Sure, Death Cab for Cutie as the opening act at Key Arena for last night’s Seeds of Compassion event was a “surprise”. But what apparently upstaged both their appearance and the Dalai Lama’s speech was headliner Dave Matthews’s inter-song musings on marine zoology:

between his songs, he spoke frankly with the audience on random topics such as tortoise matings. [times]

awesome tilt-shift fiew of capitol hill by by e rose [flickr] via our group pool [#]

• Um, What’s this? Baghdad Jim brought to Baghdad on Saddam’s dime? This will have no effect on McDermott’s re-election campaign, will it? [seattlest]
• And the headline winner is . . . “rogue whalers plead guilty” [pi]
• If this Zidane poster doesn’t make you want to buy or renew you NWFF membership, I don’t know what will. [hotsplice]
• Another day, another goddamn pillow fight. If we’re not there yet, the day when these go from spontaneous and charming to downright annoying is drawing near. [belltowner]
• Another day, another tournament. Of music! Slats FTW? [lineout]
• High priced hops threaten the survival of northwest brewers. Fuck! Drink up mateys! [myballard]
• Death Cab fan prefers acoustic renditions. That is, another hint of things to come on Narrow Stairs. Download away! [todiebyyourside, via vulture]
• As much as I liked seeing YACHT and Vampire Weekend last night, I am now a bit sad(er) that I missed Bon Iver. Also: I’d been mentally mis-pronouncing “Bon Iver” for months. [monitormix]
• Sad that you missed Vampire Weekend last night? And/or want to relive it again and again? This is why you <heart> the internet (and/or, more specifically ace taper Brian Connolly). [iamserio.us]

this sickeningly great photo of dodgeball at hipster gym class in cal anderson park was taken by m. v. jantzen [flickr] via our group pool [#]

• The only person in Seattle surprised that Charles Muedede doesn’t like Vampire Weekend. [northwestmusicblog]
• Death Cab for Cutie have a new long song. [seattlest]
• Mark your calendars, the return of the Gong Show is imminent. [slog]
• Friends of Seattle make plans for the future of transit. [seatrans]
• Redwood, the place for poetry-writing peanut-loving basketball fans. [hillku]

I bet you’ve heard this already, but: Sasquatch has released the 2008 lineup.

R.E.M. / The Cure / The Flaming Lips U.F.O. Show / Death Cab For Cutie / Modest Mouse / M.I.A. / Flight Of The Conchords / Rodrigo Y Gabriela / Michael Franti & Spearhead / The Breeders / Built To Spill / The Hives / Tegan & Sara / The Presidents / Ghostland Observatory / Ozomatli / The New Pornographers / Blue Scholars / The National / The Kooks / Stephen Malkmus & The Jicks / Cold War Kids / Beirut / Rogue Wave / Okkervil River / Fleet Foxes / Kinski / Mates of State / Crudo (featuring Mike Patton & Dan The Automator) / Sera Cahoone / Battles / Destroyer / Dyme Def / The Blakes / Pela / Jamie Lidell / The Cops / Dengue Fever / Siberian / Say Hi / White Rabbits / David Bazan / The Little Ones / “Awesome” / Dead Confederate / The Heavenly States / 65daysofstatic / Grand Archives / Vince Mira with the Roy Kay Trio / Joshua Morrison / Throw Me The Statue / J. Tillman / Thao Nguyen with the Get Down Stay Down / The Cave Singers / Matt Costa / The Shaky Hands

Which…wow. They’ve expanded to three days this year. The schedule hasn’t been broken down into days yet, but I bet dollars to doughnuts that it’s going to be nearly impossible to pick just one day to go. It might almost be worth camping at the Gorge, and I don’t even like camping under the best of conditions.

Bumbershoot, are you paying attention? You have a lot to live up to this year.

Tickets: “All Tickets are General Admission. The first allotment of tickets are $55.50 (plus $1 charity) per day, available for the on-sale weekend only. Beginning Monday, March 10th tickets are $65.50 (plus $1 charity) per day. The week of the festival (beginning Monday, May 19th) tickets are $75.50 per day if still available.”

photo by andrea [flickr] a newish contributor to our group pool [#]. take some pictures. join the fun.

• In a shocking turn of events [mb] Paste (no really, it’s up to you) Magazine has decided that maybe Seattle’s music scene is actually irrelevant after all. [bigblog, everywhere except paste’s site]
• Maybe Death Cab for Cutie isn’t snubbing Seattle on their spring tour. Then again, maybe they count “Sasquatch” as Seattle, which is actually further from here than Bremerton. [reverb]
• La blogothèque comes to Seattle, takes the Bainbridge ferry with Throw Me the Statue, shoots some (as usual) beautiful concert videos. [blogotheque]
• Holy scoop! Victrola soon to be under new Whidbey management. [seattlest]

AGENDORAMA: tonnes of great shows this weekend. Probably most notably is the Mountain Goats at Neumo’s. That one’s bound to be a regular sweat lodge of dudes singing along and getting in touch with their deepest hidden sentimentality. But maybe still worth it! [neumos] There’s also the semi-annual Great Lineup in a Weird Venue of BOAT, Menomena, and Blitzen Trapper who play tonight on campus at the University of Washington to celebrate the fifth [!!] birthday of RainyDawg Radio. (As a onetime campus technology funding bureaucrat, the half-decade survival of that student-run station fills me with pride and makes me feel old. Nicely done, big dreamers!) [UW]
What else are you up to, dearests?

photo by e rose [flickr] via our group pool [#]

