivid as an illusion can be. Then I thought myself out of it and it was gone. That was some super-powerful stuff—the music removed me from the moment, which, in any performance, is double-edged: Yeah, you’re transported, but yeah, you’re not all there.

There was more to last night than nostalgia, though. Van Halen have always been arena-sized showmen (Was there ever a time when they were a bar band? Look at the cover of their first album—they’re on a stage as big as a basketball court.), especially Diamond Dave, who must’ve clothespinned his ears behind his head to create the Tammy Faye-esque grin he wore for two solid hours. The last arena show I saw was Duran Duran—too metrosexual to really run with the necessary testosteroics the oversized venue demanded. Van Halen had it down, starting with a logoed dirigible that floated over the crowd before the show. Literally an inflated sense of self, exactly what’s required for the masses.

When the lights went down and “You Really Got Me” kicked up, those masses erupted. I erupted, too. How could you not? Looking around at the dads and sons, the Microsofties pounding airplane bottles of Stoli, the teenage and college-age kids at their first mega-concert, I couldn’t deny the energy. I headbanged more last night than perhaps ever, though VH isn’t really metal. It’s pure, perfect arena rock—there could be no better setting for the music and there could be no better music for the setting. Big, dumb, and self-aware—America, baby, but with a jester in command rather than a cowboy, which makes all the difference.

For someone who goes to three or four concerts a year, it was all you could ask for—they played everything (not really), there was a huge drum solo (badass) and a huge guitar solo (took too long to get to the good part), there were lasers and confetti and a giant inflatable microphone (brilliant). For someone who goes to three or four concerts a week, there were some week spots. Though the band looked great and had the energy level redlined the entire show, it took a minute or two for Dave and Eddie to fall in synch. Wolfgang, Eddie’s trench coat Mafioso, bass-playing son, was no Michael Anthony—kid’s not old enough to drink, let alone hold a Jack Daniel’s-shaped bass (though Anthony’s original bass lines approximated a 16-year-old’s skill level).

Minor quibbles, really, made more apparent by a mid-show lag that let my mind wander, and not in a good way. I thought about deadlines, bullshit. But then “Dance the Night Away” and “Pretty Woman” and “Hot For Teacher” and “Unchained” and “Panama”—!!! Those songs are radtastically awesome, suburbanly anthemic. David Lee Roth, spin-kicking the air and nun-chucking the mic stand. Eddie Van Halen, synchronized split-jumping off the drum riser with Wolfgang. Alex Van Halen, looking the worst for the wear, twiddling his drum stick before slamming into gear. High fives in the crowd, fist-pumping and horn-throwing. My music, my history, my people.

Funny, then, that the best moment of the night was the only intimate one. DLR brought an acoustic guitar to the front of the stage and gave a monologue—five minutes of the most brilliantly detailed reminiscence, from which the quote at the top of this review is taken. Others: “Everybody knew a Kenny that lived above the garage or behind the garage…” “Kenny rolling joints on a Pink Floyd album cover…” “Pot had seeds back then…” Watching the seeds slide down the album cover like in slow motion…” “Sitting in a circle, passing joints in both directions…” “I remember like it was yesterday. Thursday night, 1972…” Then the band played “Ice Cream Man,” my favorite Van Halen song.

We’re all grasping at a cultural narrative, I guess. Some of us find it close to home. Others find it in a basketball arena in Seattle, surrounded by a couple friends and 16,000 strangers.

Now he’s pimpin’ a new kind of Dr. Pepper (Diet Cherry Chocolate) with a new song “Cherry Chocolate Rain.”

The world doesn’t make sense to me.

The hideous downward spiral of Amy Winehouse is addressed at length in a new Daily Mail editorial, inspired in part by Ms. Winehouse’s recent traipsing about London looking like a junkie hobo. (See above right.)

For the record, I’m not a huge fan of the Winehouse—I like the singles, but consider her a vocal one-trick pony, like a smokier and more soulful T-Pain—but I am not hungry to see her die.

Still, she seems pretty determined.

Voxtrot - The Start of Something

I wish there was an exact science behind catchy pop songs, some sort of undeniable formula that would explain why I like certain songs and not others. Of course, the formula would be different from person to person, but if you could figure out your own individual 216-digit number (that of course starts with 3.14) you could unlock the mystery of why certain music appeals to you.

