I was super excited when our art director, Jane Sherman, told me she'd secured Travis Bone to design the cover of Reverb Monthly. Via his company, Furturtle Show Prints, Bone has long been one of my favorite poster artists. My wife and I discovered his work at Flatstock during Bumbershoot a number of years ago, and have made a habit of picking up his work regularly. The Neko Case and MMJ posters above are in our collection.

Check out Travis' other work, and BUY SOME POSTERS over at travisbone.com.

Thanks, Travis.

Opening last night's Beat Connection show at Chop Suey was Blood Vibes, a heretofore unknown act which turns out to be the new house-ier alias of local bass music guy and Car Crash Set label head Ill Cosby. His tracks perhaps didn't get the best possible mix on Chop Suey's sound system last night, but even muffled they sounded promising, mixing disco bass lines with filtered synths, kicks, and female vocal samples derived as much from house as from Cosby's scholarship of UK bass, garage, and its outliers like Burial and Four Tet. Keep an eye out for this one.

In other new band/genre/line-up news gleaned from last night's show hopping: Beat Connection's expansion to a four-piece has them moving perhaps unavoidably away from the shimmery, Blondes-y house jams of their days as a duo and towards electro-pop as played by a trad band (drums, guitars, keyboards, vocals)--think of them as the UW's own baby Cut Copy. Also: slipped down to Neumos only in time to catch a few of indie pop band Throw Me the Statue's new songs and line-up (girl bassist! same drummer as before!), but am stoked to see (dreamy!) Scott Reitherman and crew back in Seattle and playing shows and looking forward to hearing more new stuff.

Afie Jurvanen of Bahamas showing off a room that was more sparse than Chop Suey on Saturday night.

Loney, Dear
Bahamas
Chop Suey
Saturday, March 24, 2012

In a world full of far too many immediate entertainment options, it's a given that some brilliance is going to fall through the cracks. Granted, the deck was a little stacked on Saturday night; Seattle snapped out of drizzly misery for a day of sunshine, and the city's concert calendar was stocked with heavyweights like Nada Surf, Of Montreal/Deerhoof, and I suppose the argument could be stretched out in En Vogue's direction (no offense, En Vogue) for stealing away some potential concertgoers. Whatever the case, Chop Suey had more than enough elbow room for a show that should've sold out a room twice that size.

Bahamas' opening set was stripped down even more than their normal guitar/backing vocals/drums setup, as drummer Jason Tait (of The Weakerthans) was back home with a newborn child. Main Bahamanian Afie Jurvanen didn't seem phased a bit by the lack of percussion, and the stark nature of Jurvanen's sparkly Silvertone guitar, soulful voice, and duo of heavenly backup singers made his songs fill every empty space in the club with warmth. While many artists present acoustic/stripped down sets that sputter from lack of driving elements, Bahamas' bare bones set showcased the no punches pulled honesty and dry wit of Jurvanen's songs.

More >>

The J.Crew catalogue called, they said they're vomiting blood all over themselves

So, last week, Time.com published an article entitled "Wanna Be a Rock Star? You'll Need $100,000," written by Abner and Harper Willis, two brothers who would very much like their band Two Lights to be wildly famous and massively recouping--and who apparently feel no shame in whining about exactly how much they (or their parents) have spent trying, and thus far failing, to make that happen.

The article is a staggering work of naivety and special-snowflake entitlement; so much about it is just abhorrently wrong-headed--starting with its title, since that $100,000 has not yet in fact made them rock stars--that one would have to excerpt the entire thing just to make fun of it properly. They're shocked to find dingy couches, rather than champagne fountains, in a backstage area! They hire taxis to transport their gear! They seem to believe that "once upon a time...your band would play local clubs in a major city, make a buzz, and an A&R (artists and repertory) guy would sign you and write you a blank check" and that, even still, "if we make it in the music business -- we'll soon be earning a lot more money than even doctors and lawyers." They actually complain that their parents have spent thousands of dollars on buying them mountains of brand new gear and years of piano lessons!

They're like those rich kids from the Strokes only without the good sense to shut up--or, you know, any songs worth a damn. (Although, this parody number is pretty fucking brilliant.)

And yet, for all its moaning, self-indulgent bullshit, the article actually gets one thing right.

More >>

Back in January I posted a few items on neo-soul man Lucas Field, a recent transplant from LA formerly of pop/rock group Low vs Diamond who was wowing regular Thursday night crowds with his funk laden soul sessions during a residency at Laadla Bar in South Lake Union.

