Top 10 in 2011

I went out of my way to see a huge amount of live music in 2011. I've decided to pick my favorites in 3 main categories: favorite national acts, local favorites and new favorites. There aren't always ten winners, I only pick 7 national acts, 11 local favorites and eleven new favorites. I also pick 5 best songs and 4 additional accomplishments.

Best National Acts local favorites who've gone national and my favorite non-local big acts

Presidents of the USA - I saw them twice, at PUSA Fest and at Bumbershoot on the main stage. Both times I had Ben, Carina and Heather with me, and enjoyed the crap out of it. The Prez still rock out and get big crowds bouncing around to the beat and sweating all over each other. Having my kids along puts it over the top, the Presidents kept me and my kids rocking in 2011!


Das Racist played the Sasquatch Preview show, Sasquatch, the Capitol Hill Block Party and Bumbershoot, so they went from unknown to my favorite rappers. All tan everything indeed.


Two of my top national acts - Death Cab For Cutie and Maklemore & Ryan Lewis - get props for best live song (Where Soul Meets Body and Just Dance, respectively) below.

Decembrists added an additional voice, I think the original female vocalist left the band later in 2011 after this show.


Finally caught up with The Reverend Horton Heat live, the kids and I have some fond memories of his hits a decade or so back.



Foo Fighters did their bombastic rock show at the Gorge Friday night at Sasquatch.




Local Favorites

Mad Rad always puts on a great show with standout songs like Life On Party Mountain and You Only Live Once (air keyboards!)

Kimya Dawson is an idiosyncratic performer who brings passion and creativity and thoughtful patter into a show like nobody else does!

The Thermals reliably kick my ass and this year I got multiple ass kickings at the Sasquatch kick-off show, at Sasquatch and Bumbershoot.

PWRFL Power made a rare appearance at Magma Fest doing thrashy guitar work, nice to see him again, it had been way too long.

Brite Futures matures into an arena rocking heavy weight. I remember seeing them as Natalie Portmans Shaved Head at the EMP Sound Off many years ago, they've made it almost to the top.

Land of Pines - saw them at least 3 times: at the Vera, CHBP, and Reverb.

Ryan LaPlante

Kinski always puts on a solid set of great music

Silicon Girls - got to know a nice kid in the band while he was volunteering for the All Ages Movement Project, I enjoy their shows.

Hey Marseilles has consistently brought it - I still remember a cover of Love Insurgent from a few Bumbershoots back that ruled. They were in prime form in 2011.




Bear Cove from Bellingham kicked it out




New Favorites - Bands that I immediately liked that I had never seen before, sometimes I'd never heard them either.
Titus Andronicus

The Globes - listed in best song for "A Stitch Can't Save the World" and here's "Stay Awake" from Sasquatch:

Antlers - one of many excellent Sasquatch performances, need to see them again

The Smith and Westerns - another band I was unfamiliar with that played an excellent set at Sasquatch.

Other Lives were another discovery at Sasquatch

Tokyo Police Club - another unknown to me band that ruled. Sensing a trend?

Champagne Champagne did shows at the Vera Project and CHBP and Bumbershoot, I believe. Hip hop rap duo, excellent material and the two voices are different and play well together; every performance is an instance party, worth checking out if you ever get the opportunity. They've spent a fair amount of time touring with STRFKR recently.

Sol broke out some, I like the live lineup here with a drum set, bass, backing vocals, and a DJ who might have some keyboards.

TacocaT - palindromes and bright punk thrashing, gotta love it!


Sleeper Agent


My Goodness packed quite a punch for a duo.




Best Live Song

I Like Giants by Kimya Dawson Kimya had another one about a friend dying that had me in tears, and Alphabut is the Stairway to Heaven of little kids songs

And We Danced by Macklemore and Ryan Lewis. The Town, My Oh My, and Dark Side all hit it out of the park or is it the Key



Where Soul Meets Body by Death Cab For Cutie (I'll Follow You Into the Dark, Title and Registration, that one jealous one "Gotta spend some time love... I will posses your heart")Listening to Where Soul Meets body at Sasquatch as my Mom's soul was losing it's last tenuous hold on her body sure gave it a wallop.

A Stitch Can't Save the World by the Globes

The River Runs Deep by Knowmads




Special props

At 4,078 views Macklemore & Ryan Lewis playing "And We Danced" is my most popular video. I managed to post it a few weeks before they got the song out which drove traffic; their video came out a little later and it has 652 thousand views.

My blog on the Craft Spells show at the Vera Project was my most viewed blog. Every week multiple people were viewing it; I'm not sure why it had so much more staying power, I have to attribute it to the audience - the fans. I can't see that I did anything special that was different from my other blogs. If it was something I did, I'd do it more!



I saw Knowmads at the Vera Project right before my fiftieth birthday. Shortly after that I took a class in interviewing musicians and had to select somebody to interview so I contacted their agent and set up an interview. They were young and therefore less intimidating, I suppose. My first on camera interview was with Knowmads Tom Wilson and Tom Pepe.


