John Darnielle’s struggles with his faith may be the motivation behind his latest Mountain Goats album, but if previous shows are any indication, I expect a high level of devotion from his fans tonight at the Showbox. Whether the topic is fevered dreams or conversations with belief, the shows tend to be populated by legions of fans, getting sweatily pumped by the shared intensity of the moment. However, the real reason for this post is to encourage you to show up early enough to catch Owen Pallett, who, when he’s not arranging Arcade Fire string sections or Richard Kelly soundtracks, records and performs as Final Fantasy. Although his loop-happy violin covers of Joanna Newsom and Bloc Party may catapulted him to blogfame, his original material is also strong, creative, and engaging. Performances are typically solo, although sometimes a friend comes along to provide live overhead projector animations. I promise that this all sounds a whole lot more precious and treacly than it really is. $20, doors at 8. [showbox]

For someone who doesn’t watch much TV–and it’s mostly sports or Spongebob when I do-I’ve sure managed to get introduced to a lot of great musicians from watching it. Case in point – Nashville native singer/songwriter Landon Pigg whose sweet, understated “Falling in Love at a Coffee Shop” was featured in a DeBeers commercial. Diamonds don’t interest me much but the song made a big impression on me, introducing me to Pigg’s music. TV’s been good to Landon Pigg–as a child he sang commercial jingles with his siblings and his first appearance in the national spotlight came after one of his songs was featured on “Grey’s Anatomy”. Another of his songs was featured on an episode of “One Tree Hill”. Since then, Pigg has focused on developing his fan base the good, old-fashioned way by releasing albums and touring, although he did take a break from the road to appear as Ellen Page’s love interest in Whip It.

Landon Pigg is back on the road now and will be bringing his poetic pop to Neumos on Monday, November 9, where he will be appearing with Among the Oak and Ash who have brilliantly reworked traditional Appalachian folk songs for a modern audience, and Seattle-born, LA-raised singer-songwriter Alison Sudol who blends alt-folk with creative pop as A Fine Frenzy.

Doors are at 7, all ages with ID. Tickets are $18 in advance via TicketsWest

dirty projectors at neumo’s

The last time Dirty Projectors were in town I felt horrible about missing them, both because parts of their new record, Bitte Orca nearly caused me to trip over myself while listening to it on my morning commute and also because it was clear that the size of the venues they’d be visiting would only get bigger and bigger. Luckily, they saw fit to pay another visit to Seattle this year, upsizing from Chop Suey to the still intimate Neumo’s, which felt especially cozy with the swampy warmth of packed wall-to-not-so-well-ventillated-wall and hanging-over-the-balcony with adoring onlookers.

And for good reason, for all the astoundingness of their recorded material, seeing Dave Longstreth and crew onstage performing is all the more jaw-dropping. Moment by moment, line by line, and note by note, the songs feel like a tenuous and delicate exploration of the limits of what makes a song and how a story can be told musically. The songs tremble and glow, flit and dive around the surface of an idea, rise and fall into big surrendery swells, and challenge the ambitious listeners seeking to take their physical response beyond clapping head bobbing to full on dancing. Despite this rather academic-seeming descriptions, the music remains brainy without becoming coldly cerebral; in fact, with the swirling rhythmic eddies, each member beginning in their own apparent orbit, and eventually coalescing, it feels like future soul, forward-looking yet with a full heart to match its sophistication. From an opening solo performance, to stripped down duets, but especially with the talents of the full group on display, each melodic episode was its own kind of thrilling. While Longstreth is the clear engineer of the operation, he wisely leaves plenty of room for vocalists Amber Coffman, Angel Deeradorean, and Haley Dekle to shine. Until seeing them in person, it somehow never occurred to me that the all of interlocking vocals could exist organically, but the syncopated showstopper brought down the house with the multipart, perfectly coordinated, rollicking vocal gymnastics. It was so amazing that the encore-concluding “Knotty Pine” was hardly necessary, but highly appreciated.

