Colin Meloy of the Decemberists ::: Photo by Alex Crick

When Marymoor says 6pm on the ticket, they really mean, 6pm. We rolled up last Friday after navigating rush hour traffic at a reasonable 6.30 and Blind Pilot was into their last song. Damn.

Truth to tell we were there as much for Andrew Bird as for anyone else since we’ve only had the pleasure of seeing him once. We came a little late to the party, a while after The Mysterious Production of Eggs, yet I would contend that Bird hasn’t faltered since and continues to spark the imagination anew with each reinvention. Traveling with three other band mates now that allow him to keep the pace moving, Bird still makes impressive use of his looping pedals, a flurry of motion at the beginning of each song as he swaps between violin, guitar, glockenspiel and countless other sounds. Aside from a lack of the much hoped for rendition “Heretics,” his set was compact and literally pitch perfect, drawing from new and old songs equally for his 45 minutes.

Not unlike Bird, Colin Meloy and his Decemberists have a habit of expanding the definitions of popular music, and their latest rock opus The Hazards of Love may have tilted into the slightly self indulgent side, if I do say so myself. I was hoping a bit more for a Tommy type stage show epic instead of nothing at all. That being said, it’s clear this material is where the band’s enthusiasm lies right now and after working it on the road now for a while, with guests Shara Worden and Becky Stark touring on the roles they assisted on in the recording, the hour plus straight of rock was a polished, powerful and decisive in it’s presentation. Shara Worden who was once a member of Sufjan’s band (and I suppose may still be), has defined herself as a star in her own right as My Brightest Diamond, and in this role she frankly steals the show.

After the conclusion of The Hazards of Love and a short break, the band came back to in Meloy’s words play a “bunch more songs” and “push it” with regard to the curfew. Falling back into the familiar interactive role that their fans love, the band played an assortment of appropriate summer favorites while telling jokes and keeping the mood light. At one point Meloy errantly ended on a jazz chord, and then tried to fix it so he didn’t sound wrong. Scrambling to recover his mistake into a joke, he gets the whole band to play random jazz chords together then howls “You just got jazz piped into your face. Change one vowel and you have a very unfortunate sentence.” Ever Colin Meloy’s foil, Chris Funk replies quickly “I’m having a ball, thanks for inviting us to Microsoft Jazz Fest.”

The funniest moment of the night for me though had to be when Meloy thanked Andrew Bird on stage as Andrew Rich, and then realized his mistake fumbling, revealing he might have been deep into one of boutique winemaker’s Pinot Noir’s prior to playing. Then making me glad I stayed the duration, Shara Worden and Becky Stark came back out and fronted a cover of Heart’s “Crazy on You,” with Worden clearly a natural heir to the Wilson sisters’ massive impression.

After the hitting the Newport Folk Festival, with the Fleet Foxes, Elvis Perkins in Dearland and many more, the Decemberists will be touring for two weeks in August.

Check below the fold for a video of that Heart cover they did.
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Black Eyes & Neckties Play The Comet July 19th ::: Photo by Abbey

Remember when I said not every week would have seven nights of recommended shows…? This is one of those weeks.

However, for most of the night’s that have recommendations, there are numerous pleasing possibilities. Looks like another week for some heated internal debates on which shows to attend.

Who - So Many Dynamos, Police Teeth, Cast Spells
Where - VERA Project
How (Much) - 8$/7$ with Club Card
Why- So Many Dynamos mathematic, energetic, angular, and infinitely danceable approach to indie rock is a perfect way to start the week with momentum.

Who - The Girls Guide To Rocking
Where - VERA Project, 7:30pm
How (Much) - Free
Why - Because in 2009, rock’n'roll is still a boys club. Books like The Girls Guide to Rocking and places like the VERA Project help encourage and teach girls to find their rightful place in rock.

