goodbye hannah

hannah reader played at the empyrean coffee house this last tuesday.
this is important because:
a. no one was there
b. she is amazing
c. this was her last show in spokane before moving to portland.

hannah is a young piano heartbreaker/singer; dresses to impress, has very long shiny hair and has seen dapper young men defend her honor at local dive bars.

if you missed it: check some tunes here. send her love letters. tell her you'll miss her, even though you probably never knew her.
your last chance:
12-28-2008 on KYRS 92.3FM "Crossroads" @ 1pm

shame on portland for stealing another of our peeps, but good luck to hannah in her new adventures.

Stoners & Punks tomorrow at the Cretin Hop

I meant to make a post about this show earlier, but Andrew took forever with that invite...

Tomorrow night (12/17), Reno's Farley Overdose plays the Cretin Hop. Assuming that anyone will know any of the bands I talk about - they sound like High On Fire's Surrounded by Thieves being played by Septic Death. Just fast and sludgy hardcore punk with stoner metal crossover elements. The last time Farley came through, they played a 10'x10' garage in the middle of the Gonzaga area; and then promptly out-partied everyone within the vicinity.

Download their demos (that's 11 songs) here and here

Godbear, Lord Kelvin, J-Splo, and Bluebird (from Bellingham) are playing support. 1317 N. Howard (behind Value Village), 6:00 PM, $5.

Ahhhh, Metal!

There's something about the Sword that makes me really happy. Maybe its the ridiculousness of metal, maybe the long hair, maybe its just the wicked riffs.

I really can't keep a straight face listening to this stuff, it makes me smile as I strum some air guitar and wish I played in a metal band.

Anyway, the Sword plays tomorrow night with Lamb of God (yikes) at the Knitting Factory.

These guys rule.

The Sword: Barael's Blade

Connect For

Common Market's pretty damn dope. With hot hot rhymes from RA Scion and super duper fire beats from Sabzi (of Blue Scholars), you can't really go wrong.

Their new album Tobacco Road is chocked full of classic throwback production and RA Scion's whole hearted take on religion, the south, hip hop and good ole fashioned farmers rebelling.

Here's an oldie but goodie, that solidified my love for the group.

Common Market: Every Last One [cornerstone remix - radio edit]

Common Market plays Friday December 12 at the BLVD with Blue Scholars and Jiggywatts.

Oh Baby

Not sure if many people know that the mighty funky Velella Velella is coming to town this weekend. What a show they put on, don't miss it.

Friday night at Whitworth with Point Juncture, WA.

Saturday night with James Pants at the Casbah.

Here's the first track I heard from the boys, back when they were a humble Spokane two piece, that really caught my ear.

Velella Velella: Nothin But A Bunch Of Empty Sunglasses Cases

Printing

If you hung around Wednesday nights at the B-Side in its hayday, you probably saw Cursive Adonis on the mic. Laid back, pitcher in hand, Cursive had a voice resembling Del and the cadence to match. He played a bunch of shows around town and the northwest, tracked a bunch of songs, then moved to Seattle. Musically speaking, Cursive hasn't really been heard of since.

About once a year, Cursive's name shows up on a handbill - but he has a propinsety of not quite showing up.

On Saturday 11/29, Cursive is set to play Caterina at the Bad Penmanship 5th annual hip hop showcase with Terms, Synthetic, Drew Slums, Quiz, Jaeda and a bunch more. Hope he shows up!

Here's a few tracks:

Terms None featuring Cursive Adonis: Reality Doses

Sentence featuring Locke and Cursive Adonis: Above Water

The Spokesman Review: Irrelevant as Ever

I was sorry to hear that the 7 (the Spokesman's attempt at a weekly) cut food critic Tom Bowers a few months back.

I was even more sorry to hear that they cut longtime music writer Isamu Jordan a few weeks back.

Now that the 7's going to stop running, I'm not really too sorry.

I know, I know. Its hard to run a newspaper these days! The internets are taking away all their readers!! There's no money in publishing!!!

But I (and many like myself) now have no reason to turn to anything the Spokesman publishes. The internets have all we need. I'm not going to pay 50 cents to find occasional articles about local music/nightlife every Friday. I'd rather look in the Inlander, Out There, the Meeting Northwest, or the myspace pages of local bands/venues.

Oh well.

Loud

Shim's coming to town this weekend.

You know what you're in for?

• Loud Noises.
• Over the Top.
• Big Hair.
• Bright Lights.
• Huge Riffs.
• Jean Vests.
• Fun.

Hell yeah.

Shim with Pretty Faces and Scissors for Lefty at the BLVD on Saturday 11/22.

A Crown City Rocker

The Crown City Rockers are the nicest people in hip hop. I haven't come across a group as friendly, down to earth, funny, kindheated and super duper fresh as can be as Crown City.

Frontman Raashan Ahmad released his solo record the Push this summer. It's fantastic: choked full of b-boy swagger, sharp rhymes and soulful production.

The video for 'Peace' just dropped. I'm loving it.

Raashan Ahmad plays at the Casbah on Friday November 21.

Hockey Signs to the Majors!

Congratulations to Hockey, who have unsurprisingly signed to Capitol Records for the US releases and Virgin Records for UK releases.

Well done boys.

Sunny Days

Jeremy Enigk. Sunny Day Real Estate. I wasn't ever blown away by the importance of Diary, the proclaimed "first emo record." But I did happen to get into their final record the Rising Tide, which I still think is a beautiful rock and roll album, with Jeremy's lovely falsetto and crunchy guitar riffs blaring in my Ford Tempo on the way out to Cheney.

