No band in the Pacific Northwest (or America or the World for that matter) are making more consistently kick ass videos than Portland’s Red Fang. You can add today’s just released video for “Hank is Dead” to “Wires” and “Prehistoric Dog” in their canon of awesomeness.

And while it might seem counter-intuitive for bands to spend so much time and attention to videos without as many large scale outlets like MTV for them to be played on, Red Fang should teach other bands a valuable lesson. Based on their description, I might have never picked up a Red Fang album or sought out the band live. But thanks to their memorable music videos, I’m a devoted fan, I spend money on their vinyl and know not to miss a concert. The age of the music video isn’t over, its just changed. And if videos like “Hank is Dead” and “Wires” and “Prehistoric Dog” are still being made, I can hardly complain.

I have a nasty habit of getting stuck on a single song. Not sort of stuck, more like playing a song more times in a month than most folks listen in a lifetime. My most listened to song of 2012, which I was sent on New Years Day, has been played 93 times. According to iTunes I’ve listened to Damien Jurado’s “Working Titles” 228 times, and Maraqopa isn’t even out for almost a month.

Give me a few more days with Michael Chapman’s “You Say” and it’ll be well on its way to those numbers:

“You Say” comes from Light in the Attic’s first release of 2012, the reissue of Chapman’s 1969 debut album Rainmaker. And after hearing it for the first time yesterday, I’ve listened to almost nothing else. This is the song so many singer-songwriters stuck on British folk from the ’60s are still trying to write. And while I’m surely fond of their flattery, today I’m happy to listen to the inspiration instead. Over and over and over again.

You can pick up Light in the Attics reissue of Rainmaker from their online store or at your local independent record store.

We thought Treefort’s initial line-up announcement gave enough compelling reasons to make the road trip to Boise. But the upstart music fest has made four more line-up announcements since then giving us even more reasons to be planning a visit to Idaho. In addition to Pickwick, Lemolo, Built to Spill, Of Monteral and WHY? the following folks have been added to the line-up:

The Cave Singers, Dinosaur Feathers, The Maldives, Loch Lomond, Y La Bamba, Koko and the Sweetmeats EMA, Talkdemonic, Delicate Steve, Janka Nabay, Pictureplane, AU, Tartufi, Mr. Gnome, Woodsman, Monster Rally & RUMTUM, AAN, Sun Araw Band, The Soft White Sixties, Mwahaha, The Parson Red Head, Matthewdavis, The John Steel Singers, Dustin Wong, Blasted Canyons, Sepalcure, Hot Bodie in Motion, araabMUZIK, Wolvserpent, The Hive Dwellers, Brett Nelson Band, qp, Grand Falconer, Teens

Buy your tickets now.

Radiation City has been hard at work creating the follow up to their debut album The Hands That Take You, one of our favorite records of 2011. Today we get our first taste of that new record with a video for “Find it of Use,” which got the debut treatment from IFC.com. There’s a menacing beauty to the song, a dream that turns into a nightmare. Especially for the band’s trusty piano.

Radiation City will be releasing a new EP, Cool Nightmare March 6th.

Instead of sending us physical postcards from the road, Ravenna Woods asked if they could send us video ones … of course we said yes! In our first video diary we find Ravenna Woods fixing chains with shoelaces (which seems totally safe), playing in Seattle, Portland and San Francisco, and learning about the latest bizarre YouTube hit from tour mates.

Stay tuned for more tour adventures in the coming weeks!

I admit, like many folks, I’m a little burnt out on pretty songs with banjo backing. At this point in Seattle, if you’re going to do it, you better do it damn well … because it has been done. And over-done.

St. Paul de Vence’s “Eventually” does it well. Well enough to burrow through my banjo fatigue and get stuck in my head. Now, I’m not sure if the rest of their debut full-length does it as well, as they’ve only made one song available for streaming, but “Eventually” with its “la-la-la” chorus is Seattle sing-along ready. The song is dramatic and it ebbs and flows in all the right places, seeming to play through your speakers in sepia tones. Which is fitting for an album and band inspired by the World War II adventures of vocalist Benjamin Doerr’s grandfather, Fortune Jean Giordano.