• RapidRide buses aren’t going to be very pretty. [seatrans]
• Rate your date. [bigblog]
• Start the countdown, new DCFC drops in May. [p’fork]
• The I-D gets a new gate in honor of Chinese New Year. [seattledailyphoto]
• The first rule of Amazon in-house shows is don’t blog about Amazon in-house shows. [slog]
• Rejected neighborhood mottos. [dailyweekly ]
• Monkey Puzzle tree leaves Ballard for the Arboretum. [myballard]

After seeing the official Coachella lineup this afternoon with its mix of exciting and confusing headliners in giant type — Portishead, the (reunited) Verve, Roger Waters playing Dark Side of the Moon in its entirety, Kraftwerk, Death Cab for Cutie, My Morning Jacket, and Jack Johnson (who knew he was popular enough for the closing spot on the mainstage?), Love and Rockets — plus a huge list of very compelling bands in small type I started looking at flights to LA. Happily, I noticed that Virgin America will be bringing its fleet of swank perk-filled [dashes] airplanes to Seattle for several lowish-cost west coast flights starting this spring. Excellent timing! The low-hassle, high-convenience options are almost tempting enough to momentarily break free of my usual frequent flyer bondage.

Now that you’ve seen the poster [myspace], have you started plotting a trip to Indio in April?

• Two years ago, the titans of McSweeney’s empire teamed up with indie rock superstars at Bumbershoot for the Revenge of the Bookeaters tour. Sarah Vowell read a story about the history of the “Battle Hymn of the Republic” and Death Cab for Cutie provided musical accompaniment in the form of the Transatlantic Orchestra. Dave Eggers pretended to be an Irish Setter. Mike Doughty convened all of the performers for a cover of “Hungry Like the Wolf”. [mb] The audience at McCaw swooned and emptied their pocketbooks. Last year, John Hodgman hosted a battle between words and music, in which words wiped the table with music but then the two teams got together and sang the worst song that Colin Meloy ever wrote. [mb]

• This time around, the annual fundraiser for 826 Seattle ditches the hubub of Seattle Center on Labor Day weekend and the expansive opera house for the more intimate setting of Town Hall. For the pleasure of supporting the nonprofit writing center, you will pay somewhere between thirty-five and a hundred dollars and will be treated to comedy, reading, singing, and a silent auction. There will be no face-off between the music and the writing. Hosted by John Roderick, they will join forces and may even congeal, invite surprise guests to the stage, and form something entirely new and youtubeable. Tickets available at the door.

(more [flickr])

I’m still sorting through photos from last night’s incredible Broken Social Scene show at the Moore. For now, here’s a picture of Ben Gibbard, who joined a stage full of guests (including Andrew Kenny of American Analog Set) for the singalong “encore” of “When It Begins”.

[updated]

(more photos [flickr])

Heading into the theater early without having done much in the way of trolling the band’s website as research, I wasn’t sure what to expect from the “plays Kevin Drew” version of Broken Social Scene. As Sally Seltmann (a.k.a. New Buffalo) played a solo set, swapping between keyboard, guitar, and pre-programmed rhythm sections, the house began to fill with mostly well-behaved quiet crowd.

Everyone stayed in their seats during the break, with a small rush to fill the space in the front once Broken Social Scene filtered onto the stage. My curiosity about whether they would play any old songs was quickly answered they threw “Cause = Time” into an opening run of Spirit If… highlights “Lucky Ones”, “Fucked Up Kid”, and “TBTF”.

With the female members of the collective tied up with other touring obligations, the band was in guys-only configuration, calling in Andrew Kenny from American Analog Set and James Shaw from Metric as backup. Thus, no “Anthems for a Seventeen Year Old Girl”, a limited horn section, and a whole lot of roaring guitars accented by high kicks and rockstar leaps from Brendan Canning. At the center, Kevin Drew was bundled in his Half Nelson hoodie and showing off some sparkly new Adidas trainers. Fighting off a cold with cups of tea, he was in good spirits and even braved quite a few of the high parts.

Although Drew kept making jokes about playing in such a large venue (”1,2,3,4, why the fuck are we playing the Moore”), longing to have us all crowded into the Crocodile, and asking each one of us to agree to clap, sing, scream, etc. to clap for three, the place seemed pretty full to me. The superfans were more charming than annoying, and by the time they got around to playing “Lovers Spit” [yt] there might as well have been a giant disco ball spinning above the room of captivated fans dreaming of how it might be possible to use the song as a first dance at their wedding without offending the grandparents in the room.

Throughout, I was impressed at how well the songs, which can work for me as anything from background or walking to work music, came alive on stage. The set both seemed to last forever and came to an end earlier than I’d hoped. The fast version of “Major Label Debut” drove people to dance wild and raggedly and instead of wasting time slipping offstage and waiting for applause to demand their return. The band just stayed, introducing their last song as an encore. A small lamp was plugged in and guests were called from offstage. We all learned our parts and sang along. Band members reached into the audience to say good night and the evening was over a little before eleven, leaving teenage girls in the audience a few minutes to rush outside for the chance to get a closer look at Ben Gibbard.

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

• Tailgating in seattle sucks, apparently the worst in NFL country. (but what about the Husky Stadium?) [bigblog]
• Death Cab might be planning a plan to record a follow up to Plans. [p’fork]
• Regina Hackett thinks that you should skip the Stranger’s Genius Awards party in favor of a Motel. [arttogo]
• holy maths! google does Roman numeral calculations. [iheartteriyaki]