From the "duh, obvsies" file: you're not going to want to miss Father John Misty this Monday night at Neumos.

On the heels of a killer Letterman performance {above} and rave reviews for the new album, Fear Fun, FJM is in the middle of taking their show on the road. They'll be stopping in our fair city with the third show of the tour, which extends for much of the rest of the month and covers Canada, the northeast and a few stops down south -- and if you're lucky enough, they'll be stopping somewhere near you.

In case you have been living under a rock haven't heard about Fear Fun yet, here's a few snippets to start your landscape: first, our full album review, where Chris Estey describes the sound as "...a lot of reading Beats and bards and bohemian travel writers; writing reams of visions and observations and humiliating admissions; listening to a whole lot of great albums from the later Vietnam era created by PTSD-shaken troubadours; perfervidly working on demos with producer/singwriter comrade Jonathan Wilson, and bringing on board Phil Ek to help mix it. Also: treehouse living with spiders, Canadian Shamans who share a little too much intoxicant, Adderall and weed otherwise, a lot of funerals, fumbling drinks, and novels needing to be written as one lives life like a "You take your chances here, pal" roller coaster."

And our initial report, after my first sighting of "Hollywood Forever Cemetary Sings," and a trip around the soundscape of the leaked version of FF: "...over the last few days we've been wrapping our ears around the internet leak of the new album by Father John Misty, nee Josh / "J." Tillman {formerly of the Fleet Foxes}. Fear Fun will be out in early May on Sub Pop, and it's going to be one we pick up on vinyl in triplicate for sure: it's an incredible departure from anything we've ever heard J./osh Tillman involved in thus far, and a few of our first listens, it almost feel like a sampler of everything he's been waiting to play for the world, and everything we've been waiting to hear but didn't know we needed. Fear Fun is some kind of mad genius that we can't quite find the right adjectives for yet, as we're still waist-deep in absorbing both the lyrical content and sonic experimentation of it all: pure, clear vocals laden over with seventies-esque easy-listening key-change sensibilities and a side of jangly guitar twang, fused together with a full-frontal balls-out sound that takes time to digest and process. This album is smart, complicated, soothing yet uncomfortable, brash yet kind -- it doesn't sound like anything else we know, which leaves us with the overall feeling that Father John Misty just might be the Brian Wilson of the post indie rock set."

more...

at Chop Suey

Loney, Dear is the solo project of Swedish musician Emil Svanängen. The last time I saw him play was in 2009, he was accompanied on stage by four other musicians on various instruments. At that time, he was also signed to Sub Pop records. Things have changed a bit in the past few years: fast forward to 2012 and Svanängen has released his sixth full length record Hall Music, and for the most part is taking the stage as a solo act. Although the last several Loney Dear albums have not strayed far from his familiar path in terms of sound, he has managed to craft records that are remarkably consistent in both sound and quality. 

For an artist that’s been around as long as Loney, Dear has, Chop Suey was surprisingly only about half full this past Saturday night. That could (in part) be attributed to the fact that Seattleites also had the option of seeing either indie faves of Montreal or Nada Surf on the same night, so it may have just been unfortunate timing. For those who attended, they were certainly glad they did. Only an accordion player joined Svanängen on stage, providing background vocals on several songs, which was a nice addition to some of the songs on Hall Music that were not present on the recorded version. The biggest difference between Loney, Dear now and the Loney, Dear of the past is the set up: in 2009 Svanängen was joined on stage by four other musicians, allowing him to focus mainly on both his guitar and his fantastic vocal contributions. This show was mostly just Svanängen with his shoes off, an acoustic guitar, and a number of pedals. Given the almost-one-man-band setting, he did find ways to make his sound layered and much fuller-sounding than you’d expect. For most of the songs he used a pedal to loop his sounds, and add layers upon layers until he had what sounded like a full band. Often he would start with a guitar riff, then add a bass line, then move over to a small drum kit and add some cymbal and drum rhythms to the mix, seamlessly building it into a fantastic crescendo before gently taking all the layers away one by one. In addition to being quite a treat for the ears, it’s also a fascinating thing to watch.

more...

It's with bittersweet hearts that we welcome you to the last {new release} Tuesday in our presentation of More Than Shapes: The House Show Songs series. We're taking our exit music here a bit a gracefully, quiet but by no means is it any less of a bang, with a gorgeous rendition of "Mimi" from the spot in front of the fireplace.

