-Not to fault the man's drumming at all, because it's great, but Zach Hill really plays up the wild-man, Animal-from-the Muppets aspect of his playing—leaning in to the drums, rocking up off his stool, etc—as if to not let you forget, as if you would, that you're watching a totally unhinged, crazy hard-hitting drummer.

-Marnie Stern is a total Kevin Smith-style dream-girl—conventionally pretty but into nerdy "dude" shit like guitar shredding. And, yes, yes, Stern's prowess does its part to help upend the notion that guitar virtuosity is somehow a "dude" thing, but it also understandably leads to a lot of beardo indie dudes asking for her hand in marriage.

-Somehow, I've allowed myself to more or less miss out on Stern up until now. Last night was not only my first time seeing her play but also my first time really giving her a concerted listen. At first, I wasn't sure about her voice, and I'm really not an idolator of technical shredding or whatever, but as song after song lifted off like rockets, scattering burning jet fuel and hot debris all over the dining room audience, with Stern alternately screaming slightly off-key in the punk style and ably running vocal scales, sometimes mumbling a bit as she divided her attention between her finger tapping and her mic, I was completely won over. It was a little bit like Sleater Kinney mixed with Hella (duh), and while I could see that combination going terribly wrong, Stern and crew do it just right.

-Gang Gang Dance's frontwoman looked like she ought to battle Stern in some epic, apocalyptic showdown between good and evil, representing evil, of course. (Alternately, she could be the Chris Gaines to Stern's Garth Brooks.) She also looks a bit like she wants you to stop reading her diary.

-While the sound at the Triple Door is impeccable—I heard bits of the Boredoms, some My Blood Valentine or Black Dice whale songs (as well as some of the shimmery tones of EYE's remix of "Cone Toaster") in GGD's set—Gang Gang Dance would make a lot more sense at 3am in some burn(er)ed-out warehouse.

-Someone at my table claimed that Stern was running a kissing booth after the show that, supposedly according to her sign, was to pay for speeding tickets. This probably isn't true is verified (thanks, mike)—I didn't see it—but it's perfectly illustrative anyway, of a few things.

Also: Marnie Stern - "Ruler" (via p4k):

Stern’s primary technique is to rapidly tap her guitar’s fretboard with both hands, generating flurries of bright-orange tones that often recall the intro to Rush’s “Spirit of the Radio” played at 78 RPM. Hill keeps equally manic, proggy time on his kit, with unexpected fits of funkiness. Shippy handles the low(er) end and adds ballast to Stern’s citrusy, frantic melodies.

Their set was very heavy-treble and toggled between exhilarating and exhausting, as most of Stern’s material is either fast or faster. She noted that she’d never played a venue like Triple Door before and was initially nervous about it. When you thought about it, it really was weird to be sitting down among folks dining on fine cuisine while this clangorous maelstrom was happening onstage. I didn’t eat, but I have to believe that some diners came down with indigestion later on.

Headliners Gang Gang Dance countered with a percussion-heavy, dubadelic, vaguely Eastern attack that had to be one of the weirdest sonic displays ever to transpire in the Triple Door’s swank confines. Fortunately, GGD were on their best behavior, in stark contrast to their 2005 gig at Chop Suey.

The Brooklyn four-piece began with a deep drone that bowed Buddha-ward. I mentioned to my friend next to me that I could listen to this sound all night, so meditative and peaceful was its effect. Of course, that drone eventually morphed into a sort of shimmering, heat-haze psychedelia that had no roots in any clear-cut genre. Tim DeWitt was an absolute demon on drums, funky in unobvious ways, and he received percussion support from vocalist Lizzi Bougatsos and keyboard wiz Brian DeGraw. Josh Diamond dispersed solar radiance from his ax, forgoing riffage for funhouse-mirrored tone refraction.

