Everybody's favorite local indie band with a thirteen-year-old drummer has got themselves a record deal. As reported by Pitchfork, Mt. St. Helens Vietnam Band has signed to Dead Oceans (home to Bishop Allen, Evangelicals, Bowerbirds, and more). MSHVB will release its currently untitled full-length debut Spring 2009, with Scott Colburn (Arcade Fire, Animal Collective, as well as the MSHVB EP) and the band at the co-producing helm. To celebrate, Mt. St. Helens Vietnam Band will embark on its first full-fledged West Coast tour later this month, kicking things off in Bellingham November 21st, making a stop at Neumo's December 7th, and wrapping up at the Doug Fir in Portland on December 9th. more ›

Ratatat is a dance band. A melodic, guitar-driven, videogame soundtrack dance band, but a dance band all the same. It took a while, but last night at a sweaty sold-out Neumo’s, the New York electro-rockers had asses shaking and all the kids jumping around. On the eve of their third album’s release, multi-instrumentalist Evan Mast and guitarist Mike Stroud (along with some guy and his damn big fro) kicked off their US tour with a smoke machine and tight tracks from new album LP3, along with all the hits from their previous releases. more ›

's status as a cult album. more ›

Love it or hate it, there's no denying the commercial success of Kidz Bop. A big hit with the kids, as well as their parents, the family-friendly Kidz Bop series has sold 10.5 million CDs in the past seven years, no small feat in the dying music industry. And to think, all they're doing is taking pop songs (sometimes current, sometimes retro) and adding incredibly chipper kids' vocals to the mix. more ›

It's easy to be a snarky critic, but really, could Tokyo Police Club have been had been out all of three weeks could afford a reasonably classy (if utterly uninspired) LED stage set. Then they began to play, and we started to wonder what it is about Pitchfork and rest of the indie-rock, SXSW-obsessed crowd that gets their panties in a twist over a band that sounds like they started out aiming for Built to Spill but landed somewhere between Weezer and The Strokes. "Post-punk" is the label most often affixed to these Canadian rockers, which is apparently short-hand for: "They have long, drone-y, bass-heavy interludes between bleeding guitar/keyboard melody explosions, so that we can clearly hear the lead-singer's yearning, garbled singing." It's not that they're not a tight outfit or that they don't manage a few catchy hooks, but what's there to be so excited about over another band churning out an album of single-ready, three-minute pop songs? more ›

Laura Veirs has been writing and performing dreamy folk and pop songs for nearly a decade. She graces Seattle with a solo performance this Friday night at the Triple Door. more ›

That long-awaited EP from Seattle's Fleet Foxes is out, a few months in advance of the new album due June-ish. Sun Giant (Sub Pop) provokes something more than cautious optimism on the part of Pitchfork: "It's a sovereign work: a statement EP, supremely crafted and confident." An 8.7! It's also just $5, mp3 download or CD. more ›