Mt. St. Helens Vietnam Band and Say Hi both celebrate new records tonight at Neumo's. Eric Grandy interviewed Say Hi's Eric Elbogen about how his band morphed from a vampire-obsessed cutesy act from Brooklyn to a more mature and memorable Seattle pop act:

"There will always be a little playfulness in everything I do, but I think it was a lot more apparent on the older records. On this one and the last one, I tried to find a nice balance between poignancy and not taking myself too seriously, instead of just making it a straight-up song about a robot or a vampire."

Indeed, on Oohs & Aahs there's only one monster, and even it is confined to the suggestive shadows between the lines on "Dramatic Irony"; the closest we get to the undead is Elbogen apologizing, "But Maurine, I can't come to your party 'cause I think that I'm dead."

It's also his first album to not feature some kind of robot on the cover; instead, there's a skeleton pointing a rifle at an old man. Each Say Hi record has been a different pastel monochrome, and although Elbogen says this one is red, some people say it's more pink. (He's already had a pink record. When pressed, he accepts that it might be a "mature pink.")

M. Ward also plays tonight! And Christopher Frizzelle's conversation with the musician wasn't quite as successful...

A week ago, the publicist for M. Ward's new album, Hold Time, patched a call through to M. Ward's cell phone so he could answer a few questions. He was walking through the streets of Paris en route to dinner. I told him about the Transfiguration-of-Vincent-followed-by-Rubber-Soul tradition, and he said, referring to Rubber Soul, "Those productions are going to stand the test of time," and added, "I first started learning guitar playing Beatles songs, you know." He was having a hard time hearing me and I was having a hard time hearing him, but he went on to say something about how discovering the Beatles had led him to discover Buddy Holly and Chuck Berry and the Everly Brothers and the [couldn't hear what he said] Brothers as well as the band [couldn't hear what he said here either]. When I listened back to the tape, I really couldn't hear anything, because the tape didn't fully record over what had been on it before—fuzzy, boisterous talk radio—so whatever he was saying is lost to space, which in a way is perfect. So many of his songs are about mystery, about smoothing over of pathways of connection, about hoping someone will be on the other end of the line, about being okay with the invisible gaps between you and everything else.

On relistening to the conversation, the tape's background noise goes away for a sec and he clearly says, "I think that no matter what you do for a living, whatever you consume, it's going to come out in sometimes predictable, sometimes unpredictable ways. I think that the reason my records sound the way they do is entirely a byproduct of my fear of influences, and it's constantly growing."

Motorik, the Prids, Blood Red Dancers
(Sunset) Portland's the Prids suffered a devastating van accident last July that injured all four members and two close friends, and trashed most of their gear. This current tour represents their return to the road, in support of the Something Difficult EP. Like many '00s rock bands, the Prids derive sustenance from first-wave UK post-punk groups, such as 154-era Wire, the Sound, and Siouxsie and the Banshees—although they do execute a gorgeous cover of Guided by Voices' "Motor Away" on the new EP. Artful melancholy, trauma-seasoned male/female vocals by David Frederickson and Mistina Keith, and descending chord progressions carry the day (or, rather, the night) with the Prids. Their downers are uppers, if you catch my drift. DAVE SEGAL

Neil Halstead, Weinland
(Triple Door) In the early '90s, Neil Halstead led the revered shoegaze group Slowdive, whose gauzily morose ambient pop and diaphanous dub inspired many bands and a tribute album released by German electronica label Morr Music called Blue Skied an' Clear. Slowdive shed two members and morphed into the earthier Mojave 3, in which Halstead and vocalist Rachel Goswell sort of got in touch with their inner Lee Hazlewood and Nancy Sinatra. Halstead's solo output ambles into gentle folk-rock contemplativeness. Generally speaking, his musical career has been a gradual, organic reduction from the layered to the stripped-down, a shift from European decadence to American forthrightness. The common threads running through it are feathery prettiness and emotional restraint. DAVE SEGAL

See even more shows listed in the Stranger's complete music calendar listings.

Say Hi photo by Jenny Jimenez.