From having a background of being in marching band as a youth, I’m more prone to thinking of multiple drums as being very loud and not necessarily so articulate. The thing is about the drum line in marching band (from my perspective) is that you’re supposed to be loud. There’s some technique involved with the bass drum line, more with the snare but ultimately it comes down to the “quads” being the most dynamic in it’s range of notes. Not saying that there is no skill involved except by being loud but everyone in the drum line is basically marching with individual drums that would technically comprise a “full” kit.

I feel like King Tears Bat Trip is a solid example of how talented enough everyone in the Tables and Chairs / Racer Sessions crew is in Seattle. As a group they are involved in each others bands, more than I can remember only because I remember about three of them, and each lies in the realm of different genres. Kristian also plays in Lonesome Shack as the drummer and Guitarist in Luke’s band Heatwarmer with Andrew and a slough of other cool cats. Luke is one-half of Thousands with Kristian, etc. My overarching feeling for them is that they are all Jazz musicians but obviously don’t limit themselves to that style but it does show in their music, at least to me.

KTBT is the newest music that has crossed my eyes and ears and it’s insane. I had a hard time not dancing while filming. I had a hard time not dancing while editing. I’m having a hard time not dancing watching this. You could just feel it in the room and it’s one of those feelings that can resurface if you were there and watching this- maybe. We’ll see.

Still, this is really good. El Pegaso leads me to want to make a trip to Central America or Brazil and seek out this music that I kind of forgot about because it’s only in my periphery. Something that I’ll remember when I venture back to my home town in Downtown Pasco.

There are moments when I know of a band and I want to see that band but I don’t want to see them in the setting that I think I’m going to see them in… because the setting is not conducive to what I want to see attendees doing, which is dancing but with some kind of formal event that everyone has fun dressing up for. Something, like, I don’t know- Salsa Night.

I remember it being really hot at Cairo that day. It was summer hot but really it was more humid than anything on account of the number of individuals packed into the showroom of the space. T-shirts, tank-tops and I’m sure it was lighter weather than what Texas was feeling at that time. I remember reading an article about how Russia was on fire and how the mortality rate had risen on account of the heat with the reports focusing on the elderly. I also remember how this particular summer in Seattle had been met with mostly rain and unseasonal weather- rain, temperature drops, and grumbles on account of the anti-boating weather.

I think this day was one of the few that you kind of loathed but at the same time were thankful for. The great thing about the summertime weather is that anyone wants to be out of their homes because they’re aware that you only have a three month window where it’s prime-time to do that.

Also, YellowFever left their merch in Olympia and had no recordings to sell to anyone. That was a huge bummer.

I was waiting a long time for Stephen to come back up. When I heard an announcement for the pre-order for It’s Not Just Kissing I didn’t hesitate to buy the thing. Up to that point I hadn’t had any money (really) to buy merch from really any bands touring through the Northwest, which led me to glean as many French Quarter songs from the internet.

This show was filmed in Olympia at a house called the Garden of Sweden (now defunct). Because of the lateness and loudness of the show it had to take place in basement-garage of the house. There were a large number of people crammed into the basement and since way that the basement was set up, you really could only see French Quarter play if you were in the front six “rows”. I stood on a chair and held the camera up with mostly one arm for about 35 minutes filming, out of the way from everyone and glad that there was at least one light for visibility.

I think the way that it works is that when Stephen plays by himself, he’s Stephen Steinbrink but when he’s the full band, it’s French Quarter. Maybe in either case he’s French Quarter/Stephen Steinbrink. Seeing this thing happen in the form of a band was wonderful in giving the audience something to dance to rather than only attentively watching. Same songs but projected with different feelings by the sheer difference in presentation.

The musical baptism Lazer Zeppelin offer is waist-deep in muddy reverb and noise, all messy whisky-chaos and lonely country nights under a careening caterwaul of voices. The songs oscillate between swingin’ visionary drunk fun and ballads buried under reverb, all Southern catharsis lost on the way to heaven or else endearing Southern naiveté. On their way looking for that lost hymnal world of Carter Family America they successfully create a sound that is more geographically diverse and widely accessible than its roots. Drowning a normally stripped-down, honest, and straightforward musical tradition in Northwest low-fi noise, reverb, and mystery allows Lazer Zeppelin to displace themselves as performers from their music.

