Los Gentlemen and Seacats Play Hatties Hat

Most of the family is out of town, so I'm more likely to get to free events on weekday nights. Thursday's Los Gentlemen and Seacats show at Hattie's Hat is a prime example. I've seen both bands before and enjoyed them, but making it to Ballard via bus on a weekday is time consuming. With nobody waiting at home I decided to check out the show and get dinner while I'm at it.

Seacats are a long time favorite that I've seen a few times, and I've also interviewed Josh Davis, their lead vocalist/guitarist.

This was as smaller version of Seacats, just Josh and a keyboard player with sequenced or recorded drums that Josh referred to as "Spacecats."
They had an interesting luchadore thing going with masks, but Josh couldn't keep his on and sing so that ended quickly.

Next Los Gentlemen took the stage for their headline set.

Los Gentlemen do covers of older songs - stuff from decades ago, still younger than me, so these are songs I remember fondly from when I was a young adult like Taling Head's Psycho Killer:
Nice version, feels a bit faster and more directly rocking, maybe slightly less frightening just because it isn't quite as deranged.

I noticed Kurt Block was hanging out listening to their set, Kurt's played Hattie's Hat any number of times. For their final number they got Kurt up with them to do a cover of the Fastback's "K Street" which I found amusing in a sort of self referential way. It's also a nice song! So that was my free music to go with my dinner at Hattie's Hat, I have to admit I love listening to music in Ballard.
As a bonus I wandered into a different bar and caught part of a set from a blues band. Unfortunately I lost track of the band's name, it was the something Street Blues Band.

Vera Benefit show featuring Futura and Seacats

Futura and Seacats did a benefit show at the Vera Project for the Vera Project on Thursday, April 19. There wasn't much notice which usually means there aren't too many volunteers. Ben likes Seacats - they were the highlight of one of his first Veracity shows and he randomly saw them again outdoors by the EMP and from then on we kept track and saw them when they came to town. We volunteered and I ended up steering (telling volunteers what to do) and lead front door (cashier, take people's money at the front door). Ben did green room/stage left security: he hung out and watched the show. Seacats led things off with a fun set, I like the vocals and the musical approach. The lineup has been changing and I think this is at least the 3rd we've seen; Ben gave his approval, he enjoyed getting to see Seacats for the fourth or fifth time. After a little fiddling with equipment the Seacats put on a great set. Josh's vocals have become the backbone of the Seacats sound and I've always liked how he sings this one: It's good to see the newest lineup cranking it out and still keeping enough of the familiar elements to be recognizably the Seacats. Futura took the stage for the headlining set and blew me away. I'd never heard Futura before and their opening intro with its detailed Vera call out immediately won me over, and after praising the Vera Project and some additional comments (skip ahead to 0:56 if you just want to hear the music) they dove in with some interesting percussion - a regular drum set and maybe a djembe driving a pensive introduction before a quick countdown by the drummer into the first verse of the song. I like the complexity and the separate movements, not a very common approach and it works very well for me. Futura was obviously tightly rehearsed and frequently did seamless transitions from one bit to the next, making for longer videos since I hate to interrupt the flow if they don't stop between songs (or maybe I was just too lazy to pick out the good spots for transitions, give it a view and you can make the call): The two Futura videos I've posted are both longer than ten minutes, and if you'd like to see more I have the rest of the show on YouTube as well; the last song is also worth checking out. I believe this show was a senior project for somebody, perhaps most likely the guitarist from Futura who gave the sixty second call-out to the Vera Project and Seacats in the video above, but that's just a guess. In any event it was a load of fun so I'm glad they got to do a fun show for their senior project, whoever was responsible for it. Always glad to see an old favorite like the Seacats and it's even betterr when paired with discovering a new favorite like Futura. Nicely played!

Seacats CD Release with Aqueduct, Tea Cozies, Seacats and Elk

Excellent Friday night show at the Vera Project with Aqueduct and Tea Cozies putting on great sets with Seacats and Elk opening for them.

First up was Elk, dude use to be in Seacats:

He did a Beattles cover and I enjoyed his version of "Whoa Whoa Whoa Hey Hey Hey" - my son loves that song, so do I.


Next up was Seacats

I saw them at the Veracity show last year, and Ben saw them do an outdoor show at the center outside the EMP.
Got a fair amount on video, Ben saw more of it and enjoyed the show, I liked the songs I saw.
Guitar oriented up tempo rock, the new stuff sounds good!

Tea Cozies came on next and kicked ass! The two women are sort of co-lead performers. The one on the left sang and played guitar, the one on the right sang and played keyboard, guitar and tambourine, with a dude on bass and another on drums.