Equally Awesome Alternatives:
Casiotone for the Painfully Alone at HTFC
Team Gina at Chop Suey

Who - Jack Wilson and the Wife Stealers 
Where - The Comet, 6pm  
How (Much) - ?
Why - If you like what bands like The Maldives and Widower are doing, it’s time for you to check out Jack Wilson and the Wife Stealers. Wilson is a pleasant addition to the burgeoning bearded Seattle-Twang song-writer sound.

Equally Awesome Alternatives:
GMK at Nectar Lounge
Tea Cozies, Devices at Tractor Tavern

Who - WE Prom Featuring: We Wrote The Book On Connectors, M. Bison, Tennis Pro
Where - The Crocodile
How (Much) - 10$
Why - Because this is what Sweet Dreams are made of. Or at least, that’s the theme of this prom, which is guaranteed to suck 100x less than your actual Prom. There will be photos, formal wear, a balloon arch, and  few great local bands playing from their own catchy catalogs, as well as the promise of some classic Prom songs. Slow dance, anyone?

Equally Awesome Alternatives:
The Metal Shakespeare Company at The Blue Moon
The Sea Navy at The Comet Tavern
The Decemberists, Andrew Bird, Blind Pilot at Marymoor Park

Who - Laura Veirs, Cataldo
Where - The Crocodile
How (Much) -  15$
Why - To spend a night with one of the Pacific Northwest’s most gifted lyricists and song-writers, Laura Veirs.  2007’s Saltbreakers is a quintessential Pacific Northwest album, so evocative of the surroundings that inspired the album, you can almost smell the damp salty cedar air.

Equally Awesome Alternatives:
What What Now at Cafe Racer
Death Cab for Cutie, the New Pornographers, Ra Ra Riot at Marymoor Park

Who - Helms Alee, Black Eyes & Neckties, Red Fang
Where - The Comet Tavern, 9pm
How (Much) - 8$
Why - You’d be hard pressed to find a stronger all-local hard rock bill. In spite of being on a Sunday, the sheer weight of rock and spectacle of this line up may actually leave The Comet in ruins.

Equally Awesome Alternative:
Death Cab for Cutie, the New Pornographers, Ra Ra Riot at Marymoor Park

Blind Pilot at Sasquatch 2009 ::: Photo by Josh

Aside from the festivals, there aren’t too many big bills this summer that I would cast as memorable. On the other hand the Decemberists stop by Marymoor Park on July 17, with Andrew Bird and Blind Pilot in support is in our opinion not only memorable, but probably the single bill I’m most excited about this summer. All three of these bands are worthy of your time as headliners by themselves, but all together this group three bands can safely be termed a can’t miss bill.

Courtesy of STG Presents we’ve got a pair of tickets to this show to give away to one lucky reader. Drop your name and real email address in the comments by Wednesday June 17 at 5pm after which we’ll randomly pick a winner. It really is that simple. If you’re comment get’s held for moderation, don’t worry, we’ll make sure it get’s approved in a timely manner. First time commenters are especially encouraged to participate. I’ll note it here and contact the winner when they are chosen.

Should you not win, as of right now tickets for the show can still be had at Ticketmaster for $35, not counting fees.

This might be tempting….3 day passes are on sale this Sunday for the Outside Land’s festival in San Francisco. I’d consider buying the pass just for seeing Radiohead and a show in San Francisco’s hallowed Golden Gate Park. The festival is August 22nd and 23rd, which is getting admittedly close to Bumbershoot time. But, Radiohead….

Though Jack Johnson’s name should be NOWHERE near the top of that poster! Try Regina Spektor, Primus, Andrew Bird, Wilco in that top billing spot instead!

3-Day Passes only go on sale Sunday at 10am PST. Hooray for a show being sold out of the west coast! No waking up three hours earlier to get tickets out of an East Coast based company.

