Last Saturday KEXP hosted an eclectic line-up of local bands at the Sunset for their monthly Audioasis benefit. In a completely guitar-less night, three great genre crossing artists took the stage: the confessional piano pop of People Eating People, the dangerous rock swagger of Blood Red Dancers, and the conscious hip hop of D. Black. As bizarre as the bill might have seemed to some, I was delighted. Such genre-crossing bills expose audience members to artists they might not otherwise hear of and only serve to highlight the diverse riches of the local music scene. These are a few of my favorite photos from the evening.
2009 saw a huge increase in sites collaborating with bands to do all kinds of video and audio sessions. I suspect we’ll be delving into that shortly as well. These were the ones that in my mind floated above the rest this year.
The Thermals ::: Photo by Josh Lovseth, originally for Stereogum
The Thermals have been good to Seattle this year, and we’ve been good back, and it’s not even over yet. Straight from working in the studio with Chris Walla (who’s name seems to be coming up everywhere lately), the tireless threesome is making a weekend of it up here, first headlining KEXP’s Yule Benefit at Neumos on Saturday, and then on Sunday staying out late with the all-agers at the Vera Project. Both bills feature some of Portland’s other best growing talent in the Builders and the Butchers, Dirty Mittens, and Explode into Colors.
Neumos and 90.3 KEXP present:
KEXP YULE BENEFIT (All Proceeds go to KEXP Programming) Saturday December 12th at Neumos
The Thermals
The Cave Singers
The Builders and the Butchers
Grand Hallway
21+, 8PM Doors, $20 adv at Tickets West
Sunday December 13 at the Vera Project
The Thermals
Explode Into Colors
Dirty Mittens
All-Ages, 7:30 PM, $16 adv. at TICKETWEB ($15 w. club card)
You bet these shows will sell out so, in the immortal words of the Sugarhill Gang (and more recently Sir Mix-Alot): Jump on it!
This Wednesday, the city of Seattle, in the form of the Seattle City of Music initiative led by the Office of Film + Music will be taking an evening to honor some of our town’s most notable musical forces. “Who deserves recognition?” you’re probably asking…
Honors will be presented in three categories:
* Quincy Jones will receive the SEATTLE CITY OF MUSIC Outstanding Achievement Award. This is the premier award of the event. Mr. Jones is being honored for a lifetime of accomplishments that have helped put Seattle on the map as SEATTLE CITY OF MUSIC.
* Fleet Foxes will receive the SEATTLE CITY OF MUSIC Breakthrough Award, which honors an artist for overwhelming success in the past year.
* KEXP will receive the SEATTLE CITY OF MUSIC Impact Award for service related to music that has made the community a better place.
Since this is a musical event happening at the Showbox at the Market, of course a few bands will be entertaining. Not the bands that have won the awards (sorry folks, no free Fleet Foxes show here) but rather bands chosen by the honorees. And those honorees have very good taste in tunes, because they’ve chosen a couple of Seattle’s best in the form of Pearly Gate Music and the Maldives. A special big band will be paying tribute to the expansive career of Quincy Jones, who will be delivering video thank you to the crowd.
The event is free, but you must RSVP beforehand. Full details on the evening and how you can RSVP can be had by clicking the invite/image above.
* This event also still needs volunteers to help work the main door, will call, and to help run the floor. They are looking for volunteers who are available from 6:00 to 11:00pm on Wednesday. If you’re interested, send an email filmandmusicoffice@seattle.gov with a brief bio. *
Great news from KEXP today. This Halloween the station will debut its brand new Metal show “Seek and Destroy” hosted by none other than Hannah Levin. The show will debut at midnight on the blackest of Eves, because that’s about as metal as you can get.
The show is a welcome addition to KEXP’s programming and the local metal and larger music scene. Plus in my mind KEXP couldn’t have chosen a better suited host than Hannah Levin, who not only is a metal conniseur, but a tireless supporter of local heavy acts. I can’t wait to hear what Hannah spins first. Congrats and an enthuthiastic throwing of horns to KEXP, Hannah, and local metal fans.
Phosphorescent, who released one of my favorite albums of the year already To Willie, was dicking about in Sea-town a few months back, and cruised old KEXP to lay down a pretty amazing session of his haunting, oft-times country-tinged tracks. Well, those good folk, KEXP, deigned it fit to drop these videos on us, the lucky folk of the Phos-lovin’ world, and we good folk, Sound on the Sound, decided in turn to share with you also good folk.
When it comes to Willie Nelson and Phosphorescent, there is always a lot of kind folk.
Capitol Hill took the title this year for most donors in KEXP’s Hood to Hood Challenge this year so they get a day packed with many of Seattle’s best acts and KEXP DJ’s dj-ing in coffee shops, record stores and a few other places as well. Cafe Vita will be hosting live performances throughout the day including from the Moondoggies, the Black Kids and the Maldives.
Full details of all the good stuff happening at KEXP.org.
Last Saturday’s Audioasis benefit was a good time, in large part due to the efforts of opening band The Beats, Man, the newly-active laptop-based project of former Pleasureboaters Erik Baldwin and Tim Cady. Energetic, goofy, and engaging are all words I’d use to reference the performance of their funky blend of electronics, hip-hop punk and the occasional slow jam. I can’t find an mp3 of them hanging around anywhere, so you’ll just have to head on over to myspace to listen to “Freedomtown” and “Beats Mand of Horses,” and then choose from the bevy of dates they have listed that are happening in Seattle over the next month. Unless you’ve got something against loosening up and having a little fun that is.
Once again KEXP is taking their multimedia loving ways on the road again to SXSW this year and once again they’ve done themselves one better by agreeing to broadcast all the performances on the ME channel as well as on KEXP.org itself, throughout SXSW. Taking place in the ME Television Studios in Austin, as always this year’s performances are open to the public, but unlike previous years, this year there is no need to RSVP. Find the complete details of all the fun at KEXP.org.
Here’s the schedule, and Friday is filled with heavyweights:
KEXP SXSW - LIVE BROADCAST SCHEDULE
Wednesday, March 18th (Austin Time)
11:30am BLK JKS
1:30pm Alela Diane
3:30pm Pete & the Pirates
5:30pm Wild Yaks
7:30pm The Features
Thursday, March 19th (Austin Time)
11:30am Elliott Brood
1:30pm The Love Language
3:30pm Akron/Family
5:30pm First Communion Afterparty
7:15pm Gomez
Friday, March 20th (Austin Time)
11:30am Razorlight
1:30pm Andrew Bird
3:30pm Peter Bjorn and John
5:30pm PJ Harvey & John Parish
7:30pm M. Ward
Hopefully you’re not all voted out for the year because starting now you can lend your vote to a couple of locally based best-of polls for album of the year.
KEXP’s Top 90.3 Albums of 2008 voting is now open. You get ten unordered choices. Choose wisely!
While the KEXP list is for all albums, local, national and international, the Three Imaginary Girls poll that went live today is just for Best Northwest Releases of 2008. You get five ordered choices on this one. They’ve even provided a handy cheat sheet of bands that have released albums this year. I’m very interested to see what this poll comes up with.
Stereogum has already had it’s own bloggy poll for their Gummy Awards and Fleet Foxes won album of the year. The band has also been top five in numerous other publication editors’ polls. I wonder if this will this be repeated in these peoples choice polls? Methinks yes.
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