Archeology | By the By | Music Video from shieldsfilms.com on Vimeo.

Sound on the Sound is pleased to premiere “By the By,” the first video from Archeology’s debut full-length release Memorial, out tomorrow. If you’re not from Portland, this is probably the first time you’ve heard of the band, but I suspect it won’t be the last.

Much like the band’s name,  Memorial seeks to explore the past in hopes of finding insight on the present and future. In spite of the cheery pop orchestration, Memorial excavates the childhood demons of weekends spent on church pews long abandoned,  all the while glaring boldly back at blind faith. Lyrically the band examines these former beliefs just as we look upon artifacts from another era-with curiosity, confusion and the clarity of 20/20 hindsight. Musically, the band recalls fellow Portlander’s Bark Hide and Horn and Drew Grow and the Pastors’ Wives, as well as a touch of twee Okkervill River and Matt Pond, PA.

For their debut video, Archeology stayed true to their name and the religious reckoning that occurs throughout the album. The video was filmed in part at Oregon’s Meier Archeological Site, and it tells the story of a priest who after denouncing his faith; lures, murders and dismembers the band in an act of wild rebellion against every belief he once held dear, only to be haunted by the band’s memory. It is a potent visual metaphor for anyone who has left behind a long-held belief (or belief system), done everything they could to rid themselves of the reminders, only to find that they are everywhere.

The band will be celebrating Memorial’s album release with a show at The Comet Tavern this Friday, March 19th.  In April they’ll be bringing Memorial to the rest of the West Coast with a string of tour dates from Sacramento to Salt Lake City to Tuscon. See if Archeology will be stopping your town on the band’s Myspace.

Drew Grow and the Pastors’ Wives ::: photo by Abbey Simmons

Often the hardest things for me to write about are the things I love the most. No one wants to be the blogger who cried “best band ever” over and over again, and there’s more self-imposed pressure to find the perfect description for what you find to be most compelling. That’s why there’s been nary a mention of what was quite possibly my favorite show and live discovery of 2010 thus far: Drew Grow and the Pastors’ Wives.

Hailing from Portland, Drew Grow plays with the riveting passion of a revival tent preacher, full of captivating apocalyptic bombast. And just like that revival preacher, Drew Grow controls the audience. When I saw him at The Comet in January you could’ve heard a pin drop by the end of his set. An unassuming man and band takes the stage, and with no antics, just a pure and righteous emotional force, a prophet steps off, inevitably amidst a sea of stunned converts. Grow’s songs are his visions and parables, and with crash and crescendo they stir the soul.

Vocally and in terms of the emotional wallop per note, Drew Grow most reminds me of a Grace-era Jeff Buckley. There is a broken but beautiful timbre to Drew Grow’s voice, just as there was to Buckley’s, that seems to tug directly at the heart strings. I should have known when a music teacher told me she’d never had a “more moving experience with music than at a Drew Grow show” that he was the Truth, but it’s the kind of performance you have to witness for yourself to actually believe. If you haven’t seen Drew Grow or discovered his soaring spirituals yet, I sincerely can’t recommend that you check them out enough.

Seattle will have to wait about a month for their chance to see Drew Grow again, as he’s playing the Tractor Tavern on April 28th with another Sound on the Sound favorite Ravenna Woods, for what I assure you is the makings of an unmissable show. Portland, you lucky bastards, don’t have to wait that long for Drew Grow and the Pastors’ Wives since the band will be celebrating the release of two new songs “Do You Feel It” and “Bon Voyage Hymn” this Friday at The Woods. This show will sell out, so be sure to get your tickets in advance lest you miss out.

Us, well we’ll be anticipating Drew Grow shows throughout the summer: the band will also be performing on June 26th with Grand Hallway during the Grand Opening celebrations of the Columbia City Theater and making a return trip to the Doe Bay Festival this August. Two events, I assure you, you want to put on your calendar now. Keep reading Sound on the Sound for more exciting announcements about both Columbia City Theater and Doe Bay.

Here’s some video proof of Drew Grow’s powerful live performance and the band’s effect on a crowd. This video was  shot at a sold out show in Tacoma (r.i.p Warehouse) and the crowd is so quiet you can hear Drew breathing between notes.

Drew Grow & The Pastors’ Wives - I Want You to Come Home Now from Jake Rohr on Vimeo.

