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.

Sunday at Bumbershoot

Day two of Bumbershoot started out more well organized than day one so we managed to catch the first few bands this time.

SOL Kicked things off on the Fountain Stage

I can't tell in this video but the fountain directly out in front of the stage behind the sound boards is reflected in the screen behind the band to some degree, depending on the sun's angle and the ambient light which makes for a nice effect, I wonder if they planned that? I got a more complete song from Sol called the Rundown:
I'm a fan of the live instrumentation so I enjoy the bass, drums and keyboards along with the backing vocals, gives the song a very real human feel, not mechanical or computerized and repetitive the way so many sequenced bits end up.

We zipped over to the EMP Level 3 stage to catch the Gail Pettis Quartet, a nice jazz quartet with talented musicians and a great vocalist. They really show the Level 3 Stage acoustics off favorably, the audience finger snaps and the instrument noises are very clear. Nice, but the 3 flights of stairs on the opposite end of the Seattle Center from the other live music venues definitely wore me down.


On the way out you exit almost onto 5th Avenue and you can see the 5th Avenue entrance and here the street musicians:


We looped over to the Mural Amphitheater to listen to Kasey Anderson and the Honkies play an interesting set. I like the vocals and the way the song builds, very nice sound. Fun band, they had the smaller crowd moving and dancing and enjoying themselves. The early shows without that large a crowd often end up with some great bands that are easy to get close to but they tend to have limited crowd participation - the crowd mostly hasn't shown up yet for the early sets.


Kore Ionz had a good sound, this song starts out with some romantic sounding personal vocals, then goes into a good reggae groove. Good reggae in the sun shine is a nice combination, definitely a solid set. Gotta love the horns too!


Davilla 666 sounded more melodic and mainstream than I had expected from the name:

Fun sound, enjoyable if slightly unpredictable, here's another bit by them, on this one I'm closer and the bass tends to distort the audio so it's marginal at best, too bad.


I think this was Whalebones, the band we saw next. I've never seen them before so I could be wrong; the drum set sorta looks like it's spelling something like Whalebones, anyway.

The second Whalebones video is a complete song that I enjoyed:


Next we caught Lonely Forest on the Key Arena Mainstage, their sound fit the venue well. I suspect this is one of the larger venues they've ever played, certainly it's the biggest venue I've ever seen them in. It suits them - as I said, their sound works well in a large venue.


Next it was back to the Fisher Green for a fun dancy Mad Rad set. Mad Rad is a reliably entertaining hip hop group that always puts on a great show. I like the cello player, it adds an interesting sound to the transition bit in Life On Party Mountain:

Party Mountain and You Only Live Once are both instant classics:

The "air keyboards" in particular always amuses the heck out of me. Mad Rad is probably my favorite local party oriented hip hop band.

Next we caught Massey Ferguson at the Mural Amphitheater, I'd vaguely heard of them but never actually heard their music. Interesting song with some good pedal steel guitar work:

You may notice this common pattern with my videos: the first one is kind of short _ I start recording as soon as I get there, in the middle of a song, so it ends early. If they're good I'll stay and record some more, so here's another 7+ minutes of Massey Ferguson, I think there are two songs in this:


No Means No put on a good set in the Exhibition Hall, somewhere between a punk approach and a rockabilly beat with an almost anthemic feel to this number:


Broken Social Scene was cool, but we ran into a limitation. We got there a little late and the ushers wouldn't let us onto the show floor, effectively it was full. It seemed to have some room, but we were stuck up in the reserved seating fairly far from the stage. Sound is pretty good though:

I have to admit I don't enjoy it as much if I have to sit far away in a "reserved" section: reserved is the last thing I want to associate with a show, I want energetic and outgoing and over the top! I don't mean to criticize Broken Social Scene, they put on a good set that had the main floor crowd moving, the fault was mine for getting there too late to get onto the floor. We got better at that as the weekend passed, but we still ended up watching a fair amount of music from far away at the key.