The Thursday night sessions have long since ended, but Field hasn't stopped bringing the funk; in fact, from the looks of this new video (after the jump), the artist is revolutionizing Seattle's R&B pop scene simply by being a peppy guy who looks like Serge Gainsbourg, surrounds himself with soul musicians, and rehearses on a houseboat.

More >>

Our friend Eric Gilbert of the Boise band Finn Riggins turned us on to a batch of his colleagues this week. And it's absolutely clear that there's something brewing in that oft-forgotten, isolated city (remind you of anyone?).

One of the five Boise bands Gilbert recommended is Atomic Mama, a band that's playing with Finn at Vera Project on Saturday. While AM's a solid band, I'm absolutely taken by AM member Daniel Kerr's other project, Brother Dan.

More >>

Painted Palms

Of Montreal plays the Showbox at the Market tonight, and I mention what the band's been getting up to lately in this week's Short List:

Of Montreal's latest EP, the controllersphere, begins with what might be one of the strangest, most unexpected songs in the band's long, storied career of unpredictable weirdness. "Black Lion Massacre" is a dark electronic dirge that slowly swells into a heaving mess of drums and feedback noise, while bandleader Kevin Barnes delivers sedate spoken word about the usual psychedelic sexual nightmares . . .

Read the rest here. But what of tonight's two opening acts, Louisiana/Bay Area collaboration Painted Palms (pictured) and local duo Beat Connection? Well, they both basically do dreamy pop songs swathed in downy synths and gently propelled by electronic beats--i.e., "chillwave." It's maybe a little weird that two such acts would be opening tonight's show. While of Montreal have long incorporated synthesizers and electronic elements, their particular brand of pop fantasia has never really been about getting dreamy or mellow so much as getting manically lysergic one minute and then depressively psyhced-out the next. Of Montreal predate the ol' glo-fi by a mile, and in all their genre play and shape-shifting, it's never really been a style they've come close to. But I guess "weird" is incredibly relative in of Montrea's world, and anyway, you could do a lot worse than these two acts . . .

More >>

The release date for Shabazz Palaces' much-anticipated Sub Pop debut Black Up has been pushed back to June 28 (to be celebrated with a pair of record release shows at Neumos on June 30 and July 1), but in the meantime, you can check out the above trailer for Tough Bond, a forthcoming documentary by Village Beat due out this summer, about "kids sniffing glue to survive street life in Kenya's disappearing villages and exploding urban slums." The trailer features Shabazz Palaces' electrifying mbira riff "Blastit" from their self-titled EP, and if that track didn't already send shivers down your spine, see how it does set to the simultaneously vibrant and bleak images above.

Follow us on Facebook and Twitter.

I missed this news item last week, but a friend brought it to my attention over the weekend: Parenthetical Girls frontman Zac Pennington and Dead Science maestro Sam Mickens are joining Jamie Stewart's gut-spilling shame-core act Xiu Xiu. This is monumental! These guys are like the Crosby, Stills, and Nash of Seattle-affiliated creepiness! (I haven't thought this analogy out far enough for a Young analogy, so don't ask.) Mickens, Pennington, and Stewart have all done varying lengths of time in Seattle, and have previously collaborated on each others' projects, and, frankly, they're all creeps. At least on record. Maybe sometimes in person, too. (Have you ever talked to Sam Mickens? He's all slicked hair and black suits, and sometimes he seems like he might shiv you out of nowhere. He may be carrying a sword-cane right now.) They sing about depravity and debasements, and revel in grotesquerie and overly public emotional pain. There's androgyny and sexual abuse and self-abuse. Shock and ewwwwwww. And the three of them doing it together (along with Xiu Xiu's present musical backbone, Angela Seo and drummer Ches Smith)? Good times!

More >>

Angel Ceballos

Aww, twee.

Soooo, you're swooning over the Pains of Being Pure at Heart , you want to move into Twin Shadow's mustache and stay, but how about yet ANOTHER reason to go out to the Crocodile for tomorrow night's show? (Wait, is it sold out yet? It probably will be tomorrow if it's not already, so either way: get yer shit.) Well, here you go: Seattle's own Seapony, whose debut album Go With Me is due out May 31 on Sub Pop imprint Hardly Art. Seapony are a boy/girl trio who do the fuzzy, daydreaming indie-pop thing only with slightly less than Flood-budget production.

Today they share a new single from the forthcoming album, "Blue Star":

Seapony - "Blue Star"

So there you go.

Follow us on Facebook and Twitter.