John Roderick's ability to paint imagery throughout his songscape is at times unparalleled, matched only by the journey we take in our minds as he builds and broadens the path for us. As Adam {Pranica} so aptly states, you can almost see the cold, bright scenery going by through the car window. As such, beauty and danger juxtapose on that road, in the soundtracks behind our eyes and in the recesses of our hearts, and between the lines of most of John's work:

"When I visited Alaska in January, I knew one of the things I had to do was drive the Seward Highway. It was one of the most beautiful drives I've ever taken, and in the dead of winter the Turnagain Arm, which runs alongside it, is filled with hypnotically slow-moving glacial ice. In addition to its beauty, the Seward Highway is also one of the most dangerous roads in the country - a combination of frequent avalanches, arctic storms, and narrow curves at freeway speed mean it is often dotted with makeshift graves.

more...

It's Tuesday, and that means another new release from More Than Shapes: The House Show songs. This time, it's one of my personal favorite moments from the night: John's incredibly compelling cover of Neutral Milk Hotel's "The King of Carrot Flowers, pt. 1". As Adam states, "...in the wrong hands a cover song can be a crutch, or an awkward homage, or a flashy attempt at credibility by co-opting someone else's. In the right situation though, a thoughtfully chosen cover song signals the turning point in a set like few other things can. It's a chance for a performer to say "this is what inspires me" without actually saying it." One could argue that in the realm of discussions on the topic that truer words had never before been spoken.

Many try their hand at the perfect cover, and few succeed. However, with those tries come a chance at brilliance: results like Eef Barzelay's ever-slaying choices come to mind, most notably his rendition of "Don't Stop Believin'" heard on his most recent trip through Seattle this past holiday season; or Nada Surf's delivery of "Enjoy the Silence" from the stage of the Tractor a few weeks ago, or the Postal Service's mindbendingly beautiful version of "Against All Odds". However, on this particular evening, with this particular group of folks, and this particular artist choosing this particular cover -- a magic moment took place that superceded any other cover we could recall to memory with the sufficient force needed to drown it out. This moment, this song, the combination of everything we love about John fused with the brilliance of Jeff Mangum in a crowded Ballard living room -- it was almost more than our collective hand-stamped hearts could take. It may be the shortest song in the series, but it's a contender for leaving the biggest mark.

Give it a listen and see for yourself. And if you haven't seen them already, there's two other releases earlier this month that you can take the time to soak in here and here.

{Special thanks to Laura Musselman for putting this request in the jar at the show!}

It was a great long weekend for sight and sound as we took in some goings-on around Seattle, the most notable of which was the release party for Damien Jurado's Maraqopa this past Friday at the Neptune. Sharing the bill with Gold Leaves and Bryan John Appleby, Jurado and the most recent incarnation of his band sold out our newest favorite venue to an attentive, appreciative crowd. Maraqopa {which is officially out today}, his latest brand of soundscape, is the perfect blend of everything we've come to love about Damien Jurado's work, packaged in a collective series of sounds we've never quite heard from him before. There's a little bit on Maraqopa for everyone: it's part singer-songwriter, part freak-folk, part guitar-shredding psychedelia heaven, and fourteen other different kinds of good. {Read a little more about what we've heard and adore about Maraqopa thus far here.}

Here's a few shots from Friday's show:

Another knock-it-out-of-the-park win this weekend was the screening of Fever Year, the documentary that followed Andrew Bird along for a seemingly insane 180-date tour a few years back. As avid fans, we've seen everything from those early 2000s shows where six fellow attendees stood in rapt appreciation to bursting-at-the-seams capacity nights from this most recent grueling tour {including a sold-out show at the Paramount and a set for a few thousand people at Austin City Limits in 2009} -- and it was an absolute delight to see every facet of Andrew Bird's career represented so brilliantly in this film. Historical flashbacks to his Bowl of Fire days fused together perfectly with recent tour clips and an incredible glimpse of his on-, off- and backstage life, all of which blended together into a gorgeously intimate eighty-minute portrait of the Andrew Bird of today. The mini-doc was warmed up perfectly by the screening of the Fleet Foxes' The Shrine / An Argument, an absolute delight to take in -- both visually on the big screen and as it poured out of the theater's state-of-the-art soundsystem.

more...

We're so happy to share another {new release} Tuesday with you, and this week it just so happens to line up with the day of Saint Valentine -- what better way to celebrate the day of love, longing, and mended / broken hearts than with a new favorite? Whether you're picking up a long-awaited album to give as a gift, to take home and digest, or to use to make a mix for (or in spite of) that special someone, here's something we can all agree on: another new video from the More Than Shapes collection will undoubtedly make your day. This time it's one of our personal favorites from The Worst You Can Do Is Harm, "Scent of Lime" -- a track equally appealing to the happy and the forlorn in all of us.