I am trying to figure out why I like this Voxtrot song so much - what it is about this particular song that stands out against not only all of their other songs (which are usually good but not great), but also all the other bands that try to embrace this sound but generally don’t succeed at it. Like Sam mentioned in his Up & Coming posted below, it is impossible to talk about Voxtrot’s music, particularly their 2005 EP Raised By Wolves, without mentioning the Smiths. “The Start of Something” may very well be Voxtrot’s attempt at rewriting “This Charming Man,” but if there was ever a song that could be written again and again in variation without my complaint it might be that one. If there is one aspect of the Smiths’ song that Voxtrot has captured beautifully it is the “charm” of the original. Both are undeniably feel-good songs, walking down the lane with a bit of a strut and a small, sideways smile.

Past this point though, I’m not sure what it is about the song that separates it from all the rest as “great” in my mind. I like sound of the recording, the guitar tone - some technical aspects, sure, but that hardly impacts the overall listenability of the song over the writing and performance. I guess what really matters is that over the last three days of blizzard and typhoon, listening to this song in my car has helped me not want to drive it through a chain link fence and into the reservoir by my house.

Change Rocks: Obama’s concert and campaign fundraiser to feature Jeff Tweedy and the Cool Kids.

Skateboards turned Sub Pop emulators: Volcom Entertainment to commence bi-monthly vinyl Singles Club.

Costco and Live Nation join forces: 2 GA lawn tickets at any Live Nation venue for $39.99… that won’t work for Sasquatch, will it?

The Golden Ticket: Festival Republic announces the contest of your wildest dreams.

$228,484: The record-setting price of an auctioned leaf of Mozart’s Sinfonia Concertante in E flat.

A runny nose and schoolgirl giggle: Morrissey makes his point in the war against NME.

“It’s okay to play music in your rocking chair or whatever”: Josh Homme is pissed too, at Interscope (and all labels: “If we were selling shoes, it wouldn’t be like ‘you evil shoe selling fucks.’ It would be like, ‘how come you’re trying to sell shoes to cows?”)

Q Magazine’s Best of 2007: A mysterious list. Arctic Monkeys trumping almost everyone?

I couldn’t find a Van Halen song to accompany today’s debates, but this Twisted Sister holiday tune is just about as good as anything VH could ever pull off with or without David Lee.

Ari Spool and I were just talking about Van Halen.

“I guess I care about Van Halen about the same as I care about Olive Garden.”

FTW!

VOXTROT, TULLYCRAFT, MATH AND PHYSICS CLUB
(Neumo’s) At 2004’s South by Southwest Festival, Austin’s Voxtrot stood out by fudging their application. Rather than get buried in the fest schedule as hometowners, they were listed as a Scottish band, thanks to lead singer Ramesh Srivastava’s overseas college address. I can only assume he mailed the application with a foreign postmark. The band’s UK connection goes further than a temporary university stay, certainly, as Voxtrot’s catchy, bittersweet twee can’t tour anywhere without a Smiths comparison, though admittedly, that’s better than the “overhyped” label that came from their too-quick rise on MP3 blogs. I’m not going to pretend that their debut full-length from earlier in the year reinvented the Blur & Sebastian wheel, but who cares about falling short of internet hype? Three years ago, they were a promising bunch of skinny (Scottish?) dudes in tight sweaters who danced around to their sad songs like Linus in a Peanuts holiday special. The latest record sounds like they still have that down pat. SAM MACHKOVECH

FLOGGING MOLLY, MURDER BY DEATH
(Showbox Sodo) When you grow up in Boston, all the lamest kids in your high school are into Flogging Molly. These are the ones who are also into shooting birds with BB guns, shaving their heads, quietly stewing with hatred in the back of class, and beating people up in circle pits (no friendly moshing here). So it’s weird that Flogging Molly would bring Murder by Death on tour. Murder by Death may be morbid, but it’s in a soulful way, with their songs sounding more like pirate dirges about Midwestern heroes than angry punk angst. Oh well, maybe the cretins will hear something they like. ARI SPOOL