Festival Season that is. Or at least the seemingly endless anticipation of it all. My initial reaction to the Coachella lineup is… “Meh.” After last year’s epic Coachella lineup that included Rage Against the Machine, I was considering dropping the dough to get in on the biggest party this side of the rockies. Unfortunately the strength of last year’s lineup was this year’s weakness, as it was destined to be unable to match what came before. Wasn’t Jack Johnson like cool in 2002 or something? (I kid. I kid.) Seeing the entire Dark Side of the Moon performed would be pretty rad though.

A festival bright spot announced this week though was the Annual MusicNOW Fest in Cincinatti, curated by National guitarist Bryce Dessner. This year’s musicians include the incomparable Andrew Bird, the incomparable Grizzly Bear, and guitarist extraordinaire Bill Frissell among others.

(Disclaimers): I don’t own the Panda Bear, M.I.A, or LCD Soundsystem records, so I guarantee you those are not my top three albums of 2007. Hopefully that means this list  will read a little different than most ”Best Albums of 2007″ currently on the inter-webs. Also, for the sake of new content and all the fabulous albums released this year, I decided not to include Elvis Perkins in Dearland’s Ash Wednesday in the Best Albums of 2007. While the album was officially released this year, I fell in love with it in 2006 and it topped last years annual lists. This list covers albums recorded and released outside of Seattle, my local list of Best Albums will be coming to you soon. I can never just decide on 10 albums, so this list, like the world’s loudest amp… goes all the way to eleven!

Abbey’s Best Albums of 2007 - National Releases

11. Fionn Regan - The End of History
Amidst all the rock, I am a shameless sucker for a great folk album. Fionn Regan’s The End of History  suited me perfectly this year, as it is at once plucky and melancholy. I may have heard this album more than any other this year, because it was deemed day-job friendly. This album was my pleasant background noise for much of the year and my momentary lyrical escape from the daily grind. 

10. Klaxons - Myths of the Near Future
Even the saddest of sad bastards needs a great dance album to keep them company, and this quirky album is mine. I feel like this should be a guilty pleasure, but it’s not… it’s just damn good. (Even if my favorite song somehow uses and rhymes “Lady Diana and Mother Theresa” in a chorus.) The Klaxons translates amazingly well live too, the boys are filling the bigger venues of the UK and Europe, while playing venues like Chop Suey and The Crocodile (r.i.p) stateside. If you have the chance to see them live, do. And when you see them, for gods sake Seattle, dance!

9. The White Stripes - Icky Thump
Part of me just wants to say, it’s Jack White doing what he does best - writing White Stripes songs; and leave it at that. But that’s not giving Icky Thump the credit that it’s due. There are some great straight up old White Stripes songs on the album like “300 M.P.H. Outpour Blues,” but I also love the songs that seem to be taking the band in a new direction. “Conquest” is epic and theatrical, and I’m certain it will end up in some Quentin Tarantino film down the road. While “Little Cream Soda” has Jack White channeling a bluesy maniacal ee cummings.

8. The Arcade Fire - Neon Bible
It’s not Funeral, but it is a damn fine album. Win Butler’s voice is sounding better than ever, he seems to have somehow packed even more pained emotion into his vocals on the album. While Funeral was an album of personal tragedy, Neon Bible focuses it’s lens on the greater tragedies we are all facing. The images painted in this album are as frightening as they are completely apt. (Antichrist Television Blues) is easily the best Bruce Springsteen tune that the Boss never wrote. When we saw The Arcade Fire this year, Win dedicated the song to Jerry Falwell, and it was bitter perfection.

7. Andrew Bird - Armchair Apocrypha 
Andrew Bird astonishes me. So clever (”something apropos, i don’t know…”), singing songs about cell division as a metaphor for lust and love, composing upbeat songs and then slaying you with heartbreaking lyrics. As you’ve seen his song Heretics was hands down my favorite of the year, largely for doing the later so well. A hundred listens and I still discover some new layer I’d never noticed, he is the master of complex pop-songs. (which is not as oxymoronic as it might seem.) Add it all up, plus he is a freakishly talented whistler, and you have one of the most unique artists making music today.

