It is hard to fathom that Bumbershoot is next weekend, but it is. Even if Seattle’s summer never fully got started, the event that signals its end is just around the corner. Despite boasting legends and international stars as headliners, one of the sets I’m most looking forward to is the homegrown Round. The Round is bringing its DIY ethos and celebration of Seattle’s rich artistic community to Bumbershoot on September 4th between 4:30-6pm.

Sharing the stage with Tomo Nakayma and Shenandoah Davis of Grand Hallway will be Tacoma’s sweetly earnest songbirds, Goldfinch. To celebrate and promote the Bumbershoot Round, the band made this stunning video at sunset, which also features a brand new Goldfinch song.

So, when you’re planning your Bumbershoot schedule, I highly recommend you take a break from the bustle and buzz and sit awhile with Goldfinch and the rest of the Round performers. It’s a single set that will encompass Bumbershoot’s multi-faceted celebration of the arts: music, poetry and art.

Sallie Ford at Noise for the Needy ::: photo by Josh Lovseth

While we don’t have the total amount earned for Teen Feed just yet, last week’s Noise for the Needy was by all other measures, a huge success. Sound on the Sound was out for all five nights of the festival and every venue we dropped in at was buzzing with happy donors and volunteers and of course, with great bands on stage.

There will be more detailed reviews coming for a couple of the Noise for the Needy shows we attended, but we wanted to share a few of our favorite photos from the festivities now.

Lastly, if you haven’t seen Virgin Islands yet you should remedy that ASAP. The local punk outfit was my favorite discovery of the fest and I’m ashamed I haven’t been in the front row for every single one of their shows. I’ll be remedying that from here on out. There’s been a distinct lack of brazen rock’n'roll in my life lately and Virgin Islands delivered in furious fashion. You can catch the band at The Sunset next weekend on June 26th as part of the Sunset 10 Year Anniversary Celebration.

Sallie Ford and the Sound Outside at Noise for the Needy ::: photo by Abbey Simmons

Goldfinch at Noise for the Needy ::: photo by Abbey Simmons

Friday Mile at Noise for the Needy ::: photo by Abbey Simmons

Magic Mirrors at Noise for the Needy ::: photo by Abbey Simmons

Hallways at Noise for the Needy::: photo by Josh Lovseth

Virgin Islands at Noise for the Needy::: photo by Abbey Simmons

Karl Blau at Noise for the Needy::: photo by Josh Lovseth

Flickr: Check out all our photos from Noise for the Needy

Hannah of Friday Mile ::: photo by Abbey Simmons

Since 2004 Noise for the Needy has been an annually anticipated event in the Seattle music scene and this year is no exception. Here’s how it works. You and your friends go see a concert and proceeds from that event go to a local charitable organization. Is there anything cooler than that?  Noise for the Needy takes place Wednesday through Sunday of this week, but I’m most excited for  Thursday night  in Ballard. A neighborhood I would describe as “the place from which happiness blooms.”  There are four great venues participating with four bands on each of the four bills. That’s a lot of “fours,” I hope you’re good at math. After messing around with my multiplication tables a bit, I calculated what show I will be attending:

Tractor Tavern $10 Advance|8pm|21+
Horse Feathers

Tiny Vipers

Friday Mile

Goldfinch

Bring your inside voices. I know this show is a part of the Noise for the Needy concert series, but there won’t be much of the “noise” variety. This is a night where delicate, well-crafted tunes tread. I have a feeling this is going to be one of those shows where I’m constantly smiling at the way whomever is performing on-stage has the audience in the palm of their hand.

You’ve heard the occasional gushing about Goldfinch from Sound on the Sound readers and writers alike. Don’t believe me? Type Goldfinch into the search box on the in the upper right hand corner of the website. I was going to link an example but there’s simply too many.  Goldfinch writes honest songs that can leave those with the hardest heart feeling suddenly vulnerable.

As good as Goldfinch is, they aren’t the band I’m excited to see. That honor belongs to Friday Mile. I had not listened to this band before last week, although I’d seen the name here and there a couple of times. Don’t walk, I want you to hypertext sprint to their myspace page and listen to the song “Curtain Call.” When Hannah Williams voice comes in…I don’t even know what to say. To call that moment “sexy” would be ignorant and missing the point. To say it initially shakes you to your core wouldn’t be truthful. I’ll describe it as this, hearing Hannah’s vocals come in on “Curtain Call” is kind of like waking up on a Saturday morning after spending a Friday night alone. You call all your friends to see if they want to go to brunch. Nobody answers your calls. You shoegaze your way to your favorite breakfast spot only to find that all your closest friends have decided to throw you a brunch party, just for being who you are. That’s what it’s like to hear Hannah Williams’ vocals.  Did I romanticize that at all? No of course not. Stop being such a cynic.