Song Release Show & West Coast Tour Dates:
March 19th - Portland, OR - The Woods
April 28th - Seattle, WA - Tractor Tavern (w/ Ravenna Woods)
May 23rd - San Francisco, CA - Hotel Utah
May 24th - Sacramento, CA - Old Ironsides
May 26th - San Diego, CA - Bar Pink
May 27th - Davis, CA - Aramdillo Records
May 27th - Davis, CA - Sophias Thai Kitchen
May 28th - Chico, CA - Cafe Coda
May 28th - Eugene, OR - Sam Bonds Garage
June 26th - Seattle, WA - Columia City Theater (Grand Opening w/ Grand Hallway)
Aug 14th - Olga, Orcas Island, WA - Doe Bay Festival

Sleepy Eyes of Death at Bumbershoot ::: Photo by Marcella Volpintesta for Sound on the Sound

This week Seattle’s Sleepy Eyes of Death spilled the beans on their plans for coming back into the performing fold after taking a short break to record and recharge. Today they posted a song from a forthcoming record on their myspace, a record that they’ll separate the release of on Friday April 30th at Neumos in Seattle, with Feral Children and Talkdemonic. “Data Grave” is the name of the new track, and it’s the lead track from Toward a Damaged Horizon which will be officially released Tuesday, May 4th.

You can get tickets early to the record release show via Neumos new web ticket vendor eTix.com.

It’s a weekend of celebration for fellow music bloggers and friends: Ear Candy and Back Beat Seattle. Both blogs are celebrating milestones with some kick ass local bills and you could make a full weekend of their shows alone.

First up on Friday night is Back Beat Seattle. Back Beat is celebrating the site’s one year anniversary with a genre bending banner bill at The Blue Moon with Blood Red Dancers, THEESatisfaction and What What Now.

Meanwhile, Ear Candy has a double header of sponsored shows this weekend. Saturday they’ll be celebrating at The Sunset with a great bill featuring People Eating People, We Wrote The Book on Connectors and Spanish for 100. Not only will you be enchanted by Nouela Johnston, you should hear the Ear Candy Theme Song, as We Wrote the Book on Connectors were commissioned to write it.

Ear Candy’s celebrations continue on Sunday night with the official Ear Candy Birthday party at The Nectar for a weekend ending dance party. Imploring to shake your ass for Ear Candy will be No Fi Soul Rebellion, Katie Kate, Lisa Dank and Queerbait!.

Happiest Anniversary to Back Beat and happiest birthday to Travis Hay of Ear Candy. Here’s to many more years of blogging and supporting local music!

Goldfinch ::: photo by Abbey Simmons

I could waste a lot of words on why you should check out Goldfinch at The Round next week.

I could tell you The Round is the perfect place to be introduced to Goldfinch and their intimate earnest songs, because The Round and Goldfinch are both about intimate artistry and earnest experiences. Or that hearing Grace Sullivan perform for the first time at an old church couldn’t be more fitting, because it’s clear from note one, Grace has spent a lot of time honing her voice in choirs. Or that the simple beauty of Aaron Stevens’ lyrics couldn’t be more suited for the stripped down, reverent setting of The Round. And that would all be true.

If you haven’t fallen for Goldfinch yet, next Tuesday at The Round is definitely the place to start your love affair. But I’d rather let the band do what they do best, and sing for themselves.

Ian McFeron, slam poet Jodie Knowles, Aaron & Grace from Goldfinch, Jake from Big Sur, and two expert potters (Eric Newman and Mark Strom) will turn lowly lumps of clay into a variety of vases and bowls right before your eyes. Finished pots will also be available for purchase.

Tuesday, March 9th @ Fremont Abbey Arts Center
8-10pm / 7:30 doors / $7 advance / $7-10 at door / all-ages / pg13
Info: www.theround.org / Tickets via www.fremontabbey.org

Video Courtesy of Nesib Shamah and Wailam Kwan

I had no idea what I was getting into when I first listened to Vic Chesnutt’s “Flirted With You All My Life.” I thought I’d be listening to a tortured love song, and well, I was. A love song, not for human flesh as I expected, but of the seductress suicide. I thought I was going to get a sweet little love song, and instead I got the song I’d needed to hear my entire life.

