Results tagged “arcadefire”

Can't Miss It: Monday

Lookit, today is a downright glorious day--way too glorious for the beginning of a workweek. We could encourage you to attend all kinds of events, including scads of SIFF films and at least two shows (the dirty electro of Peaches at the Showbox or ex-members of the Unicorns and Arcade Fire making up Clues at Neumo's). But we won't.

magazine claims, "You can't swing a dead cat this time of year without hitting a Top 10 List." Never one to waste a perfectly good dead cat, we decided to take a swing and create a Top Random-Number Shows Seattlest Saw This Year. And now, without any further ado, here's how your favorite bloggers broke down the year:

Last night's Arcade Fire show was rife with problems. Not with the Arcade Fire, Lord knows they can do no wrong, but with the opening bands, and most of all, with the venue. Somehow, even though the scheduled time for the show was 7:30pm, the time published everywhere---on the Ticketmaster site, in ads for the show, in UW emails, on the goddamn tickets---doors actually opened at 6:30pm and the Gossip started playing right around 7. This would explain why no one was there for their set.

We've always gotten a strong High Fidelity vibe from Pitchfork. Duh, right? The music geek relationship is hardly subtle. But now that Blue Moon booker Jason Josephes is spreading these recordings he made in Minneapolis with Pitchfork founder Ryan Schreiber back in '97 we can't even think of the music moguls at P'fork and not imagine a dank basement with matresses crammed against the walls, a mic hanging from an exposed two by four and John Cusack tapping away at a Casio singing about a naked transexual with nothing but margerine for eyes. You can hear the fat in her thighs...


For once, it was actually nice weather at the Gorge for Sasquatch. Last year was all sturm und drang and the year previous was approximately the temperature of the sun, but the gods smiled down on all gathered in George, Washington yesterday afternoon, as it was a pleasant 80 degrees under partly cloudy skies.

We saw it first in this month's Seattle Sound magazine, but then we misplaced it somewhere, so we grabbed the current Stranger and -- ah, there they are: The stage times for all the performers at this weekend's Sasquatch Festival along with the inevitable, unavoidable conflicts that occur at all festivals. They did a pretty good job of staggering the times, but there are still some "What do we do?!" moments.

We’ve all heard it. Many of us have even said it. A “religious experience.” As in, “Seeing Tool at the Paramount was just amazing – like a religious experience.” It’s different for everyone. For some, it’s all about the environment of the show – the venue, the crowd, maybe the mushrooms you ate about an hour before the lights went down. For others, it’s all about the band. Maybe it’s Tool at the Paramount. Maybe it’s Phish’s 2004 final show in Vermont.

What gives? Are you sick? Depressed? Have no ears? You're a shut-in? You're a lifelong cynic who refuses to believe the hype?

Last year's Sasquatch line up was good, but not good enough to get us to spend three days at the Gorge. We still prefer the festival in its one-day, all-in-one-fell-swoop form, but with the lineup that's been announced for this year's two-day fest, we may just have to make the trip. Out of the two days, it was Saturday that really made us coo. Bjork *and* Arcade Fire? Consider us sold. There are still bands to be announced, but here's how things stand as of right now:

Last night at Neumo's, the 4th annual KEXP Yule Benefit was chockablock with music. We missed out on local band The Hands and showed up mid-set for Annuals, for whom we saw enough of their Arcade Fire-meets-Neutral Milk Hotel-meets Animal Collective sound to know that we need to see them in their entirety whenever they come to town again.

The Decemberists played the Paramount Friday night and it was packed all the way up to the nosebleed section. A friend of ours warned us not to go as he feared they would be playing too much from the new album, The Crane Wife, which he hated and which we are sorry to say we've been too busy lately to have even heard about. We loved their earlier work--elaborate, sad, heavily orchestrated--which seemed to put them in the same pantheon as Neutral Milk Hotel, Sufjan Stevens, and Arcade Fire.

A: A night in Seattle, having some drinks, and listening to live music that doesn't blow ass.

No, it's not that everyone hates them. Everyone who works in public radio knows everyone hates them. We suspect pledge drives resemble democracy -- they're the worst form of public radio fundraising except for all those others that have been tried.

The weeks starts out right when a sucker punch on the field lands Chicagoist in the middle of a Sox/Cubs throwdown and the fists continue to fly in the comments. Despite suburban resident Ms. Pinney's best little try no books will be banned anytime soon and the El is really really gross.

Shanghaiist probably knows a little more about China than the Chicago Sun-Times. Giving them the benefit of the doubt on that one. The city does to have a music scene. Don't even front like they don't. They also have Dorito bananas and white guys shopping for wives. What they don't have is any more tolerance for jaywalkers.

On Monday night, Seattlest arrived at the Showbox like we often do, a half hour early so we could sit in the Green Room, have a beer or two, and watch the under-agers patiently waiting in line outside. Our well planned arrival turned out to be somewhat premature however, as we held court with very few other grown-up types in the cozy little bar hugging the south side of the Showbox. Meanwhile, a growing line of minors in faux-punk fatigues wrapped itself around the building like a python to a rat.

Besides raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens, these were a few of our favorite things, at least in terms of live music during the past year.

After last month's stroking courtesy of the P-I Seattlest expects tonight's blogger meetup in Belltown to be a great one with plenty of first-timers finally making their way down. Besides being a great opportunity to hang out face to face with other local bloggers, there's no telling what kind of mainstream meda types will be in attendance. Is this your chance to say, "It's really more about myself and my friends than who's reading," into a Q13 TV camera?

If you are a fan of the Arcade Fire (and if you don't have a ticket for their Wednesday night show at the Paramount), then you might want to get your indie fix at the Architecture in Helsinki show Thursday night at Neumo's. Both bands have a penchant for wacky instrumentation combined male and female indie-style singing. Plus, their songs are dance-able, which is never a bad scene (unless of course you have seen us dance).

There's a whole bunch of good shows coming up these next few days, so if you didn't get Arcade Fire or Death Cab tickets (both long sold out) and if you're also skipping Wolf Parade's solo set at the Croc (for which you would be both unbelievably short-sighted and incredibly lame), you can spend your evenings at few other events going on around town---

What better way to enjoy Memorial Day weekend than under a cloudless sky with a sweltering sun on the hottest day of the year? Seattlest hates hot weather (we tend to sweat easily and a lot), but we braved Saturday's exxxtreme temps to catch some outstanding music at Sasquatch. When it was all said and done, we had seen eight full acts and pieces of another three; we also managed to successfully avoid sunburn.

Apparently, there is something out there called 'nature.' It has trees and birds and such things. We are a little scared of it. If you, on the other hand, are more intrepid than we are and you also happen to enjoy the indie rock, head over to the Gorge Amphitheater tomorrow to see the Sasquatch Music Festival. As you most likely know, the lineup features the Pixies, Wilco, Modest Mouse, Kanye West, the Dears, Arcade Fire, the Bloc Party and more. The lineup is awesome, but we are a little biased towards ceilings, walls and climate control, but that's just us.

Our friend really loves the Ruby Doe, playing the Sunset Tavern tomorrow night. Our friend's two favorite bands of all time are Helmet and Soundgarden, so if you happen to share his opinion, you might want to stop on by. He also loves chicken wings and nachos, so you might want to grab a bite before the show.

We have been spoiled by the decandent amount of sun recently, so we have decided not to go outside until it stops raining. Since we have a cable modem and free time, we would like to point out some free and legal downloads for your listening pleasure.

The Gang of Four reunion rumors were true: they'll play the second day of 2005's Coachella Festival in Indio, California.

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