handsome furs // crocodile cafe // 20 september 2007
(more pictures [flickr]

After all of yesterday’s teeth gnashing and agony over choosing from the stunning array of shows, I ended up going with Handsome Furs [myspace] (the only one of the list that I technically hadn’t seen live). I definitely didn’t regret my decision. The Crocodile was well attended, but not too full — a near-perfect level of attendance with enough people to feel like a good crowd but not so many as to be crushed from wall to wall under the black lights and paper mache. Coming off a night in Portland where denizens of the “indie wonderland” deserted them for the Swedish charms of Peter Bjorn and John, Dan Boeckner seemed especially appreciative for the full house and warm reception in Seattle.

Joined by his “awesome wife” (their marriage has already survived the “for worse” in the form of a honeymoon in Fargo) who worked a table of knobs, pedals, and other electronics, Dan occasionally inserted cliff’s notes summary about his motivations for writing certain songs. Given that the typical Handsome Furs lyric tends toward the opaque, these explanations were much more illuminating than when, for instance, Eddie Argos announces the content of every translucent Art Brut song before playing it. Some tidbits for the fans deciphering at home: “Hearts of Iron”, about when your parents get divorced and dad thinks it’s fun to eat breakfast for dinner. The city in “Handsome Furs Hate This City”? Toronto. O.K., maybe you could have guessed that “Dead + Rural” is about growing up in a shitty town in the Pacific Northwest.

The pair sounded great, working through most (if not all) of Plague Park and causing my heart to feel unexpected vibrations. (Pseudo-literally — I think they’ve perfected the harmonics of the sternum. That, or maybe, it was just standing really close to the speaker.) While there were a few people having near-religious experiences prompting stage-yelling, high-five requests, and beer deliveries (Dan: “I don’t know if you’ve heard of this American beer called Pabst Blue Ribbon, but it is delicious.” / Fan: “It’s no Molson!”. Ah, currency and beer parity humor all wrapped into one.).

By the close of the evening, they’d brought up members of Johnny and the Moon for saxophone and drum duties (Dante DeCaro stayed in the audience, enjoying the show from the front and inadvertently silently causing me to feel like a bit of a jerk for getting there too late to see his band.), wife and drum-machine master Alexei Perry was shoeless and occasionally on the floor, and the big finale was “Sing, Captain” threw many in the audience into fits of ecstacy. With no songs left there was no encore, just plenty of time to go out and get drunk.

Which brings me to the reason that this write-up was more digressive and fragmenty than usual. No, not because I took Dan’s advice and over-indulged in the back bar. It’s because after the show I was sitting with friends in the bar and talking about how much we love the Crocodile for the back bar, where members of bands can usually be spotted having drinks and interacting with fans amongst the red booths, tree-trunk tables, flying sheep, and gutted faux-reptiles. This conversation led to a mention of an article in the Seattle Weekly about the club’s financial troubles that has left me feeling really nervous and borderline panicky all day. I hate to do this to you on a Friday afternoon, but you might as well read it, too:

… if the Crocodile’s initial prominence can be attributed to serendipity, it is now facing a perfect storm of challenges … the number of small and midsized venues in more rock-friendly neighborhoods looking to book the same type of bands as the Croc has grown exponentially. And to top it off, [Crocodile Cafe owner Stephanie] Dorgan and [R.E.M. guitarist Peter] Buck parted ways–their split became official last February–in turn divorcing the venue from one of its key financial backers.

The couple’s divorce file gives a glimpse into the financial woes of a club that couldn’t make it on its own any more. Dorgan, Buck and their twin daughters, now 13, were doing well on his income through R.E.M. They had three homes: one in Seattle, another in Walla Walla, and a third in Kauai. The club wasn’t necessary to maintain their lifestyle–a good thing, because it wasn’t making money… [seattleweekly]

The rest of the article isn’t all gloom-and-doom although it includes some odd quotes from a former bar manager, complaints from the esteemed Eddie Spaghetti about the superiority of the amenities at Neumo’s, and an oblique reference to the Stranger’s well-receieved gong show (”a freak-fest featuring a guy who stuffed 14 quarters up his nose”). There’s enough hope in the article that I’m not completely overrun with worry, as Dorgan is quoted as saying that it’s a labor of love that she’s plans to keep improving and co-booker Eli Anderson reports that attendance is up over the last year. Nevertheless, it couldn’t hurt if everyone made an extra effort to drop by more often. Aside from the place being a cultural institution and having a great bar, there are few clubs in the country that sound as good. If they went out of business, the tears would not be of the crocodile variety.