Much like Vic Chesnutt, I’ve spent too much of my life courting death at my own hands. Unlike Vic, I didn’t have the added burden of constant physical pain and illness. I just happened to be born into a body that has shown keen interest in the self-destruct button. I’ve struggled with a life-long battle with depression and as Vic sang, I’ve “even kissed death once or twice.” When I listened to “Flirted With You All My Life” that first time and every subsequent time, it was as if Vic was singing my story and experience in a way I’d never felt had happened in song. It was as if Vic had been reading a decade’s worth of my diaries and he chose to sing exactly the words I had always needed to hear: “But I found out with time that clearly I was not ready, no no. Oh Death. Really, I’m not ready.”  These were words I could finally sing along to and mean, a hard-fought outcome and realization which found me crying tears of joy.

On night one, after listening to the song on repeat, I knew this would be my secret anthem. It would be what I would call upon for strength during the hardest times and if the deadly flirtation tempted me, because surely it could come again. If it did, I would take faith and hope, that I was not alone in my struggles, that a man like Vic Chesnutt existed and that he had the strength to sing a song that countless people needed to hear, and that he had chosen to struggle onwards himself.

And then, about a week after I discovered it, Vic Chesnutt took his own life. The long flirtation had come to sad fruition. I cried like I’d lost a friend, because I had. I cried out of fear, because it was another tragic reminder that depression is a life-long battle, that isn’t always “beat” even when you feel you’ve conquered it. I wondered if the song would lose it’s meaning or hopefulness with Vic’s suicide, but I found it did the opposite. The song is just as potent and poignant today, if not more so. It is still an anthem. It is still a perfect song to me, one that I will call upon on the darkest days. Vic is still a friend, that I will visit with for the rest of my life through his songs, and he will still be a source of infinite inspiration. In the end, maybe the song wasn’t just for Vic, maybe it was for the rest of us who needed it desperately. People just like me.

I wish I’d had the chance to thank him face-to-face, because a man should be recognized for that kind of contribution to another person’s life. While I sadly won’t be able to thank Vic personally, I can honor him tonight by attending a Tribute Show at the Tractor Tavern organized by Hannah Levin to help his family survive and thrive in his absence. In tribute to Vic, Damien Jurado, Jason Dodson of The Maldives, Eric Howk, and Ian Moore will be taking the stage to perform his songs. Ending the night with “Flirted With You All My Life” will be David Bazan. I’m bringing $20 to donate and a fistful of tissues. I recommend you do the same, because a man like Vic Chestnutt and a song like “Flirted With You All My Life” only comes around once in what is hopefully a long and happy lifetime.

Vic Chesnutt Tribute Show - Tractor Tavern - TONIGHT
Featuring David Bazan, Damien Jurado, Jason Dodson (The Maldives), Eric Howk, Ian Moore & more
Doors at 8pm / Suggested Donation $10 (but we say bring a $20 & tissues)

Watch the video of Dave Bazan performing “Flirted With You All My Life” after the cut.

Read the rest of this entry »

Tuesday March 2nd gives Seattle an opportunity to get a good gander at two members of what I’ll term the cream-of-the-crop of the newest cohort of local bands. Locally in just the last year Noah Gundersen has dominated the Q Cafe, Neumos, the Triple Door stage, and most recently headlined the Crocodile. The other rising name on this bill is a name that you probably already know from our coverage of them over the years and their recent connection with Barsuk: the Globes. To our minds both names, by way of their music, are likely to be known far and wide by the time 2010 comes to a close.

Gundersen, who is a name that is still relatively new to us, seems to channel something other than typical singer-songwriter fare. Along with his sister Abby and his band The Courage, Gundersen has taken up where Pedro the Lion left off, writing thoughtful, philosophically complicated songs that come from a young and faithful point-of-view while still being strikingly accessible to those who might not count themselves so religious. “Jesus Jesus” from his most recent EP release Saints & Liars is the song that’s really caught a our ears here at Sound on the Sound (as well as the ears of a host of others who told us to look into him), and is just one of many reasons that we think Gundersen is going to be playing to larger and larger audiences:

Courtesy of Chop Suey we’ve got 2 spots on the list to give away to one lucky winner for Tuesday night’s all-ages show. Drop your name and email (which remains hidden to the public) in the comments and we’ll randomly choose a winner on Monday at noon to have their name “plus one” on the guest list for this sure to be popular affair.