6. Bowerbirds - Hymn for a Dark Horse
When I first discovered Bowerbirds (thank you john darnielle), I listened to nothing else for weeks. This entailed streaming 6 songs from the bands website, continuously - as the album had yet to be released. I love an album that establishes it’s own sound and language and Hymn for a Dark Horse, does so richly. With lush three part harmonies and a lyrical ease, Bowerbirds released one of the most simply pleasing albums of 2007.

5. Figurines - When the Deer Wore Blue
In a year where Brian Wilson-esque pop was lauded (Panda Bear, anyone?) it was Denmark’s Figurines who made my favorite psychedelic pop album of 2007.  When The Deer Wore Blue is filled with one catchy song after the next, with stand-outs including “Good Old Friends” and “The Air We Breathe” - a Beach Boys pop and Arcade Fire choir epic and my #2 song of 2007. The Figurines are also the only band who has made my back to back best of year lists  (their 2006 release Skeleton clocked in at #8 last year),  here’s to hoping 2008 brings a three-peat from my favorite Danes.

4. Menomena - Friend and Foe
Menomena sounds like no one else making music today. Or for that matter, anyone else I’ve ever heard. It is the rarest of pleasures to find a band that defies easy explanation or comparison, but Menomena’s been happily stumping me all year. To me, Friend and Foe, listens like an off-kilter rock opera. Despite being a trio, Menomena’s songs are lavishly orchestrated with a symphonic cacophony of  unexpected sounds and plenty of melodrama in the lyrics.    

3. Radiohead - In Rainbows
Very few things in life are worth a four year wait… In Rainbows is one of those rarest things. I am still having an internal debate as to whether In Rainbows is the best Radiohead album ever. Songs like “Reckoner” and “Jigsaw Falling Into Place” make a pretty compelling argument. I love that In Rainbows seems to take a little bit from each of the bands previous albums and expand upon what worked best, as well as exploring new sounds. I’m hoping Radiohead finds their way out West, if they do it’s certain you’ll see that show at the top of next years lists.

2. Beirut - The Flying Club Cup
Very few albums have ever enchanted me the way that Beirut’s Flying Clup Cup does. I imagine I’ll be just as taken with this record twenty years from now as I am today. I have compared it to just about my favorite record of all time, Neutral Milk Hotel’s In The Aeroplane Over the Sea. (A pleasure which no other album has ever had.) Flying Club Cup  has a cohesive sound and mood that I love to get lost in, just as Aeroplane does. I can’t wait to hear what Zach Condon conjures up next.

1. The National - The Boxer
Yes, my favorite national release is from The National. Funny how things work out this way. This is by far my most listened to album of the year and my most beloved. The National have crafted their own sound and language over the course of their career and it’s so wonderful to see them reach critical acclaim with an album that stays completely true to it. Matt Beringer’s voice sounds better to me than just about anyone else in music today.

Here are my favorite songs of 2007. Just by coincidence, the last five of the first ten songs are by local bands.

1. “Fake Empire” - The National from Boxer

2. “Golden Skans” - Klaxons from Myths of the Near Future

3. “The Opposite of Hallelujah” - Jens Lekman from Night Falls Over Kortedala

4. “Heretics” - Andrew Bird from Armchair Apocrypha

5. “Reckoner” - Radiohead from In Rainbows

6. “Don’t You Know” - Whalebones from the Morning Man EP

7. “Attack of the Cobrasaurus” - Thee Emergency from the Live at Chuck Norris EP

8. “X-Ray Eyes” - Whore Moans from Watch Out For This Thing

9. “Paper Birds” - Siberian from Hey Celestial! EP and With Me

10. “For Rebecca” - Solvents from Manresa Castle

Ten other very worthy mentions include:
“Wet And Rusting” - Menomena from Friend And Foe

