Photos: City Arts Fest 2011 w/ The Cops @ the Comet

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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

Show Review & Photos: Thee Oh Sees & Total Control @ the Crocodile

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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.

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Show Review & Photos: Hey Marseilles, Nick Jaina & Bryan John Appleby @ the Neptune

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Hey Marseilles at the Neptune
Review and photos by Abby Williamson

For my first show at the newly minted Neptune Theater in the University District, I chose Hey Marseilles for that honor. It had been over a year since the last time I saw them, and when I heard that they would be playing the Neptune, I jumped at the opportunity.


Hey Marseilles

For their Elegy EP release, Nick Jaina and Bryan John Appleby opened the show to a crowd of overwhelmingly college-aged kids. I felt a bit old. Jaina was joined onstage for a very lovely performance with depth and earnestness. At that point, I had fallen in love with the Neptune. The only other time I actually had been there was for a film screening of the Michael Cera movie two years ago for Youth in Revolt. The only thing I remember really was that The Cobrasnake was there and I ended up on their website.

But back to the present. Bryan John Appleby was up next, and I had seen him play several times in unique venues – St Mark’s Cathedral and Conor Byrne pub to name a couple, but this was magical. He was also joined onstage by Hey Marseilles’ own Sam Anderson on cello and Patrick Brannon on trumpet. It was folk rock at its finest, and Appleby’s soft and subtle voice was a great match to the absolutely perfect acoustics of this place. I thoroughly enjoyed it.


Nick Jaina


Bryan John Appleby

After the crowd had become much larger, Hey Marseilles’ seven members took the stage for an amazing set. They played virtually every song off To Travels and Trunks and several new songs off the upcoming full-length. It just made us all even more anxious for the new album, because it seemed like forever ago that Trunks came out. Doesn’t it though?

This band is not only unmatched in their sheer adorableness, but they are all pretty darn good musicians in their own right. Hey Marseilles makes me love the accordion and is one of many acts from our area that make me swoon over the viola and cello. It’s like the moment when the new Doctor Who put on a bow tie – “I wear a bow tie now. Bow ties are cool.” I like the cello now. Cellos are cool.

The music meshes so well together, and it just makes you feel good, like a really good soup that has been sitting all day at a low heat. Hey Marseilles is a well-cooked soup. A really well-cooked soup.

I cannot rave enough about Hey Marseilles and the show exemplified it even further.


Hey Marseilles


Bryan John Appleby