AS BLOOD RUNS BLACK, WALLS OF JERICHO, THE WARRIORS, BORN OF OSIRIS, BELAY MY LAST, I DECLARE WAR
(Studio Seven) As Blood Runs Black summarize their sound in the parenthetical portion of the song title “Strife (Chug Chug).” Several tracks on the Los Angeles–based band’s 2006 album, Allegiance, contain back-to-back breakdowns, with chunky, stuttered riffs yielding to plodding half-speed crawls. Fans love to floor punch and shadow kick during such segments, and singer Chris Blair actively incites them. When he invokes Wu-Tang Clan’s rallying cry “Bring tha Ruckus” during an especially colossal breakdown, the rallying cry’s lyrical incompatibility with the surrounding song (“In Dying Days”) suggests it’s a direct address to the audience. In another nod to crowd-friendly hardcore conventions, the group lead shout-alongs about themes such as “hope for tomorrow.” For the most part, though, As Blood Runs Black play melodic death metal, with blast beats, scratchy/guttural vocals, and guitar harmonies that swirl like whirlpools. ANDREW MILLER

After glancing at JZ’s list of reviews on Line Out, I noticed I completely forgot to tell you how awesome Russian Circles was on Thursday. They played a free show at Neumo’s with These Arms Are Snakes, and the place was pretty packed. And the Farm was there. Gross. Selling cigarettes and claiming to support indie music. Gross. You killed my Grandpa, Camel, fuck off.

Anyway, Russian Circles was really great, and though I stood in the back like a lame-o, they still managed to mesmerize me from across the room with their haunting instrumental metal meets rock meets something pretty. I wish they moved a little more, I wish they thrashed, I’ve seen them thrash, but I will forgive them as their songs were on fucking point.

And their drummer? Their drummer is a machine. A robot. An alien from a planet made of beats. Or something. He is (as far as I can tell) not human.

Brian Cook played with the band too (they’re currently without a permanent bass player) and he seemed a little nervous at first. His eyes were glued to his instrument and there wasn’t a lot of movement from his side of the stage, but he started to loosen up after the second or third song, when the crowd loudly cheered him on, waving fists and bottles of beer in the air.

It was over too quickly. But when you play six-nine minute epics, you’re done after four or five songs.

Next time, I’m standing up front. It’s dynamic and loud, but being close is the best way to experience all the intricacies that you miss when you’re standing in the back next to a group of dudes talking about last weekend’s party.

^{“Cool Dad” photo by Justin Renney}

No, I didn’t go see Van Halen at Key Arena last night. To borrow a line from an old friend, “You don’t need to smoke crack to know that shit isn’t good for you.” That reunion shit belongs in Vegas along with the package deal senior tour busses and Chris Angel.

See, Van Halen are to pop music what Larry the Cable Guy and Dane Cook are to comedy: technically proficient, media-saturating, beloved by middle-America, but totally bereft of conceptual heft (sorry, I just mean to say) fucking dumb. Schoolboy innuendo about how you like to have sex with girls? Srsly?! Well, quite a fucking contribution to the culture, there, fellas. Definitely a worthwhile career for some near-geriatric dads (and, hey, yeah, why not get your son involved? I bet he could learn a lot from ol’ Uncle “Diamond” Dave about how to treat the ladies and whatnot).

I know the old rejoinder to this line of criticism: “But those guitar licks, duder! They’re hecka sweet!” I know, I know. I hung out with metal heads in high school, and they would constantly remind me that, say, Megadeth were in every way superior to, say, Jawbreaker due to the formers more mechanically difficult guitar parts. But so fucking what? If you people are really so interested in technical proficiency, you’d go to the symphony. Pop music—with lyrics, songs, artisitc identities, etc—has to be judged as a whole, and a wicked guitar solo doesn’t salvage an otherwise stupid pop act.

Update: And if there was ever a time to give a shit about Van Halen, it’s not in 2007.

I’d rather go see the Spice Girls.

And now for a song written by Glenn Frey:

The sun goes down, the night rolls in You can feel it starting all over again The moon comes up and the music calls You’re gettin’ tired of starin’ at the same four walls

You’re out of your room and down on the street
Movin’ through the crowd and the midnight heat
The traffic crawls, the sirens scream
You look at the faces, it’s just like a dream
Nobody knows where you’re goin’
Nobody cares where you’ve been

‘Cause you belong to the city
You belong to the night
Livin’ in a river of darkness
Beneath the neon lights

Why do I always hear this bad song? Why does it haunt my mind? The answer must be in this line: “’Cause you belong to the city/You belong to the night.” What’s remarkable here is part one: “[Y]ou belong to the city”; and part two: “You belong to the night.” Part one gives us the first layer of the song’s subject: He is a city person. This is where he lives, works, eats, and spends all of his free time. But the second part, “You belong to the night,” tells us something about subject’s soul. The second part deepens the subject. Why? Because the night is specific to the city. The night and its artificial light is the true spirit of the city. The country, like the city, has a day. The night, however, only happens in the city. The country sleeps; the city never sleeps.