If you can’t decide if you want to be at the Tractor, the Sunset Tavern, Conor Byrne Pub and the Two Bit Saloon, you can buy a bracelet for $22 that gives you access to all four shows.  Consider it a delectable sonic smorgasbord for a affordable price that benefits those who are in need. Check out www.noisefortheneedy.org for more information. Listed below are the other three Noise for the Needy concerts that are taking place in Ballard.

Sunset Tavern
$8 | 9PM | 21+
Animals at Night
Daniel G. Harmann & the Trouble Starts
Erik Blood
Mal de Mer

Conor Byrne Pub
$7 | 8PM | 21+
Pillow Army
Shelby Earl
Jeremy Burk
Facts About Funerals

Two Bit Saloon
$7 | 8pm | 21+
Neon Nights
Grenades
The Shining Ones
The Keeper

Kevin Barrans at BARE ::: Photo by Josh Lovseth

Friday’s all a cappella event at the Fremont Abbey, aptly titled BARE, was a night to remember. Organized by the Maldives’ multi-instrumentalist Kevin Barrans, BARE invited some of Seattle’s best bands to shed their instruments and just use their voices. The rules were simple: you could play any song of your choosing so long as your only instrument was the sounds you could make with your body.

Each performer brought a new spin to the concept, and Shenendoah Davis of Grand Hallway started off the evening with a Greek folk song that put her opera training to wonderful use. The Maldives debuted two new songs, Tomo Nakayama belted out Sam Cooke’s “A Change Is Gonna Come,” and the evening’s organizer performed a song in Gaelic as well as two Sacred Harp songs from the 1700 and 1800s’. It  truly was a night of seeing your favorite local bands in a way you’d never seen them before. And not just because of the a cappella, but for the rampant nervousness that they all seemed to be suffering from. Without their instruments and backing bands, many of Seattle’s most seasoned performers were so nervous they forgot to tell the crowd who their names. Happily, those nerves were unfounded, because not only did we get to see some of our favorite performers in a new light and new way, it was genuinely one of the most beautiful nights of pure music we’ve ever experienced.

Among the night’s many treats there were a few performances that really stood out, and we’ll be featuring videos of them nearly every day this week. First off, we wanted to share Goldfinch’s goosebump-raising rendition of “Your Long Journey” which includes an all-church sing along, and sweet harmonizing from The Moondoggies on “Your Old Hound.”

“Your Long Journey” - Goldfinch (+ Crowd)

“Your Old Hound” - The Moondoggies

No microphones. No instruments. No amplification. No sound checks. Just some of Seattle’s best bands bare.

That’s the plan this Friday at the Fremont Abbey in what is certain to be a stunning evening of song. Organized by Kevin Barrans (banjo and accordion player for The Maldives), the event is a collection of friends singing covers of old American songs (like 1800s’ old)  as well as original tunes entirely a capella.

I asked Barrans about Bare when I happened to bump into him at a Ballard bar sipping on a whiskey this weekend. He joked about how easy the load-in and load-out will be in comparison to the rest of the shows he plays with the massive Maldives, “no instruments, no microphones, no amps.” He even hesitated, with a slight smile, when a musician scheduled to play asked if he could clap, stomp or use the floor for a drum as he sang. “Well …  it’s not an instrument and it’s not amplified, so … yes.” Barrans himself will be performing a couple of sacred harp songs with his family, as will Caleb Quick of The Moondoggies.  If the evening is successful, Barrans hopes to make it an annual event.

With a line-up made up of some of Seattle’s most skillful harmonizers and song-smiths, it is a night that promises goosebumps and all but certain success. I suggest you make your plans for Bare this Friday and the second annual one about a year from now.

Justin Townes Earle ::: Photo by Abbey Simmons

Being a lifetime Seattlite (at least so far), it’s in my temperament to be naturally set against anything related to Pullman. It’s irrational and rather childish, yet this way of thinking persists on the west side of the mountains, to the point where Pullman might as well be Mordor, the only fount of evil from which all bad things come. I wanted to hate our jaunt to the college nemesis’ lair, but I couldn’t. I had way more fun than I would have ever expected. And truthfully, I saw no evil beyond the expected abuse of the color red.

