The Maldives at the Blue Moon ::: Photo by Josh Lovseth

It’s fair to say we were tempting fate by trying to sneak The Maldives, one of the biggest bands in Seattle (both literally and figuratively), onto one of the city’s smallest and crustiest rock stages. Don Slack, host of KEXP’s Americana show, Swinging Doors dropped hints on his show heavily. Various other bloggers who were in-the-know made only lightly veiled references to a band that matched the secret headliner’s unmistakable description. Really all anyone really had to do was Google their alias “JD & the Schmidty Boys” and the answer would have been obvious. But we did it anyway. Come what may. And the night couldn’t have gone any better.

Opener People Eating People had her own contingent of super fans, ready to stand up at the very front of the stage and set the tone for the crowd from song one. Nouela Johnston sings as if pulling from a deep well of internal conflict and the sheer force of her emotion, accented by a piano she’s been playing for decades, can leave one feeling just as palpably overwhelmed as she must have been when committing these songs to paper. As soon as Nouela finished her set, a line of impressed audience members snaked to buy her debut CD.

If People Eating People is bold, Zoe Muth & the Lost High Rollers on the other hand, traffics in a more subtle expression of heartbreak and hardship. And the audience was enamored of  every moment, with plenty of appropriate (and some inappropriate) hooting and whistling in appreciation of her long set and her ace accompaniment on mandolin and pedal steel. Zoe took the opportunity to play a full hour and I don’t think a soul left the packed room while it was going on. Since the headliner was a secret, I’d venture to say most of the people who Sound on the Sound didn’t know personally were filling the very packed Blue Moon for Zoe Muth and her Lost High Rollers.

The Maldives didn’t get started until after midnight and, considering they were playing the next night in Portland (and the following night in Bellingham) and it was a set that they weren’t commanding their usual fee for, I fully expected it to be a short and sweet. Instead, they played until 1.45am on the demand of a still healthy crowd at last call.  Not a single solo opportunity was abbreviated or missed. I honestly don’t know if I’ve ever seen that many people in the Blue Moon past 1am. Someone else perfectly described the night as having “a special ‘packed in and we don’t want to leave till the sun comes up’ feeling.” For the night’s show, The Maldives were an eight-piece (sans keyboard) and managed to fit on the stage with just enough room for guitarist Jesse Bonn to get some good follow-through with his Gibson whilst rocking out (though he did knock out lead singer Jason Dodson’s guitar cable mid-song). That these gentlemen decided to shut the bar down, playing our dream Maldives set list with huge smiles on their faces,  when nothing of the sort was expected of them, well, I felt the love. Big time.

In a nutshell, this show set the bar for how we hope all Sound on the Sound Presents… shows can go. That we were able to bring onto a single bill three of Seattle’s most exciting up-and-coming  acts is a privilege and a something we’re continually striving for. We’re blessed to be so appreciated by those same bands we write about and for. We were beyond happy to just find them on our beloved historic Blue Moon stage,  but then the bands all went for broke and held nothing back, like they were headlining a sold-out Showbox.  Surrounded by friends, family and readers, embraced by our community and three of our favorite bands on stage… These moments remind us why we’re doing what we do and how worth all the time and effort we put forth is. I, at least, have got a bounce in my step because of last Friday night, and I suspect it’ll be there for a good while.

Thank you Maldives. Thank you Zoe Muth & The Lost High Rollers. And Thank you Nouela and Brian. I’ve got a feeling 2010 is going to be a big year for all of you. We can’t wait to share it with you and our readers.

People Eating People ::: Photo by Abbey Simmons

Zoe Muth ::: Photo by Josh Lovseth

Country Dave ::: Photo by Abbey Simmons

The Maldives ::: Photo by Abbey Simmons

The Maldives ::: Photo by Josh Lovseth

The Maldives ::: Photo by Josh Lovseth

The Maldives ::: Photo by Abbey Simmons

Flickr: The Maldives, Zoe Muth & The Lost High Rollers, People Eating People at the Blue Moon Tavern, January 15th, 2010

Video: The Maldives, Zoe Muth & The Lost High Rollers, People Eating People at the Blue Moon Tavern, January 15th, 2010

The best part of getting older? For Sound on the Sound it is undoubtedly our Blue Moon birthday shows. For the past three birthdays we’ve been blessed to celebrate the occasion with sold out shows filled with friends, readers, and a few of our favorite bands singing on stage at our favorite dive. And this year, to celebrate Josh and my freakish same birthdays, and the last one before 30, we’ve rounded up a line-up that makes us a little weak in the knees. With the extreme kindness of a few of our favorite folks making music today, we’ve really outdone ourselves with this one.