Most of GGD’s set seemed to be the sonic equivalent of holding said mirror to another mirror, as the music took on an infinite, fluxed-up stasis, despite the robust, complex tub-thumping. (Yes, that’s a paradox, but it strikes me as accurate.) With Gang Gang Dance, we were flung into a post-song universe. Rather, their performance had movements, usually signaled by shifts in percussive tempo/intensity. And whenever Bougatsos emoted into a mic, her words became so much high-pitched mist, mingling with the rest of the mirage-like sound. All is dream and disorientation with this band.

The set focused mainly on God’s Money (2005) and the new Saint Dymphna. After a killer version of “House Jam” concluded the set, the crowd demanded an encore and received one, even after the house lights went up and the exit music commenced. GGD obliged with their most dance-oriented piece of the night, a slice of leftfield quasi-techno that built up an impressive rhythmic kundalini.

GGD served up some strange brainfood last night, which most of us who witnessed it will likely be chewing over for days to come.

I don’t like having to wonder if a band’s instruments are out of tune on purpose or if they’re just too lazy to use a tuning pedal. I pondered this several times during Women’s set last night. Their melodies were dissonant and consistently ajar, but never completely out of place – a strange combination of melodic pop and jangly art punk. Even when the band sounded noticeably off nothing they played was particularly displeasing, but also never particularly compelling.

Honestly though, I was at this show to see one band only. I’m genetically predisposed to enjoy Dungen. Being of Northern European / Anglo stock, their clean, smart, Swedish pop sensibilities resonate particularly strongly with me. Their melodies are streamlined, nearly immaculate, constructed like a piece of elegant but affordable furniture. Dungen play several types of rock music – pop, psych jam, indie - but encompassing them all is a smoothness and easy-listening quality that makes their sound overwhelmingly pleasant. They consistently nail three part vocal harmonies, like Abba’s stoned nephews. Singer/Composer Gustav Ejstes looks as cool playing a tambourine as anyone I’ve ever seen. If I were the International President of Being Rad and Having Good Taste I would ask him to be in my cabinet. Drummer Johan Holmegard is so fluid it looks like he’s doing the rubber pencil trick with his drum sticks. And the guitar tone, as it is on every Dungen album, is perfect live. This band is what the Fender Stratocaster was created for. Beautiful Scandanavian women is what Dungen was created for. I saw at least three ladies standing in the audience around me that I could have loved for the rest of my life.

So powerful were the good vibes last night at the Broadway and Pike street party that I even exchanged some pleasant IRL words with motherfucking "bobcat," who, in this forum, usually speaks to me like this:

eric you're still a piece of shit

King Hipster Grandy has his nose so far up Chop Suey (and Nuemos) ass he's blowing corn-covered shit boogers!

rad! once again Eric is writing out his ass!

Wow mr Fucking in the streets sounds like he's talking about indy rock pussies like yourself.

stick to your rave shit, douche

This one's for you, "bobcat":

Starfucker, Half/Yogurt, Saturday @ the VERA Project

I only caught a little more than half of Half/Yogurt's opening set. Half-Yogurt, according to the show's billing featured "members of PWRFL Power"; in fact, like PWRFL Power, Half/Yogurt featured only adorable guitar phenom Kaz Nomura, playing instrumental songs on electric guitar that he'd half written that morning and half improvised on the spot. The songs had long, cutesy, funny titles like, "Everyone Thinks Their Pets Are the Cutest, But They All Look the Same to Me," "She Tells Me She Is Broke More Often Now 'Cause I have Given Her $50 Out Of the Blue In the Past," and "Hey, Girl, Why Did You Invite Me Into the Bathroom and then Urinate in Front of Me?"