For eyes unclouded by rivalry, Pullman is just a smallish town nestled among the impressive Palouse hills, a place that despite being a college town, remains off the beaten path when it comes to popular music. This being the case, small town “charm” was in many ways very evident at the First Annual Birds on a Wire Folk Festival, compared to if it was conducted in the impersonal big city. This charm made for the overall highlight of what was truly a volunteer driven festival of still modest proportions. It was that element which made the ins and outs of the experience enjoyable in a way that could never be possible with platoon of over-eager security personnel tasked with quashing people who are judged to be having too much fun.

The first night of the fest we hung around the larger venue, an old high school-cum-community center with stages on opposite ends of the building. A Pullman version of the Phinney Neighborhood Center or a Good Shepperd Center if you will, housing a hodgepodge of wholesome activities and community oriented events. One stage was housed in the Gym, a massive space that one could easily imagine hosted its share of sock hops. With only two stacks of speakers on the floor just in front of a makeshift stage, had surprisingly good sound, and a bit of natural reverb to boot. That a “beer garden” was situated under a retracted basketball hoop with very tasty beer at a reasonable price just to the side of the stage only endeared us more to the gym. Kicking off the evening with Goldfinch, beer in hand, I had to admit to myself this wasn’t such a bad situation at all. Moseying on over to the other stage in the school auditorium proper, we discover Rocky Votolato finishing up his solo set to a huge, appreciative crowd that then proceeded to pack the lobby and the only exit waiting patiently in line at his merch table. [Rocky wins. Cue the "Rocky Theme".] Now that’s a start to a festival.

The Moondoggies were on their last night of a month long tour that took them to SXSW and had accumulated magnificent beards via an ongoing bet. Anyone could shave their beard whenever they wanted, but the consequence was a square punch in the jaw. Not open handed, a punch… and by the looks of their beard, clearly a punch in the face was a strong deterrent to shave. You don’t need to see their faces to appreciate the rock though, and true to form, the Moondoggies brought out the first dancin’ in the aisles moment of the fest. Backstage they related stories aplenty of tour, including a harrowing tale of Deja Vu I would never have believed had it not come from the person who had just lived to tell the tale once again. (View a must watch $5 Cover band documentary on the Moondoggies to get the full tale about the first incident.) This would would be but the first note of mortality we would ponder this festival weekend.

Damien Jurado was to take us late into the night, which kinda seems his M.O. these days: filling hot rooms full of people and then cracking jokes between songs. This night’s repoire, no matter how weird the circumstances may have seemed, was easy-going from the start on Jurado’s part. Conscientious of the size of the room and stage he remarked that he wasn’t a performer, not like Neil Diamond anyways. All I could think was, “If only you could see yourself on stage. Sitting there all lonesome playing your guitar. All riveting and shit. Just hush.” He also remarked that he been a happier person recently, and doing his “new song a week” project was a positive experience so far. Jurado had a bundle of new songs to play as a result, some from Saint Bartlett that’s arrive in May, others of a more recent vintage. One song was just a day old. “Arkansas” from his soon-to-be-released record is just an incredibly good stripped down pop song. That’s right, a pop song. I didn’t forget to tell you he’s been a happier guy as of lately, did I?

Goldfinch ::: Photo by Abbey Simmons

Goldfinch w/ Steve Norman ::: Photo by Abbey Simmons

The Moondoggies ::: Photo by Abbey Simmons

Damien Jurado ::: Photo by Abbey Simmons

Damien Jurado ::: Photo by Abbey Simmons

Day two started out with local band Hueco, representing the organizer Stereopathic music, as well as the larger Inland Empire music scene. To my mind, more bands need to remember the blues as a foundation to other things, and the five members of Hueco would probably be happy to teach them a lick or two; they’d probably be trading solos to pass the time anyway. Saturday finally brought us to the the third venue, under the eaves of a re-purposed church called the Belltower while taking in Portland trio Mimicking Birds. Gaining recent notoriety for the support of fellow Portlander Isaac Brock, the only real support these three gentlemen need right now to make their splash is a looper pedal. Frontman Nate Lacy has a soft voice and a soft disposition, and when singing recalls the timbre and inner sophistication of Paul Simon. Our afternoon highlight was an impeccable set of new and old Sera Cahoone songs in the auditorium, followed by a two-hour Saturday dinner break for the entire festival. Wait. Dinner break? I’m telling you: small town charm. I’m not at all opposed to the idea of slowing down the pace of my life.

