The Ettes, The Purrs, & Village Green photos

I took in the rock show at the High Dive this evening, featuring The Ettes (from LA), The Purrs (local), and The Village Green (Portland, I think). Good time all around. Pretty darn crowded. But, fun. Here are some photos.

The Ettes were on first, and they were the most enjoyable band of the evening for me. It was a whirling dervish set, part garage rock and 60s pop. Imagine Dusty Springfield with a fuzzed out bass and crashing drums behind her.

This photo pretty well captures the energy of the rhythm section:

The Ettes bass & drums

This one is perhaps a bit more tame. But, not an altogether bad shot:

The Ettes guitar & drums

Up next were The Purrs. The crowd was giving them a loving send off for their tour, and they got a great response. As always, they lose me a little when they extend into the repetitive drone/jam sections. But, then they pull me back in with the dark, but catchy melodies and interesting guitar lines.

I was quite close to the stage at the beginning of their set and took a few good ones:

The Purrs


The Purrs

Finally, The Village Green took the stage. Vests are apparantly back in style, as each member was wearing one. The band seemed less rocking to me than when I saw them last, which, given, has been a while. They had more of a rootsy thing happening. But, in fairness, I got tired and headed home after 4 songs.

Played around with B&W for them:

The Village Green

Racetrack video & comparison

Here's Racetrack performing their song "Sure Thing!" at the Kirkland Teen Center. You've only got two more chances to see these guys live before they pack it in. So, note your calendar for October 20 and 21.



This Racetrack tune generally reminds me Velocity Girl. No specific song I could reference as particularly similar, but "Audrey's Eyes" comes close -- at least with regard to the general vibe of the tune. This is meant as a compliment, as I used to love me some Velocity Girl.

A rant and a Capillaries show

First up: the rant. Ready? Here goes:

Damn, I wish there was some sort of rss feed for rock-n-roll calendars! I do my best to plan out my week and find all the cool powerpoppin' rock shows, but then somehow I miss a great show like the one below. How can that be? I dunno.

And, in truth, I don't even have an excuse, because it's right there in The Stranger's live music listings. Perhaps the issue is I just suck at reading event calendars. Maybe it's time to get a SPB intern to read the calendars for me. It'll be like Kramerica Industries (the Seinfeld episode where Kramer gets an intern). Best dialog from that episode:

- Dean of school: "As far as I can tell Mr. Kramer, your entire organization is run out of a messy appartment that may or may not contain a chicken."

- Kramer: "And with Darren's help, we'll GET that chicken!"

- Dean of school: "I'm sorry, we can't let Darren continue this internship."

- Kramer: "What?? That seems arbitrary and capricious."

- Dean of school: "Your fly is open."

Anyway, onto the good stuff. This is from The Capillaries:

Tonight, Thursday Sept 28, the Capillaries will be at the Comet Tavern on Capitol Hill (Seattle) with good friends Get Set Go and New Maximum Donkey, both from the sunny climes of Los Angeles.

This is a rare opportunity for Seattlites (Sattelites?) to catch the gorgeous melodies and rich antisocial sentiment of one Mike TV, frontman for Get Set Go.

The Capillaries are also doing something unusual tonight in that our keyboardist, Michael, is on safari, and so we are playing as a stripped-down sweaty three-piece. We promise some roaring new songs and a fair amount of mistakes.

Please come down to what must be Capitol Hill's oldest bar and join us. Things start, oh let's say at 9:00, and they'll cost $3.00? $5.00?, I don't know.

The Purrs CD review

I was pleasantly greeted by my mailbox today, as it brought me the gift of The Purrs new self-titled CD on Sarathan Records. The disc is actually seven tunes from their Dreams Our Stuff Is Made Of disc, along with a few additional songs off of their No Particular Bar, No Particular Town ep. So, I suppose I'm wrong to call it a "new" self-titled CD. But, it's a new release, so... good enough.

The disc leads with "She's Gone," a tune that rides a 60s pop guitar groove into a relatively snide vocal delivery, and the results pull me in every time. "Connect the dots" is a woozy dirge that recalls Velvet Underground. Track six, "Because I Want To," sounds like what I think The La's might sound like at the end of a long drunken weekend hanging out with the Hoodoo Gurus.

I tend to prefer The Purrs in their poppier moments, and they lose me a little when they start to shoegaze or get all psychedelic on me. But, they strike a nice balance between the two sides. The whole disc sounds cohesive, even though we know it's culled from two previous releases. So, if you like your melody with a heavy dose of... a heavy dose of... well, maybe just a heavy dose, then this disc is for you.