That last one, Nomura explained, was inspired by actual events that went down the night before at Shorty's. Apparently, in the first part of the set, he'd eaten some spoonfuls of yogurt, spilling some, and now he observed, "I thought I could drink yogurt like water, but it's actually drying my throat." He explained how one of his songs revolved around and departed from a simple, three-chord theme. He said, "This is my second time performing as Half/Yogurt, and every time it gets...(long pause)...dreamier, I guess?" The actual songs were pretty dreamy, with Nomura alternately playing seated on his amp or standing, one moment picking out delicate melodies and strumming odd chords, another shredding up and down the fret board with spidery, precisely tapping fingers. He concluded the set by saying that he had no shirts or cds to sell for Half/yogurt, but that he'd be selling his guitar for $700.

Next, hot-shit Portland trio Starfucker handily lived up to their growing hype (and have caused me to reconsider their debut album with more enthusiasm). Obviously, I’m a sucker for the foul-mouthed bands—Fuck, the Fucking Champs, Fuck Buttons, Holy Fuck, I love you all—but Starfucker are much more than an eye-grabbing moniker. The band began their set with two members making looped ambient noise for several minutes (here they resembled Holy Fuck in more than just profanity) before their third member joined them at an electric piano, the noise ebbed, and they launched into one of their filtered, off-kilter, feedback-riddled pop songs.

They played several songs off of their self-titled debut album, including highlights “Florida,” “German Love,” “Laadeedaa,” and “Rawnald Gregory Erickson the Second,” enlivening them with dual drumming, live loops, and vocals so filtered and processed that their between song banter was almost incomprehensible.

A lot of bands try really hard, too hard, to be “fun”—they wear silly costumes, write willfully stupid songs, beam big stage smiles—but Starfucker are just genuinely fun (though not without silly outfits), burying funky drum breaks under catchy melodies and playing with an infectious overabundance of energy (the bassist/drummer, when playing a drum beat that didn’t require all his limbs, would stomp the floor with his extra foot or beat inaudibly on a practice pad with his spare drumstick; the guitarist ditched his instrument to bust some goofy dance moves that look like they were honed by battling with Panther and YACHT). They elicited more inspired dancing than I’ve seen at the VERA for a while. I hope they come back to Seattle soon.

I’ve been to my share of Nineties parties. The standard is that everybody dresses up in flannel or neon and the DJ picks out the dankest jams from grungiest decade, people dance, and decent times are had by most. Last night that rogue-operating fun club on Capitol Hill ramped up the idea of the 90s party to an infinitely more awesome level, hosting 20 bands(!) to play their favorite 90s hits live. Each band played one or two songs, sharing amps and a drum kit, and somehow the thing went off without a hitch. As is the norm for this particular space, the parties are crammed and the humidity is ridiculous, but their “Backdraft” themed soirée was worth the heat stroke. Even though most of the bands only sort of learned how to cover the songs, or only sort of knew how to play their instruments, the excitement and overwhelmingly supportive crowd made the whole thing undeniably feel-good, leading to scenes like a giant arm-in-arm circle sing along to “One Sweet Day.” The highlights: Little Party and the Bad Business’ danced-out take of the Rentals’ “The Love I’m Searching For,” The Last Slice of Butter doing the Breeder’s “Last Splash,” Talbot Tagora’s spot-on rendition of Harvey Danger’s “Flagpole Sitta,” and Flexions’ choice of one of my all-time favorite 90s hits, “Natural One” by Folk Implosion. The night ended perfectly with Bow and Arrow rocking out to “Everlong,” for which they not only earn the prize for most energetic performance but also for best costume – the fully functional human-sized juice box that was bassist Johnny Carr.

So now the question to you: Your band gets to choose one 90s jam to perform at a party. What do you play?

-The theme of the night was to "grow" Seattle as a city of music, according to Nickels, who took the stage with a mic for what I guess was the formal part of the presentation. He said Seattle is a "great place to make music" and he wants to make it a "great place to make a living making music." He then rattled off a list of non-music-related Seattle based business, and told the story about his mom dropping him off for a date at a Rolling Stones concert. He claimed, dubiously, that "Austin has nothing on Seattle."

