Saturday, April 19, 2008


Seattle – The Greatest Place On Earth
 

Everybody loves the city they’re from.  Everybody thinks that they place they were born, or spent their formative years in is the greatest place on Earth (this of course expelling the Midwest, sans Chicago, and most of Texas).  Argue as much you want with anyone, but home is almost always where the heart is.  I’m here to set you all straight though, I don’t care where your from, New York, Chicago, Duluth (I feel sorry for you fellows and ladies), Paris or London – there’s only one city in the world, and that city is Seattle.  Oh now, now, stop with your scoffing.  Sure, we’re a bunch of passive-aggressive neo-hippies in the Emerald City.  Yes, we have nasty traffic, and overabundance of hipsters.  True, we harbor the Evil Empire in vast amounts.  But, c’mon when it really comes down to it, one thing is true:  Seattle, best fucking music scene in the entire world, one hundred percent unbeatable. I’m consistently astounded by the amount of music constantly happening in this great city of mine.  It doesn’t matter what you’re looking for on any given night, hip-hop, country, indie-pop, dream-pop, pop-pop, big acts, small acts, local acts, touring acts – Seattle has it all, every single night, and I’m not kidding.  Check my bank account, look at the steady decrease in funds over the last year as I’ve dedicated myself to full immersion in the Seattle music scene.  I literally had to have my girlfriend hide my credit card ‘cause I just kept buying tickets.   Why?  Because our scene is that good. We’ve got Sub Pop, Barsuk, Suicide Squeeze, K Records, and that’s just the upper crust.  We’ve got Abandoned Love, we’ve got Light In The Attic (sweet, sweet Light In The Attic), we’ve got Fuji Records and that’s not even breaking the surface.  You want hip-hop?  Try Massline, try Sportin’ Life, try Conception – it doesn’t matter what kind of music you love, we, have, it, all. I’d go in to grunge and Nirvana, and all the old shit that got this ball rolling in the first place, but you’ve heard it before, and frankly I’m a little tired of the past.  The present, the future, in Seattle and this whole Northwestern area is bright as the sun, and I want you to know what’s coming from us.  What’s rushing down the pipe that in three years you’ll be streaming from Pitchfork.  This is the future of music happening right now in this city and the surrounding area and if you’re not in the know you better turn in your cool card, ‘cause you’re certainly not. Excuse me for my fevered ramblings, I love this city and I love the music coming out of it, and I hope the five songs I’m about to give to you reflect even a fraction of that love. Here we go:

:Kickball - Fight:  Alright, fine, Kickball isn’t from Seattle, they’re from Olympia (a city with a music scene that deserves a post all its own), but nonetheless, they’re rad and somewhere up above I mentioned the entire NW Washington scene, so haters step off.   I’ll be honest, I wouldn’t have ever listened to Kickball if not for the hilarious title of their first album, ABCDEFGHIJKickball.  Lucky for me, I had to know what they sounded like, so I got a hold of copy of their new album, Everything Is A Miracle, Nothing Is A Miracle, Everything and was completely blown away.  It sounds a little like a scrappier Menomena, mixed with a darker early-Modest Mouse, and a hint of whiney hipster.  This track, Fight is a little more poppy than the rest of the album but highlights lead singer Jacob Wilson’s outstanding holler.  This band plays in basements, but not for long.

:Wallpaper - Pop Rocket:  Shit, these guys are from Auburn, but that’s pretty close to Seattle and I promise that this is the last track you’ll read about in this post not actually from Seattle.  In the spirit of full disclosure I heard about these guys from a friend who actually works with the band, but I promise they succeed without any persuasion.   This track is sort of ragged 60s bee-bop throwback with allusions to dreams about Elvis.  I get the feeling that these three gentlemen aren’t exactly completely with it, but it lends to the sort of falling-apart at the seams desperateness of the track.   They’ve got a five song EP coming out, er, sometime.

:Thee Emergency - 2069 Space Time:  Dita Vox, lead singer of Thee Emergency is about as hot a lead singer as one can imagine.  Her alone would sell me on Thee Emergency.  She’s got pipes for days plus a stunning array of rock star moves, and well she isn’t exactly hard on the eyes either.  Lucky for us, the rest of Thee Emergency are a group of talented musicians who bang hard-edged 70s rock and roll like they’ve been suckled on it since day one.   Flair pants, huge, HUGE bell bottoms, mock stage names – these guys have a lot going for them.  Their new album SOLID drops soon.

:Wild Orchid Children - Birth Of A Cabin:  Abbey Simmons of the wonderful Sound On The Sound music blog has literally been feeding me new local music as of late, and Wild Orchid Children is the band that’s most surprised me.  You can’t put your finger on this sound, I promise you I’ve been trying for the last twenty minutes.  It’s crazy music.  Like primitive punk-rock mixed with “Sabotage”-era Beastie Boys and then injected with crack.  Yes, crack cocaine has certainly played a part in the creation of this song.  They’re on Bombs Over Bellevue with Seattle-favorites Kay Kay and His Weathered Underground, and released their Elephant EP in December.

:The Cops - Islands:  This is my favorite live performance in Seattle.  Beat driven punk-rock that’ll have you confused as shit whether or not to bang your head or shake your ass.  I prefer, no matter how awkward I look, to do both.  I think it’s affecting my spinal alignment.  Thanks a lot Cops, my back is all fucked up and I still can’t stop thinking about your bouncy bass beats and hard rocking power chords.   Free Electricity, their second album, came out last year on Mt. Fuji and was easily on the top ten list for the whole year.

- Noah Sanders -



Unless otherwise expressly stated, all text in this blog and any related pages, including the blog's archives, is licensed by John Laird under a Creative Commons License.