We love the Vaselines. In this week's paper, in fact, we love the Vaselines two times—once in the Stranger Suggests:

The reunited Vaselines were an indisputable highlight of last year's SP20 festival—the Scottish indie popsters' simultaneously twee and raunchy songs sounded as fresh and foul-mouthed and giddy as ever. Founding members Frances McKee and Eugene Kelly look, respectively, hardly aged and like a benevolent, cool dad. Even though they've grown up, they haven't exactly matured: At SP20, they demanded nudity from the audience, offered to let folks dry-hump McKee after the show for $20, and referred to Jesus as "the David Blaine of his day." Adorable.

And once in album reviews:

Is it technically possible to love a band, to really love a band, if it turns out you mostly only really need to listen to their first two EPs? What if you're totally, staggeringly in love with those EPs (and a few other songs), though? This is the fly in the petroleum jelly that I've been wrestling with since receiving Enter the Vaselines, Sub Pop's deluxe reissue of the Scottish band's collected recorded material, much of which was previously compiled as The Way of the Vaselines.
[...]
Traditionally, the review of the deluxe reissue aims to tell you whether the extra tracks and tacky badge are worth plunking down for another physical copy of something you ought to already own (oh, don't tell me you don't have The Way of the Vaselines). But I didn't even make it through disc one—the previously released stuff—before discovering I only really needed, and was totally satisfied with, just its amazing first half or so. I realize that's kind of heretical, and yet I still think of myself as a sincere fan of the Vaselines.

But wait, there's more! A little less than a year ago, on the occasion of Sub Pop's 20th birthday party and the Vaselines' first ever US gigs, Stranger emeritus Sean Nelson conducted an interview with the Scottish twee-fuxxers as enlightening as either of the Q&As contained in the Enter the Vaselines booklet (sorry, Everett). You can read that interview in its entirety here, but here's a little excerpt:

There's a lot of innocence in the songs, but a lot of sex, too. Where did that contrast come from?

Well, we were a couple at the time. There was a lot of innuendo and jokes in there. We had the freedom to sing about what we wanted, because we never thought anyone was going to listen to what we were writing. We didn't think anyone would be interested in our private humor.

We knew what we couldn't do as well as what we were capable of. We couldn't just go onstage and pose about, put our foot on the monitor—we were kind of anti-rock. I think a lot of that was going on at that time; people were annoyed by the scene around the world, it was kind of knee-jerk and heavy rock bands. We were trying to do anything opposite to that. We couldn't go and... headbang. I mean, we shook our hair a bit, but there was irony in it as well. We just... anything we saw David Coverdale do, we couldn't do it.

And I reviewed that first ever Seattle (well, Redmond, really—Marrymoor Park, represent!) performance by the band here:

Humor aside, the Vaselines sound simply gorgeous. An extra guitarist, bass player, and drummer, at least two of them snagged from B&S, fill out the songs without turning them into showy cover versions. (It occurs to me, during “Jesus Don’t Want Me For a Sunbeam,” that some of the younger kids here might just think these guys were hired to play some Nirvana covers, and the thought makes me kind of happy.) The band brought out a guy to play a squeaky little bike horn for the chorus of the ecstatic “Molly’s Lips.” There was a feedback-soaked harmonica on “Dying For It.” They played “The Day I was a Horse,” “Rory Rides Me Raw,” and Oliver Twisted.” I seriously didn’t stop grinning the entire time. It was just perfect.

The Vaselines play Tuesday, May 12th at Neumos, 8 pm, $20, all ages, w/Hallways.