{Allo Darlin' photo by Steve Louie from the Imaginary Flickr Photo Pool - taken at their October, 2010 show at the Rendezvous}

It's barely 2012 and already we have news worthy of a shower of fireworks. Imaginary favorite Allo Darlin' are coming back to town!!!

Three Imaginary Girls is beyond excited to present their all-ages show at the Vera Project on Friday, May 11, 2012 as part of our big 10 year celebration (yes, can you believe it? TIG is turning 10!!!).  Don't delay, tickets go on sale at 10am on Wednesday {1/4/12}!!!

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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!}

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{Brave Irene photo by Caitlin Livingston}

This Saturday (November 5th), shining stars of the indie-twee dreamscape will gather at the Vera Project.  Opening the night is generifus, an Olympia, WA outfit who's new album, I Don't Have To Worry, features Spencer Sult (who handles all primary duties) with Eli Moore, Karl Blau, members of LAKE and others helping out.  As the names of the players suggests, the songs are arid, carefree with moments of both easy-listening joy and innocent melancholy. Best of all, you can easily become obsessed with them thanks to the generifus bandcamp page. Make sure to hear "Good Graces," which channels the whispy, aired meandering of Galaxy 500 that I love so.

Anchoring the show in the middle is Seattle's own crown jewel of Charmin-soft dreamy-pop, Seapony.  Seapony songs are sweet and subtle while filling the air with nostalgic fuzz and reverb... and rumor has it Saturday night's set will feature new songs!  If you still include the Softies in your nighttime prayers, you'll love Seapony.

Speaking of the beloved Softies, guess who's topping off the night!!! (+ even more exclamations implied).

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The Shondes are a quartet of femme-led firebrands who mix personally passionate and politically charged melodic punk with ragingly romantic vocals seasoned by klezmer verve and cosmopolitan bounce. Their urgent, explosive new album Searchlights will probably be available at their upcoming Seattle show at the Vera Project this Saturday, October 1st, as the band plays on a bill with Emily B Kingan, Emily Hart, and Aubrey Zoli. As always at the Vera, it's all ages, and eight bucks (seven with a club card), and guaranteed to be one of the most moving rock shows you'll probably see this season.

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I'll be honest: I had never heard of 14 Iced Bears until I fell in love with the Tullycraft song "Twee" and it's lyric "she grabbed her slumberland guitar case and her 14 iced bears ring" and I realized that "The Balloon Song" on The Aislers Set's The Last Match is actually a 14 Iced Bears cover.

Over the course of their first seven years {1985-1992}, the British indie pop band racked up some notable lines on their CV (John Peel sessions and multiple releases on Sarah Records). They earned their place in the C86 scene with fuzzy melodies with slices of punk and darkness, mixing the Black Tambourine, Jesus & Mary Chain, and Big Star together in a pop-art blender. Later, in 2001, they made a brief return with the Slumberland Records release of a compilation of previously released material and live recordings.

With this history and after ten reclusive years, it makes their visit to Seattle's Vera Project TONIGHT {June 2, 2011} fairly spectacular.

Also notable, we finally get to celebrate Seapony's album release! It will be sweet to hear all the lo-fi-twee-indie-pop songs live in concert.

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For those out of the loop, Tomten is a Seattle band that enchanted the judges this year at the EMP Sound Off! finals. So much so, they aced the "Wild Card" vote and won. (OK, yeah, I was one of those smitten judges, hence the following interview.) They have a sweet nine song debut available at local record shops, and with a lot of shows coming up, you're going to be hearing a lot more of them. They're booked to headline the High Dive this week on Thursday, April 28, then the all-ages Vera on May 13. Both shows are more than worthy of your night-out dollar.

Also coming up is the beloved literary/music event Verse Chapter Verse, this time held at Chop Suey on Saturday, May 28 (7pm). This installment will be with cult science-fiction author China Mieville, who will be interviewed live by The Stranger. Paul Constant, a VCV promoter and fellow Stranger scribe, descibes Tomten as, "...a local up-and-coming rock and roll outfit that calls back to the Rolling Stones and the Zombies while moving forward with a jittery kind of gonzo energy. I think their organ-heavy music will mesh with Mieville's self-described weird fiction in fantastic, science fictional ways."

Below is our hot-fresh interview with singer/songwriter/guitarist/organ grinder Brian Noyeswatkins, initiated when I ran into him at the Elliott Bay Bookstore Cafe as he was planning to quit his job at Value Village and grabbing a coffee. He had a bad cold, but that didn't prevent us from lining up this exchange and bonding over Big Star and other sublime frequenices.

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Today will go down in history as the day my head exploded from late-May calendar excitement. First the amazing Sasquatch line-up was announced, and now, one my favorite bands ever of all everness just announced a North American tour with a Seattle date as their first stop!

I'm sure you, just like me, think about the first time we saw Allo Darlin visit Seattle back in October, 2010 on a weekly basis.  Wasn't that show amazing? One of the best of the year? Aren't your friends {the ones who didn't buy tickets before it sold out} still sad they didn't get to see them?  Yes, yes and YES!

Once tickets are available (I don't think they are for sale yet, plz correct me if I'm wrong), we all need to go get our tickets asap for the all-ages Allo Darlin show at the Vera Project on Tuesday, May 24, 2011. No word yet on who else will be on the bill, but you can be assured that it's going to be FANTASTIC!

For those that might be contemplating taking a couple weeks off in an effort to see as many shows as possible, here's their tour route:

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It's been over a year since the sparkly/fuzzy/jangly imaginary favorite Pains of Being Pure at Heart came through town, and we're just as smitten with them as we were the first time we heard "This Love is Fucking Right".

If you jump over to Pitchfork today, you can check out the new POBPAH single "Heart in Your Heartbreak". As with their last amazing single "Say No to Love", they've dropped the fuzzier bits and moved things a bit more into a super clean classic power-pop meets Brat-pack-soundtrack. The new single will be out in a couple of weeks (hopefully they'll have copies at the show!) and rumor has it a new album will be out on Slumberland next March.

The show is all ages and starts at 7:30, and supporting are recent Slumberland signees Weekend (not to be confused with Seattle's Weekend who are equally impossible to google).

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What we've got going on in town tonight and tomorrow night is nothing short of a one-two punch, SXSW 2010 style. Two of the acts I liked enough to venture out and brave the endless lines for in Austin are both coming through town: Good Old War at El Corazon tonight, and First Aid Kit at the Vera Project tomorrow.

Both shows are guaranteed to raise a smile, both are all-ages, and both have such a wide appeal that you practically can't miss. First Aid Kit, my personal favorite of the two, showcases two talented singer-songwriter gals who sing sweet, contrasting harmonies full of smart lyrics -- think of them as older cousins of Smoosh, with a little more string-based hippie-parenting influence and a bit of a darker take on things.

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{photo credit: the lovely Laura Musselman, courtesy of our imaginary flickr pool}

Now that we're all done with Sasquatch, it's time to set our sights on the next raddest lineup to hit the west coast: it's Noise for the Needy, 2010 edition. There's close to seventy-five bands and djs playing a baker's dozen of venues next weekend, when NFTN takes over every corner of Seattle from June 9th (Thursday) through the 13th (Sunday). Among the notables in big font this year are John Vanderslice, Visqueen, Horse Feathers, Delta Spirit, the Maldives, The Album Leaf, Animals at Night, The Portland Cello Project, and The Redwood Plan -- along with enough supporting acts to make your head spin. Tickets are available at Brown Paper Tickets, or you can just buy a la carte at each show / venue -- although there's some sweet all-access wristband deals being offered if you want to rock it like that.

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