My video of the interview got 567 views, and blackout3842 (who does media, social media and web wangling for the Knowmads) posted excerpts that got more than 2,300 views.


Sea Cats were my son's first local band crush. We saw them at a Veracity show and got an inexpensive CD that Ben enjoyed, then he randomly got to see them do an outdoor show at the Seattle Center when he and Carina were wandering around. They got a nice gig at the Vera Project and I interviewed Josh Davis before it.

Saturday at Sasquatch

After the Friday night shows and a night spent sleeping on the ground I woke up with a sore sinus and throat due to the freezing weather. There was frost all over, but it warmed up pretty quickly once the sun rose.

We trooped in and set the pavilion back up and re-chalked and opened back up for business.
After the slow start on Friday there are way more bands scheduled for Saturday, starting with the Seattle Rock Orchestra covering Radiohead.

This video of Paranoid Android got more views than anything else I posted from Sasquatch.

Next up was Pepper Rabbit, interesting band with a bass guitar + ukulele + drums approach.

Good vocal in a good song, when the backing vocals join in they get a kind of dreamy sound, tasty use of occasional reverb on the vocals too. They mix the sound up a bit, stripping it back to lead vocal and percussion for a bit, then bringing the instruments and harmonies back to finish the song up. Very nice!


Opening on the main Sasquatch stage was Alberta Cross, I only got pictures since I got there too late and/or was too busy.


Next I climbed back up the hill, getting back in time to see a little more of Pepper Rabbit.


Zipped on over to the Bigfoot stage and caught Secret Sisters next.

Nice sound, reminds me of First Aid Kit a little, more country than them though.

The blond guitar playing sister gets the lead on this nice old Patsy Cline number:


Back over to at the Yeti stage the Globes were hot.

The build into this song with the odd repetitive patterns and unusual sounds is wonderful, and as the vocal winds in the song builds to an interesting intensity before stripping back down to vocal and drum, then back again. Tasty use of dynamics and transitions, excellent performance.


The next band on the Sasquatch stage is The Radio Dept.

Two guitars and keyboard with sequenced drums. The first song is dreamy and a little dancey, somewhat spacey in an accessible way. Nice Summery pop song.

This song features the vocal a little more prominently, but it's still a bit hazy and Summery. The nice upbeat instrumentation contrasts just a bit with the slightly sadder vocals, giving it an interesting distance.


Headed back up the hill and caught K-OS doing a nice rock/hip hop/funk performance.

Good scratching, good vocal, good rhythm section, I like the live music and the guitar, and around 2:00-2:15-2:45 when the guitarist and turntablist swap leads back and forth - pretty tasty stuff, talented live crew.


Missed the Head and the Heart, heard it from a distance but didn't get to see it.

Dan Mangan had a bit of a horn section and a good sound


Trailer Park Boys were amusing, no video found of them so far.


Sharon Von Etten put on an excellent set, I like the vocal and the sound


Caught a bit of Wolf Parade, no video though.

I worked on some Sasquatch business for a bit so J. Mascis and Jenny and Johnny got past me. I was able to get Pink Martini:

Classic big band approach, strings and horns, lots of percussion, wonderful old school sound.


Next after trudging back up the hill I saw Wye Oak.

They were cool, unfortunately my DSLR did a poor job with their sound so the video isn't very good. The technical difficulties are all mine, fortunately Wye Oak sounded great and put on an excellent show, I just didn't do a good job capturing the excellence.


Next up was the Antlers who really put on a great set.

This song in particular made my day, wonderful song performed well, I'll have to keep an eye out for the Antlers, one of my favorite new discoveries from Sasquatch.


Next up was the Thermals, long time favorite Portland punk outfit I've seen 2 or 3 times at Bumbershoot plus the free Sasquatch kick off show early this year.

They put on a fun fast tight set, I always enjoy the Thermals.


Matt and Kim were fun, they were pumped up and having a great time and the audience was totally into the energy.



Next up was Iron and Wine on the Sasquatch main stage.


Around then we got a beautiful sunset over the gorge.


Saw the Glitch Mob


Saw Bright Eyes


Back up out of the amphitheater to see Robyn


I was getting seriously tired, going down to the bottom of the amphitheater, filming, then coming all the way back up and filming, then repeat.

Headed back down into the amphitheater one last time as the sunset glow faded. Time for some Death Cab for Cutie to wrap things up.


One of my favorite Death Cab for Cutie songs, heavily prefiguring mom's death of cancer within the week. I really love this song, and I really love the crowd sing-along effect you can hear in the recording.


Title and Registration is another great song with the crowd singing.

Obsessive love song, pretty unpleasant sentiment in a pretty wrapper. Very well done.


Missed some good stuff like Head and the Heart, Jenny & Johnny and Aloe Blacc but I got 19 documented and I believe I actually saw 20 counting the DJ.

Awesome day of music, all kinds of good things to watch and listen too. An embarrassment of riches, really.

Off to sleep in the tent, halfway through the festival. Sunday lineup looks pretty good too!

