Wednesday, July 1, 2009

Re: Happy Canada Day!

Posted by Dave Segal on Wed, Jul 1, 2009 at 5:14 PM

Best Canadian rock band you (probably) never heard of.

Have You Voted For Your Favorite Built to Spill Song Yet?*

Posted by Megan Seling on Wed, Jul 1, 2009 at 4:45 PM

btsad.jpg

(*Or, have you cleared out your computer's cookies and voted for your favorite Built to Spill song again?)

Re: Happy Canada Day!

Posted by Dean Fawkes on Wed, Jul 1, 2009 at 4:41 PM

Re: Happy Canada Day!

Posted by Eric Grandy on Wed, Jul 1, 2009 at 3:45 PM

Re: Happy Canada Day!

Posted by Megan Seling on Wed, Jul 1, 2009 at 3:16 PM

Re: Happy Canada Day!

Posted by Eric Grandy on Wed, Jul 1, 2009 at 3:00 PM

Re: Happy Canada Day!

Posted by Kelly O on Wed, Jul 1, 2009 at 2:34 PM

Pure f*cking magic from Algonquin Park, Ontario...

Re: Happy Canada Day!

Posted by Eric Grandy on Wed, Jul 1, 2009 at 2:15 PM

New Talbot Tagora - "Ichthus Hop"

Posted by Eric Grandy on Wed, Jul 1, 2009 at 1:32 PM

4895/1246480344-tt_main.gif

So, local obscuro-punks Talbot Tagora have their debut album, Lessons in the Woods or a City, coming out July 21st via local label Hardly Art, and they're celebrating with a record release show at the Vera Project on July 30th.

Here's what I had to say about the band just over a year ago, back when they were mere babes:

The young band's sound is just as inspired, muddled, and gestational as their politics. Ando and Greshowak's vocals and guitars layer into echoes and drones as often as they do catchy melodies, and Valley's rhythms turn sharply from tense grooves to jerking arrhythmia. Like Smell standard-bearers No Age, Talbot Tagora often submerge insanely poppy punk songs underneath a protective layer of noise. At their best, as on the song "You Look Like a Human," their pogoing energy just breaks the surface, drums and guitars interlocking in tight formation, chanted vocals emerging more or less intelligibly out of drone and peripherally swirling delay.

When everything comes together, when their nervously ticking energy meets their amorphous, well-intentioned aims head on, it's pretty inspiring. Even when it doesn't quite spark, it's still full of exciting potential.

The trio has grown impressively since that early check-in; you can expect to hear Lessons on finer iPods and stereo systems all over the place this summer. To whet your appetite, here's a song from the album, the delirious, disorienting nod "Ichthus Hop":

Talbot Tagora - "Ichthus Hop"

Re: Happy Canada Day!

Posted by Eric Grandy on Wed, Jul 1, 2009 at 1:30 PM

The Pains of Liking All the Right Music

Posted by Eric Grandy on Wed, Jul 1, 2009 at 1:08 PM

I just got off the phone with Kip Berman, frontman of The Pains of Being Pure at Heart (and formerly—who knew?—intern for the Portland Mercury), and guess what? We love, like, all the same stuff! Subjects discussed:

Emo
Twee
Alternative
Pop Punk
Nirvana
The Vaselines
Sonic Youth
The Aisler's Set
Belle & Sebastian
Beat Happening
Promise Ring
Braid
The Get Up Kids
Texas is the Reason
Cometbus
The Smiths
Black Tambourine
Another Sunny Day
A Sunny Day in Glasgow
Glasgow
Portland
Hefner
Stereolab
Too Pure

(Best interview ever. See also: here, here, and here.)

Today's Music News

Posted by Brian Cook on Wed, Jul 1, 2009 at 1:07 PM

Martyr for the record industry: Michael Jackson breaks Billboard record

Father knows best: Quincy Jones to save Vibe?

Funeral for a friend: Atlanta music scene lynchpins raise money for peer’s “green” burial

Stickin’ with Get In The Van: Big name indie acts contribute to book about touring

That’s what you get for helping Sammy Hagar’s career: Chickenfoot cancels shows due to drummer injury

That’s what you get for helping Michael Savage’s career: All That Remains drummer injures hand, drops off Rockstar tour

Re: Happy Canada Day!

Posted by Dave Segal on Wed, Jul 1, 2009 at 12:51 PM

Toronto's magnificent Holy Fuck, with a video by fellow Canuck maverick Chad VanGaalen. Oh, Canada!

Re: Happy Canada Day!

Posted by Eric Grandy on Wed, Jul 1, 2009 at 12:45 PM

Re: Happy Canada Day!

Posted by Eric Grandy on Wed, Jul 1, 2009 at 12:00 PM

Re: Happy Canada Day!

Posted by Eric Grandy on Wed, Jul 1, 2009 at 11:11 AM

Happy Canada Day!

Posted by Megan Seling on Wed, Jul 1, 2009 at 10:47 AM

Happy Birthday, Bad Asses!

