Feral Children ::: photo by Josh Lovseth

Lately I’ve tried my best to avoid listening to any musical acts that I’ve never heard of prior to watching them upon some random stage about town. I accidentally broke this rule when I heard Feral Children on KEXP a couple of weeks ago on my way to buy some jeans. I don’t really remember what the song sounded like, I only caught the last 10 seconds or so. Until the Feral Children’s Brand New Blood album release party at Neumos last Wednesday, I equated their music with the feeling of buying a new pair of jeans because that’s all I could associate them with. Jackpot. They’ve already won me over. Oddly enough, watching their set was kind of like wearing those brand new pair of jeans and enjoying the experience but every so often thinking about another pair of jeans you once wore and wishing you had them on instead. Please, I’ll explain what I mean in a bit. But first, let me tell you about Jabon and John Atkins.

We’re not into the month of February yet but I may have seen the most interesting set that I’ll see all year courtesy of Jabon. Children, gather around, let me tell you what I saw and I promise, I tell no lies. I entered Neumo’s to find what looked like a heavy plume of rising smoke coming from some incense. Upon closer examination, I found it was a smoke machine. A shitload of lit incense would have been more fitting perhaps. Obscured by the smoke was a tall, thin robed figure that was whack-a-moling up and down to the droning music he created. He would leap off the stage and kind of puppet around on the floor amongst the spectators before returning back to the stage. On his face was a luchador mask. I couldn’t help but think of Jabon as some religious zealot who wrestled in an amateur wrestling league in Pigfuck, Iowa. It was pretty awesome. Things got even more amazing when Jabon’s set entered a segment called “Stomach Noises of the Stars.” Some moons ago Jabon used to be an engineer for books-on-tape recordings. He had all this edited footage of people like Kirk Douglas and Arte Johnson coughing, making weird guttural noises, butchering words and successfully reading sentences. Jabon presented this footage in a way that it is unbelievably weird and funny. Some of the puzzled souls who left during all of this were called out by Jabon in a pretty amusing manner. Honestly, there were moments I wanted to dip out as well but I thought, “When is the next time I’m going to witness something as bizarre and hilarious as this?” Official stamp of approval.

John Atkins, you are a singer/songwriter. You are given the unenviable task of following a dude in a mask who did “Stomach Noises of the Stars” and playing before a band that has two drummers, how will you respond? Not so well. Songs about girls, structurally predictable and uninteresting. It’s hard for me to get excited about bedroom guitar players, there numbers are infinite. Long after human beings have died and gone away, there will be roaches and bedroom guitar players. Mr. Atkins had his moments, but those were far and few in-between. He didn’t seem too excited to be there or maybe I’m projecting? I was kind of bored and kept on glaring at the lights above the stage like a moth. And then suddenly, what’s this? A song that I’m genuinely enjoying. Dare I say it’s memorable? I wish all his songs were like…what’s the smell..? Fuck. Someone is wearing “Sex Panther” or just let a dead body like fart somewhere in close proximity. All the good things in my life get marred. The worst part was I was lone guy near a half dozen girls, you know who took the blame for that one.

“You should stick around for Feral Children,” I heard some girl tell a complete stranger. “They’re really good, they have two drummers!” Silly rabbit, tricks are for kids. If only it were that easy to be a good band. I’ve got a joke for you. What do you call a band with two drummers that suck? A band with liabilities. That’s liabilities, plural. That’s not to say Feral Children is a band with two drummers that suck, I’m just saying that girl had no idea what the fuck she was talking about. These Feral Children, in from the wilderness and frontier of Maple Valley, I applaud their supposed weirdness, inhale their scene cynicism, and am tickled at their disdain for imaginary big cities. Watch that marketing boys, you’ll get Hall & Oates’d. Maneater. Big city snobs might make you freshmen dorm room almost famous one day. Luckily for you, Seattle isn’t a big city. Feral Children’s set was good and energetic. The kids were into it. I was pretty into some of the jams as well. “Kid Origami” and “Universe Design” are my two favorite tracks off of Brand New Blood and they were solid live. “Enchanted Parkway”, a song that I don’t particularly like on the album was surprisingly awesome at Neumo’s. But remember when I was babbling about jeans earlier? How sometimes we can’t enjoy the moment of now because we’re too busy longing for the past? That kind of describes me during Feral Children. There were occasions during their set where I was thinking about Black Eyes, a now defunct DC-based band that were amazing noisemakers who wrote catchy pop songs when they wanted to. Seeing Feral Children’s two drummers and hearing the high vocals of Jeff Keenan made my heart long to see Black Eyes once again. Sigh. Chances are I enjoy my new pair of jeans more than the existence of Feral Children. But hey, I bought a damn good pair of blue jeans.