Sasquatch Kick-off with The Thermals, Das Racist and Mad Rad

Heather and I got free tickets to the Sasquatch Kick-off show at the Showbox on Sunday, 2-6-11. We got to see the Thermals, Das Racist, and Mad Rad and a short Sasquatch promo that listed the bands playing at Sasquatch at the end of May. All 3 bands are playing Sasquatch, and so are a pile of other bands like Foo Fighters and Reggie Watts. Man I hope I can figure out a way to see it for free, because there's no way I can afford >$200 for tickets to all 4 days.

I've seen the Thermals a couple of times at Bumbershoot and I saw Mad Rad at the Capitol Hill Block Party last Summer, so I new I was going to enjoy this show.

Mad Rad kicked it off with their infectious obnoxious hip hop. They're all about partying and having a good time. They played with a dude on the drum kit, a dude scratching the turn-tables, a woman playing the cello (unusual for a hip hop band, but I loved it) and 3 guys out front rapping. One interesting problem I have is that the more I like the show the less I record of it - I hate having to stand still, I'd rather bounce around and make noise. Even when I do record some of the show I end up not being able to hold still all that much, so the video ends up a little hard to watch, like this:

That's Mad Rad doing "Life on Party Mountain" which is about Capitol Hill - these are local boys for sure! I enjoy that song, and ended up in the middle of the mosh pit which adds an additional degree of difficulty to the video recording as people bounce off of you. Nice problem to have, from my point of view, so I'm not complaining, just explaining why the video is a little jumpy.

One interesting bit is that I showed up in the Seattle Weekly slide show for the Sasquatch Kick-off show. If you follow the link and look carefully you can see me standing a little to the right of center holding up my flip video recorder and taping the show. That could be the video I posted here (I filmed 3 songs, so it could be a different one).

Between acts Todd Bary came out and told some jokes, keeping us amused. He seemed surprised at how well it went, hard to say if that was his schtick or he really just expected to get boos from a hip hop/punk show crowd.


After a short comic break Das Racist came out and did their set.

Interesting band, for much of their material racism isn't the subtext, it's the text. They recited their ethnic backgrounds as they came out, all kinds of different stuff combined, it went by too fast for me to catch, and they gave the crowd a bit of ribbing for being so white. Their rapping was fun and the hispanic looking dude in particular had a good flow. They also played with our (racial) expectations in interesting ways, but mostly we were having too much fun moshing for it to sink in.

After Das Racist and another brief appearance from Todd Barry they ran the Sasquatch promotional video announcing a huge list of bands and the crowd cheered for it's favorites (Decemberists, Foo Fighters, Reggie Watts, and on and on; I know I'm repeating myself, but I'd love to see Foo Fighters and Reggie Watts, not to mention 10 or 20 other bands, at least!).

Finally the Thermals came out and played a kick-ass set of high energy punkish rock and roll. The Thermals are an almost local (from Portland) power trio setup with a dude playing guitar and singing, a woman playing bass and singing some backup vocals, and a dude on drums. I enjoy the energy and the crowd was totally into it, moshing and thrashing all over. My first good mosh pit of 2011, lets hope for more like it!


After a short break to catch our breath the Thermals brought Das Racist and Mad Rad and another dude up and played for them while they took turns rapping. I gave up on filming by then, but I did get a picture.


The Latino looking dude from Das Racist rapped, then one of the guys from Mad Rad, and finally a different dude who hadn't performed earlier finished it off. The dude in the #18 jersey in the picture was the last rapper - I don't know who he is, but he had excellent rapping skills and finished the night off with some excellent imrpovised raps and sent us off happy. Excellent show, and man did it work: I really really want to go to Sasquatch Fest now. I better start sucking up to the Programming Committe at the Vera so I can get a free slot at Sasquatch in exchange for tabling at the show. Oh well, if that doesn't work out I'll just have to stay in Seattle for the Folk Life Festival, things could be worse.

February is Looking Up

In my January Retrospective I figured I wouldn't see all that many shows in February and matching January's 15 bands would be difficult. Now I'm not so sure.

I have tickets to the PUSA-Fest at the Showbox on Saturday 2-19, it's an all ages show and the kids get to go, should be fun.

I also have a couple of tickets to the Decemberists at the Paramont on Friday 2-18.

On Thursday I plan on getting 2 free tickets to the The Thermals, Mad Rad & Das Racist "Sasquatch Fest Announcement" show this Sunday 2-5. I saw them with my daughters at the Capitol Hill Block Party in the Summer of 2009 and again with Carina at Bumbershoot in the Summer of 2010, here's a photo from that show.

Next I glanced at the Vera schedule and realized there are 7 shows I'd like to see in February with one required - I'm cooking tacos at the Veracity show.

If I can only make it to 2 of the 6 optional Vera shows I'd end up at 3 Veracity + 3 other shows and roughly 18 bands. If I exert myself I could see 21 or even up to 30 bands on paper, but I'll be happy to match January's 15, anything more is gravy. Of course, I've always been a big fan of gravy, pouring it all over any form of potatoes and chowing down, but I digress.