It's a bit fitting that Valentine's day naysayers "...argue[s] that the speculative explanation of sentimental customs [are] posing as historical fact" when it comes to the love-tinged commercial traditions of February 14th every year. The music of The Long Winters tends to serve as that same formula for many, where one is easily able to insert one's self into the story line to make it their own, regardless of the histories held or factual accounts of the past. Thus, the language of John Roderick is a language that speaks to all of us, much like love itself. Because the plainest words really are the finest. And we're oh-so-happy to be able to share his words with you.

{Be sure to take a peek at last week's introduction to the series, and stay tuned for a new video next Tuesday, February 21st.}

Adam Pranica, filmmaker and principal over at Dorsia Films and true indie rock enthusiast, with the perfect opening line:

"In the winter of 2011, Victoria VanBruinisse came up with a crazy idea to invite John Roderick of The Long Winters over for a potluck dinner. He played a few songs, told some stories, and ate all of the food."

And that's pretty much the long and short of it. When I found out that I was going to be in New York at CMJ for this past year's City Arts Festival, and would subsequently be missing the only performance by the Long Winters for the 2011 calendar year, I almost cried. Not literally, but still. It was a huge disappointment, a sigh to end all sighs, the conundrum that comes from being vested in so many interests and not being able to be everywhere at once. And so I did what any fan would do: I suggested to John that perhaps he might want to play a show in my living room.  I base much of my interactions on the simple methodology of the old adage that it never hurts to ask, because as the lottery tells us, you can't win if you don't play.

Well, we played alright, and we won. All of us, and that's you {yes, you!} included, because we won something big: a beautiful, candle-and-twinkle-light-lit evening with two dozen of our closest friends, where we enjoyed food, comraderie, and a series of brilliantly performed songs by the one and only John Roderick. And because of the genius embedded in Adam Pranica, Tyler Kalberg, and Zach Varnell -- the latter two being names you should recognize from the Notes from Home series -- we get to share the collective product from that near-perfect night with the world.

more...

Well, is it? We sure hope so! Because one of our favorite parts of the holiday party every year is getting to grace the ever-lovable John Roderick's lap with our sweet jingle-bell backends, and getting the whole thing immortalized forever by way of Laura Musselman's brilliant camera skills. So, to get you warmed up for all the joy that awaits your rear this year, here's a few peeks back at the last few years of Indie Santa-ing (including last year's stand-in Santa, John Vanderslice).

2009:

2008:

more...

Pull up those bootstraps, kids, because The National isn't the only game in town that's got a double-decker lineup in Seattle this week. The Cave Singers are about to put on two nights of amazing sound-wall that'll knock you clear off your feet! Here's the deets:

Night One, also known as this coming Thursday, December 1st. The Cave Singers pack the one- in one-two by taking the stage for an all-ages night at the Vera Project {7:30p doors / $16 adv / buy tickets!}, with a stage-warming by none other than our pals The Young Evils -- who may very well be working on putting out one of our favorite local albums of 2012 as we breathe and type. It'll be a great room to catch both bands in with a music-focused, booze-free crowd.

If you're heading to the Neptune (or one of the other fine establishments in town) this Thursday, fret not: Night Two will be going down on Capitol Hill at Neumos on Friday, December 2nd. Sound-wise, it'll be a much darker-tinged night with openers The Builders and the Butchers taking the pre-Cave Singers stage spot, and also worth noting: this show is 21+. {8p doors / $18 adv / buy tickets!}

more...

City Arts Fest is looming, and with it, a Long Winters show at the Showbox this Thursday -- we'll get into that in a minute, but first we've got to take a minute to squee! about what a weekend we had!

We were fortunate enough to attend a house show this Saturday where none other than John Roderick himself came by to play a few hours of music. Talking about needing to pinch our 2003 selves! After a super homestyle vibey potluck dinner, John took the 'stage' in front of the fireplace and graced us with song. Our ears were privy to classics -- in no particular order -- like Car Parts, Cinnamon, Scent of Lime, Unsalted Butter, Medicine Cabinet Pirate, Mimi, Shapes, The Commander Thinks Aloud (and way more that we forgot to write down in our squee-like state), and some killer covers like The King of Carrot Flowers {Neutral Milk Hotel} and Solitary Man {Neil Diamond} among others. So much gorgeous song, coupled with some wonderfully intimate banter, quite literally made for a perfect night. Our friends from Dorsia Films were on hand to capture much of the evening on the A/V front, so hopefully we'll get to relive all that magic someday soon.

While we wait for the official set list, here's a few photos we managed to capture in our uber-elated state:

more...