January 15th at The Blue Moon Tavern - 21 + /5$
People Eating People
Zoe Muth & Her Lost High Rollers
& the pseudo-nymed: JD & The Schmidty Boys

We’ve booked a three band bill filled with headliners. Starting the night will be the bawdy and beautiful  People Eating People, who won us over in about 15 seconds with her clever heart-on-her-sleeve lyrics, fearless vocals, and piano wizardry, instantly becoming one of our favorite acts in Seattle today.  We suspect that Nouela Johnston won’t be Seattle’s little secret for much longer.

If any local artist is going to be covered by other musicians in 50 years, our vote is for the timeless country songs of Zoe Muth. The sweet voiced little darlin’ of Ballard’s vibrant Americana scene is writing tunes that you could easily pass off as standards from another time. Songs rueing the heartbreak of hard working women at the hand of a no good man with equal parts spunk and sadness. If you haven’t been enchanted by Zoe and her Lost High Rollers yet, the rough and tumble setting of the Blue Moon is a perfect place to start your love affair, it’s where we began ours with Zoe.

Last and certainly not least are JD & The Schmidty Boys, who you may (okay you definitely) know by another name. The band can’t use their “birth name” for the show but we can say without hyperbole, they are one of the best bands in Seattle today and that you may never have another chance to see the band in such an intimate setting.  The fact that all three of these wonderful bands have agreed to play for our birthday is the best present we’ll receive all year, no matter what our 29th year and 2010 may hold.

We hope you’ll join us to celebrate our birthday and another great year of local music ahead of us in 2010.  We look forward to sharing it all with you!

Special thanks to Terry Radjaw from Out for Stardom who we commissioned to create the perfect poster for our show — he nailed it.

Zoe Muth and The Lost High Rollers ::: photo by Josh Lovseth

Zoe Muth and her Lost High Rollers have come a ways since we  first got a glimpse of them before the band even had a name, some two and half years gone now. In that time Zoe’s grown into her music and her voice, now belting out her tunes with the presence of a sweet throated church-practiced not-so-southern belle. Not just her voice, but the whole package feels vintage country, Loretta Lynn circa Coal Miner’s Daughter. Given the timeless imagery of lead track from her debut album “You Only Believe Me When You’re Lying,” I don’t doubt people will be covering her songs in 50 years time alongside other the country classics.

As it happens both her confident performance and her new record beguiled us immediately, so much so that we eagerly asked her to play the Sound on the Sound Presents show on January 15th at the Blue Moon. And she accepted! (Do I sound like a giddy teen girl? I’m sorry.)

Not only that, but our latest obsession People Eating People has also agreed to be on the bill!

So just to spell it all out:

Sound on the Sound Presents:
Josh & Abbey’s 3rd Annual BDAY Show
Saturday, January 15th, 2010 at the Blue Moon

A SECRET HEADLINER we can’t mention
Zoe Muth & The Lost High Rollers
People Eating People

21+, 10pm, $5

Oh yeah. I forgot to mention that once again this year we’ve managed convince a really great band to be our secret headliner. Other than to note that we may have outdone ourselves this time, I can say not a word more. As far as we’re concerned it’s one of January’s unmissable shows with just the two bands we can tell you about.

What What Now Singing Along to The Ironclads ::: photo by Abbey Simmons

“Community” can often seems like a cheap cheesy buzzword until you see it in action. One of our favorite things about covering local bands and following them closely is that we get to see it in action all the time. Almost every band has a “buddy band” — another local band that they play with frequently, share practice space with, live with, go on tour with, and support as fervently as they do their own band. At shows they are always in the front row singing along to every song, even the unreleased ones, as if they were their own. It’s love and devotion and friendship in a way that seems almost counter-intuitive to the stereotypes of rock’n'roll and a competitive scene of bands trying to succeed. And personally, seeing such relationships and support is one of my favorite things about being involved in local music.

One such relationship is had between the Ironclads and What What Now. If you’ve been to an Ironclads or What What Now show, you’ve doubtlessly seen members from the other band in the front row dancing and screaming along. These are photos of two such moments and they are definitely two of my favorite photos of the year. They convey the joy we all feel when we see our favorite band and we can lose ourselves in the connection we feel to their music or the people making it.

What What Now is playing a Sound on the Sound sponsored show tonight at the Blue Moon along with The Spinning Whips and Blessed Deep Band. I’d bet you anything you’ll see an Ironclad in the front row screaming or dancing along to What What Now. That’s community.

The Ironclads (and SOTS’s very own Phil) Dancing to What What Now ::: photo by Abbey Simmons

The Ironclads ::: photo by Josh Lovseth

People. The Ironclads are on the verge of a “hiatus.” Jamie will be venturing off into the wonderland that is an “education.” Luckily we’ve made sure he didn’t get to leave before they had one last chance to help us get down at the Blue Moon for our 3rd Birthday show happening this Friday August 21st.