Excellent performance, the video came out well, capturing the band putting on an energetic show



They took risks musically, and even songs like this one with it's odd repeated nonsense vocal hook that at first I wasn't sure about ended up getting me by the second verse.

Enjoyable upbeat bouncy fast rock sound.

Aqueduct came on for the finale and I was wondering if they'd be up to it after the inspired set by Tea Cozies.


They were more than up to it, putting on a great hour long set of punchy songs with interesting hooks, great vocal and instrumental performances and an attentive audience eating it up. The first song on this video is on fire, the second one kicks too!

Talented vocal performance, well written music gets under your skin immediately, quite a memorable performance.
I got a bit of the end of this song, here it is in HD:

Something about the sound Aqueduct gets, the vocals and instrumentals, the sound they combine to create, was just awesome, buzzing with emotion and engaging our feelings, quite enjoyable.

Excellent show, Tea Cozies and Aqueduct put on as good a show musically as any I've seen all year, and the warm up bands were local favorites that we were glad to see again.

Here's to good sales for the Seacats CD, we got our copy! Ben's got it on heavy rotation and it's holding up well.

Addendum: the POP! Stereo blog from FL or UK has a download of Dead Man's Sister by the Tea Cozies. Several others had it too.

Sasquatch Is Coming

I managed to finagle a trip to Sasquatch, admission, camping space and even some food in exchange for participating in the creation of the Sasquatch 10th Anniversary Year Book.

After giving us a class on interviews we were all assigned to do interviews with anybody we wanted. I picked the Knowmads, a young hip hop duo I had just seen and enjoyed who were local, had a good following (they sold the Vera Project out) and only had a few interviews out there.

I have to admit I enjoyed it, so when the Seacats (my then 12 year old son's first local band crush last Summer) got CD release show booked I tracked down an obscure web site and got in touch for an interview with Josh Davis of the Seacats, who are doing a CD release show at the Vera Project on May 20th. This one wasn't tasked or reviewed by the Sasquatch Yearbook committee, hopefully some of them may read it though.

Now I get to go to Sasquatch and if it can be arranged Ranni and I get to interview Macklemore and Ryan Lewis. So another assignment was researching the artists, which was an unexpected pleasure. If you've read enough of my blogs you've seen my rap/hip-hop disclaimer: it came after my time, it doesn't favor guitar, it emphasizes beat and rhythm over melody, it's not really my native style or comfort zone, and my knowledge of the genre is thin to say the least.

All that being said, I keep on running into hip-hop shows that I enjoy immensely. Mad Rad, Das Racist, Dyme Def, Knowmads - I end up having a great time at their shows. The crowd's are into it, rhythm and beat rule during live performances, and I saw a lot of talented performers at a high creative level just killing it. Awesome live shows!

Macklemore and Ryan Lewis are the first of the modern local wave (well Das Racist aren't local, so local and national wave) of Hip Hop performers that I got into via their recorded output. Several of their songs just knocked me out, and that arguably cheesy eulogy "My Oh My" made me cry - the bit about listening to the Mariners in the garage with Dad was a direct hit, I still miss my father and lived through exactly that so many times; nothing has evoked him that strongly for me in a long while. Wonderful stuff, very powerful, it connected with my emotions intensely.


Macklemore and Ryan Lewis put out interesting stuff when it comes to the backing track too, with more variety in the instrumentation than I'm used to for hip hop - horns, strings, classical sounding piano, quite different from most of what I've heard before.

I read a criticism recently of Macklemore and Head & the Heart, effectively that they're music is too naive, simple, or un-ironic, it just doesn't have the complexity and depth to really be classic stuff. I would argue that what has made them so noticeable is that they are working the emotion side of creativity pretty directly, and the passion is intense, interesting, and exciting. I saw Head & the Heart open for Vampire Weekend last year at the Paramount and they were awesome, and I'm really looking forward to finally seeing Macklemore and Ryan Lewis at Sasquatch too - the youtube footage of his shows looks great! Interviewing will be icing on the cake if that works out.

That's just one band of a huge number of interesting acts like Das Racist, Death Cab For Cutie, The Decemberists, Deerhunter, The Flaming Lips, Flogging Molly, Foo Fighters, The Globes, Guided By Voices, Iron & Wine, Modest Mouse, MSTRKRFT, Old 97′s, Reggie Watts, Rodrigo Y Gabriela, Sharon Jones & The Dap Kings, Surfer Blood, The Thermals, Tokyo Police Club, Wilco, Wolf Parade and the The Young Evils - and that's just the shorter list of bands I've heard of and/or seen. Half the fun at a show like this is the bands that you;ve never heard of, you see all kinds of cool things that you just wouldn't have made it to otherwise. It's almost an embarrassment of riches!