Those who belong to the night are the most urban and also the most perverted characters. Why? Because nightlife constitutes a break from, a perversion of, the rhythms of nature. According to the laws of nature, the human must be conscious during day and unconscious during the night. This law dominates the countryside. The urban undoes this natural law and order and institutes a new one. And from this perverted order, comes the new subject: the person who belongs to the night.

Metallica To Premiere New Song On Video Game (Gigwise)

The game in question is Rock Band (Guitar Hero + karaoke + drums). Though the game has offered bonus songs to download at $1.99 a pop, those have been the game’s staple of old hits, and this would be the first time a big band’s single was debuted as something to play with in a video game. (A timeframe hasn’t yet been announced, since Metallica’s album isn’t even finished, but still.)

I can’t really wrap my head around whether this idea is really cool or really stupid. On one hand, it’s nice to see a major label take a proactive step and recognize something fans are interested in, something that is new and weird and different. RIAA dinosaurs waking from their anti-technology slumber? Who’da thunk?

On the other, what if this becomes a trend, and major labels force fans to digest their new material by making them play along with plastic instruments? To be fair, I doubt I’ll care either way about the songs released in this manner—it’ll all probably be major label pap, and I know the Metallica song in question will be better with my James Hetfield “aiiiiiiiiiiii-cha!”-isms. But if people are paying twice the iTunes price, they might not want to smack a fake drumset around to hear the entirety of a new song.

In other news, drummer Lars Ulrich has reportedly pre-emptively sued a 17-year-old kid who he figures is going to record the new single by hooking his Xbox 360 up to his computer and then unleash it on the Internet. “He may or may not leak it on Napster,” Ulrich [might have] said. “I’m still brewing on that one.”

Westernized Satan – Full of Shiite: The New Red Scare.

Iranians don’t smoke crack. They smoke a hash-crack brick that’s been sprinkled with shavings of petrified Algorzian mountain-goat scrotum. It’s called safar bekheir. Supposedly, it’s off the chain. (See Miles Davis circa Live Evil.) The scrotum has a psilocybic effect that can cause sustained paranoid hallucinations. In Iran, it causes men in power to gather and make laws against music and women and accuse revelers of being Satanic.

Since 1979, rock groups in Iran haven’t been able to legally perform unless they’ve obtained a license from the Ministry of Culture. Yesterday, Molly (BBC) reported, it’s not looking good for rap in Iran either. However, this has not prevented underground rock and rap parties from happening.

This past August in Tehran, one such underground party took place. It was not the Belmont. This party was in the Mohammadshahr district of Karaj and 230 people were arrested. Large quantities of recording equipment, alcohol, bootleg CDs, revealing female clothing, and drugs were confiscated.

“The Satan worshipers will be punished,” an Iranian prosecutor declared.

Iran seems to be in the middle of a moral psychosis. Women must cover their heads and bodies and the consumption of alcohol and mixed-sex parties are strictly illegal. Police have also been targeting men whose clothing is deemed “Satanic” or overly Westernized.

“Most of the people at the Karaj rock party were young and unaware of the satanic nature of the concert,” said the prosecutor. He said concert organizers told young people to attend if they were eager to learn how “devil worshippers” perform music.

I say now to the Ministry of Culture, you are high. You are so high, you’ve missed a couple, right under your noses. Two of Iran’s beloved singers. Look at the staches on these guys and tell me they aren’t Satanic.

Exhibit 1 – Toofan. Is he Shuggie Otis? (Toofan video here) :

Exhibit 2 – the great Farhad (video here) :

Toofan and Farhad’s Satanic staches go uncensored but the boys and girls dancing at a party get thrown in jail and labeled devil worshippers.

Continue reading "This Week in Safar Bekheir" »

Things reviewed on Line Out since Thursday:

The Spice Girls
Van Halen
The Beestings and Get Dressed
Club Pop
Coconut Coolouts, Arthur & Yu, the Thermals
Les Savy Fav
The Belmont
Roller skating in Bellevue
Rock Band, the game
Japanese band Avengers in Sci-Fi’s pedal board set-up
Pony’s swan song

That’s 11 things.