Make sure you and your friends get in to this rare all ages night at Chop Suey by grabbing tickets ahead of time via TicketWeb for $8.

If you’re not hip to Seattle’s Hollow Earth Radio already, this is a great week to get yourself acquainted with some of the Seattle’s most-deserving unsung heroes. Hollow Earth Radio (HER) self-describes themselves as a  “free-form online radio station that presents a forum for underrepresented music, sounds and perspectives.” But HER is more than that. They’re champions of (and participants in) the All-Ages and DIY movements, as well as countless up and coming local bands. They do what they do purely for the love of music and community and they do so with little pomp or circumstance and without making it at all about them. It’s a perspective we respect and appreciate here at Sound on the Sound and one we aim to provide ourselves.

Once a year HER puts on the MAGMA Festival to help cover operational costs and to highlight bands and musicians they love, all in the all-ages setting they do so much to promote and cultivate.  The festival starts this week and continues throughout the month of March. And MAGMA definitely isn’t saving the best for last, they’re starting out the fest with what we think is one hell of a headliner: Thao Ngyuen (of Thao and the Get Down Stay Down) joined by special guest K Records’ Mirah playing the Vera Project on Friday March 5th. All told there will be 10 shows with over 50 bands featuring names you know (like Karl Blau and Cold Lake) and tons of new up and coming bands for you to delight in and discover.  You can buy a pass for the entire festival for $50 or pay show by show as you go.  We highly recommend you catch at least a few shows and support not just HER but also all-ages music and the bands and venues that make it possible.

One more way to support all-ages music? Vote for the all-ages movement to win $50,000 in the RefreshEverything Challenge from Pepsi. To win the grant the “All-Ages Movement” has to stay in the Top 10 and it’s the last weekend of voting. Be sure to log-in today and tomorrow to cast your vote to help Seattle and other cities support burgeoning bands and music for people young and old.

All My Friends are Funeral Singers - Trailer from IndiePix on Vimeo.

Sunday’s the almost-final day of NOISE POP 2010, and the pickings are slim.  I’m content to curl up in a local theater, shovel corn in my mouth and let it all just settle in.

When?: Sunday, February 28th

Where?: Artist’s Television Access

What?: All My Friends Are Funeral Singers.  This is the directorial debut of Red Red Meat and Califone frontman Tim Rutili and features the absolutely awesome actor Angela Bettis (you need to see May).

Why?: The above mentioned items - Angela Bettis, Tim Rutili, Califone - make this a must see, but check out that trailer above!  It looks like absolute mayhem.  Bettis plays a psychic whom lives in a house full of ghosts whom she uses to fool people in to thinking she’s a psychic.  Sort of like Peter Jackson’s The Frighteners but with more indy cred.  I only imagine that this film might skirt the line of narrative to a fairly great degree, but it’ll be pretty and chock full of gorgeous music.

What Else?: Take a snooze, drink a beer, have a nice dinner with a good friend.  It’s a weak night unless your in to that Edward Sharpe fellow …

NOISE POP you unruly beast, I will fight you, and I will win!

When?: Saturday, February 27th

Where?: Again, again, again, it’s Cafe Du Nord!

What?: P.E.E., True Widow, Ovens, and Grass Widow.  Barely know a lick of music from any of these bands, but I know this, Grass Widow brings a torrent of grimy rock ‘n’ fucking roll that regardless of the suck-stick of the other bands on hand will sate you for the rest of the goddamn festival.

Why?: This is sort of the grab-bag show, the collection of bands I’ve heard almost nothing about, that I’m attending because a local favorite is kicking it all off.  And you know what?  That’s just how I like it.  I love Grass Widow’s ascending star of churning girl-grunge, and though I couldn’t tell you a single song but a single other act on this bill, I’m curious.  You start your show with that kind of raucous noise and you’ve got me signed on for the whole rest of the fucking ticket.

What Else?: This is a great day for Noise Pop (probably the best honestly).  Thao and Mirah and Swedish American Hall, check.  We Were Promised Jetpacks at Slims, check.  Imaad Wasif, Mark Kozalek, Maus Haus, Tempo no Tempo, oh my God the list just goes on and on.

—

Listen Up!

Grass Widow - To Where

Seattle: True Widow plays The Funhouse on 3/2