“Eventually” and the story behind it is disarmingly charming. You can download “Eventually” on St. Paul de Vence’s bandcamp for free. They’re celebrating the release of their new self-titled record this Sunday at Columbia City Theater and our Collective buddies The Warehouse have booked a beautiful bill to match the occasion with Best of the New alumni Le Wrens and a band being called “Bonfire So-So.”

Taking a cue from the Seattle World’s Fair postcard records, local bands Spurm and Fresh Espresso have both released playable postcards in the last couple weeks.

With the help of Caffe Vita, Fresh Espresso put out their new single “Show Me How You Do” as a limited edition postcard. You can pick up the single when you grab coffee at your local Vita, if and when copies are in-stock. No word if any will be left for Fresh Espresso’s next show, a just announced March 9th date at Neumos.

While Fresh Espresso is using a playable postcard to celebrate their latest single, Spurm, “Seattle’s boingo-synth, saxoparty freak band” are using their’s to put out their final EP. You can pre-order the 6-song Sprum EP from ggnzla or grab one at their final show February 10th with Uzi Rash (Oakland), Unnatural Helpers and Wimps at Black Lodge. Seeing that Phil thinks Spurm is Seattle’s best live act and its your last chance to catch ‘em, we recommend you don’t miss the opportunity to buy it then.

With the proliferation of iPhone videos and digital SLR cameras, you hardly need a Hammer sized budget to make a music video. Enter Posse and Don’t Talk to The Cops, two local bands who released delightfully DIY videos today.

Both bands are getting ready to celebrate the release of new records:

Posse shared their debut full-length today on Bandcamp and will be playing a show this Sunday at The Comet (with Curious Mystery, Nucular Animals and Jeremy Jay).

Don’t Talk to the Cops announced they’ll be releasing their latest Let’s Quit on local outfit Out for Stardom this Valentines Day. They’ll be celebrating the release with a rager next Saturday (February 4th) at The Baltic Room.

Though you still might be able to snag a physical 7″ of the first new music by the Murder City Devils in a decade down at Sonic Boom in Ballard, via the band’s own online store they went like the proverbial hotcakes. (Or maybe weedcakes?) In “Every Day I Rise” Moody laments “Every day I rise and nobody cares, I’ve got no disciples to scare.” I think he might have a few disciples to scare yet.

“Every Day I Rise” proves those 10 years have done nothing to soften Spencer Moody’s wild-eyed delivery or leering perspective. Still plenty scary. It’s classically styled MCD, tetering back and forth between in-control and out of control, confronting the certainty of living day-to-day and the uncertainty of our methods. For “Ball Busters in the Peanut Gallery” the organ comes out front, less spooky than uplifting it beds Moody’s similarly self-reflective dirge that favors melody over chaos. This second song feels an unusual combination for the band, and probably as close to their dabbling in indie rock textures as we’re likely to see, but it works.

So far in 2012 the only scheduled date for the band is a February 3rd date in Portland. $20 will get you a ticket to the appropriately named Dantes as the Murder City Devils are joined by P.R.O.B.L.E.M.S. and Sassparilla.

With the Fleet Foxes wrapping up their final shows in Japan last week and having fulfilled their contract for Sub Pop, their future as an entity for the short term and long term is uncertain. The gentlemen of Fleet Foxes will hardly go missing though. Josh Tillman is now FATHER JOHN MISTY with a soon be announced record on Pop Bus Records. (Think about it.) Poor Moon is the new project of Foxes’ Christian Wargo and Casey Westcott who are similarly signed to Sub Pop and sounding a whole lot like the second coming of Crystal Skulls. Yes please!

Though we in the Northwest seem to be woefully out of the scheduling loop and have to wait until late February for actual TV airtimes on PBS of Austin City Limits, the internet provides us a way to keep the love going as PBS has made available online both Fleet Foxes and the Head and the Heart’s half-hour performances. Though too short for my liking, the prestigious 25 minutes above might be the best video document yet of the Foxes’ performance of Helplessness Blues, which we voted the strongest Northwest record of 2011. Headbanging at an upright? Oh yeah!

Check below the fold for an appearance by fellow Sub Pop band The Head and the Heart who apparently made their own splash at the adjunct Austin City Limits Festival in 2011.

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