_{Words by Dean Fawkes. Photo by Lindsay Welch.}

It shouldn’t have been any good.

It’s been over ten years. A millennium on the pop clock. But already, things were happening. New single. New best-of. Tickets sold out in seconds. There was snow and ice outside, and no one cared. On the train, and in the mob of lines before the show, people sang their favorite songs.

When the lights went down, five girls rose from the stage. There they were. After all this time. It was always meant to be like this.

The place was drowned in screams and it never stopped. Everyone danced, yelled along, and bought into the world of lights and action, the showbiz of it all, even with the reunion handicap. The audience was young, loud, psychotic, and very nice. Lots of ponytails, short skirts, and flash photography. Next to us, a boy cross-dressed as Ginger in a Union Jack dress.

They played everything.

Posh was glamorous and terrifying. Baby was soft and all smiles. Scary moved like liquid. Sporty showed she was having fun for the first time in ages. But Ginger was joyous. Always the embodiment of the band, she was beautiful and camp and bottomlessly excited, who stole the moment, living it up, and, more than once, ran in place and lost her shit with happiness.

This was everything you ever wanted it to be. The music never stopped. No breaks. All segues. One enormous pop song of massive classics. There was a blur of Broadway, hiphop, Motown, smoke machines, Spanish matadors, moving platforms, dominatrix dogs, trap doors, feather dances, leather sofas, endless outfits, female empowerment, and explosions of glitter.

By the end of the night, when the real world set in and even the first-aid team was seen buying t-shirts, you knew, and not for the first time, that if pop music is an illusion, right now, for our generation, no one does the illusion better.

The Spice Girls are a pop treasure.

History will be kind.

Holy. Fucking. Godhead.

: Setlist : Spice Up Your Life Stop Say You’ll Be There Headlines (Friendship Never Ends) Lady Is A Vamp Too Much 2 Become 1 Who Do You Think You Are [Feat. Posh] Are You Gonna Go My Way [Feat. Scary] Maybe [Feat. Emma] Viva Forever Holler It’s Raining Men [Feat. Ginger] I Turn To You [Feat. Sporty] Let Love Lead The Way Mama Celebration Medley Goodbye If You Can’t Dance Wannabe Spice Up Your Life [Reprise]

_{Photos by Justin Renney}

An arena show is a wild, heaving, sweaty beast. There’s no way to tame it, but there is joy in letting it run.

Van Halen was good. Not great, but good.

In 1977, two of disco’s more solid producer’s in Dennis Coffey and Mike Theodore, came together to produce C.J. & Co’s debut LP Devil’s Gun. This classic disco album was mixed by the one and only Tom moulton, and includes standout tracks like “Sure Can’t Got To The Moon”, “Free To Be Me”, and the title track “Devil’s Gun”. The record was put out by both Atlantic and the more disco/funk focused label Westbound Records, Inc., which used a sketch for the albums artwork rather than the more “James Bond” looking packaging that Atlantic decided to go with. It doesn’t really matter what version you have or can find, the music is the same, with a disco sound that tends to push more toward the “Salsoul” soul-disco sound. If your a fan of Double Exposure, First Choice, and/or Love Committee, I highly recommend this release.

C.J. & Co. - Sure Can’t Go To The Moon

Get Dressed seem to be one of those bands that you really have to see live to get the full effect. There is an energy that the band exudes on stage that they haven’t been able to pin down on any of their recordings so far, mostly due to the fact that it seems watching how they are playing their instruments is almost as fun as listening to them. Both guitarists switch from strumming to intricate tapping in almost every song, using the best moments from early Minus the Bear to build melodic, high-energy rock songs. Without the technical noodling and up-tempo drumming the band could easily fall into an unfortunate slough of mediocre emo droll, but they have obviously put a lot of thought into how to tastefully ride the line of between technically and melodically impressive songs.

