Photo by Josh Lovseth

Not the new Eminem.

Beating out The Black Keys, Band of Horses, The Roots and The National … is The Head and The Heart’s self-titled debut. (And that’s only on one day of sales after their Saturday in-store performance.)

We hate to be a blog that says “we were right,” but … remember when we said the band had momentum unlike anything we’d ever seen (from a new local band)? Or a few months back when we introduced you to them by saying you were about to discover your new favorite band? A huge congrats to The Head and the Heart, we think you deserve all this success and more!

In fact, with things moving so swiftly, my best guess is that “self-released” by the band’s name won’t last for long. The only question is: what local label is going to be lucky enough to scoop up The Head and The Heart?

And if you haven’t picked up their new record yet or you are a reader who lives outside of Seattle, you can order it HERE from Sonic Boom.

Photo Gleefully Swiped from Chris Zasche

The Head and The Heart at Sonic Boom Records ::: photo by Josh Lovseth

It was a big weekend for our new favorite up and coming local band, The Head and The Heart. Tracks from the band’s debut album has been getting quality airtime on KEXP, the band played a sold-out show at Conor Byrne where people tried to beg and bribe their way in once it reached capacity, they were added to the Capitol Hill Block Party line-up and they played to an appreciative and growing crowd at Sonic Boom Ballard for an in-store performance … and they still don’t officially have a record out yet.

We’ll have more on their Conor Byrne show soon, but we wanted to share a couple videos from their Sonic Boom In-Store. While lots of folks had come out specifically for The Head and The Heart, it was especially delightful to see people become enchanted as they walked by the store, wandering in off the street and then remaining for the rest of the performance. Before the band’s set was even halfway finished, I spied a Sonic Boom employee heading back to re-up with a comically large stack of the band’s album. And when the band finished their set, the line to pick up their record snaked down an aisle. There’s something special happening with The Head and the Heart right now, they have an instant momentum behind them that I’m not sure I’ve ever seen with a new band … and with songs like “Down in the Valley” and “Winter Song” it comes as no surprise to us.

You can pick up a copy of the band’s self-titled debut record at Sonic Boom Ballard already and at other local record stores tomorrow. And mark your calendar, the band will be playing a Sound on the Sound Presents show at Columbia City Theater on August 6th with Kay Kay and His Weathered Underground.

Flickr: Photos of The Head and The Heart at Sonic Boom Records

Happy Birthday is one of Sub Pop’s newest band’s and it just so happens they are in town and stopping by Sonic Boom Records for a free in-store the same week Sub Pop is celebrating it’s 22nd birthday. The video above is of Happy Birthday doing their song “Subliminal Message” in the latest Insound Studio Session. After watching the whole very nicely done session, my observation is that they’ve managed to turn being fun-loving teenagers into a full-time job long after they’ve aged out of their actual teens. Now people pay to watch them have fun on stage.

But you don’t have to pay a cent to catch Happy Birthday at Sonic Boom Records’ Capitol Hill location where they’ll be doing an in-store set at 3pm on Saturday April 24th.

And while we’re talking about Sub Pop’s and Happy Birthday’s we’d be remiss not to wish the label a very happy 22nd too.

Saturday I visited a number of Seattle’s finer independent record stores to sample the wares and see what was hidden among the stacks. Following a tasty brunch at Bimbos with Douglas, who despite showing up before opening to stand in line didn’t find the one release he was looking for, we headed down to the new Sonic Boom Capitol Hill. The place was packed for a Minus the Bear in-store and among the largely picked-over stock we still found a Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings 7″ and a Fanfarlo 7″, specially released for the annual Record Store Day celebration. A walk just around the corner to a far less crowed Wall of Sound found Douglas’ sought after Male Bonding/Dum Dum Girls 7″ was hidden among the displays on the wall, so I picked it up for him, as well as my sought after Beach House 12″ via Sub Pop.

As expected, when I got home to examine my pull, Sub Pop’s offerings came with digital drop card included, so I could download the record’s tracks and add them to my digital library as well if I wished. Kill Rock Stars who put out a Cribs/Thermals split, also fully equipped their release for the new digital economy. The Fanfarlo 7″ on the other hand, released via Atlantic Records (one of the “big three”), left me with nothing to download. The Built To Spill 7″ via Warner Bros. (also one of the “big three”), also left me disappointed. This surprised me considering new records I’ve bought in the last few months via the Beggars Group and Secretly Canadian have used the inclusion of a download as a selling point. When I had a problem with my download code on my BIG ECHO vinyl, I emailed the Beggars Group tech support (on a Saturday) and had a new code in my inbox within minutes.

I’m no vinyl junkie. The vinyl that I’m buying I know that I’ll value and play. It follows that these are probably some of my favorite records (they are) and that I would want to have my favorite records also available for my digital collection (I do).

The Beggars Group obviously understands that obtaining this digital copy is an important part of the what people now expect when they are buying *new* vinyl, not simply a convenience. The year is 2010 and people largely listen to music on digital devices and via iTunes so it makes sense that this would be part and parcel of the market’s demands. Yet those with the biggest market share and the most resources to be able to meet those demands still drag their feet and deliver a sub-standard product. In an apples to apples comparison, Warner and Atlantic just don’t make the cut.

