Artist: TR/ST
Song: “Capitol” – Black Marble Remix
Why You Want to Listen: New York’s Black Marble adds a bit more twinkle to the song, blending in the vocals differently.
Details: “Capitol” is off TR/ST’s latest, Joyland, Robert Alfons’ first TR/ST album without original member, Maya Postepski.
Bumbershoot – Day 2 Show Review & Photos: Schoolyard Heroes
Schoolyard Heroes @ Bumbershoot, September 2014
Show Review by Abby Williamson
Photos by Simon Krane & Abby Williamson
Schoolyard Heroes‘ Ryann Donnelly – photos by Abby Williamson
Bumbershoot usually brings together old and new bands into one collage of music all over the Seattle Center, but you don’t often get the experience of seeing a once-loved local band coming together for a reunion after a five-year hiatus. That’s what Schoolyard Heroes brought to the table on Sunday. After gaining praise in the EMP’s Sound Off competition back in 2003, their energetic alternative goth rock garnered a huge audience, and it sadly only lasted to 2009. Here’s hoping this reunion was not a one-off thing, because it’s like they never stopped playing shows – that’s how good they were.
Vocalist Ryann Donnelly owned the stage better than anyone else the whole weekend, and put on a better show than anyone I’ve seen in a long time. It also didn’t hurt that the crowd was filled with the most excited group of kids all weekend. Seriously, how cool would it be to have your favorite band play a reunion show at the festival that essentially started it all?
Schoolyard Heroes found their niche in this city, and since they stopped making records, there truly hasn’t been another band like them around – at least not coming out of Seattle. They embodied the ecstatic youthful angst that permeated the teenage years of the now-twenty-somethings, and it came rolling back with a vengeance. It was nostalgia that I never thought I wanted, but it was a perfect way to spend a Sunday afternoon.
Schoolyard Heroes’ performance was one of those shows that made me wish that I’d gotten into photography earlier than 2009. As Donnelly strutted across the stage and Jonah Bergman swung his curtain of hair around, all I could think of was, “why did I never get a chance to see them before now?!”
Hopefully it won’t be the last time.
Jonah Bergman of Schoolyard Heroes – photo by Simon Krane
Schoolyard Heroes – photos by Abby Williamson
Schoolyard Heroes – photos by Simon Krane
Schoolyard Heroes – photos by Abby Williamson
Bumbershoot – Day 2 w/ We Are Scientists, Mission of Burma, Big Star’s Third & Falls
Always a favorite here at Back Beat Seattle, We Are Scientists was one of the many bands who performed at this year’s Bumbershoot. It’s been a very busy year for the group, who have toured extensively, and released their fifth album, TV en Français. Big Star’s Third and Falls also made appearances, as did Mission of Burma. Mission of Burma will tour with Foo Fighters next year. All photos by Abby Williamson and Simon Krane:
We Are Scientists – photos by Abby Williamson
Mission of Burma – photos by Simon Krane
Big Star’s Third – photos by Abby Williamson
Falls – photos by Simon Krane
Photos: Manchester Orchestra & Kevin Devine @ the Neptune
Back on April 29th Manchester Orchestra headlined the Neptune Theatre. Somehow, again, due to fault of the editor and editor alone, these photographic scorchers by Josh Daniels did not see the light of day here. Until now. The Atlanta, Georgia band released their first albums after the departure of Jonathan Corley, Cope and Hope, in 2014. Opening for Manchester Orchestra was Kevin Devine. Huge apologies to everyone involved for not displaying these photos earlier!
Manchester Orchestra
Kevin Devine
Show Review & Photos: King Khan & BBQ Show @ the Crocodile
King Khan & BBQ Show @ the Crocodile, 10/11/14
Show Review & Photos by Dagmar
King Khan & BBQ Show‘s King Khan/Blacksnake
Canada’s King Khan & BBQ Show took over the Crocodile for a date in early October. This was my first time seeing King Khan at all, whose garage rock shows are legendary. And good lord, did he and bandmate Mark Sultan deliver. The crowd was a raucous and happy, drunken mess of super fans, and Sultan and Blacksnake (as King Khan/Arish Ahmad Khan is known in this duo) reared a gigantic hydra head of powerfully rabid punk. If you cut heads off this monster of music, so many additional heads could grow, and keep biting your tiny ears. In a good way, of course. It’s always good for someone like me, who goes many shows, to get in touch with Danger at a show. If you like the danger of live music, with all its dirty, beer-spilling, moshing-stomping-rocking-blood could be spilled messiness, then this is a show for you. Treat yourself, and dig it.
King Khan & the BBQ Show