A few weeks ago the city of Seattle celebrated its music scene during the first Seattle City of Music Awards. The night honored Fleet Foxes, KEXP and Quincy Jones. There were performances by the Maldives, Pearly Gates Music, the Seattle Rep Jazz Orchestra and the Tea Cozies, who rocked the afterparty. I wrote some words about the evening over at Crosscut and you can go here to give it a read.
I had a crazy weekend filled with good drinks, good tunes and good people. Today is a travel day, which means I’ll be trekking about 150 miles east back home in a few minutes, so you won’t be getting full recaps of last weekend’s shows today. I will, however, offer up a bit of a brief rundown of what transpired on the nights of July 10, 11 and 12 with soundtracks provided by The Whore Moans, Schoolyard Heroes, Robin Pecknold, Throw Me The Statue, Grynch and others.
• The weekend started Friday night with Schoolyard Heroes at The Vera Project. I chatted up one half of the motley crew of Skeleton Army leaders over drinks before the show and, well, let’s just say the drinks fueled the night’s performance. The band performed with new guitarist Nick Cates, formerly of Three Inches of Blood and The Divorce, and as always Ryann Donnelly asserted her dominance over the throngs of sweaty, mosh drenched teens in the crowd.
In case you missed it:
From my inbox:
“SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE” WELCOMES ROSARIO DAWSON AND MUSICAL GUEST FLEET FOXES ON JANUARY 17.
New York, NY – January 9, 2009 – “Saturday Night Live” launches into 2009 with its second show of the month, featuring one of today’s hottest film actresses, Rosario Dawson, along with musical guest Fleet Foxes, making their “SNL” debuts on NBC January 17 at 11:30 p.m. ET.
Dawson has garnered praise for her numerous roles as an actress, making her one of Hollywood’s most sought after leading ladies. Dawson can currently be seen in the drama “Seven Pounds”, in which she stars with Will Smith. Her moving performance in the film has gained her acclaim and praise from critics and fans alike, including a recent nomination for a NAACP Image Award. Dawson gained recognition in 2005 when she received a Satellite Award for her performance as ‘Mimi Marquez’ in the film “Rent”. She was honored again in 2007 at the esteemed ShoWest where she received the award for “Supporting Actress of the Year.” Dawson was recently awarded the “Half-Life” Award at the 2008 Cine Vegas International Film Festival alongside Don Cheadle, Viggo Mortensen and Sam Rockwell. Making her film debut in the highly acclaimed and controversial hit “Kids,” Dawson has appeared in numerous feature films, including Quentin Tarantino’s horror project “Grindhouse”; the acclaimed Spike Lee film, “The 25th Hour”, opposite Edward Norton, Philip Seymour Hoffman and Barry Pepper; “Men In Black 2” alongside Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones, and Spike Lee’s “He Got Game” opposite Denzel Washington. Dawson also made a huge impact in the 2005 Robert Rodriguez/ Frank Miller film noir drama “Sin City” starring with Bruce Willis, Benicio Del Toro, Clive Owen, and Brittany Murphy. “Sin City” opened number one at the box office and was in dramatic competition at the 2005 Cannes Film Festival.
Joining Dawson is the five-piece Seattle based Indie rock band Fleet Foxes, whose self-titled debut album ranked first on Billboard’s (Critics’ Choice) top albums of 2008. Billboard described it as a “shockingly gorgeous debut … unlocked a subconscious desire in us for more vocal harmonies.” The album also landed among the top five in Spin’s year end rankings and finished 11th on Rolling Stones annual list. Spin declared that “on this haunting debut, Seattle’s Fleet Foxes distinguish themselves from the vintage-vinyl crowd by infusing their rootsy retro-pop moves with a sense of mystery that no one’s really summoned since Oh, Inverted World changed Natalie Portman’s life. Like the Shins’ James Mercer, frontman Robin Pecknold is more mood man than storyteller. But his eye for detail can devastate.” Internationally, Fleet Foxes have beaten off competition from the likes of Radiohead and Elbow to be awarded the first-ever “UNCUT MUSIC AWARD”. The band’s eponymous debut album was unanimously hailed by a panel of industry judges as the most inspiring and richly rewarding album of the last 12 months. In early 2008, Fleet Foxes released the five-song EP, “Sun Giant” and followed in June with their critically acclaimed, self-titled debut full-length album.
This comes from the “because we can” category. Someone decided
to combine Seattle’s beloved Fleet Foxes with Beyonce. The mashup
is called “Single Foxes (Put a Wood On It)” and it is from The Hood Internet.
Single Foxes (Put A Wood On It) (Beyonce vs Fleet Foxes) – The Hood Internet
h/t to Chris B. via Twitter for the heads up.
The fall concert season seems to be in full swing and I am hoping to catch as many shows as possible beofre winter sets in and I am stuck on the wrong side of the Cascades for going to concerts.
Here are two shows I will be at in the coming week:
Oct. 19: Fleet Foxes @ The Moore
I’m super stoked to see the biggest hometown buzz band of the moment play their biggest hometown headlining show to date.
Nov. 3: Mike McCready, Tom Morello, Stone Gossard and friends @ The Showbox?
This “get out the vote” show on Election Day even should be amazing. I don’t know who these “friends” are that are also on the bill, but I do know Chris Cornell is in town the night before and if I remember my Chris Cornell history correctly, I think he was once in a band with the three headliners on the bill. Nothing is confirned, but I’m just saying …
4:30 Kimya Dawson is on the main stage and much like The Cave Singers, which preceded her, her acoustic sound is being swallowed by the massiveness of the outdoors. Truthfully, her kid songs really do nothing for me, so I wasn’t surprised that her live set had the same effect. I understand she is a local artist and I get that she had some songs on the soundtrack to Juno, but come on, she shouldn’t be on the main stage.
Her singing was ridiculously off key (she sounded like a neutered puppy yelping crossed with Bjork) and her songs, while appropriate I suppose for an all-ages crowd, are pretty bad too. And apparently I’m not the only person who thinks so. Below is an excerpt of a conversation I had with a fellow music critic from a major publication (which shall remain nameless) in the beer garden after Dawson’s set.
Nameless critic: “What did you think of Kimya Dawson?”
Me: “Well …”
Nameless critic: “She’s awful!”
So there you have it, one nameless critic and me agree that Kimya Dawson is really nothing that special.
5:00 My friend and I decided to check out The Builders and the Butchers inside of Neumos. Apparently these PDX guys have been getting quite a bit of buzz lately (although it can’t be that much buzz considering I hadn’t heard of them until Saturday). Neumos was pretty crowded so I couldn’t see much, but from what I recall there were five band members, one playing a mandolin, two drummers and a couple of guitar players. They played mostly acoustic and their sound was sort of like backwoodsy campfire rock. They would fit perfectly opening for My Morning Jacket, or even Fleet Foxes.
5:45 Speaking of Fleet Foxes, the Seattle band with the biggest buzz at the moment are taking the main stage. As I mentioned a little while back, I was probably the last local music critic to buy their excellent self-titled record, but once I gave it a listen I was 100 percent sold.
The weather was terrific, the setting outstanding (outdoors in Capitol Hill, one of the cultural centers of the city) and the band’s music was perfect combination of serenity and beauty for a Saturday afternoon. Plus, unlike Kimya Dawson and The Cave Singers, the acoustic beauty and blissful four-part harmonies floated through the sky uninterrupted by the trappings of the outdoors. I was a little, ahem, lubricated, during Fleet Foxes set (in preparation for The Hold Steady), so I don’t remember exactly what songs the band performed but I am pretty sure I heard “Oliver James” and “White Winter Hymnal” during their set.