His new solo record moves into a lighter direction than my experience with his projects. I first heard the song Cannons on KEXP, and instantly recognized Enik's voice. A few days later I picked up the record World Waits, again full of falsetto, lush textures and tales of love.

Here's the mp3:
Jeremy Enigk - Cannons

Jeremy Enigk plays at the BLVD on Monday November 17.

Pants continues to smoke!

I was glad to hear that James Pants was putting together a live band, but I was even more glad to hear that Justin Walter (Belt of Vapor) would be drumming. He is one of the best drummers in town period. They hit Europe in a few weeks.

His new single just dropped, and includes a remix from the ultra hipster team of XXXChange and A-Trak! Holy electro madness!

Rumor has it he's been cooking up remixes for Beck, Dam Funk, and a handful of other folks I'm not savvy enough to know about.

Here's a Pants mix he did over for the folks at Brooklyn Radio.

And here's a remix of KA$H!!!!

HOLY HELL!

At Least the Video's Clever

When I was a young(er) man, a rapper from Los Angeles named Joey the Jerk told me about a rap group called the Living Legends. He told me that they ruled LA underground hip hop. They would appear outside the clubs of shows they weren't playing, and would sling their records to fans waiting to get in. They ruled LA!

I never quite got into the Legends as a group, but I have always appreciated most of their solo/side endeavors, especially Murs, Scarub and Grouch & Eligh. But when the Legends get together, they put on a hell of a show.

They hit the Knitting Factory on Saturday, 9/20. The Bayliens (from the bay?), Portland's Sandpeople and the Spokane Bad Pen Crew are opening.

Automatic

I really loved Less Than Jake back when I was 14 or so... Their album Losing Streak was one of my favorites. I was young, ska was huge, and that angsty punk ska really did the trick for me.

I lost touch after that album, and a few years back I heard they ditched the horns after ska fell off the long cliff of trendiness. But as I perused their myspace page, I hear they've got horns (again?).

Dopeman wasn't really my favorite song from Losing Streak, but video-wise its quite superior to the others....

Less Than Jake plays with Rancid at the Knitting Factory on September 13.

Your Name Here

I had a hard time finding a picture of Velella Velella that did their live show justice. I mean, how do you capture the essence of such fun a show that even a sloth like me gets dancing? Its tricky, apparently.

But this is a given. Velella Velella will make you dance. Even you. Even me.

They've got roots in Spokane, as Andrew Means and Michael Burton strayed from the indie rock that they'd been playing and started working on a downtempoy experimentaly type of project with live instrumentation with analog gear (vibes, synths, wurly, among others) over sampled drum loops. As they moved to Seattle, a few members were added, and V.V. started incorporating vocals into their songs, which kept getting funkier, bouncier, dancier (danceyer?), hotter, funner, awesomer.

Their newer EP Flight Cub is five songs of soulful glory. Here's an MP3 of one of my favorites:

Velella Velella - Your Name Here

Velella Velella plays Thursday September 11 at the BLVD with Point Juncture, WA and La Cha Cha. Don't miss it.

Missing

I've been a fan of Onry Ozzborn and his crew Oldominion since my late teens/early twenties. He's grown into a very talented emcee/producer (peep his new Gigantics project) and I would argue that his Grayskul partner JFK is hands down the best rapper in Seattle.

Their new video Missing is one of my favorite songs on their new(er) record Bloody Radio. See if you can spot Spokane alum John Schirmer.

Here's a really old Onry MP3 (circa 1998-1999), from his album Owleye: featuring JFK, Pegee 13 and Foralax.

Onry: Matera 17 (f. JFK, Foralax & Pegee 13)

Grayskul plays at the BLVD on Sunday September 7 with Grynch, Phil in the Blank, Knothead and Bela Union.

No Woman No-Fi

Who doesn't love No-Fi Soul Rebellion? Maybe the dudes that don't like getting coerced into the electric slide by a sweaty screaming man? Maybe the girls who don't like getting hauled onto the dance floor to strap on a guitar for a sweet solo?

I've had the pleasure of playing with and/or seeing No-Fi quite a few times over the years, and every single time I've seen them play I've left fully satisfied. Mark is outgoing and hilarious, Andrea coy and subtle. Quite the duo.

A few of my favorite No-Fi (mark) moments.

• Mark gets a bunch of kids to sit on the floor of the Detour and sing rhythm section for "Just What I Needed."
• Mark takes a slice of pizza from someone (at the same Detour show), wipes it on his face like a towel, and gives it back to them.
• The numerous times I have seen beer dumped on Mark and/or Mark dumps beer on himself, with full enthusiasm.
  
• Mark at the B-Side during Hoopfest weekend runs outside to a closed off empty street, screaming at the top of his lungs.
• Mark's screaming bass solos. Wasn't there some Mozart in there?
  

No-Fi plays Friday 8/29 at the Zombie Room with the Makers and Pour Soi.

Democrats 1, Hockey 0

My condolences go out to Hockey, who have had some automotive problems in Denver.

I was really looking forward to checking them out last night with James Pants, but the Mile High City had another plan.... Damn you Democratic Convention!!!

I definitely slept on Hockey, who garnered all sort of press during their stay in Spokane. It wasn't until I got the chance to see them in Portland did I realize what I'd been missing. Fun hooks, dance beats and a fantastic voice fronting the whole show.

Their EP Mind Chaos is really fucking good. They've even managed to press vinyl. Fantastic.

Here's an MP3 of one of my favorite tunes from the album:

Hockey - Work.

You can buy their record CD here. Vinyl here.