Brand New Blood is available via Amazon, or if you live in the Seattle area, your local record store.

Feral Children ::: photo by Josh Lovseth

Flickr: Feral Children CD Release at Neumos, January 27th, 2010

Feral Children at SXSW 2008 ::: Photo by Josh Lovseth

Seattle band Feral Children have been pounding out spooky visions on local stages for a few years now, developing a percussion-heavy repertoire of dark indie rock that I’ve declared on more than on occasion is destined Pitchfork-dom sooner or later. The band’s 2010 effort Brand New Blood via Sarathan Records only strengthens that suspicion and showcases a group that’s had some time to really grow up to their own expectations. One could certainly point to elements of Arcade Fire in their sound, what with the “Oooh, Oooh” harmonies and all, but I also strong find a strong association in Brand New Blood with an emerging local trend in pop for end-to-end song development care of bands like the Ironclads, M Bison, Navigator vs. Navigator, Skeletons with Flesh on Them, Alligators, Curtains for You and many others. Boring and predictable songs get old fast and this group of songs is hardly predictable or boring.

Feral Children are having a Brand New Blood Release party at Neumos this Wednesday January 27th. They’ll be headlining, and in support are John Atkins, and Jabon. Tickets are $8 adv (+ fees) via TicketsWest.

Update: Snag a free MP3 of “On A Frozen Beach” courtesy of Sarathan Records.

It’s funny that Apollo Sunshine and Feral Children are playing together tonight, as what I recall from both of their live shows is a good deal of time spent beating drum sticks on the tinny side of a keg ‘o’ beer.  Aside from that I remember an alkie-haze and my ex-girlfriend yelling at me on New Years during the Feral Children show and me yelling, “What? You’re not coming in? I can barely hear … <click>.”  Well, at least the music was good.  Feral Children put out a great, weird self-titled album last year, and though I can’t recall exactly what Apollo Sunshine sounded like, their lead singer is like seven feet tall and might weigh 140 pounds, and I spent the majority of their show drunkenly inquiring to my friend if that’s what “heroin addiction” looked like.  I think that plus Feral Children plus Dead Confederates is just about reason enough to head on down to Chop Suey tonight.  Alas, I will not be there to drunkenly shout things at you, as I’ll be on my sweet way to The Big Apple.  Tooooodles.

Feral Children - Spy/Glass House

Common Market at Capitol Hill Block Party ::: Photo by Josh

Common Market played KUBE on Sunday, played KEXP today at noon, and Easy Street Queen Anne later tonight. If that weren’t enough, on Tuesday for the actual release date of their record Tobacco Road, they’re playing Silver Platters.

On Thursday at Neumos they’re kicking off a western tour, calling the show the “Tobacco Road Show,” inviting a few notable Seattle openers along on the bill in Feral Children, the Tallboys and Thee Emergency to contribute to the fun. For their own set the hip hop duo will be joined by a live band and the Total Experience Gospel Choir, so it should be an interesting and special night that won’t be seen any other time. (See the complete details on the poster below.)

For those of you who like to sample before you buy you can listen to the new record for yourself, in its entirety, over at Common Market’s myspace page, where all the tracks are streaming for free (160000+ plays on Sunday!). On my initial first listen, I’m hella impressed. If you like what you hear, you can get it right now, before it hits the stores, on iTunes. Although, I bet if you showed up at Easy Street for the in-store, you could probably buy it there a day early too.

Feral Children at SXSW ::: Photo by Josh

Feral Children are having a big 2008, that’s about to get infinitely bigger with their debut album released on July 8th. Josh is convinced these boys are destined to be the Fleet Foxes of the Seattle rock scene, embraced by Pitchfork and the rest of the musical intelligentsia…and I wouldn’t be surprised at all if it happens.

