The day-by-day schedule for this year’s Capitol Hill Block Party has been posted and as usual there are conflicts aplenty.

On Friday night do you watch the group that made one of last year’s best local albums, Shabazz Palaces, or do you watch Unnatural Helpers, the group that made one of this year’s best local releases? How do you decide between the heavily buzzed locals Head and the Heart and heavily loved (by me) locals The Redwood Plan on Saturday?  While those two conflicts are definitely not cool, perhaps the most interesting clash will be the beauty of the Dutchess and the Duke up against the fury of Dead Weather on Sunday night. It’ll be interesting to find out whether you’ll be able to hear Kimberly Morrison’s whimsical campfire rock voice over Allison Mosshart’s ferocious, womanly exorcism wails. The full schedule for CHBP 2010 is below.
Continue reading →

The Capitol Hill Block Party announced its lineup last week and it’s looking like you’ll want to be in Capitol Hill July 23-25. Atmosphere is sandwiched between Dead Weather and MGMT as headliners for the three-day festival. A limited number of three-day passes for $60 are on sale now. Single-day passes cost $23 and are on sale Friday. Tickets cost $25 day of show online or $30 cash at the door. Here’s the initial lineup with more acts expected to be announced soon.

Friday:MGMT, Yeasayer, Holy Fuck, Shabazz Palaces, Bear In Heaven, Head Like A Kite, Macklemore, Unnatural Helpers, Jaguar Love, Champagne Champagne, Fences, Chris Pureka, Stay Hi Brothers, The Physics, Fences, Candit, J.Pinder, Hella Dope, Mahjongg, Police Teeth, Naomi Punk, US

Saturday: Atmosphere, Blonde Redhead, !!!, Blitzen Trapper, Mad Rad, Obits, Here We Go Magic, Zola Jesus, Night Marchers, Past Lives, The Redwood Plan, THEESatisfaction, Beach Fossils, Grand Hallway, The Drowning Men, Cold Lake, Air 2 a Bird, Black Breath, Grynch/Spaceman/State of the Artist, Eastern Grip

Sunday: The Dead Weather, Blue Scholars, The Dutchess and the Duke, Harlem, Cynic, Fresh Espresso, Victor Shade, Truckasaurus, Villagers, Flexions, Globes, Steel Tigers of Death

The first day of Capitol Hill Block Party 2009 was about logistics. And music, of course. It day wasn’t as crowded as last year’s first day which made for nice access in and out of venues and stage areas and the new layout worked well. Also, the decision to make Neumos 21 and older made for a tolerable crowd size there too, which was a welcome change from last year’s fest.

I started my weekend festival experience with the retro Stones sound of Hardly Art’s Dutchess and the Duke. Warm, harmonious and very, very pleasant; it was the perfect music at just the right time of day. The only problem I have with D&D is that as beautiful as their music is, a lot of the songs sounded the same and blended into one another. Hopefully this will change on their new record. After D&D I got a tip about a special KEXP stage sponsored by Caffe Vita and the Seattle Times (which you can read about here) so I headed there right away. The stage, which required a special ticket, was in front of hundreds of bags of coffee beans, making it perhaps the most appropriately Seattle stage ever. One of the many surprises of this year’s Block Party for me was Hey Marseilles, the first band I saw at the Bean Room stage. I was 100 percent sold on their music after their quick four-song set of dreamy indie pop.

A band whose music I will be looking into ASAP is Band of Skulls. This UK trio played the best set I saw in the afternoon. It was outright massive and loud rock. But it wasn’t just me who was won over by their unabashed rock asssault. They managed to impress nearly every one of my fellow music jounos who saw them on the Neumos stage. If their album Baby Darling Doll Face Honey is half as good as their live set was it will easily be one of my favorite albums of the year. They took to Neumos opposite of Brode Dalle’s new band Spinnerette. I wasn’t that impressed by Dalle’s group. It was safe, but sexy rock whereas Band of Skulls was heavy and sweaty.

Aside from the sweaty-versus-sexy rock battle, the other rock genre battle of the day was between two garage bands. Seattle’s The Blakes played Neumos at about the same time Atlanta’s Black Lips played the main stage. I caught two songs from each band and the clear winners were The Black Lips mostly because they got people to dance whereas The Blakes crowd was filled with your typical motionless hipster Capitol Hill set.

Sleepy Eyes of Death’s set of psychedelic drone metal felt like it was going to blow the doors off Nuemos. I didn’t watch most of the set because I was socializing with a colleague, but the music in the background was loud and its accompanying light show was intense, providing quite the spectacle even for those who weren’t paying that much attention. Another spectacle, this one of the screamy singer type, was Past Lives. The band featuring former Blood Brothers members tore up the Vera stage. They’re less hardcore than BB but still definitely not for faint ears.