“I’m Gonna Live the Life I Sing About In My Song” - Shane Tutmarc and the Traveling Mercies from I’m gonna Live the Life I Sing About In My Song

“Seeds of Night” - The Cave Singers from Invitation Songs

“Talkin’ Nascar” - Bhi Bhiman from The Cookbook

“Is There A Ghost” - Band of Horses from Cease to Begin

“Nantes” - Beirut from The Flying Club Cup

“You’re A Wolf” - Sea Wolf from Leaves in the River

“Bur Oak” - Bowerbirds from Hymns for a Dark Horse

“Intervention” - The Arcade Fire from Neon Bible

“The Air We Breathe” - Figurines from When the Deer Wore Blue

My Favorite Covers of 2007

Numerous cover albums came out this year but far and above the rest was the I’m Not There Soundtrack, which included many current artists covering exclusively Bob Dylan songs from many different albums. My three picks I especially thought did justice to the songs and stand with the original.

“Ballad of a Thin Man” - Stephen Malkmus and the Million Dollar Bashers from the I’m Not There Soundtrack

“You Ain’t Goin Nowhere” - Glen Hansard and Marketa Iglova from the I’m Not There Soundtrack

“Stuck Inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again” - Cat Power from the I’m Not There Soundtrack

Unlike last years tie, this years best song was a clear choice for me. I’ve been charmed and astonished by “Heretics” on each and every listen, despite doing so hundreds of times.

1. Andrew Bird - Heretics 
   * mp3: Andrew Bird - Heretics (courtesy of KEXP)

2. The Figurines - The Air We Breathe 
    * mp3: The Figurines - The Air We Breathe

3. The Shackeltons - The Breaks
    * mp3: The Shackeltons - The Breaks

4. The Whore Moans - X-Ray Eyes   
    * mp3: The Whore Moans - X-Ray Eyes

5. Siberian - Paper Birds
    * mp3: Siberian - Paper Birds (courtesy of KEXP)

6. Palmer, AK - Same Rain/Noelly  
    * mp3:  Palmer, AK - Same Rain/Noelly

7. Thee Emergency - Attack of the Cobrasaurus

8. Menomena - The Pelican  

9. Bhi Bhiman - Talkin’ NASCAR Blues 

10. Iceage Cobra - House of 19 Flames (unreleased)
      * mp3: Iceage Cobra - House of 19 Flames

11.  Whalebones - Don’t You Know

12. Beirut - Nantes

13. The Lonely H - The Meal

14.  A Gun That Shoots Knives - This Canary/This Coalmine
      * mp3: A Gun That Shoots Knives - This Canary/This Coalmine

15. Okkervil River - Our Life is Not a Movie, Or Maybe 
      * mp3: Okkervil River - Our Life is Not a Movie or Maybe (courtesy of KEXP)

16. Ghost Stories - Catacombs
      * mp3: Ghost Stories - Catacombs

17. The National - Fake Empire

18. The Arcade Fire - Intervention

19. Vampire Weekend- Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa

20. The Go - You Go Bangin’ On   
       * mp3: The Go- You Go Baginin’ On (courtesy of KEXP)

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The temperature starts going below freezing, and out come the weepy string songs. This is of course, interspersed with the sparse acoustic tunes, which also dominate my winter listening.

Take a look at a few of my most played tunes as of late:

* the entire lovely album, Manressa Castle - The Solvents
 here’s one of my favorite songs on the album, All Your Demons Pulling: All Your Demons Pulling - Solvents

* Majesty Snowbird - Sufjan Stevens

* Cold Wind - The Arcade Fire

* I Found A Reason - Cat Power I Found A Reason - Cat Power

* and a whole lot of Andrew Bird and Elliott Smith

Once again the good folks at Daytrotter have recorded a wonderful session with one of my favorite musicians. Today’s session captures violinist and whistler extraordinaire Andrew Bird in all his quiet glory. Money.