Or, you can see them live this Friday (9/29) at the High Dive with The Ettes and The Village Green, who also have a new release out (on spinArt Records), which I have not yet heard. Based on samples on their myspage page, it's less bombastic than when I last saw them live. But, sounds interesting.

Bellingham or Olympia...

You get your choice of driving north for a cool show or driving south for a cool this this Friday (9/29).

Up first, rock show to the north:
The Divorce
The Boss Martians
Yes, Oh Yes
At The Rogue Hero in Bellingham

Up next, rock show to the south:
Mon Frere
Visqueen
Kane Hodder
StereoDrive
At The Capital Theater in Olympia

Of course, if you're staying in Seattle, you can also see Shorthand For Epic (at The Comet Tavern, 9pm), The Stars of Track and Field (at the Sunset Tavern, 7pm), and prolly a bunch of other bands around town, as well.

The best PacNW band photos EVER!!!!

I was cruising around the web and came across a site that has lists of literally hundreds of bands from the Pacific Northwest in the 1950s, 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s. And let me tell you, I have found some of the absolute best publicity photos ever.

I realize making light of photos from 20 to 30 years ago is like shooting fish in a barrel. And, to be fair, if I had pictures of myself from then, we'd all get a laugh at my expense. Well, technically in the 70's I was a cute little kid. The 1980s are another story altogether. But, I digress.

I'm going to walk you through several of my favorite photos from this site, starting with a band called Tri-Power and the Headers (1972-1974 - Seattle). I can't decide if these guys look more like Sha Na Na or The Village People. But, I bet they rocked:



Now, the folks in Easy Meat (1971-1977 - Vancouver) not only picked a pretty gross band name, they also happen to have a member with one of the best white dude afros I've ever seen (second from right):



Five Pound Smile (1975-1977 - Seattle) looks like a band that would put on one hell of a show. To tell you the truth, I'm not even sure what I'm looking at:



Of course, I'm sure there were some cool, powerpoppin' bands back in the day, as well. I don't really know what The Need (1979 - Vancouver) sounded like. But, the skinny ties and tennis shoes have me thinking "The Knack:"



And, I'm thinking that Apogy (1970s - Seattle) has the potential to be the Weezer of their time:



Pete Holly and the Looks (1976-1981 - Boise, ID) were hitting the new wave stuff pretty hard and apparently they were huge in Germany:



So, anyway, that's all for now. But, I recommend you head over there and take a peek. I could get lost in this site forever!!

The Purrs at Easy Street 9/26 (today)

The Purrs are playing at Easy Street Records tonight (9/26) at 6pm. There is also a video of their performance at Bumbershoot up at Psychopedia.com, who said of the band, "The Purrs prove to be unrelenting – wielding track after track of perfectly harnessed bits of psychedelic-pop."

This performance video seems to be higher on the psychedelia than the pop. But, then again, the quicktime file would only load about half of the clip for me. So, YMMV.

They're also playing Friday at the High Dive with The Village Green and The Ettes. Should be a good time.

Two great tastes...

.... that you might not expect together. And those two things are: Edmonds and rock-n-roll. That's right, my 'burgh has rock music. And all-ages rock music, at that!!

The venue is called The Halcyon, and they have a truck load of shows in the coming weeks and months. Technically, it's located in Perrinville, which is a touch north of Lynnwood, where Edmonds curves around on the waterfront. This map does a better job of describing it that I do.

Of particular interest for you might be the Speaker Speaker show there this Friday (9/29).

The Scheme in the studio

I wasn't doing much in the way of blogging this past weekend, because I was in the studio with The Scheme, recording a new track with Rob Sharp (of New West Motels) in his studio The Playroom.

Rob does good work! The new tune, the title of which is still being debated but for now is now called "You Let Me Go," is up on our myspace page. This is an early CD burn. A higher quality version will be up in a day or so.

Here are some photos:


David lays down a guitar track


Although Chris was completely sober, you'd never know it from the photos I took!


David and Rob try to coax something cooler than static out of the ol' Korg.

First SPB podcast!

I'm tickled pink to present you with the first Seattle Powerpop Blog podcast! I mostly wanted to put this together to understand how podcasting is done. But, I really got into it and had fun. I'm planning to do more. But, one thing is certain: I need a better microphone!

Thanks to all the bands for flowing tracks my way. They are:

- Central Services with "4 Letter Word"
- The Doll Test with "Sings Without Sound"
- New West Motels with "Dumb"
- Tiny Volcano with "Loaded Gun"
- The Tripwires with "I Hear This Music"
- Friday Mile with "Dry"
- Shake Some Action with "I Can See Where This Is Going Now"
- Shorthand For Epic with "End Times"
- Plus, a "bonus track" (aka, an afterthought on my part) by my own band The Scheme called "Sidewalk Soundtrack."