Read the rest of this entry »

This Friday and Saturday, Pullman WA is the place to be if you want to see great local music. Yes, that Pullman. We already introduced you to the reason for all this great music, the  Birds on a Wire Festival, but now we also have the festivals full schedule.

Who else will be making the drive east for Birds on a Wire?

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

Sera Cahoone ::: Photo by Abbey Simmons

“Pullman you say? A music destination you say??? Pffft…” Yes, I know you’re trying not to laugh. But Pullman resident, ardent Inland-Northwest music supporter, and the man behind Stereopathic Music Larson Hicks is gunning to make it exactly that. Looking at the lineup he’s confirmed for a weekend in late March for the 1st Annual Birds on a Wire Folk Festival, he looks to be on just the right track. Happening March 26th and 27th and taking place on three stages within walking distance of each other on Pullman’s main street, the festival is an outgrowth of a series of Birds on a Wire shows Hicks did last year with some success, which itself was an product of his need for his underserved area to realize it’s musical potential.

Hicks is not a corporation like Live Nation, just a guy with a dream to make his town as fun as it can be, and on the leading edge of a localism movement that is now even reaching the music business. Small local music festivals used to be cute getaways to take in some folk talent or something specialized like that. Now in many smaller markets it makes sense can put on a music festival that attracts current and in-demand talent. In our area: Birds on a Wire, Doe Bay Fest, Pickathon, Wintergrass (bluegrass and folk). There were a host of other Oregon festivals that many of the biggest local artists made a point of attending in 2009. I don’t doubt by the end of the year the size of that list of festival names will be doubled.

The lineup for Birds on a Wire looks like this so far:

Justin Townes Earle
Damien Jurado
Joe Pug
Rocky Votolato
Horse Feathers
Sera Cahoone
Frontier Ruckus
The Maldives
The Moondoggies
Cataldo
Laura Gibson
Al James (Dolorean)
Super XX Man
Goldfinch
Karli Fairbanks
Pablo Trucker
Mike Kelly
Hueco
Samuel Dickison
Tony Kevin Jr.
Low-Fi
more announced soon…

‘Current’ and ‘Northwest’ are two words that come quickly to mind when looking at this bill, and Hicks says he’s not done announcing national level touring acts yet.

Advanced tickets available via the birdsonawirefest.com site, and are $35, $25 for large groups. Day-of tickets are $45 at the door. Volunteering will get you an even better deal I’d expect. Since Hicks doesn’t a hefty amount of resources to put on this festival, he’s looking to make it happen smoothly and in a cost neutral way with local sponsors and a group of volunteers. He needs everything from sound and stage nerds to assist with shows, to people who are able to ferry bands from the airport day-of. It’s a great opportunity to be involved with a festival that is just getting off the ground.

Facebook: Birds on a Wire Festival on Facebook

Dave Bazan performs “Bad Diary Days” - 1/08/10 in a Seattle Living Room

These are the songs, bands, and sounds that I’ve started off my 2010 with. Lots of new bands I’d never listened to before 2010, many who I think we’ll be sharing much of the year with. Take a listen and maybe, just maybe, you’ll  find your first favorite new band, album or song of the new year! Thanks for starting 2010 with Sound on the Sound, we’re looking forward to sharing another great year of local music with you.

Sharon Van Etten - Because I Was In Love and “Love More“
Drew Grow & the Pastors’ Wives - “Colder by the Minute” and “Friendly Fires”
Kelli Schaefer - “Gone In Love”
The Ironclads - “Emily” (download here)
Zoe Muth and the Lost High Rollers - s/t debut
Sallie Ford & The Sound Outside - Myspace Demos and any YouTube I can find
Moon Duo - “Stumbling 22nd St.” (from Noah’s Daily Choice)
Whalebones - every new song on myspace and their Morning Man EP from 2007
Vic Chesnutt - “I Flirted With You All My Life”
Ravenna Woods - Demons and Lakes
Salmon Thrasher - Myspace Demos
Emperor X - The Blythe Archives
Pedro The Lion - “Bad Diary Days” (see a Sound on the Sound video above from 1/08/10)
Goldfinch - s/t
Phantogram - Eyelid Movies (out on Barsuk February 9th)
Fences - “Sadie-” from GIVE Seattle
The Moondoggies - “Side of the Road” from GIVE Seattle
Beach House - Teen Dream
The Maldives - “Go Back to Virginia” (new Maldives tune)