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Tonight / News / Love Cumulus Signs to Trans- Records

Posted by Megan Seling on Thu, May 23, 2013 at 10:00 AM

Leah Julius, Alexandra Niedzialkowski, Lance Umble

Marybeth Coghill
Leah Julius, Alexandra Niedzialkowski, Lance Umble

First, the bad news: Tonight's Cumulus show at the Tractor, which was slated to be an album release celebration for the band's debut full-length I Never Meant It To Be Like This, won't be an album release celebration after all. But the good news: It'll still be a party—the band has signed to Chris Walla's Trans- Records! The label will release I Never Meant It To Be Like This this fall.

It's a pretty great story, really—the band recorded the album themselves and then used Kickstarter to afford getting professional mixes. A friend who was working with Walla was listening to the record and Walla took interest. Cumulus was just one day away from pressing 1,000 CDs themselves when they got word that Trans- wanted to work with them. The band, Alexandra Niedzialkowski, Lance Umble, and Leah Julius, explained how it all happened:

Congratulations on the good news! How did you end up connecting with Chris Walla and Trans-? I assume your friends in the Lonely Forest (who are also on the label) had something to do with it.

ALEX: It was in fact our friendship with Sam Winston, who recorded and engineered the Lonely Forest's Nuclear Winter and We Sing the Body Electric, that got us connected with Chris Walla. We knew we wanted Sam's talents to be a part of our final record, and the fact that he loved our band and wanted to work with us made him our first choice. We knew that Sam was working with Chris at Hall of Justice, but we had no expectations of Chris being interested in our band or record (although, of course, we daydreamed about it!).

It was the biggest and most amazing surprise ever to get an email from Chris in our inbox saying that he had heard the record and wanted to work with us. Proof that teenage dreams do come true! Being a high school fan of Death Cab for Cutie, I still remember seeing them play at Bumbershoot in, like, 2005? Before I even played music, or knew that it was something I wanted to do. I was just a fan. They were bigger than life, and a million miles away (I was in the nose-bleed section) so the day we walked into Hall of Justice and shook his hand and started talking records, I definitely had to keep my jaw from falling off.

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Upcoming Grouper, Noveller, Jacaszek, Others to Play Substrata 1.3 July 18-21

Posted by Dave Segal on Thu, May 23, 2013 at 9:11 AM

Substrata 1.3—the third annual festival of minimalist/ambient/drone music organized by Rafael Anton Irisarri—will take place July 18-21 at Chapel Performance Space. As in past years, tickets are limited, so if you're interested in going, act quickly [see ticket info after the jump].

This year's international lineup looks very interesting and features some artists who've never played Seattle. "Expect a seamless blend of minimalist, electroacoustic, drone, ambient, experimental, and neoclassical styles, all representing different shades of what is a very diverse global artistic community," Irisarri said in a press release.

In addition to the expanded schedule of three nighttime concerts, Substrata will host two free daytime events— which are open to the general public—Sat. July 20. Information for these events will be posted in the coming weeks, when the showcase time slots are announced.

You can check out a mix of tracks by past and future Substrata performers below.

2013 LINE-UP
JACASZEK (Gdansk, PL)
GROUPER (Portland, OR)
CHRISTINA VANTZOU (Brussels, BE)
KIM CASCONE (San Francisco, CA)
NOVELLER (Brooklyn, NYC)
YAGYA (Reykjavik, IS)
ETHERNET (Portland, OR)
THE SIGHT BELOW (Seattle, WA)
KEN CAMDEN (Chicago, IL)
SEAN CURLEY (Seattle, WA)

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GFY / I'm Still a Virgin / Shit Talk It's May 22nd, 2013 And You're in a Rad Garage Band - Los Ovnis

Posted by Mike Nipper on Wed, May 22, 2013 at 5:05 PM

Holy crap. This Los Ovnis jam, "Infinito," IS a bit heavy for what I'd normally post, BUT... it's sloppy, groovy, and RAW! So I'll allow it.

Los Ovnis were a relatively successful Mexican group; they were regulars on TV, played all over, and recorded six (!) LPs in four years. Their last LP, Hippies, is something of an exception for Mexican garage as most of the songs were Los Ovnis originals, not covers, and it's actually really fucking good. Uh, good luck getting your hands on an original tho'; godamn reissues rate $50! They split in 1968. Also: I'm sorry my Spanish sucks.