-The 12-year plan has three fronts: music education, music venues, and music businesses. The idea is to foster all three of those things, although the specifics of how to do that were still pretty vague.

-James Keblas argued that Seattle's strength was that it's "not LA or NY," to say nothing of Austin.

-Growing the music business in Seattle seemed to hinge on growing the wider economy, a rising tide and ships and all that, which is bad news given how the actual economy is going, although the guy from the chamber of commerce lost me when he started talking about "specialty beverages." He was one of three guys in suits, including Nickels, to invoke the word "soul" (not one of them accompanied the invocation with a black power fist, sadly).

-Tom Mara from KEXP told us that the station's CD collection could more than fill two accordion-style metro busses, and that he hopes to see it fill three someday.

-Megan Jasper from Sub Pop and Josh Rosenfeld from Barsuk were the first people to acknowledge that times are actually kind of grim for the music business right now, to say nothing of the wider economic meltdown. Returning to the theme of Seattle's exceptionalism, Rosenfeld said that there isn't another city where everything comes together as it does in Seattle.

-It really is bizarre to hear that voice come out of Vince Mira's body.

-The New Faces look like the Jonas Brothers and sound like Interpol. They'll probably be huge.

-Somewhat depressingly, the goal for music education is primarily just to restore all the programs and funding to historic levels. One speakers called music education a "race and social justice issue." The Seattle Rotary wants you to donate musical instruments to them to give to schools.

-The VERA Project's Dustin Fujikawa was probably the most engaging and animated speaker of the night, and he brought up some serious issues—gentrification, health care, a living wage—that I'm not entirely sure this plan can really address.

-Things were dragging on, so we skipped the last round of speeches, about music venues.

-The goals of the plan are great, of course, and, as a parasite on the music industry, I absolutely hope that Seattle remains and improves as a City of Music. But there was not much in the way of specifics last night, and it really seems like fostering music education and music businesses is going to be challenging in a time of economic downturn. There are some cost-effective things that could be done to make Seattle more hospitable to music venues, but most of them involve reversing the clampdowns—noise ordinances, nightclub stings—that this very administration has initiated, or else things that are out of the Mayor and the City's jurisdiction, such as the WSLCB's puritanical regulations (in Austin, LA, and NY, I'm pretty sure you can drink a beer onstage). Still, there are some really good people behind this thing; I remain tentatively hopeful that some concrete good will come out of this.

-Oh, also, the official "Seattle City of Music" website that I couldn't get to load yesterday is up and running now, and while it's, again, long on goals and short on specifics, it has a more detailed list of, really, pretty inspiring goals than I was able to jot down from last night's speeches. Check it out.

Frightened Rabbit are pretty much the epitome of a "real" band: they began as the solo-acoustic pub act of Scott Hutchinson before his brother Grant and others joined making them a full band, they all play guitars and drums (although, it should be noted, there is a keyboard onstage and even—gasp!—a laptop), and Scott sings like every chorus is ripping his heart out, his voice pealing up and away from him, straining as though he's about to burst into tears or maybe flames, like he "really" feels it, man (think Bright Eyes with an accent and more triumphalism). Their best songs build into these fucking huge choruses, all stomp and ringing electric guitars and Scott and Grant howling in harmony. And you know what? I'm a sucker for some of that "meaningfulcore" shit, and I'm totally taken by Frightened Rabbit. These are songs built for bigger rooms, bigger things, and I'm pretty confident they'll get there. Highlights of their set included "The Twist" and "I Feel Better."