I'm using podOmatic to post this. So, click the little play button below to hear the podcast, or you can follow the link to the iTunes version (although not being an iTunes user, I'm not sure what happens when you do!).

For those listening in by clicking the play button below, please note that if you surf away from this page, it will cut off the podcast. Let me know you have problems with the player. I don't think podOmatic is a permanent solution for my podcasting. But, it's a start.

The Scheme in the studio

I wasn't doing much in the way of blogging this weekend, because I was in the studio with The Scheme, recording a new track with Rob Sharp (of New West Motels) in his studio The Playroom.

Here are some photos:


David lays down a guitar track


Although Chris was completely sober, you'd never know it from the photos I took!


David and Rob try to coax something cooler than static out of the ol' Korg.

Death Cab items

Just picked this up via myspace:

Tune into The Tonight Show with Jay Leno this tonight (MONDAY, 9/25) to catch Ben play "I Will Follow You into the Dark." Other guest includes Eva Longoria from Desperate Housewives. The show will air at 11:35 PST/EST. Click here for local showtimes.

Death Cab for Cutie is a contender in week three of the mtvU Streaming Woodie Award. You must stream DCFC's video to vote for them, so go to woodies.mtvu.com and stream now! Voting ends Sunday 10/01 at 11:59PM EST.

I'm going to sound quite a bit like Beavis here, but.... heh, heh, heh. They said "woodie." There is surely an Eva Longoria joke in there somewhere!!

Monday Morning mp3

I spent about 24 hours of the past 48 hours tucked away in a studio, doing some recording (I'll post some photos tonight). But, I poked my head out of the sand long enough to learn that The Reluctants are doing a show next week (10/5, to be exact) and I found a song by them that I quite like, called "Sun Fish", from a 2003 demo release.

Snapvine - is this cool or not?

My own personal jury is still out on Snapvine. I don't know if you've seen or heard of what this is, but it's essentially a way that you can leave someone a voicemail via a predetermined phone number and mailbox number that will then instantly appear on a myspace page, blogger page, friendster page or wherever the owner of the account puts the code.

I've set it up over on the Seattle Powerpop Blog myspace page. Setting up the account was literally like filling out a registration form and then copying some html. See picture below for the results - you just click the little button to which the arrow points to get the number to call.

I'm trying to decide if it's cool or rediculous. Or if it's rediculously cool. I dunno. Technology is pretty nuts, though. As my friend David says, "it involves cell phones, myspace and teenagers. So, where do I buy stock?"

Anyway, I would be altogether pleased if you would leave me a message. A funny message is good. But, just saying hello is neat. Telling me about cool shows or music or something is even better!

Powerpop DJs (?) tonight in Seattle

This just in from a myspace bulletin:

jacob lashes and kyle divorce are djing at the bus stop on pine street and summit tonight in seattle. it will be a lot of fun. people will listen to music, drink beverages and talk shit about each other from across the room. it will be great. 21+

Before Cars tomorrow in Bremerton

If you're anywhere near Bremerton tomorrow, you can catch Before Cars, the group fronted by Chad Channing (former Nirvana drummer and good songwriter in his own right), tomorrow at Hansen's. Here are the details

Hansen's
Before Cars, Sparse, Lick Like A Lion
1220 Sylvan Way, Bremerton, WA 98310
Cost: 5$
Time: 8pm

Mon Frere pajama party

I'm not sure that this is age-appropriate for many who read this blog. But, I just saw this from Mon Frere:

OK, so we have already told you about our show at the Kirkland Teen Center, Friday night at 7pm for $5. BUT......We forgot to mention that the show is a PAJAMA PARTY!!!!! And the Kirkland Teen Center will be serving PANCAKES in between sets. How cool is that?

So don't forget to wear your PJ's and slippers.

xoxo~~~~~~~~Mon Frere

Band of Horses video

I just stumbled across this on You Tube. It makes me realize I didn't take full advantage of our gorgeous summer weather. The rain, it has arrived. :)

Tell me something I don't know...

Seriously... I've been blogging like crazy for the past few months, digging through myspace bulletins and bands websites. But, it's time for y'all to do some work. :)

Actually, between me being busy at work and it feeling like "a slow news day" for bands operating in the Seattle powerpop world, I thought you guys might know some stuff that I don't.

Anyone out there have any news, rumors, gossip or cool stuff to share? Hit "comments" below and let me know what you know!

The Thermals live video

I've finally started to realize that a lot of the videos I'm finding on You Tube from interesting bands in Seattle are done by a person posting as Vaporized.

Props where props are due! So, here's another video by him, this one featuring The Thermals performing live at Easy Street.