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Very Great / Tip Rainy Dawg Radio's Birthday Celebration is Tomorrow

Posted by Emily Nokes on Wed, May 22, 2013 at 2:18 PM

Tomorrow is the Rainy Dawg Birthday Festival! Rainy Dawg Radio, a non-profit radio station run by students at the University of Washington, will be celebrating it's 10th year with a local-band showcase featuring Natasha Kmeto, Keyboard Kid, Futurewife, Key Nyata, Jarv Dee, Naomi Punk, and Pony Time!

The fest will also feature record labels, clothing brands, vendors, and artists. And I've been hearing rumors of a birthday cake.

Sylvan Grove Theater on the UW campus // 5-10pm // Check the invite for more details!

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Comedy / News All Aboard the Matchbox Twenty Cruise!

Posted by Emily Nokes on Wed, May 22, 2013 at 12:57 PM

Line Out: Your Only Source for '90s Cruise News You Can Use!

Matchbox Twenty doesn't give a care if they weren't invited to Mark McGrath's '90s cruise (that included Sugar Ray, the Gin Blossoms, the Verve Pipe, Marcy Playground, and other relics, but was cancelled [despite it's excellent logo] due to cruises being disgusting)—they're having their own damn cruise, featuring no other bands, because MB20 DON'T NEED NO OTHER BANDS.

Here's what you get:

- Accommodations onboard the Carnival Imagination (3-nights)
- Matchbox Twenty concerts
- Q&A with Matchbox Twenty
- Photo session for all guests with Matchbox Twenty
- Evening deck parties
- All Meals, coffee, tea, iced tea & juices
- 24-Hour complimentary room service & pizzeria
- Full use of ship facilities: Two pools, whirlpools, fitness center, casino, library, duty-free shopping & all Carnival events
- One-hour open-bar cocktail party
- And much more

I think I'll sit this one out. I can't even remember what their hits were, and at least half the band seems creepy...

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Show Review The Eternal Pop Music of Fleetwood Mac at the Tacoma Dome

Posted by Andrew Hall on Wed, May 22, 2013 at 12:20 PM

Derek Erdman
Fleetwood Mac forever.

Going into Monday night's Fleetwood Mac show at the Tacoma Dome, I had a very specific plan: I was going to set up a camera in the Dome's parking lot, talk to strangers for a few hours, skip the show, and magically edit my footage into a film as compelling as Jeff Krulik and John Heyn's fantastic Heavy Metal Parking Lot. I was 100% certain that I could do this, despite my dislike of ambush interviews, my last-minute decision to shoot on my phone (where glare made it impossible to see what was in my frame), and the fact that I haven't edited a film since the seventh grade, when I used iMovie to make a music video using three clay penguins, one of which is still sitting in my teenage bedroom in Idaho.

As it turns out, there isn't so much an individual Fleetwood Mac Parking Lot as there are multiple Fleetwood Mac Side Lots, Fleetwood Mac Parking Garages, and occasional stretches of Fleetwood Mac Street Parking (which, unlike the Fleetwood Mac Parking Lot, does not cost $25-30 to try out). And because it isn't the 1980s, not only is tailgating not allowed at the Tacoma Dome, but no one was trying to break that rule—just nice and not-so-nice people either trying to get or get rid of tickets to an undersold Fleetwood Mac show. This led to curiosity getting the better of me and a change of plans. I took the change in my pocket and bought a ticket for significantly less than face value from a couple whose party included a bunch of last-minute no-shows, and went inside.

Barring the 30th anniversary celebration posters hanging up around the entrance, it would be easy to convince someone with no sense of time that the Tacoma Dome exists in 1983. It is a vast beige room-thing designed to be malleable; the floor is full of folding chairs effectively bolted together, with what appears to be an airport bar growing off the side. The concessions stand reads "all natural Painted Hills beef" but the photograph that accompanies the words looks like it was shot decades before "Painted Hills" and "beef" were ever part of the same phrase. By refusing to even try to modernize, it has achieved timelessness—an honest, no-frills place to see arena rock.