It doesn't hurt that just about any banter at all sounds grret in a Scottish accent, and Scott's banter was actually pretty charming: He (rightly) complained about our city's asinine law against having a drink onstage, suggesting that Chop Suey install a beer-spraying fire hose in the bar so that he could get beered without actually having a drink onstage; he then joked that there was plenty of booze onstage it was just already in his belly (which, to the point, Seattle's law doesn't actually keep drunk people offstage, just drinks), adding that his water bottle was "pure vodka, as well." Until "world-class" Seattle fixes this puritanical shit, we should prepare to be the laughing stock of fucking Skelkirk, Scotland (population 5,839). Introducing one song, Scott noted happily that he no longer has to write the letters of the keys down on his keyboard anymore. Apparently, there was another Scotsman in the audience, and some of Scott's banter was directed to him, as was one song dedicated. Another song was dedicated to a couple of strangers that gave Scott a pre-show hug in the bar. Between that sort of thing, the huge applause for every song, the people visibly singing along in the crowd, and what Scott described as "Jesus Christ, there's the closest we've ever come to a mosh pit," it was pretty clear that the crowd last night loves this band.

This isn't the best quality live video of the band (and it's not from last night's show), but I think it gives the best impression of both Scott's winning stage manner and the band's sound, so:

Still, though, it was a smaller crowd than the Crystal Castles' sold out all-ages show down the street at Neumos, and the Crystal Castles are almost your stereotypical "fake" band: they were conceived as little more than a joke, they allegedly rip off unknown chiptune artists' creative commons tracks, they in fact ripped off the visual art of artist Trevor Brown (they supposedly did this unwittingly), their live show, although now aided by a live drummer, could pretty much be just Ethan Kath "pressing play" and Alice Glass shrieking and swinging a strobe light around. And yet, they were playing to a very real sold-out crowd; I guess the kids didn't get the myspace blast about the importance of authenticity and guitars.

Not to get all "but I was there" about it, but, well, I was there on Crystal Castles long before they played a Seattle show (I even, as if anticipating this week's discussion, proclaimed them "not a band"—hilarious), and I've seen them every time they've played here except for the last time, when they opened for fucking Nine Inch Nails at the Key Arena (I was on the lookout last night for true, black-blooded goth-industrialists, but I didn't see any, sadly). Which is only to say, that even though they're just now selling-out their own headlining show at Neumos, to me it seems (wrongly, apparently) like their moment has already come and gone. Don't get me wrong, I still think the Crystal Castles have a handful of killer songs—"Love & Caring," "Crimewave," "Magic Spells," "Air War," lots, really—but I was perfectly happy hanging back in the crowd and letting the kids have their fun up front (and the kids really were tearing shit up; the whole place was pogoing wildly, the floor bouncing up and down like a trampoline). That was, until a friend of mine showed up who I think had never seen them before and dragged me into the crowd, where the enthusiasm was infectious enough to make me forget about whether or not the band's moment was up or what I was going to write about them today and just enjoy the show. Whatever the novelty or authenticity of Crystal Castles' spectacle last night, those songs still sound plenty fresh on the dance floor or the mosh pit or whatever that was.

F&M cruised with no-nonsense precision through 16 cuts over 65 minutes, pretty evenly splitting the content between Transparent Things and the new Lightbulbs. Their songs—really, more lean boogies and stark rambles than traditional songs—have a deceptive funkiness. The gorgeous “Goosebumps” is maybe the one exception; it’s a wistful ballad that recalls first-LP King Crimson or Harmonia at their most pastoral.

Visually, these pasty Brits are about as sexy as an umlaut, but their music possesses a sly sensuality (enhanced by David Best’s sibilant whisper) that gets the ladies yelping and gyrating hips. With their sparse, efficient crispness, F&M make most groups sound bloated and needlessly fussy. When they finally ratchet up the intensity during the encore (especially “Hundreds & Thousands”), it had an incredible impact after an hour of sotto-voce, streamlined funk.

When executed well (as Fujiya & Miyagi do), motorik-flecked krautrock—even faux krautrock—sounds immune to the ravages of time and jadedness, chugging in eternal youthfulness toward the horizon line.