In the short year that we’ve gotten to know this foursome, it seems no matter how difficult the setting that they’ve booked, they succeed. It’s garage rock and the most enjoyable kind, the kind where a decent vocal PA is all that’s really necessary. Loud and crunchy riffs are played with the simple goal to rock as hard as possible. Yet as songs like “Alamagordo” and “Step to the Sea” indicate, they’ve also got a keen sense for a catchy sing-along pop song. Without question, their record The Space Between the Maps is one this blog’s favorite local releases this year.

The Ironclads take the stage at midnight. It is going to be BOSS.

(p.s.) With Marymoor’s 10pm curfew, you can easily make it to scream along with us in the front row at the Blue Moon, after feeling like you were tripping face with Wayne Coyne and crew.

This poster comes to us courtesy of the Ironclads.

We can hardly believe it, but Sound on the Sound is turning 3-years-old this month! Blogs grow up so fast!!

To celebrate our bloggy-birthday we’re treating ourselves, and hopefully you, to a solid local line up at The Blue Moon next Friday August 21st with The Ironclads, Alligators, and Navigator vs.  Navigator.  It’s going to be a night of catchy, quirky tunes and epic scream alongs from three great up and coming local bands.

We’ll have more on the show next week, but wanted to invite you all cordially, with an impromptu photoshopped poster. It really wouldn’t be a celebration without you.

* And our apologies to this toddler, for many reasons, most of all for being the first image that comes up when  you Google “toddler drinking beer.”  *

“World News” by the Local Natives at the Coumbia City Theater ::: Video by Abbey

Thursday night will long be remembered by probably more than one person, and for probably different reasons, as a disaster. Thankfully,  not because the bands we were sponsoring sucked. In fact, the Local Natives set was great, as expected.  And prior to the Local Natives, we were properly introduced to tour-mates the Union Line, whose just-as-polished set hewed to a more modern rock aesthetic and was an unexpected and pleasant surprise. Save the great bands, we mostly got a reality check Thursday though, and realized the limited promotional influence we still have simply as a word-of-mouth promoted blog. (At least when it comes to rousing people on a super sunny week night to get down to Columbia City Theater, that is. )

Before the day even happened the venue hadn’t even got all the bands names right on the online calendar page, and I had a bad feeling. I tried to compensate. We got more active on facebook. I gave the Local Natives show top billing on our front page. I printed out nice color posters that our friend and out-of-work Times employee Katie Miller did for us. I took one morning and postered Pike and Pine, Olive, 15th, all the Capitol Hill hot-spots (don’t forget Bauhaus!). These places (we at least imagine) are where we are going to get the most value for our postering dollar. Mobile and hip web-connected music-types who are always interested in the latest and greatest live music live in that neighborhood, right? At least I thought.

Come show-day we arrive at 9pm to a band (don’t remember which) playing Beck and Smashing Pumpkins covers to a pretty empty room, except for a film crew, with one guy working a mega-long camera arm over the stage. Apparently for nominal $450 fee, you can get filmed and recorded professionally, and thereby get access to the possibility of a well-paying college tour gig. Wishing them luck in that endeavor, and not wanting to interfere with this important event, we decided to talk outside while.

Outside in the lobby, another story unfolded before our eyes. Though it seemed nobody was coming in the front door, a minor had been snuck in a back door by one of the Columbia City Theater booked bands; and the liquor board had suddenly stopped by. So, the door guys had to re-check everyone’s I.D.’s., said minors’ lack of an I.D. was discovered and liquor board had stern words for everyone working the door for a period of about 45 minutes.  A $10,000 fine had been mentioned as a possible penalty. I really felt sorry for those door guys, who after the liquor board left, were then chewed out by the band member (who will forever be known as El Vesto), who most likely snuck the underage girl in. Hopefully the boss wasn’t there. Demoralizing… even for those of us just watching.

Finally come the Union Line’s set time well after 10, on a Thursday, so no surprise, the house was still decidedly empty. While soaking in the sun in the backyard the next day, lead singer Dicky told me that last year The Union Line had been named by a panel of industry as L.A.’s best live act; over some long-time veterans on the scene (heard of Offspring anyone?), and I wasn’t one to argue with that honor in this case. They were incredible.

As the Local Natives began, I realized not a new soul had entered the room since the Union Line started, and in fact some people had left. (I’m talking to you hippie dancer during the Smashing Pumpkins cover band.) The Local Natives’ tight harmonies went off nicely in a well mic-ed theater setting but it was really a shame nobody was around to see it but us. That they’ll be accepted by the masses soon seems blatantly obvious to us, these guys are about to be huge.  Yet it seems this Thursday was another lesson for us from the most obvious chapter in the Promotion Bible: You’ve got to work hard to make people care about your show, and doubly hard for bands who are still trying to build a fan base, no matter how good the band is.