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History / Video / Mix Radio Soulwax Moves at 500 Guitar Riffs an Hour

Posted by Dave Segal on Wed, May 22, 2013 at 11:55 AM

Radio Soulwax compiled 500 guitar riffs in an ADD-friendly, hour-long montage of iconic chug and shreddage*. It's a pretty incredible piece of painstaking stitchwork. Wallow in the nostalgia and/or get turned on to new (old) shit. Either way, you can't lose—unless you just plain hate rock.

*I know it's a year old, but I missed it. You may have, too.

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??!! / RIP Is Tim Dog Really Dead? A Mississippi Prosecutor Doesn't Think So...

Posted by Megan Seling on Wed, May 22, 2013 at 11:31 AM

Back in February several music blogs (including The Source, Billboard, Pitchfork) reported that "Fuck Compton" rapper Tim Dog died from a seizure at the age of 46. But now a Mississippi prosecutor is accusing the rapper of faking his death to escape a court-ordered debt repayment.

Pitchfork says:

"I need proof," Jubera told WREG. "I need a death certificate showing that he's dead because as far as I'm concerned, he's alive." Apparently, Jubera was swayed by the arguments of a woman named Esther Pilgrim, who, last week, accused Tim Dog (born Timothy Blair) of faking his own death to avoid paying her tens of thousands of dollars. Pilgrim was one of many women the rapper defrauded through an online dating scheme. (He was charged with grand larceny.)

If Blair is, indeed, alive, his case will go down as an example of how easily misinformation can spread in the age of the rapid-fire online news cycle. Virtually all of the original reports of the rapper's death— including Pitchfork's— can be connected to a story by The Source that can no longer be found at its original link. No original reports of his death that we have found indicated where he died or how his death was discovered.

So far no one has been able to find a death certificate, but the warrant will (obviously) be dropped if someone can prove Tim Dog is, in fact, dead.

Weird.

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Mailbag Letters to the Postal Service (Written by Hand! With a Pen!)

Posted by Megan Seling on Wed, May 22, 2013 at 11:17 AM

To celebrate the Postal Service's 10th anniversary (and mark their appearance at Sasquatch! this weekend), a bunch of us wrote letters to the band:

Read 'em all here!

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The Stranger Suggests

MUSIC

Flying Lotus

Charles Mudede calls him the most important musical mind of our time, and that's not to be taken lightly.

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??!! / Zzzzzzzzzzzzz Patrick Swayze Rollerskating and Acting Like a Jerk in Skatetown USA

Posted by Mike Nipper on Wed, May 22, 2013 at 10:27 AM

Jesus Christ. Why did every last person in the '70s hafta act like a butthole!?

I still haven't figured out why Patrick Swayze, that is his character "Ace," hasta THROW HIS GODDAMN CHEWING GUM!! Like, he throws his gum as if it's some type of badassery bullshit...."HERE TAKE THIS YOU IDJITS!! I'MA WIN THIS DISCO SKATE CONTEST" (throws gum in the corner of the room). Huh? Nice moves, tho', I guess... is that a ribbon or a key chain he's whipping around?! Also included in this all-star cast of casts: Scott Baio and Flip Wilson.

If you wanna watch the entire movie, you CAN: right here!

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Tonight Data Breaker: Teebs, Thundercat, Michael Mayer, DJ Chloe, Magic Mountain High

Posted by Dave Segal on Wed, May 22, 2013 at 9:47 AM

THUNDERCAT

WEDNESDAY 5/22

WHOLE LOTTA BRAINFEEDING GOIN' ON WITH FLYING LOTUS, THUNDERCAT, TEEBS

About 19 million words have been written about post-astral-jazz-hop producer Flying Lotus, including some by The Stranger's Charles Mudede, in this issue's Stranger Suggests. If you don't love FlyLo's music by now, seek help. Let's focus on billmates/fellow LA studio rats Teebs and Thundercat, both of whom record for Mr. Lotus's Brainfeeder label. The former makes delicately beautiful electronic music imbued with the DNA of both underground hiphop and shoegaze rock. Back in 2010, I wrote that Teebs's emotionally resonant output falls somewhere between that of Boards of Canada and Nobody, and I'm sticking to that. Thundercat (Steve Bruner) is a first-call session bassist who can get as fluttery and rococo as jazz-fusion giants Jaco Pastorius or Stan Clarke when the mood strikes, but he also can program calculus-level rhythms and sing some gangbuster falsetto. Thundercat's new album, Apocalypse, takes electronic music into some seriously proggy and frou-frou territory. Fuck being hard; Thundercat is complicated. Showbox Sodo, 9 pm, $26.50 adv/$28 DOS, all ages.