"In One Ear and Out the Other" live

Didn't know what Notwist to expect last night, so I spent most of the run-up to the show holding back all of my stupidly high expectations. Maybe they'd be bored of their breakout 2002 record, Neon Golden, so many years later. Or they'd play songs much like the restrained, highly synthesized stuff on their latest discs and therefore be a bore. Or these guys in their late 30s and early 40s would merely fake their way through the concept of a rock show. Or they would answer my hopes and praye--ah, crap. Hard to hold that one back after waiting almost ten years to see 'em, I guess.

Turns out my stupid expectations were met. The German quintet delivered the best of Neon Golden, along with a solid heaping of tracks from newest disc The Devil, You + Me, and set all of it on fire, and then ran around the stage to fan said flames. Most of the songs were dragged out an extra few minutes with riotous, guitar-led meltdowns--though "Pilot," in particular, went the opposite direction, turning into a German house masterwork that recalled the best of Michael Mayer. Almost every song had a new, intense rebirth last night. And there were a lot of 'em, thanks to two encores. Thrashing around the stage, loading the mix with the perfect mix of organic guitar rock and synthetic accoutrement, sweating like mad... hopes and prayers, not so bad.

Even with such a great set, the crowd might've been most intrigued by Martin "Console" Gretschmann's liberal use of two Wii remote controllers as an instrument. Homebrew jockeys know how hackable the things are--easily connectible to a PC via Bluetooth--and have coded software that tracks the remote's movement on all axes. As a result, Gretschmann's digital handiwork was far more visual than seeing him hunched over knobs and sliders; his wrist rotation, side-to-side, and up-and-down movements all created tweaking and decay of whatever sound effects he helmed at any given point, and he could even change and insert sounds with their buttons.

Compare this to Wii Music, a digital noisemaker released this week that tries to be the super-simple Rock Band for the whole family. Lots of problems with this game: The song selection is campy, loaded with public domain fare. Even if you like these songs, they sound awful, because the real instruments have been replaced with MIDI noises. The drum simulator sucks, because instead of using the motion controller to hit different drums in space, you instead hold different buttons for each part of the kit.

The worst flaw, far as I'm concerned, is that Wii Music doesn't feel interesting the way Wii Sports did. In that game, each angle and rotation had its own immediate, unique impact on tennis, bowling, and so on. In Wii Music, you snap your wrist for every time you want to make a noise. That's it. No variation based on motion, velocity, or angle. Compare that to Gretschmann's motion-sensitive conduction last night--what if Nintendo tucked that elaborate noisemaker into Wii Music? Calling the game "kid-focused" gives no credit to kids; if I were six years old, I'd know the difference between a one-dimensional noise-along game and a freakish, wave-the-remote synthesizer.

Gretschmann left the below note on stage for fans wondering how his rig worked. Not that it makes complete sense--wuz a komputer?--but I've included it so that our friends at Nintendo can check it out and get a clue.

It was a riled up night. Cabaret activity set to Pabst. Y’all need to see this next month. Get Loweded needs to be seen and partaken in. You won’t be sorry. Here’s a gander:

A six-piece for this tour—two keyboardists, a bassist (Simon Johns), a drummer (Andy Ramsay), Laetitia Sadier on vocals and Moog, and Tim Gane on gjuitar—Stereolab coolly and calmly rocked the near sell-out crowd’s world. I could bitch about them leaving out some of my favorite material (“Golden Ball,” “Metronomic Underground,” “Trippin’ with the Birds,” “Fuses,” “Blue Milk,” “Jenny Ondioline,” etc.), but that would be churlish. For nearly 90 minutes, Stereolab defied the deleterious effects of aging that afflict most rock groups. Even this late in their career, Stereolab can draw several Seattle techno heads who rarely attend rock concerts, at least two members of U.S.E, and folks approaching retirement age.

Sadier, looking MILFy, as always, dorkily danced and sang in her smart, measured way as she and the boys rummaged willy-nilly through their vast back catalog with robust authority. The ’lab rock much harder in person than on disc, but they also show nuance with their space-age bachelor-pad output and morose continental ballads, too.