Photographer Michael Lavine’s got a new book called Grunge, featuring an essay by Sonic Youth’s Thurston Moore and a whole bunch of excellent photographs of the Seattle music scene from the 80s and 90s, many of which are fresh even to those of us who were around at the time and all of which are stunning documentation of a significant art and cultural movement that continues to reverberate even today.

Lavine will be signing copies of his book on Friday, November 13, down at Olympia’s Orca Books (509 East 4th Ave), and also on Saturday, November 14 at Easy Street in West Seattle (4559 California Ave SW).

Additionally, the book is being celebrated at book release party Friday, November 13 at Neumo’s with musical accompaniment by Brothers of the Sonic Cloth, a band featuring members of Tad and Unnatural Helpers and the legendary Mudhoney. Doors are at 8pm; tickets are a mere $12 in advance and since this show’s likely to be full early, you’re definitely going to want to get them in advance.

Unless, of course, you’re the lucky winner of the pair of tickets Seattle Metblogs has to give away. If you and a guest would like to attend this show–and, believe me, you want to–send us an e-mail with your name and contact info at seattle.metblogs@gmail.com no later than Wednesday, November 11 at noon. Sorry minors, you must be 21 or older to attend this show.

You can check out images from the book on Lavine’s website. After you’re done looking at the Grunge images, I highly recommend checking out his “Real People” portfolio.

Sin Fang Bous, photo by Sindri Mar

Sindri Mar Sigfussion is the founding member of Icelandic pop-folk group Seabear. Feeling a desire to diversify his musical output a bit, he shortened his name to Sin Fang Bous and released an album of experimental pop that draws from a broad range of influences that’s earned a number of critical raves. He’s playing tonight at the Showbox along with fellow Icelanders Mum, touring to support their own well-regarded album. Show time is 8:00 pm.

For a preview of tonight’s show, click here

U2 is going on tour in the summer of 2010, news that excites many a U2 fan around the globe. If you happen to be a U2 fan who lives in Seattle, you’ll be glad to know that they plan to come here, playing a show at Qwest Field on June 20, 2010.

the most serene republic, photo by josh (me)

The Most Serene Republic, who played a heck of a show opening for Grand Archives last week (a bunch of my photos are on backbeatseattle), had a pretty bad time after their performance in Vancouver.

Following a show at the Biltmore, they had an ample amount of gear stolen. It’s always sad when good people have their stuff taken from them, but if you had seen the way that lead singer / lead trombonist gleefully danced around the stage with that horn of his, you’d know that the sting of theft was all the more bitter. If you happen to see a bunch of gear (acoustic & electric guitars, Jiggs Whigham 2102L King Trombone, pedals, and flight cases) showing up at near the border pawn shops, please get in touch with Arts & Crafts to bring the lawbreakers to justice and the equipment back to the band’s loving embrace. (full list of stolen gear and contact info after the jump)

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Eddie Vedder during Pearl Jam’s sold out Key Arena show last night

Wow what a show. Not only does Pearl Jam still have what it takes to kill it at a huge venue like Key Arena, but they can do it for over 2 hours. Above all it was just a good old rock show. No fancy screens or effects, just some nice stage lighting and Pearl Jam doing what they do best. The songs were a nice mix of old and new, along with a couple from their newest album, “Backspacer”. (Speaking of “Backspacer”, if you have Rock Band you can download the entire album to play in the game as of today.) As of this morning there were still some tickets left for tonight’s show. If you are still thinking about going though you should act fast!

Here is the full set list from last night. Sounds like people are split 50/50 about what the set is going to look like tonight. I’m guessing they change it up and play a lot of older/obscure stuff along with the songs from the new album.

