Bowerbirds at the Triple Door in July, 2009 ::: Photo by Josh Lovseth

So being Bowerbirds fans for sometime now we attended their first visit to the Triple Door back in July when they were on tour with Megafaun, and it was something close to perfect. In my struggle to find the right words, I was never able to get anything properly posted about that show. Well the time is now for those words, and in short, the Triple Door is the exact sort of venue Bowerbirds are ideally suited for (provided there aren’t too many loud forks and knives). They’ve got the best sound system in town, and the nature of the relaxed environment really allows for you to enjoy the subtlety of the instrumentation and singing.

This Monday they’re coming back to the Triple Door Julie Doiron opening. Ticket’s are $13 adv, and $15 day of the show. If I wasn’t across the street that night at Benaroya Hall learning a thing or two from Patti Smith, the Triple Door is where I’d want to be.

Bowerbirds at Chop Suey ::: Photo by Josh

If you missed it when they passed through a couple of Bumbershoots ago, now is your chance catch the rambling and harmonic folk of North Carolina’s Bowerbirds again. The band has a new album titled Upper Air arriving July 7th on Dead Oceans and they’ve scheduled a tour in support of it’s release, and July 30th they will take the stage at the Triple Door with Megafaun in support.

MP3: “Northern Lights” by the Bowerbirds from Upper Air courtesy of Dead Oceans

Get tickets for the July 30th show on the Triple Door’s website. They are $12.

J Tillman ::: Photo by Josh

SOLO:NEW. In case you missed it last week, Pitchfork has a new J Tillman song called “Steel on Steel” from his forthcoming album titled, Vacilando Territory Blues. The song is with a full band and, in my humble opinion, very worth the listen.

PDX:NEW. Blitzen Trapper has made available the title track from their upcoming LP named “Furr.” You can download it from Sub Pop.

ALBUM:NEW. Seattle’s Jaguar Love, who is currently opening for the Faint on tour, are streaming their new album titled Take Me To the Sea on their myspace page this week before it comes out. 29000 listens for a couple of the tracks just today… pretty rad!

VIDEO:NEW. The Bowerbirds now have a video for “In Our Talons.” You should watch it below.

For those of you who followed the massive, and well deserved, hype layered upon Bowerbirds late last year, the sheer greatness of Hymns For A Dark Horse will be no surprise to you. Nor will it be surprising that this darkly gothic folk gem was conceived and recorded by Phil Moore, painter (?) Beth Taculor, and new addition Mark Paulsen in an Airstream trailer in the boonies of rural North Carolina. There’s a homegrown feel to their music that dredges up images of dark forests, rotting wood, and bloated backwoods cabins on the edge of existence.

Released by Burly Time Records last year, this truly brilliant album was re-released early this week by the good people at one of my favorite new labels, Dead Oceans (The Explorers Club). Not only do you get the entirety of the original, in all it’s twangy goodness, but also, two previously unreleased songs (”La Denigracion” and “Matchstick Maker”) that will only further the Bowerbirds blowing of your itsy-bitsy mind.

You can purchase it from Dead Oceans right HERE.

Myspace: Bowerbirds

MP3: Bowerbirds - In Our Talons

STREAM: Bowerbirds - La Denigracion

Starfucker at the Greenhouse ::: Photo by Josh

Portland band Starfucker gives us a taste of their forthcoming LP. The song, titled “German Love,” is off their first LP set to arrive in September. It’s a winner. |dl it at End Hits|

Dream Lineup: Wilco announce opening dates that include Fleet Foxes. The dates in August (18, 20, 21, 23) are all in the Northwest. |pitchfork|

Good stuff out this week. Team Gina and The Notwist have new ones you should sample, and the Bowerbirds are nationally reissuing their Hymns for a Dark Horse, an album that comes with our highest recommendation.

Oh yeah, and the album with that inescapable song “I Kissed a Girl” by Katy Perry came out. Seriously 107.7fm. You don’t have to play it every hour. Did you know she used to be a Christian singer, albiet with a different name? I refuse to link to her site or give her any tag love. Ugh.

Big acts are announcing their late summer and fall dates. Here are a few future Seattle club dates, post Capitol Hill Block Party that I think are notable (this is my first time really thinking past that weekend):

Conor Oberst @ Neumos on July 30
Mt. St. Helens Vietnam Band, Awesome and BOAT @ Neumos July 31
CANCELED! The Faint @ Showbox Aug 2
POSTPONED! Stars @ Showbox Aug 23
Bon Iver @ Neumos Aug 30
Okkervil River @ Showbox Sept 17
CSS @ Showbox Sept 18
Blue Scholars and Hieroglyphics @ Showbox 26 & 27
Raconteurs @ WaMu Theatre on Sept 19
Black Kids @ Neumos on Oct 10
Leo Kottke, Louden Wainwright III @ The Moore Oct 12
Lykke Li @ Neumos on Oct 29

With Bumbershoot happening at it’s end I kinda think August will be a slow month for big acts. And I’m okay with that. Being outside of the club in the hot months is fine by me.