The new Chemical Chords album received much attention (including “Neon Beanbag” and “The Ecstatic Static”), of course, but Stereolab reached way back for “Ping Pong” (Meghan McCain’s favorite Stereolab tune; more urgent and purgative than on record), “Stomach Worm,” “Mountain,” “John Cage Bubblegum,” and “Super-Electric,” too.

The slower numbers still carry a sweet, swaying brilliance and the midtempo ones still radiate a cosmopolitan suavity, but Stereolab excel most when they accelerate. The set’s eighth song (title escapes me now) boasted that classic motorik groove and Gane went wild on his Fender. It was an über-krautrock jam that made everything old seem Neu! again.

The night peaked during the encore’s fourth and last tune, “Stomach Worm,” which sounded like the Velvet Underground’s “Run Run Run” and the Modern Lovers’ “Roadrunner,” but trebled in speed and intensity. Stereolab extended the song into stroboscopic, speed-freak rock that kept on cresting like the sonic equivalent of Tantric sex. I glanced back at one point and noticed a 30ish Caucasian couple furiously simulating doggy-style copulation. Oh, hell yeah. This is how you end a motherfucking show…

This 1996 video of "Stomach Worm" doesn't come close to capturing the majesty of last night's version, but it'll have to do.

The Admiral Theater in West Seattle has been inaugurated. The first show in the new music room went off this weekend. Bands were Brent Amaker and the Rodeo, the Hands, and Panda and Angel. It’s a big room deep inside a quiet neighborhood on the far side of town. Matt ran the sound. There were a few kinks soundwise (first night running sound in a new theater sort of stuff), but overall it sufficed. Once kinks and feedback issues are worked out, the room will be good for sound. The theatre still has all the seats in it, which might need to tweaked with as well, for the music shows that is.

Some people up front couldn't hear the vocals, a typical sound problem for those ears standing right at the front of a stage, directly in front of the mains. The people sitting down in the theater had a better mix. Amaker said, “I wish there was a way to give the room one mix, and a separate mix up front for the true fans.”

For the Rodeo’s show they had Ted Nugent’s lighting guy, John Schlick, running the lights. They showed their "adults only" grind-core music video “I’m the Man Who Writes the Country Hits” on the big screen right before their set. In the video there is killing and sex. Amaker stabs someone through the head with his guitar. When the credits rolled, the curtains pulled and the Rodeo walked on stage and started playing. Amaker made his entrance from the rear of the theater and Schlick covered him with a follow spot. It was a real live, fog machine enhanced, twang rock, West Seattle music show. Here’s to the Admiral sticking around. Pictures to come. Here’s that adults only video now:

The Rodeo is about to leave for a US tour ending at CMJ in New York. They play the National Underground in Manhattan on Oct. 24th. They have a new van for the tour. Amaker said, “The new van is HUGE. Plenty of room for five men in cowboy hats, one ace photographer / cape man, and all the gear. Shit, there’s elbow room. It will be nice after a few days on the road to have some out of my face space.”

KFO (Bryan Newman) won this year’s Laptop Battle Friday night with a flamboyant, dynamic performance involving a Guitar Hero MIDI controller. (I only caught KFO during an early round; the abundance of steakhead bros in the crowd and another show forced me to an early exit from Nectar, which was packed by 10 pm; nice work, everybody.)

Newman took home several prizes [see the list below]. In addition, he will play the closing set at the Battle of the MegaMixes Oct. 18 at Nectar Lounge. Congrats to KFO and all the other contestants.

NI - Synth
Ableton - Instrument
Mackie - Multi - Track
Audio Damage - EFX Plug
Sonic Charge - Drum Machine
FabFilter - Stereo Tape Delay Plug
D16 - Distortion Plug
Puremagnetik - Sample Pak
Electric Baby - Laptop Sleeve