Photos: The Used @ Showbox SoDo

The Used @ Showbox SoDo, 11/29/17
Photos by Charitie Myers


The Used‘s Bert McCracken

Details: The Used is really still celebrating their 15th anniversary, even though that event passed in 2016. Keeping the party going in Seattle on November 29th, the band finished its fall month-long tour by performing a setlist including approximately four songs off newest album, The Canyon. While fans got to hear those tracks, naturally the Used played from their catalog, which now features The Canyon (their first without founding member, guitarist Quinn Allman). And sure, the Used probably doesn’t care all that much what writers say about them, but it must be satisfying to see the release appearing to be the band’s best reviewed. Bert McCracken, the Utah rock band’s lead singer said, about The Canyon‘s beginnings:

I’ve learned as an artist that a great idea is such a gift. If I don’t stop whatever it is I’m doing, even if while driving, if I don’t pull over at that moment, then maybe I didn’t deserve the idea to begin with. I learned to respect and worship the ideas in that way, that they are and will always be something sacred. Stopping in that moment was a brand new approach for us during this process.

If you’re not already acquainted with the Used, now’s a great time to get into them. To begin with, how many bands can say they have such a well-read singer as McCracken, who can quote from George Orwell and is massively up on his current events? We approve. And Europe gets to approve in February, when the group tours the Continent and the UK.


The Used

Previous Back Beat Coverage of the Used:

Show Review & Photos: The Used @ Showbox SoDo
Photos: Taking Back Sunday & the Used @ Showbox SoDo

Photos: Olivia O’Brien @ Showbox at the Market

California native singer-songwriter Olivia O’Brien opened for Jack & Jack at Showbox at the Market. The stop in Seattle was near the end of their six-week tour. O’Brien’s recently released debut EP, It’s Not That Deep, has already delivered three singles: “Empty,” “RIP,” and “No Love.”


Olivia O’Brien

Video: Elle Exxe’s “Catapult”

Band: Elle Exxe
Video: “Catapult”
Why You Want To Watch: Scottish singer-songwriter Elle Exxe made her very own video! The electronic/pop musician doesn’t always appear as she does in this video; the 2D look is meant to stop judging by appearances alone:

“Too often people define and judge one another based on basic outlines – what clothes someone wears, who they’re friends with, what colour their skin is etc. Those judgements become beliefs – creating the same kind of instinct that tells you when something is flat or has depth. I wanted to mess with people’s minds in video format by creating a 2D illusion with high-contrast black and white makeup and clothing.”

Elle Exxe’s excellent debut album, Love Fuelled Hate, is out now.


Elle Exxe


Elle @ SXSW 2017 – photo by Kirk Stauffer

Photos: Toro y Moi & the Mattson 2 @ the Neptune

Toro y Moi & the Mattson 2 @ the Neptune, 11/7/16
Photos by Casey Brevig
Memory Lane Series, part 22


Toro y Moi

Details: So, this is pretty amazing: Toro y Moi (real name Chazwick Bradley Bundick) has a date named after him in Berkeley, California. As of 2017, June 21st is Chazwick Bradley Bundick Day! That’s an honor. Toro y Moi also put out a record, Boo Boo, in 2017, making it a big year for him. He’s already made two videos, “Pavement” and “Windows,” from the album with photographer Kristie Muller, but hasn’t announced any tour dates. As an opening band, Toro y Moi chose duo the Mattson2, with whom he made 2017’s album Chaz Bundick Meets The Mattson 2.

Toro y Moi


The Mattson 2