And in not local but still notable news …

Chinese Democracy does exist. And it’s leaking. And people are saying it’s actually good. Oh boy! |Metal Sucks|

I know I said I’d never pay to see Modest Mouse again…. but now that REM has announced that Issaquah’s own will be opening their next tour, in addition to The National; I just might have to eat my words. Even if that means having to drive to Vancouver, BC for the show. |Pitchfork|

A new species of Beetle, has been named after Roy Orbison and his widow. An entomologist made the announcement this weekend during an Orbison tribute concert. The beetle, which looks like it is wearing a tuxedo, will be called Orectochilus Orbisonorum. .|Yahoo|

One of my favorite discoveries of 2007, The Bowerbirds have signed to Secretly Canadian’s offshoot label, Dead Ocean. The band will be touring in support of new label-mates, Phosphorescent, including a couple shows at the years SXSW. |Pitchfork|

The Shortlist Award announced it’s ten finalists today. The ten chosen ones are: Arcade Fire, Burial, Feist, Justice, LCD Soundsystem, M.I.A., Spoon, Stars, Wilco, and Working for a Nuclear Free City. |Shortlist Site|

And lastly, if you paid thousands dollars to see Led Zeppelin at O2 arena in London, this may make you very angry. Jimmy Page says he wants to take Zeppelin back on the road for a world tour.  They’ll have to wait for Robert Plant to finish his tour with Allison Krause, but we might just be hearing Stairway in Seattle.|Yahoo|

(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.

I was unable to attend Bumbershoot on Sunday due to moving into a new place, but I wasn’t going to let that stop me from taking in a show in my new hood, Capitol Hill. The People’s Republic of Komedy invited Bowerbirds to play a Bumbershoot after party at Chop Suey as an opening musical act. For the occasion, seats were unfolded in the normally bare area in front of the stage, and since we arrived early enough we scored a few bar seats right in front of the stage. It proved to be an auspicious beginning to a great night.

Originally set to play at 9:30, the set was pushed back until after 10 to allow the sparsely filled bar to swell. On taking the stage they said little and began, filling the room with the quiet songs from their new record, Hymns for a Dark Horse. Most patrons were suprisingly respectful of the hushed melodies and vocals. Maybe it was the small size of the venue or the darker lighting, or possibly it was the unusual seating arrangement, but I couldn’t have come up with a more perfect moment in my head to take in this band. The relaxed atmosphere allowed the music to shine and the crowd to really enjoy the calm introspective arrangements.

Starting Thursday they will open for John Vanderslice for a week in the western U.S. After they’ll warm up for the Mountain Goats for two weeks in the eastern U.S. I’m jealous. To stir up your appetite for this band you should pick up a few live mp3’s from My Old Kentucky Blog’s SIRIUS radio session with the Bowerbirds from last week.

For those of you who have yet to experience Andrew Bird, there is no question you should be at the Mural Amphitheatre stage for his set on Sunday night from 8:30 to 10pm. He’s up against Fergie, so that should be an easy decision for you.

For me though, I will be moving out of my house that day, so the show of the day isn’t happening at Bumbershoot at all, but rather at the Peoples Republic of Komedy Bumbershoot afterparty taking place across town in my new hood on Capital Capitol Hill at Chop Suey. Much talked about special guests and John Darnielle favorites Bowerbirds will be the musical entertainment undoubtedly in addition to some good comedy. I can’t suggest enough taking a listen to their myspace page and making your way to this show. It’s $5 and doors open at 9pm, and unfortunately you can’t buy tickets ahead of time.

Obivously, from a Myspace bulletin… but this is terribly exciting! If you haven’t listened to this album yet, or at least a song, you’re daft.  (Or you’re like everyone else, and can’t find the record at your local record store…but I digress.) The Bowerbirds have quite possibly crafted my favorite record of 2007 (thus far) and I’m certain their bare boned sound will translate beautifully live.

Date: Jul 23, 2007 2:38PM

Subject: coming soon- west coast/southwest, maybe midwest dates

Body: Secret for Now.
           You have to wait, but we already know about it. we’ll let you know as soon as we are allowed to tell.

                   sincerely,
                        Bowebirds