Next we went out and caught some of Thee Oh Sees on the Fountain stage:

Thee Oh Sees were fun, good rhythms and twangy guitars with interesting vocals. I got a longer video too:


We caught some of DaN Funk + Master Blazter but I didn't get any usable video from them. Oops. I did manage to get some video of the Jim Jones Review, they were fun:


I think this is Tennis, I had to look at their web site to be sure since I never saw them before. This video is short but intriguing, wish I got more. I like the sound and the woman's vocals are very good.


Jessica Lea Mayfield (another assumed correct performer, never heard or seen them before but the photo looks roughly correct) was another interesting appealing performer:


Next up was Das Racist, I like them but my daughters weren't feeling them as much. I've seen them 4 times now and they are more creative than most in odd ways. The guy I always think of as the lead vocalist is always going off on some odd tangent; at Sasquatch he was calling every number a "cool jazz" song or something like that; at Bumbershoot he was talking about classic rock and fiddling with the Mac in the middle of the show, dropping different beats and samples I've never heard them use before, and the chatter between the performers is funny but also somewhat pointed, one of the members told another "Man you're mean, I liked you better before you lost weight!" The chatter changes so much from show to show that it doesn't feel canned or faked, it seems to be pretty authentic as they talk about things and mess around with their songs and patter.

I like the guy up front hoisting his crutches - I can;t see the guy, but I can see his crutches. He or she must be ambitious getting up that close!
I got a longer recording here:


We stopped for a bit of HTRK, they played more instruments than most of the performers at the Decibel Fest EMP Sky Church venue, the instruments gave it a nice sound:


Warpaint put on a great set, I'd never heard of them. An all woman band with a great sound both on vocals and instruments, I really enjoyed them and would like to see them again. This is one of those "I enjoyed it too much so the video is a little shaky" videos, sorry about that. I kept getting distracted by the band or the urge to move in time to the music, good bands do that to me. You can always tell when the focus drifts off the band that I'm no longer paying attention to the camera. On the plus side that means I'm enjoying the show!


Butthole Surfers were talented but the backdrop of horror movie gore projected on the screen behind them was distracting to me and actively detracted from the show.

I like the occasional violent horror movie, but the gore is usually spread out a little more and integrated into some kind of plot. Watching all of the spattering and limbs being cut off just made me want to see something else sooner.

Luckily there was a great alternative available!

This is the first time I've seen Macklemore & Ryan Lewis live and I enjoyed it immensely. We ended up in nose bleed heaven on the 3rd level so the visuals were poor and the sound was only so-so but the crowd was so enthusiastic and involved and the instrumentals were often pretty clean and the overall sound was good for being in a large venue and somewhat distorted, if that makes any sense.
The Town was a stand-out track:

I got other good bits on video like Otherside and several others, you can look them up on my youtube channel if you want; it was a great show!
I'll finish the Macklemore set up with "And We Danced" followed by "Irish Celebration" - I was hoping to see "And We Danced," I read a review about Macklemore & Ryan Lewis in Denver that called this "the full David Bowie" and it had the audience totally bonkers:


Once we got out of the Key Arena we managed to catch a short bit of what i believe is Toro y Moi:


The Kills were another band I had never seen, interesting approach, cool sound:

I got another song by the Kills too:


The last Bumbershoot act we caught on Sunday was Carbon Leaf:

This video was shot from the beer garden at the Mural Amphitheater. Carbon Leaf had a cool sound, and both of my daughters are now old enough to join me in the beer garden, Now if I could just train them to buy me beers I'd be set. If memory serves, I ended up buying a beer for Heather so the training seems to have been backwards. Hmm.

Some people were handing out flyers for a free show after Bumbershoot across the street from the Key Arena and I've got a soft spot for that venue. These guys were totally hosed when Schultz sold the Sonics to Oklahoma and they've struggled to recover and find a niche ever since. We stopped by for a couple of songs and another beer on the way home:


Including the bands I saw but didn't get recorded and the street musicians I saw 28 performances on Sunday. One more day of Bumbershoot left, hopefully I'll see even more bands!

