Spin the Black Circle Music journalist Travis Hay drops some knowledge and insight about local and national music news, offers reviews and offers a place for conversation on all things music.
The fifth installment of the Candy Casts has been recorded and
is ready for your listening pleasure.
This time around Ear Candy’s Brent and myself debate whether
Aerosmith is actually a good band, talk about the new records from
Wilco and the Flaming Lips, dish more details about Ear Candy’s
(F)unofficial Bumbershoot Kickoff Party, discuss topics proposed by
readers via Twitter and more.
Go ahead and click here
to give it a listen and feel free to chime in on the
comments section below, drop Ear Candy a note on
Twitter or send an email our way to let us know what
you think. While you’re at it, go ahead and propose some topics for
us to talk about too. We’re all ears over here at Ear Candy HQ.
Enjoy!
I’m putting together a show under the Ear Candy name to help
kickoff this year’s Bumbershoot. You can help decide who plays the
show by voting in the poll below. Here are the details from
Ear Candy the Web
site:
Ear Candy loves Bumbershoot.
How much does Ear Candy love Bumbershoot? Well, Ear Candy loves
Bumbershoot so much that 1) it causes Ear Candy to refer to itself
in third person and 2) and Ear Candy loves Bumbershoot so much that
it is throwing an unofficial Bumbershoot kickoff party and Ear
Candy wants your help with choosing a band to play the show.
While I’m not a liberty to divulge all of the details of the big
soiree just yet, I will let you know that it is happening Sept. 4
at the High Dive and it will feature four of Seattle’s finest
up-and-coming acts. Plus, it’s only going to cost you $10 so start
saving your ducketts. Ear Candy has already booked three out of the
four acts on the bill and my lips are sealed at the moment so I
can’t reveal who those acts are (besides, I need something to write
about in the coming months), but you, dear Ear Candy reader, can
play a role in selecting the fourth act.
I’ve narrowed my list of potential fourth acts down to four
bands I would like to play the show. All four of these bands have
been written about on Ear Candy previously and I have been in touch
with a couple of them to gauge their interest in playing the show.
I enjoy each of these acts equally and I think each one would fit
perfectly on the bill for Ear Candy’s unofficial Bumbershoot
kickoff party so I want your help with choosing who to book. If
you’d like to help me choose what band to book, vote in the poll
below. I will contact the winning band and attempt to book them for
the Bumbershoot party.
One point of clarification, just because a band wins the popular
vote doesn’t mean they will play the show. It just means I will
contact them and see if they are interested and available. I have
no control over whether the band actually plays Ear Candy’s
Bumbershoot kickoff show. Here are the four acts. The band names
include links to their MySpace page so you can check out their
music if you aren’t familiar with a particular group:
Over on Ear Candy
the Web site I am giving away pairs of tickets to see
PJ Harvey at the Moore Theatre June 16. You should enter. Here are
the details:
Back in April Ear Candy held its first ticket giveaway, offering
up pairs of tickets to see an intimate, solo acoustic set by New
Pornographer Dan Bejar (aka Destroyer). Today Ear Candy is happy to
announce its second ticket giveaway. This time you can enter to win
a pair of tickets to see PJ Harvey & John Parish with guest
Pop Parker at the Moore Theatre June 16.
To enter to win simply email
travis@earcandybeat.com with PJ Harvey in the subject line
and your name in the body field. Winners (yes, that’s plural) will
be chosen Thursday afternoon and be notified Friday. If you don’t
want to chance winning tickets you can always buy your own tickets,
which range from $25 to $35, by clicking here.
Last week Ear Candy made its maiden voyage into the world of
podcasting with Candy Cast Episode 1. It was such a fun and
positive experience that we decided to do it again and this
time there’s nudity.
That’s right, in Candy Cast Episode 2 there is some nakedness
going on. How exactly does nudity make its way into a podcast?
Well, you’ll just have to listen to find out. Also in Candy Cast
Episode 2 Brent and I discuss the upcoming Noise for the Needy
shows, the local badasses Brent Amaker and Matt Cameron and even
get around to touching on some local hip hop. We also talk about
Bumbershoot and debunk the rumor that Peal Jam will be headlining
this year’s festival (a rumor that was partly started by Ear Candy,
sorry guys) and the first details of Ear Candy’s
Bumbershoot Bash are dished out.
I’m happy to announce that I’ve entered the world of
podcasting.
Podcasting is one of those things that I’ve been meaning to do
for a while but never actually got around to doing until Monday
afternoon. That’s when Ear Candy’s Brent Stecker and myself sat
down and shared our thoughts on this year’s Sasquatch!, chimed in
on The Squatchies and also shot the breeze a bit about Pearl Jam,
The Moondoggies and the new Lonely H record.