Where It Goes, Beestings’ debut full-length, is one of the best northwest releases I have heard all year. They are a band that is writing songs like no one else in town, mixing together the best elements of 90s indie rock like Duster, Sebadoh, and Hum, with a rhythm section that is obviously heavily influenced by everything Beatles. Beestings have figured out how to write slow songs that aren’t sad but introspective, and fast songs that build into incredible emotional climaxes, the kind that make my hairs stand on end and my skin tingle. The album will be properly released in a month or so through Modern Alchemy Records, an upstart label from Shook Ones’ guitarist Kelly Aiken. It was recorded by Harkonen and Helms Alee bassist Ben Verellen, whom as it turns out, is also a very talented engineer.

They played only songs off the new album, starting with slower tunes and ending with their big, building numbers “Living on Earth” and “Everyone We Love.” The latter climbs into an incredible finale, with singer Ross Kirshenbaum chanting “We all lose everyone we love at some point of it all” over and over as the guitars build and swirl. Between songs the band had a little trouble keeping tuning time manageable, but everyone seemed more than willing to wait. One song disintegrated after a few measures, to which drummer Greg Flores told the audience, “My mom started clapping and I got distracted.” He then let out a “Mommmmm!!!” similar to Captain Kirk in Wrath of Khan. After their closer, the audience wouldn’t let the band leave without playing at least one more song (their whole headlining set was a modest 7 or 8 tracks), the first time they had ever been cheered back to the stage, they said. They finished off the set with “The Overview Effect,” the only song that made it off their original four song demo onto the new album. Beestings are one of the best bands in Seattle, hands down. I’m sure it will not be long after their record is released that they start garnering serious attention.

Stolen Transmission, the boutique/vanity record label run by Sarah Lewitinn, aka Ultragrrrl the Most Irritating Music Columnist to Ever Write for Spin OMG YAY!!! and home to Seattle goth rockers Gym Class Heroes Schoolyard Heroes, has been dropped by its parent company, Island Def Jam Records.

Posteth Lewitinn on ye olde Blogge:

“Our departure from IDJ had nothing to do with the performance of our artists (we were a label focused on developing artists—an artform often not practiced in A&R). Our departure was due to restructuring. We’re still doing everything the same as before, for the most part. This is actually an incredibly liberating and exciting thing and I can’t explain how happy I am. We’re still supporting our bands because we’ve made a commitment to them and we love them.”

Sounds good and totally unbelievable.

Not exactly last night, but how gay would a “Last Thursday” category tag look? TOO GAY!!1! Anyway, some things that fell through the cracks this past week:

-Mike Simonetti’s excellent Italo disco set at last Thursday’s Club Pop. The Italians Do It Better label boss busted out tracks old and new, but kept the most serenely grooving dance floor vibe I’ve ever witnessed at the usually chaotic Pop. It perfectly warmed the crowd up for Glass Candy, who delivered an excellent set of material from B/E/A/T/B/O/X and their 12”s. Simonetti’s later DJ set ramped up the energy, leaning harder on modern electro-touched tracks to the crowd’s apparent delight.

-Things I forgot to mention here about Les Savy Fav’s awesome, sold-out Friday night show: Harrington is like a perfect mix of David Yow and Carrot Top (take that as you will), a crazy-eyed, lewd, absurd, hardcore prop comic. He kept cracking jokes about LSF being various hardcore tribute bands (“We’re ‘Standing In The Waiting Room,’ New Jersey’s premiere Fugazi cover band,” or “We’re ‘Start Today,’ Long Island’s Gorilla Biscuits cover band,” stuff like that). During the encore rendition of “Who Rocks the Party/Rome,” the crowd totally eviscerated both Harrington’s stuffed unicorn and an equestrian pinata dropped from the balcony.

-On Saturday, the Coconut Coolouts and especially the Thermals inspired the most moshing and crowd-surfing I’ve seen in years. The Thermals stopped the show at one point (“It’s like we’re Fugazi”) to make sure no one was hurt or ejected from the club; security nabbed some would-be stage divers (hey, Stefan!) but missed others, at one point a guard and a kid grappled as the kid leaned backwards off the stage; security eventually had to let him fall onto the crowd). Arthur & Yu: not so much moshing, but they sounded perfectly sweet (especially “Lion’s Mouth”) if a little faint sandwhiched between such upbeat acts.

-Nothing happened Sunday, except I realized that the first time I heard the Little Ones’ “Lovers Who Uncover” probably wasn’t when Crystal Castles remixed them, but, subliminally, when watching Veronica Mars (confidential to Piz: Pitchfork is in Chicago, not New York). Anyway, so much for my cred.