Continue reading →

The best part about Capitol Hill Block Party this year wasn’t the improved stage layout, a trendy new band or the "Vote Bots" walking around in 90-degree heat. The coolest part about this year’s CHBP was a small, tucked away stage back in Caffe Vita’s bean room where lots of great local artsits (and one major headliner) dropped by to play short, intimate sets and talk about music. 

For those who knew about it, the Caffe Vita stage provided a nice escape from the crowd without having to get away from live music while making it feel you were experiencing something special. Hey Marseilles, The Maldives, They Live!, Grynch (who wasn’t a CHBP performer btw) and other local acts dropped by. Aside from providing music, the stage also delivered one of the coolest moments of the Block Party when Sonic Youth was interviewed by Andrew Matson of the Seattle Times. Sure it wasn’t the most probing or informative interview, but it was just cool to be in the same room as Sonic Youth. Here’s some of the bean room action in case you missed it. Hopefully Caffe Vita will host a similar stage next year.

All photos by the talented Brittney Bush Bollay who perfectly captured the first day of Capitol Hill Block Party 2009 through the lens of her camera. Click here to view more of Brittney’s work and there are more photos after the jump too.

As promised earlier, here is my tentative schedule for Capitol Hill Block Party 2009. I say tentative because once I hit the festival grounds all bets are off since set times can run late and I will likely find myself getting caught up in some sets more than I anticipated or I might be discovering my new favorite band. That’s the joy of music festivals. You never know what’s going to happen.

FRIDAY

4:00 Dutchess and the Duke

5:15 Spinnerettes

6:20 The Blakes

6:45 Black Lips

7:45 Sleepy Eyes of Death

8:15 Deerhunter

9:15 Built To Spill

9:45 Born Anchors

10:20 They Live!

SATURDAY

4:00 Girls

4:30 The Pains of Being Pure at Heart

5:15 Akimbo

5:45 Pela

6:30 The Maldives

7:15 The Thermals

7:45 The Lonely Forest

8:45 The Gossip

9:15 Future of the Left

10:15 Sportn Life Showcase

10:45 Sonic Youth

Like every great music festival in Washington (save for the ReverbFEST) the Capitol Hill Block Party mixes local talent with a slew of excellent national acts. Earlier this week I posted 10 local acts (plus one) you must see at Capitol Hill Block Party. Now here are 10 others groups (plus one, of course) that aren’t homegrown but are guaranteed to put on a great show this weekend.

The Thermals (7:15, Main stage, Saturday)

These Portland punks leaned toward the pop end of the pop rock spectrum on their latest album, Now We Can See, which is one of the better rock albums released in the first half of this year.

Japandroids (11:00, Vera stage, Saturday)

Can you say buzz band? This Vancouver,  B.C. duo is fresh off some hype from Rolling Stone for its excellent, recently reissued debut Post Nothing.

Built to Spill (9:15, Main stage, Friday)

Idaho’s spawling, jangly, guitar kanoodling godfathers of indie are a sure bet to be an early highlight of the weekend. Plus, they are playing a set of songs voted on by fans.

Spinnerette (5:15, Main stage, Friday)

The new vehicle for Brode Dalle, wife of QOTSA frontman Josh Homme and former Distillers frontwoman, features a punked up, dance-friendly sound. The studio band includes Jack Irons on drums (formerly of two small bands called Pearl Jam and Red Hot Chili Peppers, you may have heard of them) and Alain Johannes of QOTSA. Unfortunately the two are not touring with Dalle.

Continue reading →

The Capitol Hill Block Party starts Friday and with it comes tons of quality music that will be blaring from the streets of Seattle’s central hipster hangout. I’ll be there all weekend providing photos and reviews of the happenings. I’ll post my tentative schedule for the festival soon, but for now here are 10 local acts you simply must see if you’ll be spending the weekend at CHBP.

They Live! at Ear Candy’s Birthday Bash 2009 Travis Hay photo

They Live! (10:00, Neumos, Friday)

Theses guys have been blowing up the local Internets. Every Seattle music blog has been abuzz with anticipation for their forthcoming EP, which will be released next month. They play conceptual hip hop that’s fun to dance to. Expect their set to be one big party.

Past Lives (8:00, Vera stage, Friday)

Former members of the Blood Brothers band together to form another impressive post-punk band. Expect loud guitars and screaming. Hey, it’s former members of the Blood Brothers, what else did you expect?

Continue reading →

Marco Collins, KEXP DJ, dished the details on who will be headlining this year’s Capitol Hill Block Party on Monday night.

One of the bands is an alternative rock icon and it will be interesting to see how their music goes over outdoors in the cramped confines of the main stage area at the Block Party. The other band is a group that was banned from playing shows in Seattle 12 years ago because of its singer’s penchant for stage diving.

Here’s the info

continue reading