One thing that you must admit about Foster The People is that their songs tend to be catchy. And Mark Foster’s experience as a jingle writer probably has something to do with why we find ourselves singing “Pumped Up Kicks” and “Helena Beat” while in the shower. (Maybe that is just me…overshare?) Foster The People cranked up the synth at this year’s Deck The Hall Ball. Photos by David Conger.
The Northern Irish boys of Two Door Cinema Club continued 107.7 The End’s Deck The Hall Ball last night, playing selections from their album, Tourist History. Photos by David Conger.
The Triple Door featured Priscilla Ahn for her Seattle appearance on October 16th. Ahn released her second album, When You Grow Up, in May 2011 (engineer Dominic Monks is credited on the album for his stomping – nice)! Photographer Kirk Stauffer returned from Priscilla Ahn’s show with some lovely shots:
The Cops headlined the Comet for one City Arts Fest’s shows. They’re always an exciting band to watch, and this evening they had one particularly excited fan who crawled up on to the stage. Even though the guy also crawled out of the Comet, he returned, then continued to have a blast. I love that kind of stuff. I’ve included the set list below, and I always like to mention what songs hit me particularly hard, but you know what? Every single damn song was dirty, brazen rock. I also try to pay attention to how new songs fit into a band’s established collection. For The Cops it all goes together perfectly. And I think they’ve even improved with the new songs, and in performance of the familiar songs. So, don’t miss their show next week at the Tractor, and in the meantime here are some of my photos:
The Cops
Gallery of The Cops @ the Comet
Set list:
Free Electricity
It’s Epidemic
Light it Off
Messy Virgo
Golden City
Rising Sons
Modern Black Flats
Prick by Prick
We Are the Occupants
Living with a Ghost
Mouthfeel
Megasuicide
Don’t Take it Personal
Photos & Show Review: Thee Oh Sees and Total Control @ The Crocodile
by Marianne Spellman
If you were in the Seattle area and could have benefitted from the restorative and detoxifying benefits of a visit to the sauna, you really should have been in attendance at the Crocodile to see garage rock’s most bitchen quintet, Thee Oh Sees. Holy mother of god, it was so hot inside the club that the sweat was pouring off every face on the packed floor, and by the end of their hour-long set the band members were similarly soaked and exhausted. Touring behind new In The Red album release Carrion Crawler/The Dream (Castlemania was also released in 2011), Thee Oh Sees delivered a relentless, thrashy, beat-heavy set that had the crowd jumping, beer flying, and the familiar eau de pits smell wafting rock ‘n roll victory in the sodden air.
Thee Oh Sees
I arrived too late to the club to catch locals Grave Babies’ set, but did settle in up front to see Total Control, an Australian band that recently released a 12” split on Castle Face Records with Thee Oh Sees as well as their own debut album last August, Henge Beat. Their sound is a powerful mix of explosive, staccato 3-chord guitar-based garage and chilly late ‘70s/early ‘80s UK Sad Wave (that’s what I called Joy Division/OMD/New Order/Bauhaus back in the day, sue me) without the sloppy frat-boy swagger of the former or the poisonous emo drip of the latter. Total Control adds clever little bits of spacy sound and melody to their songs, plays ‘em tight and good – a really exciting live band. Totally dug them, and the crowd did, too.
Total Control
Thee Oh Sees
After Total Control finished up, out came Thee Oh Sees double drum kits (the band recently added Lars Finberg from the Intelligence and Wounded Lion to their line-up as second drummer/guitarist). Both bass drums were rather perfectly placed directly facing either side of my head, so I had a full stereo jungle beat effect going on for the first few songs of the set, which I liked. But the dancers got pretty slammy pretty fast after Thee Oh Sees continued with a wicked, devil-driven pace, so me n’ my pricey pixel gear slunk off and settled in at the side, courtesy several nice and accommodating fellow fans.