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GFY / I'm Still a Virgin / Shit Talk It's May 21st, 2013 And You're in a Rad Garage Band - Dirty Wurds

Posted by Mike Nipper on Tue, May 21, 2013 at 5:22 PM

Now here is another established classic killer, the Dirty Words' "Why."

Now ain't that some brutal hollerin' and caterwauling from Chicago teenagers!! The flip of "Why," "Taking My Blues Away," is pretty good too. In all, they had three 45s. Their second single, "Born In Chicago" b/w "Midnight Hour," was on Chess and the third, "Not This One" b/w "Mellow Down Easy'" was old recordings unissued until 1996. Oh, Dirty Wurds began as a bluegrass band. Weird.

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??!! / Video / Film Robot Quadrotors Are Forever: Crazy James Bond Theme Rendition

Posted by Dave Segal on Tue, May 21, 2013 at 2:53 PM

This robot-quadrotor-operated rendition of the James Bond theme popped onto YouTube in 2012, but you may have missed it. It's one of the best things ever to be uploaded onto that site. Wonder what John Barry's estate thinks of this...

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Show Review / Last Night Fleetwood Mac @ Tacoma Dome?

Posted by Kelly O on Tue, May 21, 2013 at 2:19 PM

Who went? How was it? Was it as great as this mini-Facebook-review by my friend Denise?! WITCHY!

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Album Listen to Sean Nelson's New Solo Album (Really, Do It)

Posted by Megan Seling on Tue, May 21, 2013 at 2:00 PM

When you're done blasting the new Gaytheist record into your brainz, have a listen to Sean Nelson's new solo album, Make Good Choices, on NPR.com. It'll be out June 4th on Really Records and it is so great—I haven't listened enough to pen an official review just yet, but the first go 'round reveals the same wit and charm Nelson always has, with the tiniest bit of vaudevillian vibes and whirls of ’60s pop.

I mean, I'm an unapologetic Sean Nelson fangirl, so do with that opinion what you will, but you really should give it a listen. Now. Do it now. (Sorry, I'm so bossy.)

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New Releases / Very Great / Album / #1 Fan RocketNumberNine's Productive, Sci-Fi Post-Post-Punk Will Make You Move

Posted by Kathy Fennessy on Tue, May 21, 2013 at 1:12 PM

Smalltown Supersound
Photo by Sam Moon

RocketNumberNine
MeYouWeYou
(Smalltown Supersound)

An album that makes me want to dance, to get to work, and to read the novels of Philip K. Dick—not necessarily at the same time—can only be a good thing.

Based on the singles London-based brother duo Tom and Ben Page have released to date, "Rotunda" and the Four Tet-approved "Matthew and Toby," I expected to like their debut, and I do. I really do. And it reinforces my conviction that there's a post-post-punk scene going on in London that's about to blow up, and RocketNumberNine is part of it.

By "blow up," I don't mean to suggest that any these acts, like the Mercury Prize-nominated Polar Bear, are going to storm Billboard's dance charts—they're too off-kilter and spiky for that—but I predict that their popularity will only increase (and if Toronto's Odonis Odonis were from London, I would add them to this list).

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206 Katie Kate and the Very Last Buffalo

Posted by Charles Mudede on Tue, May 21, 2013 at 12:57 PM

The 2013 Genius Award nominee Katie Kate has just released a new and numinous track called "Buffalo"...

Mary Kalhor

Katie Kate, who not only produces and raps but is a classically trained pianist, performs with Don't Talk To The Cops! at Neumos on May 23.

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Album / Love The New Gaytheist Record Is Out Today!

Posted by Megan Seling on Tue, May 21, 2013 at 12:28 PM

Happy album release to the band with the best name! The Gaytheist record, Hold Me...But Not So Tight is out today and you can have a listen right here:

<a href="http://gaytheist.bandcamp.com/album/hold-me-but-not-so-tight">Hold Me...But Not So Tight by Gaytheist</a>

Is the album cover cute or creepy? I vote cute.

Gaytheist will be at Black Lodge on June 7 and the Capitol Hill Block Party on July 27.

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