• At the Grand Illusion, they’re showing The Power, a 1984 film about a trio of friends out to destroy an evil Aztec relic and the charming Hula Girls, last seen at SIFF, a film about a small Japanese mining town transforming itself into a Hawaiian-themed resort in the swinging sixties.
• The SIFF summer program wraps up with a final viewing of The Earrings of Madame De… and kicks off their fall programming with My Brother’s Wedding, a restored print of Charles Burnett’s 1983 film about a man in South Central LA trying to find his place in life while working at his parents’ dry cleaning business.
• Northwest Film Forum presents The Devil Came on Horseback, a stirring documentary of the atrocities in Darfur. On a much lighter note, they’re also screening the classic film musical The Sound of Music.
• Central Cinema is showing French filmmaker Luc Besson’s District 13, an action film notable for its extensive use of parkour [wiki].
• The Egyptian is screening well-received space program documentary In the Shadow of the Moon in the evening and at midnight presents horror anthology Trapped Ashes.
• Major studio releases opening this weekend are Into the Wild, directed by Sean Penn, Viggo Mortenson’s turn as a Russian gangster in London in Eastern Promises, the bound to be awful Across the Universe and the set in Iraq thriller In the Valley of Elah.

Has my unhealthy level of obsession with getting dim sum in the north end finally paid off? Could this dream be coming true? Yesterday, while clearly working hard on what I like to call ‘research’ for my job, I discovered Eating Seattle [#], a blog about all things food and Seattle. Pretty good deal to me, given that I’m a big fan of food, Seattle and the two in comibination. As you can see, should you click the link, the first article #] says that the author had seen a sign for Mee Sum Pastry, coming soon in a window on 45th and the Ave.

How good is this? I remember, as a seven year old girl, saving my pennies (and here you know I was a foodie in the making) so that I could afford what was then about a $1.07 ( I think they are now $2.25) baked hum bao. These things are like heaven wrapped in bread. For those who have never been, the current Mee Sum is located in the Pike Place Market, on the east side of the street, next to the Juice Plant. In addition to their specialty, many varieties of baked and steamed baos, they also have decent potstickers, the creamiest crab rangoons (unsure if that is a plus) and various other types of Chinese baked goods.

Were it not for the phone call asking me to bike home faster as my man was locked out of my house, I was going to bike by and check out the space, as Eating Seattle doesn’t specify if it looks like it will just be a take out counter a la the market location, or if it looks like they might have seating, or (god forbid) in the future, a possible true dim sum service.

Either way, given my knowledge of their baked goods and the eating habits of college kids (cheap, hot, bread filled with meat) I can’t imagine this place failing if they keep up their excellent quality and keep down their excellent prices. Especially if they take a hint from other cheap foods on the Ave (Aladdin’s, I’m talking to you) and stay open late. What drunk college boy would not stop on the way home for $0.50 potstickers?

photo by daniel reed martin [flickr] via our group pool [#]

• On the non-recyclability of Starbucks cups. [starbucksgossip]
• On the superiority of Portland’s bicycle signage. [dailyscore]
• On the antagonism between pizza and music, and the futility of expecting quiet from a place called Sonic Boom. [capitolhillseattle]
• On Fashion Week’s hatred for minors. [threadcount]

From Cosmic Variance comes proof that UW is way hipper than I thought:

Religion and Conflict in Battlestar Galactica [#]

Coordinator: Charles Richter

This focus group will explore the many complicated relations between religion and conflict in modern times and throughout history, using the current television program “Battlestar Galactica” as an entry point. The contrasting theologies of the humans and Cylons, their mutually exclusive destinies, and the many moral and ethical issues raised provide us with an accessible point from which to delve into real problems. Some of the topics include: religion in government, suicide terrorism, monotheism vs. polytheism, and bio-ethical dilemmas.

We will view a selected episode every week and discuss the themes presented in accompanying readings. No prior knowledge of “Battlestar Galactica” is required, but we will be watching episodes from various points in the series. If you haven’t seen the show at all, watching the miniseries premiere before the quarter starts would be a good idea in order to get some of the basic premises.

I don’t have the words to describe how awesome this is. Do Cylons bleed purple?

This is the sort of near-autumn Thursday that either makes the music fan delight in the plentiful bounty ahead of him, or sit in the corner twitching in agony and occasionally banging his head against the wall at the thought of choosing between the embarrassment of riches playing near-simultaneously:

• I listen to Wolf Parade and the back-to-back “Dear Sons and Daughters of Holy Ghosts” and “I’ll Believe in Anything” on Apologies to the Queen Mary left me pretty confident that I’m a Spencer guy. This was reenforced even more with Sunset Rubdown’s Shut Up I Am Dreaming. Then Dan Boeckner’s side project, Handsome Furs, went and released Plague Park and I have to reconsider everything I thought I knew about my songwriter affections. I will probably have to settle for loving them both equally. Also on the bill: Johnny and the Moon, a side project of current Wolf Parader and former member of Make Up the Breakdown-era Hot Hot Heat Dante DeCaro, that could further upset my nonexistent ranking system. [crocodile]
• I’ve seen Peter Bjorn and John a couple times this year and am not surprised that they proved unstoppable [spbj]. They are endearing performers [mb] and I don’t care how many commercials or teen drama soundtracks their songs show up in — Writer’s Block generally and “Objects of My Affection” specifically will always have a place in my heart. (they’re also selling records while you eat pizza and drink beer or juice tonight at Sonic Boom’s General Store. Cute overload. [lineout]) With the Clientele, Marisa Nadler [showbox]
• A second night of epic, slowcore, indie from Low [tripledoor]
• Wayne Coyne gets friends from opening bands to dress up in furry costumes. He passes laser pointers out to the audience for spectacular visual effects. He descends from the sky in a floating plastic ball and rolls above the crowds on the Indio Polo Field. He douses himself with blood while wearing a white suit. He sings songs about death and Japanese girls trained to save us from evil robots. By the end of a Flaming Lips show you just want to hug all the strangers in the room and gain just a little bit of hope that the world just might not be going completely to hell in a handbasket. Yes, the Flaming Lips are in town tonight, too. [paramount]
• The Decibel Festival kicks off with Diplo, Switch, and Simian Mobile Disco. [neumos]

If you hadn’t guessed, I fall in to the twitching-in-the-corner school of decisionmaking and my skull is already starting to ache from all of the knocking against the wall and cursing the town’s promoters for not thinking to maybe have booked at least one of these shows on Friday or Saturday or even Sunday.

Los Angeles may be the heart of movie production, but as far as audiences go, you’d be hard-pressed to find a more enthusiastic, intelligent group of filmgoers than the people of Seattle. Our enthusiasm is rewarded in a number of ways, including the selection of Seattle as a home for a wide range of film festivals. One of these is the Independent South Asian Film Festival organized by Tasveer.

2007 marks the fourth year of the ISAFF, a five-day celebration of indie film by and about South Asians that is meant to build community both in Seattle and throughout South Asia. Films include a look at the present state of women’s rights in Afghanistan, interfaith dialogue in Pakistan, and many other varied stories. The festival is sponsored this year by Seattle’s Department of Neighborhoods and will take place from October 3rd through October 7th. The festival is free, but voluntary donations are welcomed.

A lot of bloggers [here and here and here] have written about this zip code/obesity article that came out in last week in The P.I, including our own D.W. According to Adam Drewnowski, director of the UW Center for Obesity Research, your zip code can increase your chances of becoming obese–obvious fodder for a lot of opinion hungry, narcissistic writers. (I include myself in that bunch.) But of all who’ve written on the topic, nothing compares to the column written by one of The Seattle Times’ columnists:

Obesity Requires a Wider View

Tee Hee.

The author?

Jerry Large

Tee hee. Tee hee.

I’m evil. Eeevil.

photo by stormyafternoon [flickr] via our group pool [#]

The grey chill of the past two days is a perfect accompaniment to Low’s [#] slow moody harmonies, as was the glass of wine that I sipped whilst being lulled into contemplativeness. I usually prefer peppy, jump up and down music rather than what my dinner companion called “stoner rock” but last night was a happy exception. Perched up in the fishbowl, I disagreed with him but couldn’t come up with a better label. The Triple Door says Red House Painters [skm] and they were dead on.

The trio (Alan Sparhawk, vocals and guitar, Mimi Parker, vocals and drums, Matt Livingston, bass with occasional organ) hail from Minnesota – birth place of one of my favorite bands ever. [Which makes me wonder, did the Seattle grunge phenomenon steal the spotlight away from a burgeoning 90s Minnesota music scene?] And although there were a few moments where they seemed vocally just a teensy bit off, for the overwhelming majority of the evening, they were great with vocals that were soothingly ethereal. Songs varied between simple beats and more lively twangy guitar numbers and the audience, which was full of long time fans, was surprisingly lively. No dancing, of course, I mean, it is Seattle afterall and the Triple Door, but shouts of “Yeaahhh!” and enthusiastic clapping were abundant.

The delicious sounds paired with the delicious warm molasses cake made for a very fine evening indeed. Catch them tonight for their second show at the Triple Door mainstage with Sir Richard Bishop, whom I missed. [tripledoor]

Doors @ 8PM
$15 adv / $18 day of

not a Netherland Dwarf, just a bunny

Man, this week is like Christmas if you like stories about people committing strange crimes, which I of course do [#]. Someone stole a prizewinning Netherland Dwarf rabbit from the Puyallup Fair on Saturday. Its name is RJ, and it’s owned by a 13-year-old from Vancouver [PI].

Witnesses saw a man leaving the bunny barn with an orange rabbit under his arm, and the plastic tie holding the cage shut had been cut. It’s the first theft from the fair in 20 years, and if you see RJ he can be recognized by his name tattooed in his left ear.

Poor bunny. What I really want to know, though, is why the man picked that bunny. I was at the fair on Sunday and while all of the bunnies were adorable and soft, they all looked pretty much the same. Was RJ’s cage near the end of a row, facilitating an easy getaway? Did the rabbit speak to the man? What sort of person steals a rabbit from a 13-year-old 4H kid? I hope he gets caught just so we can find out.