Before the Feral Children are the next big thing on everyone’s lips, take a listen for yourself and download their EP for FREE.

This weekend provides a bevy of offerings for your aural pleasure. They include but are not limited to:

Friday April 11

The Shackeltons at Easy Street Records (6pm, $FREE)

Cat Power at Showbox SODO

Saturday April 12

The Avett Brothers at Neumos

Katharine Hepburn’s Voice at the Blue Moon Tavern ($FREE)

Sunday April 13

The Rock Lottery at Neumos ($10) - 25 musicians are broken up into five bands, given 12 hours to come up with a 3-5 song set with a limit of one cover, and then asked to perform said songs in front of a crowd.

Whalebones, Feral Children at the Cha Cha ($FREE)

In addition to that, the EMP Pop Conference is going on at the EMP at Seattle Center through Sunday.

Unsurprisingly, my favorite sets at SXSW were brought by Seattle bands (or bands with Seattle connections). Every Seattle band I saw at SXSW brought it in a big way and south by audiences were eating it up. People stopped on the street and stared at Iceage Cobra’s performance, a fellow photographer came up to me after a Thee Emergency set and ecstatically said “I used my entire memory card on those kids!” Locals The Hands, Wild Orchid Children, Feral Children, and Portugal the Man were lauded to me by every person who had the chance to see them. Fleet Foxes were the buzz of the folk lovers and Blue Scholars put Seattle hip-hop on the map to a national audience at the festival.

Here are a few photos of the Seattle bands who made a big impression on South by Southwest audiences this year.

Portugal The Man (joined by some Wild Orchid Children)

Wild Orchid Children (joined on stage by Sonic and Nick of Thee Emergency)

Thee Emergency

Fleet Foxes

Feral Children

Holy Ghost Revival

Iceage Cobra

The Lonely H

While Stephen Merritt might never want to go to a place called Ballard, I think the neighborhood is just fine and very worthy of it’s own SXSW day party in Austin. Last year’s party was great, and lucky us, the details for this year’s party have finally emerged:

Mt. Fuji Records/Control Group/Lost Barrio Artists/Seattle Weekly and Audio Socket present Free Ballard SXSW Day Party

Thursday 03/13 @ Longbranch Inn 1133 E. 11th

The Hands (6pm), The Beltholes (5:15pm), Lonely H (4:30pm), Mostly Bears (3:45pm), The Cops (3pm), Eddie Spaghetti (solo, of The Supersuckers, 2:25pm), Mannequin Men (1:30pm), Feral Children (1:30pm), Thee Sgt Major III (noon)

While I must endorse you attending our party, which is happening at the same time across town (see the top of the sidebar for more details), I would be remiss in not at least talking about another Seattle related party happening down there which people might be interested in. A few of our favorite local acts including the Lonely H, the Hands, and Feral Children will all be admirably holdin’ it down for the Northwest.

You might be thinking “Free Ballard?” Free Ballard from what? The answer to that question is the infernal clutches of Seattle of course.

Sound on the Sound hopes to make it to the early portion of this concert, Feral Children and Holy Ghost Revival are two Seattle bands to keep your eyes on.

I thought this was pretty cool.

Sat Mar 15
SX Seattle: The City Takes SXSW Music Conference
Sound for an unbelievable party featuring

FLEET FOXES w/ THE SHACKLETONS, FERAL CHILDREN, HOLY GHOST REVIVAL, THE COPS, SIRENS & SAILORS, THROW ME THE STATUE
Palm Door - 401 Sabine Street Austin TX
FREE! / Noon - 5:30 / All Ages

Sponsored by Sound Magazine, STG, SYNCLIVE.com, treeme, Sarathan Records, Bear creek, Tonic ltd, United Reprographics, KEXP, Bucks Music Group ltd, VERA, Mayor’s Office of Film and Music, Pacific Pro Audio,, NARAS, Easy Street Records, Loveless Records, Audiosocket, Seattle’s Best Coffee, and 1965 Records

Now that is a pretty rad day party. Almost as rad as our day party. Look at the top of the sidebar for the details of that one.