Rap deemed illegal in Iran: Government cracks down on a genre they deem “obscene”, musicians will be “confronted”.

Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers to play the Super Bowl halftime: The Eagles defeated in the scramble to play on February 3. And now, the waiting is the hardest part.

Of Great and Mortal Men: Mark Kozelek, Rosie Thomas, Alan Sparhawk, and others sing 43 songs about presidents.

“Well I don’t care about history…”: “Little Steven’s Rock and Roll High School” lesson plan developed by member of E Street Band.

Universal capping Myspace streams: 90-second limit put on songs to prevent illegal swapping.

Sub Pop signs Foals: UK quintet expected to release album in April; it was produced by TV on the Radio’s Dave Sitek.

If you haven’t checked out this week’s Setlist, now’s as good a time as any. Sure, we gave you some pointers on which shows to hit over the weekend, but Ari Spool and I also have a few suggestions for the rest of the week. Plus, you’ll hear some great music by local bands like Math and Physics Club, Gabriel Teodros, the Hands, and more.

Click here to listen.

Are you hosting a New Year’s Eve event that’s open to the public? Do you want to be in our special listing section?

All events qualify, whether they be concerts, raves, readings, or whatever else you could possibly think of. (No circle jerks, please.)

The deadline for the listings is TUESDAY, DECEMBER 18TH. Please email your listings to music@thestranger.com, and put something about New Year’s in the subject so I can pick it out from Spam Mountain.

2008 is gonna rock!

I’m sitting in the dark because the lightswitch in the living room shorted out yesterday. An electrician should be on his way, but for now I’m in the dark on a rainy Monday morning, working. It’s not Christmas, no, but this song still seems fitting. It’s one of my favorites. Especially because of the dance party note it ends on.

(Click here for yesterday’s, Low’s “Just Like Christmas.”)

MIKE DOUGHTY: THE QUESTION JAR SHOW
(Triple Door) Between his strong back catalog of nonsensical, non sequitur lyrics, and his storied struggle with vices—the drinking and the drugs—it’s a safe bet that fans might have a question or two for Mike Doughty. Recognizing this, the alt-rock songwriter is approaching his current tour not just as a mere dry run of material from the forthcoming Golden Delicious (due on ATO Records in January) but more so as the in-concert equivalent of DVD commentary. Pre-set, the audience can submit questions scrawled on slips of paper into an onstage jar; Doughty answers them one by one during the show. Stops in other cities have had the man discussing sexual positions, discontinued songs, drug-inspired lyrics, and robots. Let’s see if the Triple Door crowd can up the ante a bit. JOHN VETTESE

TEGAN AND SARA, NORTHERN STATE
(Showbox at the Market) While Tegan and Sara’s vocal harmonies play well live, sounding sweeter and less chipmunklike than they do on the duo’s recent release, The Con, their between-song storytelling and theatrics steal the show. At a recent Kansas gig, Sara (the chattier of the Quin twins) told a bizarre tale about a burly woman punching her at a Lez Zeppelin concert. The hostile stranger, she rambled, tried to forcibly unfasten her shirt—when she pantomimed this act, the smitten, largely female crowd whooped. Nonplussed, Sara scolded the audience. Later, when her riled-up fans failed to fall completely silent for her acoustic encore, she threw a tantrum, canceled her solo number and summoned back the band. Sara still qualifies as the softy sister, judging by Tegan’s cold (“I’m a bitch”) account of how she becomes emotionally distant with her partners before touring. Come for the folksy indie pop, stay for the unsettlingly honest banter! ANDREW MILLER

It all comes down to this:

When they kick out your front door

How you gonna come?

With your hands on your head

Or on the trigger of your gun

Your entire political position must be built on the answer to this grounding question. It’s one or the other.

An anonymous email to the Lefsetz Letter, sent on Friday of last week:

From: ______________
Subject: Zeppelin/Bonnaroo
Date: November 30, 2007 7:08:09 PM PST
To: bob@lefsetz.com

Zeppelin just confirmed for Bonnaroo. They can’t officially announce until after the London gig so pass it on!

Also Metallica is confirmed on the bill too!

For day two of the musical advent calendar (snappy name, eh? I can’t think of anything to call it), we have Low’s “Just Like Christmas.”

Low “Just Like Christmas”

(Click here for yesterday’s song, “Alan Parson’s in a Winter Wonderland” by Grandaddy.)