I remember when my good pal Chris Croft had me listen to a strange band in his Mustang back in 1995. I remember vividly driving down H Street plugging in the tape adapter to listen to Spacehog. Sadly I never got the chance to see them live way back when but fast forward 15 years (holy shit!!) and 3,000 miles to my new home in Boston and I get the chance to see them live. They played some of my favorites, In the Meantime and others from their first album Resident Alien such as Space is the Place, Spacehog, and Zeroes. It was a great show. They were a little rusty, even cracking jokes how they forgot some of their songs, but it brought me back to rocking out so many years ago.
Mew started their short tour to promote their new album No More Stories Saturday in Boston at the Paradise Rock Club. Mew opened with New Terrain, which was astonishing to see performed live, then played seamlessly into Introducing Palace Players. It was a wall of sound that is rarely heard. The layering of sound was incredible. Mew played for the next hour and twenty minutes covering their entire catalog. Like previous Mew shows, they included a video projector synced to the music, including cats and rabbits playing violins. One of the great moments in the background video is during Sometimes Life Isn’t Easy where they have guys dancing synced to the clapping and stopping their feet, then it changes to kids singing the chorus. As always Mew is an amazing sight to see live and I’ll always see them if they are playing. [...]
Mew is set to release their new album No More Stories… next week in the United States, and they happening to be playing Boston this weekend at The Paradise. I have seen Mew twice back in Seattle, and they put on an amazing visual and audio show. I am pretty excited as Mew is only doing a handful of shows before the release of the albums in the States. Check out the first video from the new album
I drove down to Providence to check out Deer Tick at their homecoming show before heading on a major tour with Jenny Lewis. Awesome show. Video shortly.
I saw Bishop Allen a couple weeks ago and haven’t taken the time to update the site with the photos. I am experimenting with Flickr, so tell me what you think.
One of the hot bands in the blogshpere right now is Seattle’s own Mt. St. Helens Vietnam Band, who happens to be playing the Middle East Downstairs on Friday the 3rd. I plan on check them out. Their new self titled album was released a couple weeks ago and well worth checking out.
It looks like one of the best venues locally will be reopening with a pretty high profile act. The Ting Tings are coming back to the States this Spring and have a show listed in Seattle at The Crocodile Cafe. Those in Seattle will remember that the Croc closed appruptly closed in December of 2007. I always loved going to shows at the Croc due to the very small size. Seeing someone like the Ting Tings would be a blast.
Ben Kweller returned to Seattle tonight at Chop Suey promoting his new EP How Ya Lookin’ Southbound? Comein… and prepping for a full length LP to be released in the next couple months. Like always Ben and company played the house down, with some classics and new tracks. The addition of the steel guitar added a nice bluesy country twang to the new songs. As always it was great seeing Ben, Liz, Dorian, and company. They are so friendly. I wish them all the best on the rest of the tour and look forward to them coming back to town in the coming months. Here are some photos from the show.
I got to see Dr. Dog play the Tractor Tavern in Ballard tonight. They were amazing! One of the best shows I have seen this year. They played a good number of songs from their latest album Fate, which was awesome. Check out some photos.