Things have bee busy over in Ear Candy-land the last few weeks,
which has made it tough for me to post over here on Spin The Black
Circle. For starters, I have been working with some friends on a
pretty awesome project. I can’t share the details quite yet, but
the image above may give you a hint, or you can simply
click
here to get a sneak peek (trust me you want to click
there, and be sure to bookmark the site and check back every few
days for updates).
As for my weekend plans, aside from checking out Watchmen on the
IMAX I am going to be busy hitting up some excellent shows. First
up is the record release show for Say
Hi and Mt.
St. Helens Vietnam Band. These bands
each released one of the best local albums of the year and
their show at Neumos Friday is going to be killer. If my
endorsement isn’t good enough to make you want to check things out
Friday then how about this, Visqueen is
opening.
Saturday I will be at the Sunset for the second-ever live show
by The Redwood
Plan. I say second because they played a secret show (which
wasn’t so secret if you
took Ear Candy’s advice a few weeks back) a couple of days ago.
Their Saturday night set is going to be broadcast on the beacon of
indie hipster coolness, KEXP. Also on the bill are Sleepy
Eyes of Death and The Hands.
So now that you know where I will be this weekend, feel free to
drop by and say hello if you’re out and about. Or, stay at home and
read my
Twitter feed where I will attempt to drop tweets to my
tweeps (man that sounds strange) throughout the weekend.
As you know, to celebrate three years of rocking, rolling and
blogging under the Ear Candy name I am throwing a small little
party. In fact,
I broke a bit of the news about the lineup on this very blog a
few weeks ago.
Well, since then I’ve completed the lineup and I think I put
together a stupendous four-band bill unlike any before it which
will create the most debaucherously fantastic night of musical
enjoyment the High Dive has ever hosted.
So mark your calendars for March 21 my friends for it will
surely be a stupendous night of some great live music. Expect to
read more about this show, including interviews with the bands, an
exclusive song, record reviews and more, in the coming weeks. But
for now here are some videos to familiarize you with these four
awesome local bands.
THE F*CKING EAGLES: HE WON’T LOVE YOU LIKE I”LL LEAVE
YOU
TEAM GINA: ROCK THE LIKE
BRENT AMAKER AND THE RODEO: WHEN LOVE GETS TO A MAN
That’s right, Ear Candy (a.k.a. my other blog), will mark three
years in the blogosphere at its current home (it was a blogger blog
for about a year before the P-I picked it up) in a couple of
months. To celebrate I am throwing a birthday extravaganza concert
unlike any other concert I have ever thrown.
Last year for the first Ear Candy Birthday Bash Ms Led, Sirens
Sister and Speaker Speaker rocked my birthday at the High Dive.
This year I’m delighted to report I have put together a show that
might be a little too big for the High Dive to contain.
The lineup is still in the works, but I do have three bands
confirmed and I want to spill the beans here on Spin the Black
Circle before I release the complete details over on Ear Candy. So
here’s the scoop:
I know, what a cool show, right? And the best part is that the
lineup isn’t complete yet. Expect to hear more about what is sure
to be an awesome night filled with party rock, party rap and party
country music when more details roll in, which should happen within
the coming weeks.
Until then, mark your calendars for March 21 and prepare
yourself for a night of musical debauchery at the High Dive. And
watch the below videos to familiarize yourself with the
wonderfulness that is Team Gina, Brent Amaker and WE (that’s
shorthand for We Wrote the Book on Connectors).
TEAM GINA: ROCK THE LIKE
BRENT AMAKER AND THE RODEO: WHEN LOVE GETS TO A MAN
You’ve probably noticed that I’ve been a little MIA over here on
Spin the Black Circle recently, but don’t worry, I haven’t
abandoned the lucrative field of music journalism. It’s actually
quite the opposite.
You see, things got a little crazy over in Ear Candy land last
month, which is why I’ve been posting so sporadically on this blog.
In this specific case, crazy is a good thing because I landed a
weekly music column in the print edition of the P-I which has been
called, appropriately, Ear Candy. Actually, I am going to start
working on this week’s column after I finish this post.
The column is a weekly rundown of suggested club shows. I
typically focus on one or two bigger acts that are playing in the
clubs on any given week, then the rest of the shows I recommend are
listed with a little bit of background on each in a bulleted list
format.
After each is printed I will try to include a link to the column
on this blog, in case there are some Spin the Black Circle readers
looking for some shows to attend throughout the week. So here is
this week’s column. Suggested shows include: Tom
Morello and Mike McCready with Stone Gossard tonight,
Method Man and Redman Wednesday,
Dragonforce tonight and more.