And we wonder why people are forecasting the demise of the “record industry.”

Overheard at Sonic Boom Records Capitol Hill location in Seattle this afternoon…

A customer (me) hands a clerk at the register a vinyl version of Teen Dream.

Sonic Boom Desk Clerk (while ringing up the album): “This new Beach House album is …”

[He stops and shakes his head in bewilderment.]

“I thought people might like it, but this is unreal. Far and away the biggest selling record of the week.”

—-

Also, Daytrotter did an exquisite session with Beach House that was just posted today.

The xx ::: Photo by Josh Lovseth

Running only a little late, the xx played six or so songs for a positively reverent crowd Friday afternoon. Their in-store performance at Sonic Boom Records in Ballard proved to be just as packed as the band’s later already sold-out engagement at Neumos was slated to be. Shut-out from the night’s drinking-age-only hot ticket brought no small amount of under-agers through the door, and they filled every un-taken space in the store’s many aisles and nooks. And judging on this turnout alone, a measure of the success of their first go-around the states one might say, this trio has genuinely out-hyped nearly every recent virgin ambassador the Isles have sent our way, and then some. I think I can say with very little hyperbole, though their new record has been on the shelves a mere three months, that this London three-piece are riding a wave of momentum that’s starting to reach tsunami proportions. (And we thought Fanfarlo had it good.)

Timing is everything, but making use of your moment in the internet age often means sending young untested bands (such as this) on the road as soon as possible, often while still nascent, and the international rise from obscurity has already been abrupt for these barely twenty-year olds. Earlier this month, following a successful CMJ introducing them to America, they suffered the loss of their second guitarist, an unfortunate occurrence just when a palpable buzz had developed around their quietly romantic boy-girl sound. Now singer Romy Madley Croft is all alone on guitar and both she and bassist/singer Oliver Sim are pitching in on effects where they can fill in.

Drama aside, the steamy dynamic portrayed by Sim and Croft is even more enchanting once one see’s it play out on the stage. Mostly because they aren’t really playing anything out, they’re just singing, and the whole is much more than the sum of it’s parts. All in black, Croft appears adorably shy and awkward, while Sim is possibly just as awkward in his lanky frame and bounty of gold chains. One imagines these songs to be conversations between lovers of deep connection, the tension of their attraction an inescapable cloud over every interaction. Instead they come across as meditations on love by ones still discovering, still unjaded by it’s myriad causes and effects.

The Maldives ::: Photo by Abbey Simmons

If you hadn’t noticed, it’s been a Maldives kind of week at Sound on the Sound… and all over Seattle for that matter.

Tonight, the band is finishing their third night of sold out shows at The Tractor Tavern. Since playing three nights in a row to a packed house isn’t enough, the band snuck in a full set during an  in-store performance this afternoon at Sonic Boom records.  And since seeing the band last night wasn’t enough for us, we went. Here are a couple videos from the afternoon set.

I actually saw music nerds discussing music and pawing over vinyl and stuff. Boxes and boxes of $1 CD’s out front. Not bad CD’s even. I got lost in the listening stations for an hour or so. And as a result I finally picked up the Helio Sequence album. I know. I’m slow on the pickup sometimes.

Aja over at the Weekly checks in with John of the Hands. The Hands are releasing their self titled LP February 19. Their release show, originally scheduled at the Crocodile is now February 29 at Chop Suey with a promise of Whore Hands Redux! I’m there.

Sonic Boom to close Fremont location. The owners say their simply revising their business strategy, and having two stores just a few miles from each other didn’t seem feasible any longer. Still sad because the store seemed to fit in with the funky style of Fremont.

Be in a Lonely H Video! Their shooting in Wallingford in the evening this Sunday and need some bodies. Details here.

For the rabid Ten Clubbers out there: A Matt Cameron side-project, Harrybu McCage, will be at the Showbox on January 26 for a benefit for Central Washington flood victims. Also on the bill are local rockers Surface Tension, Iris I and Windowpane, three Seattle bands who I had yet to hear of until investigating this benefit. That’s what I get for not listening to KISW, or any radio beside KEXP for that matter. Harrybu McCage doesn’t seem to have a myspace page, but if the rest of the bands myspace pages are any indication, it will end up somewhere between prog and pretty heavy rock.

If you’re lucky enough to see a band more than once, you’re bound to see a range in quality of performances.  No band made this more painfully clear in 2007, than long time favorites of mine, Cursive. Both shows were enjoyable spectacles, but for completely different reasons, as you shall see.

February 2007: Tim Kasher with a fresh black eye, an hour, late, fall down drunk, and passed out on the mic at a sober show in a lunchroom at The University of Washington.

May 2007: Tim Kasher, as the world’s most affable front-man, playing an acoustic set at Sonic Boom Records.

I think the shots are equally fitting portraits of Tim… we all have our own Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.