Set List: Long Road, Corduroy, Gonna See My Friend, Got Some, Hail Hail, Amongst The Waves, Daughter, Even Flow, Johnny Guitar, Unthought Known, World Wide Suicide, Small Town, Off He Goes, Down, Save You, The Fixer, Life Wasted

1st encore: Just Breathe w/the Octava String Quartet, The End w/ the Octava String Quartet, Inside Job, Rearviewmirror

2nd encore: Given To Fly, Do The Evolution, Better Man, The Real Me (Townshend) w/ the Syncopated Taint Horn Quartet, Indifference, Alive

For many many more pictures I took at this show, keep reading after the jump… (more…)

girl talk at the showbox; photo by me; more in the photoset [flickr]

Girl Talk is one of those acts that reminds you how fortunate it is to be in a place with a floor built on a bed of springs. Mere minutes after Greg Gillis ran onto the stage, made a round of front-row high-fives, scaled his table, and settled into his spot behind a card table decked out with plastic-wrapped laptops (“2 laptops and a pair of giant studio monitors are the new 2 turntables and a microphone.” [@asa]), the sold out crowd was putting the structure to the test. A track or two in, and the empty stage began to be filled by a not entirely unreasonable cross section of Seattleites — a low key programmer type for every two neon spectacled party kids — and a duo of jerseyed leaf blower operators who sent toilet paper, confetti, and the occasional inflatable into the house.
Really, though, the onstage spectacle of dancers, a sweaty disrobing (not a) DJ hardly stopping his bouncing while hammering away at the mix, and retro projected graphics, hardly mattered. The stacks of samples, cutting across decades of popular and obscure culture, colliding into each other, being mixed into new mental connections, and made fresh in an on-the-fly live experience made nonstop dancing entirely more compelling than people-watching. I’m sure that someone with a better ear and mind for cataloging will come up with a brainbending setlist; my favorite moments of recognitions were for classic Nirvana, Kelly Clarkson, Journey, the usual set-ending Elton John, and some new (disc of the summer) Phoenix making it into the mix. After something like an hour and a half, the show ended promptly. In the moment, stopping before midnight seemed too soon, until you realized that maybe if it went on forever people would die of dehydrated exhaustion, making the leaving while wanting more just about perfect.

get up kids playing the roseland for musicfest nw. photo by me; more in the photoset [flickr]

Last weekend Portland (a.k.a., the new Ballard) turned over some of its finest clubs to host Musicfest Northwest, a sort of (I imagine) South by Southwesty citywide parade of excellent shows. Over the four days, it seemed like just about every important touring band converged on the town to torment fans with difficult decisions about how to best make use of their wristbands and to balance strategic decisions about lining up early versus seeking out taco stands and worlds of books. To an infrequent visitor, this collection of packed nighttime performances and small daytime performances in basements or former funeral homes only enhanced the perception that Portland is a sprawly city with a bit of magic in the air. Schoolbuses with confused drivers shuttled between clubs, a costumed wrestling match took place on our hotel’s covered courtyard, the per capita concentration of plaid and heavyframed glasses were so far above the national average it’s hardly even worth trying to quantify, entire villages of food carts have come to occupy stray parking lots, and sometimes people say “the evil swoosh” out loud.

Of course, the shows were great, too. Explosions in the Sky make melancholy sound heroic like nobody’s business; Frightened Rabbit make continual heartbreak seem like not such a poor life choice; Arctic Monkeys kept the dance floor rolling while seeming incredibly tired of being young and famous; Mount Eerie are wrapping sprightly nature poems in harsh metals; the Local Natives provided an excellent reason to get out of bed before ten; Pink Mountaintops were pleasantly less psychadelic than advertised; and the Get Up Kids had me screaming with Napster-era nostalgia during certain parts of their set. Also notable was a KEXP–Caffe Vita co-production at the Woods, a venue carved out of a former funeral home. The Lonely Forest, Langhorne Slim, Fences, John Vanderslice, Bobby Bare Jr., Black Whales, and others played tiny sets in the parlor as the perfect soundtrack taking it easy on a Saturday afternoon. Keep an eye on their blog [caffevita] for performance footage. All in all, the festival was a wonderful reason to visit our neighbor to the south to be reminded that there are cities even more relaxed than Seattle.