Posted by David Schmader on Wed, Jul 1, 2009 at 10:43 AM

Today the mighty Missy Elliott turns 38.....

...and the deathless Debbie Harry turns 64 (!!!).

In celebration, I will spend tonight passing that dutch and dreaming.

The Pharmacy Are Coming Home!

Posted by Megan Seling on Wed, Jul 1, 2009 at 9:42 AM

254d/1246466337-pharmacy_weekendinseattle.jpgLast year, the beloved sometimes poppy/sometimes punky/always a good time band the Pharmacy packed up their bags and ditched Seattle for a new home in New Orleans. It's been weird not having them here—they were a band that I'd see at least once a month. But next weekend, they'll be back to play Seattle once again! It'll be just like old times.

They have an all-ages show at the Vera Project on the 10th and a 21+ show at the Comet on the 11th.

And as part of their temporary homecoming, they've also sent over a brand new song—"Wait in Vayne" has a fun ’60s pop vibe to it.

The Pharmacy - "Wait in Vayne"

This morning I caught up with singer Scottie Yoder to find out how the new city has been treating them so far...

How's New Orleans treating you?

Too well. The New Orleans Indie Collective, Mod Dance Night and other fellow musicians including the Peekers and Caddy Whompus have been very welcoming. It doesn't hurt that the city never really closes...kind of like NYC minus the millions, plus crazy southern charm.

You guys always have a knack for stumbling into some kind of adventure everywhere you go. Has anything crazy happened since you moved? It's New Orleans! I bet you have some great stories.

Well we all live in a house together near Bayou Saint John in a neighborhood that's still under a bit of construction. The adjacent house is pretty gnarly to say the least. Its infested with nutria, moldy furniture and urine-soaked sleeping bags. When half of Tacocat came to visit, we successfully convinced them that our real house was the one next door. It was pretty late when they arrived so we told them that we might have to fight over sleeping quarters with Cajun squatters who stole and disassembled air conditioners for a living. It was then when our roadie/roommate Alex came out of our real house with a plate of freshly cooked vegan food to ask what everyone was doing.

Any plans to release anything this year?

When we got to New Orleans it only took a few weeks to write, rehearse and demo about 30 songs. It was great and inspiring! However, as we were beginning formal recording I severed the tendon in my pinkie while butchering swine at my job. I had surgery just a couple weeks ago to harvest tendon from my wrist to transplant into my pinkie. It was an 8-hour procedure! But I was able to record most of the guitar parts in spite of my lack of pinkie function. We'll be recording with guitarist and cellist Calvin Havnaer of the Raggedy Annes while in Seattle. Should have an LP out by October. Its called "Weekend." The first video - "Coldest Morning Light" by Skinny Production Team of LA may be done within the next week.

What are you most looking forward to upon your return to Seattle?

Than Bros. of course!

It'll be great to have you home, boys. Even if it is just temporarily.

Tonight in Music: Sir Richard Bishop, VNV Nation

Posted by Chris Govella on Wed, Jul 1, 2009 at 9:00 AM

Dave Segal on Sir Richard Bishop:

Sir Richard Bishop & His Freak of Araby Ensemble, Oaxacan

(Crocodile) As part of Seattle's Sun City Girls, one of underground music's most revered bands, Sir Richard Bishop usually played guitar while masked and costumed. He, brother Alan Bishop, and the late drummer Charlie Gocher gained a reputation for upturning conventional notions of live performance. At a Triple Door show earlier this decade, for example, they hit golf balls into the crowd, spouted virulent anti- American sociopolitical commentary while roaming around the elegant dinner theater, and wore Osama bin Laden masks during the height of his reign as Most Wanted Terrorist.

Sun City Girls' live unpredictability also funneled into their recordings, which varied wildly in style and quality. Omnivorous genre hybridizers and assimilators of many nations' musics, Sun City Girls toggled between iconoclasm and reverence, while filtering everything through a warped beatnik/mystic sensibility that unfailingly provoked strong reactions. At their best (Torch of the Mystics; 330,003 Crossdressers from Beyond the Rig Veda; Bright Surroundings Dark Beginnings), SCG made some of the most transcendent, third-eye-popping music ever

Also in Up & Coming:

VNV Nation, War Tapes

(Showbox at the Market) I thought Hamburg, Germany—based VNV Nation were glowering industrial-electronic ruffians, judging from the stream of promos I used to receive from genre stronghold Metropolis Records. But while I wasn't paying attention, VNV Nation drastically changed. The duo's new album, Of Faith, Power and Glory, sounds like a slightly more masculine Erasure and Dead or Alive, with melodramatic melodies redolent of new-wave bands like the Call (I hate that I remember them) and much modern trance. VNV Nation are unabashed romantics who use heroically galloping rhythms and sincerely overwrought strings that beg for big-budget Hollywood scenery to accentuate. It's a rich sound, for sure—maybe too rich. DAVE SEGAL

View our online music calendar for more shows and concerts going on tonight!

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