The real challenge is to figure out how to get pictures and videos from every act I see, if possible. Can I take a laptop so I can download them as I go along and free up room on my Flip? We'll see, I'll blog about it one way or another once I get back after next weekend. It should be awesome!

Interview with Josh Davis of the Seacats

I got a chance to catch up with Josh Davis of Seacats this week. Seacats are playing a CD release show at the Vera on May 20th, next Friday, and we talked about their history and relationship to all ages shows in Seattle, among other things.

Josh tells me that Seacats “started in Summer 2009, didn’t really have intentions of doing much of a band but then we got a show, then we did another show, and we just kept doing it, then the EMP Sound Off made us get really encouraged.”

The EMP Sound Off in February and March in 2010 was a major turning point for the band. Seacats are from Kelso, which is closer to Vancouver WA and Portland than Seattle, just off of the Columbia River. Josh said he read about Sound Off, didn’t know much about it but they applied anyway. They thought it was a minor battle of the teenage bands thing; in fact it has turned into quite an incubator for local performers and bands.

Seacats ended up in 2nd place in their round of the semi-finals. The 1st place bands advance, but only 1 of the 2nd place bands get to advance to the finals. Josh is pretty humble about the band, as he put it “we listened to the other 2nd place bands and thought they’d probably beat us out, but the youth advisory board chose us.” Josh mentions that apparently they appeal to the all-ages crowd, which I can vouch for.
Later in the Summer of 2010 the Seacats played a free Veracity show, which I saw with my 12 year old son. By coincidence my son also saw Seacats playing an outdoor show at the Summer Sound event in front of the EMP later that summer. We bought a CD with a few of their songs and my son really enjoyed it, going around singing “Whoa whoa whoa hey hey hey” for several months there. Seacats ended up being my son’s first local band crush, which is pretty cool. Josh really nailed the youth appeal thing!

I asked Josh about who writes the songs and the answer was that 3 different members all write songs, which is fairly unusual. The rule of thumb is that each member gets to sing lead vocals on the songs they wrote, so they definitely trade lead vocals around. They also swap instruments around – they did that quite a bit when I saw them last Summer, although Josh tells me they don’t trade instruments quite as much now. They worry a little about a lack of a cohesive sound, but they all work on crafting the sound together. Hopefully it increases the variety and appeal – it certainly works for me!

Up until January they actually had 4 members who wrote songs, but in January a guitarist left & a new drummer joined. As I mentioned, they swap instruments around, including drums, so somehow that makes sense.

They use a mild amount of harmony, which I always like – “not as much as some local bands” says Josh, “but as much as we can; wherever we think it fits.”

Tristan (the guy who books shows at the Vera Project) was quite complimentary about the Seacats – coming from Kelso, they don’t have a huge local fan base, so they wouldn’t normally be booked for a main stage show at the Vera. They ended up being “up and coming” local band that the Vera Project’s Programming Committee (I’m on that committee) voted to include on the Bumbershoot stage that Tristan got to book – alongside the Head and The Heart, for example – and had another successful show in front of an even larger all-ages audience.

Still, playing a CD release show at the Vera without a label or much of a local fan base behind them was a stretch. Tristan complimented the band on working within the system, contacting the agents for some touring bands they liked and getting included in a show with Aqueduct and the Tea Cozies, so now they have their main stage show to be their official CD release party – excellent execution, working the business like pros – this Friday’s CD release show should be fun!

Speaking of releases, Josh tells me the Seacats released a couple of previous EPs – I have one of them and quite enjoyed it. The upcoming CD is their first full length release. It includes 12 songs and has a cowboy themed cover – which is about all I know about it so far, by next weekend I’ll see some or all of it played live and buy a copy so I’ll update my blog with a show and CD review shortly after that. Josh is very proud of it, saying it’s the best musical work they’ve done. They are self recorded without the support of a label so far, and he feels each release has seen a major jump in recorded quality each time.

Kelso is closer to Vancouver & Portland, but they don’t get all that many gigs there. I asked Josh if they prefer Seattle but he rephrased it as “Seattle seems to like us more.” He notes that the Portland scene is more 21+ oriented, all ages venues having a hard time there and rarely lasting more than a year. Seacats play bars on occasion but “we like all ages venues better.” Considering a couple of members are 15 and only 1 of the 5 is over 21, that makes sense.

Josh tells me they feel they are improving: more dynamic in their songs, more depth in general, better studio chops. Looking forward to the new CD so I can see if I agree, I'll blog about that and the Friday night show once I give them a listen.

I'll give Josh the last words: “We enjoy playing live! We haven’t played a show like this one (at the Vera) next Friday in a while now, we’re looking forward to it!”