While these bands probably did’t have a fan base at all really outside of L.A., they were great in my mind, and I was hoping the merit of the previews we offered would entice people who cared about such things to come. I’m feeling mistaken about those tactics now, and maybe buying a little more into the idea that people really aren’t interested in seeing things unless they already know they like it. I wasn’t the one to to really lose out though as both band’s thoroughly wowed the 20 or so people who were present, and cemented their rising star status in my mind. To cement the evenings status as completely heinous for the bands, at the end of the night, the last three bands got to share $13 between them. That’s less than a dollar per band member and won’t even begin to get one van packed to the gills with hipsters and instruments back out of Washington State, much less two vans.

Despite the less than ideal experience, the Local Natives said they were going to try to come back in December. (They are going to be so pissed when they learn that Paseo is usually closed in December…on their way back through Seattle after a stop in Vancouver BC, the band told us the best part of their entire tour was a Paseo sandwich and we don’t blame them.) We’re going to be raising our profile a bit on the promotion side, so hopefully by the time they come back around again, we can bring them the crowd they deserve.

The Local Natives ::: Photo by Josh

The Local Natives ::: Photo by Josh

The Union Line ::: Photo by Josh

The Union Line ::: Photo by Josh

Flickr: Sound on the Sound Presents The Local Natives and The Union Line at the Columbia City Theater

Here are the final details for tonight’s show at the Columbia City Theater:

Joshua Smith (8pm)
Autonomous (9pm)
The Union Line (10pm)
The Local Natives (11pm)
The Lonely Mile (12pm)
The Columbia City Theater, 4916 Rainier Avenue S
7:30PM / 21+ / $6 adv / $8 Door

Take a look at this week’s interview with the Kelcey from the Local Natives if you haven’t and listen to the featured mp3 if you need some convincing to come on down. If goosebump harmonies are your thing, this is a can’t miss show.

This week we’re proud to be hosting L.A. band the Local Natives and tour-mates the Union Line at the Columbia City Theater on Thursday night (view the poster and details to the right on the sidebar, or at the bottom of this post). We haven’t felt this strongly about an emerging band in a while. In fact we think they will be happily embraced by the masses and be one of 2009’s breakout acts come fall when their record hopefully sees the light of day. Take just one listen to our featured track for this week below titled “Stranger Things” from the band’s forthcoming LP Gorilla Manor and see if you don’t come to share that sentiment.

Stream: “Stranger Things” by the Local Natives from Gorilla Manor

If that’s not enough convincing to come down Thursday and see this band for yourself, you can then check the band’s recent Daytrotter session for three more superb tracks.

Last Thursday I caught up with vocalist Kelcey of to discuss the new record and the past year for the band, on the day before they were headed out on a west coast tour that’s happening through the rest of April. It was a short but informative phone interview, and one that I would find out later was interrupting Kelcey attending his hometown theme park…

—-

Josh (SOTS): Are you guys shopping Gorilla Manor around right now? Does it have a release date?

Kelcey (Local Natives): So we recorded the record back in September, and finished for the most part. Right now we’re doing some tweaks on it. And basically what we’ve been trying to do is lock down some people to help: a booking agent, managers and stuff. So we can kinda make a plan. And yeah, we’re kind of in the initial stages of shopping it around. We’re actually going to release a single in UK, because we’re getting a lot people that are into it… SXSW was really good to us, getting a lot of interest from the UK. By the end of the week [the shows] were just kind of filled with UK type people, who were just going nuts. NME came out and saw us. And so it’s really cool and we’re really really excited. We just locked down a booking agent over there, and we’re going to go in the summer hopefully, if it permits financially.

So we are shopping around the record, and we’re hoping to release it by late summer, early fall. So that is kind of the tentative release date.

Josh (SOTS): That’s very methodical, and it seems smart to take your time, and make sure that you’ve got all your ducks in a row, so you can make the most of it. Because I think you guys have got something really polished, and at least from the few tracks that you’ve sent me, it seems you’ve got something that has a possibility of appealing to a really wide spectrum of people.

Kelcey (Local Natives): Yeah, we hope that we can get it out to a lot of people. We’ve been writing music for a really long time, and finally we’re at a point where we’re really proud of this stuff, and just can’t wait to show it to anybody and everybody.

Josh (SOTS): Was it done in all live band setting? It sound’s like it was done in a live room or something?

Kelcey (Local Natives): We’ve recorded stuff in the past, and kinda learned that we really wanted to capture the live feel as much as possible. We really try to do a good live show, and try to bring a lot of that into the recording. We did all the drums and bass live, and then the guy that we were recording with just really helped out so much with getting that feel and capturing that feel. So we were really stoked.

Josh (SOTS): Yeah, I thought it really did. I thought something notable about all the tracks that you guys sent over. So who did you do it with?

Read the rest of this entry »