Capitol Hill Block Party: Friday

I'm very late getting material from the Capitol Hill Block Party posted, sorry about that. It was a great festival/party and I saw many good bands, but I didn't do a very good job getting videos and photos.

On Friday I took my nice digital SLR, but not my Flip video camera. The digital SLR takes great pictures and good videos, except that the mic does NOT handle loud music well. as a result some of the videos can be pretty much un-listenable.

I'll go ahead and run through what I saw and use the material I ended up with, anyway.

I saw (or mostly heard) Grave Babies and Boat playing on the Vera stage while I was working at the Vera Project booth, so I didn't get any video or photos, but I enjoyed both bands.

The first band I recorded was Fucked Up (that's the bands name, not a description).

Here's a video of them doing Crooked Head:

They use a triple guitar, bass and drums lineup. The vocals are pretty much screamed over the top, resulting in a loud and obnoxious sound that I enjoyed. The audio distorts to some degree, but you can sorta hear what it was like. Nice energetic set, had the crowd moving.

I managed to catch Skarp on the Vera Stage, they were enjoyable and loud.

Unfortunately the video is pretty much unlistenable. Too bad!


I saw Craft Spells, second time I've seen them, they're getting more attention & seem to be blowing up to some degree. Didn't manage to get any video, just photos for them.


We did manage to save Metro, so I'll post this photo in honor of that accomplishment:


Somewhere in there I saw the Yarn Owls and the Wheelies, liked them both, especially the Wheelies. I was to late getting into the venue and it's a small flat space, so the photos aren't very good. For example, I'm not even sure who this is:

No video either.

Back at the Vera booth, the kids were digging the bubbles and chalk:



Thurston Moore played on the mainstage, interesting sound. He played an acoustic guitar and they had a fiddle player too.


Ra Ra Riot played the mainstage, interesting sound with a violin and a cello on top of the usual guitar and drums.


I caught Sol on the Vera Stage, solid hip hop with nice backing musicians on bass and vocals.

Short video from his performance, he really works the crowd:


The Constant Lovers were one of the few bands I got close enough to at the Cha Cha to actually get some good photos:

I enjoyed the Constant Lovers, they were loud, distorted and fairly fast with a heavy beat. The video of their performance sounds better than most, they didn't quite overdrive the bass as much.


Caught a bit of the Head and the Heart on the mainstage, here's a brief video:

I've seen the Head and the Heart several times now, they sure blew up quickly!

Shad put on an excellent set at the Vera Stage:

I think this is Shad playing guitar too:


The last band I "saw" at the Capitol Hill Block Party on Friday was Absolute Monarchs, I like their sound. Loud, beat heavy, distorted guitars, lyrics that you can almost make out. Good stuff!

Once again, getting to the Cha Cha stage late means I can't see the band much, I could here them though.

The music wasn't over for the night, though. I had to leave a little early (missed Ghostland Observatory and THEESatisfaction, too bad, but I had to catch a bus home) and there was a full brass band playing on the sidewalk outside the block party. I've always been a sucker for brass music (Tower of Power kicks ass!) and these guys were playing complex arrangements with many instruments, pretty cool for a free street performance. Their sign says they're "The Ten Man Brass Band"


Further down Pine (or was it Pike?) there was a dude playing acoustic guitar and singing, I shot a bit of him playing too:


Quite a bit of interesting music for one day at the block party, wish I had better video for more of them but I sure enjoyed the performances.

By my count that's 16 bands in one day. Hopefully I learned a few lessons: always bring my Flip, it consistently does a better job capturing audio. Also, blog about shows quickly afterwards, or I'll forget stuff. I enjoyed many of the bands, but a month later the details are fuzzy. I probably saw another band or two, but if I didn't get a photo or video then I'm not sure I'll remember who I saw.