The indirectness of their presentation creates an environment for the listener ripe for imagining a world or landscape where the songs are coming from, vintage or modern, Appalachian or their own Northwest backyard. This music is more relevant to the young culture they’re playing for than a more traditional-sounding country band would be. At their best they show how the country motif can still be fresh and integral to our American identity all the way up here in the Northwest.

They brought the color of warmer weather with them and projected it through their amplifiers. This last summer in Seattle had been a terrible one. The sun was spotty and the overcast more often than not usually was bearing rain. Summer of 2009 though, that was a proper summer. It was hot-to-comfortably warm, wonderful biking weather, etc.

“Summer, 2010: you were a disappointment; Jacuzzi Boys had to redeem yo’ ass.”

I mean, come on. Look how many people were wearing coats.

Within the thirty minutes that Jacuzzi boys played, they were very much able to fit in twelve songs without missing a beat. They all seemed excited to be able to play another show in Seattle before splitting to resume the next half of their US tour. Not knowing of them prior to them performing led me to be feel giddy about how upbeat and streamline rock and roll music.

The first time I saw Christopher Francis play was two years ago at Hollow Earth Radio’s Magma Fest in Belltown at the Rendezvous Theatre. The theatre is small and kind of in the back in of the bar in a spot that can be reserved for private events. It’s a very tiny stage and Chris was dressed in what was a mix between 60′s frill with undertones of a spanish conquistador that came from the stomp box and acoustic guitar he played. This is also what he was dressed as during a show at the New Crompton; when Matt Fu and I walked to the store to get food and a cop showed up to shut the show down because he “can hear you play five blocks away” (the cop was a complete dick).

In the last year I’ve seen Christopher francis play with the Portland Cello Project covering R&B songs and this particular night being the second (and last) occasion I’d seen him play with his very own dance / distorto band. It’s always really entertaining to listen to his songs, hear a pop music reference / medley, then figure out if it is in fact that, then try to figure out what artist he’s covering. The songs (8 minutes not featured in these videos) prior to Song II had lyrical bits from the Dirty Projectors song Bitte Orca and Beyoné’s Single Ladies. It’s always really fun when Chris is playing with or without a full band.

“Hey, are you coming to 20/20 next week? You should come. There’s this band and […]” Sasha gets excited when there are bands from Athens. Sometimes it’s a subtle excitement and sometimes she expresses it in what can be acronymed as OMG.

“So, are you going to record them?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know if I’m getting the camera back from being broken”

Fortunately the camera came back in time and it was working. In between Alex and I heckling each other and setting up mics, I was noting how excited Sasha was about tonight.

“So, hey, are you going to record them?”

NYMPH used to live in Athens. They moved to New York sometime ago- the amount of time I don’t know. I had no idea what to expect from them and no point of reference. What isn’t’ in this video is the huge bell shakers that Eri had been shaking articulately. The largest of those shakers I have ever seen. She also had bells on her feet and for this video and during this song she was hitting on a drum. She’s probably the greatest human tambourine that has lived.

Colleen had moved from Olympia to live in New Orleans quite sometime prior to the New Zealand trip and before her move there were a few times that I could have seen Twig Palace play and each of those instances were described to me as their “last show”. BAH! Because Colleen had been absent from the Northwest for so long, this show was somewhat of a friend-reuntion. Her stay in the NW wasn’t going to last longer than this night and the next morning though since the next day Letters and Twig Palace were beginning their trip down the western coast of the United States.

This show had been planned for a while. In a way it was a kind of Queercore showcase preview to the Magma Fest show that came the following month of March. The organization of the show was mostly catered around the band Sourpatch coming to the Northwest. The band Fleabag was supposed to play but, I guess they broke up a couple weeks before this night.

There was so much excitement at 20/20 Cycle around the entire show and for Agatha. There’s a younger crowd that aren’t part of the regular folks within the Seattle music / DIY scene. They’re usually only at Queercore shows, other oriented community events and always supportive with the upmost enthusiasm and excitement. A few of them that I met come all of the way from the “East Side” (considered to be Bellevue, Redmond, Renton, Kirkland, et al.) for these kinds of happenings and it’s always great to see them.