Didja know I occasionally write for Seattlest? It's true. I'm going to start linking there to here every so often, just so youse don't forgets. In today's edition, I play up important events of the weekend!
YOU SPOON FORK: Local heavies Titanium Sporkestra are a renegade marching band featuring members of Infernal Noise Brigade and TchKunG!. They're planning a trip to the great state of Texas for the first ever HONK!TX in March. (Look for Seattle's own HONK! Fest West in May.) Since the cost of getting a score of musicians and a ton of drums across the country is not inconsiderable, they're throwing a party to raise funds and announce their Kickstarter campaign. They've invited Brownstone, DJ DubTek, Aqueous, and k¥Le bija to stir up the floor and you to get stirred. Saturday 8:00 p.m. // Fonda La Catrina // $10-20 sliding scale donation at the door (21+)
It's that time again. The holiday season in its many guises, the frenzied time of year where we turn our focus to family, friends, food, drink, debauchery and gifts.
And what better way to combine all these things than at the most epic house party of the year. We call it Christmas in July in December.
When we did this party last year, The Stranger's Party Crasher showed up.
We like the idea of picking one's family during this time, and creating a tradition that's uniquely ours. We figured the best way to do that was to make some delicious food, invite our friends, and play some music. Speaking of,
The Bands!
The Psychotronics are a brashly tuneful instrumental three-piece that specialize in three minute surf songs tinged with noise.
Hey Marseilles and Pillow Army mark their fourth year with us. They both use eclectic instrumentation to explore unexpected rhythms. We think they’re fabulous.
Seattle’s Yellow Hat Band plays loud, fun music from all over the world using horns and drums. They are a mobile dance party and we are honored to have em.
Please know that you and yours are cordially invited. If you'd like details, do get in touch.
The Donner Vixens are unlike any Christmas band you've ever heard, performing originals and knowing covers of songs that document the hard times of the holidays.
Formed in 2007 under the name The Christmas Belles, The Donner Vixens are now an annual holiday event highlighted by the Christmas In July In December luau and a Christmas Eve performance at The Blue Moon Tavern. Featuring members of Pillow Army, The End Times, and the Seattle Sugarplum Elves, The Vixens like to disseminate the season's feeling of peace and love through raucous chaos and tight harmonies.
I invite you to log in at, and turn it up to, 11 tonight on Blues & Bluster. But if you can't, maybe you'll consider joining the Vixens at one of their shows this season:
Nog for the Needy Where: The Comet When: Tuesday, December 21 8:00 p.m. Featuring: The Santa Daddies, The Seattle Sugarplum Elves, Hollow Earth Radio's DJ Tyson Lynn, and a special guest! Admission and nog sales will be donated to Noise for the Needy.
The 7th Annual Blue Moon Tavern Christmas Pageant and Midnight Mass Where: Blue Moon Tavern When: Friday, December 24 9:00 pm Featuring: Billy the Fridge (performing and playing Santa!), Buffy the Trickslayer, DJ Country Mike, Et Ceteras (a Peter Cetera cover band!), and guests. There will also be appearances by both Jesus and Satan, and a Midnight Mass officiated by the Rev. Darnell Jenkins.
Unless you've been reading this, or this, or this, or listening to this, I haven't been putting much out there lately.
It's been a weird year. Been a spate of those recently. But this year especially, articulating my life to myself has been difficult. Figuring out how to show it to others? Impossible. So any kind of writing of a...personal nature, let's call it?...gets locked down as soon as it's produced. To the average observer, I've been piping my diary into dev/null.
Every so often though, it's nice to fire up the skywriter and spell it out in long, graceful arcs. Given the weather lately, I figured I should take any clear day opportunities and make the most of them.
Most of my free time over the past six/seven months has been devoted to one of the following projects:
1) The Psychotronics. A destructive instrumental surf band devised and birthed by documentarian Jeff Myers, he of past projects like The Christmas Belles and Desperado. We take our first real steps on September 30th, when we play live on Hollow Earth Radio's Blues & Bluster. Listen in at your own peril.
2) The Christmas Belles. You may remember a Christmas party so epic that the Stranger covered it? We're coming back. This year, we're making some changes: new songs, new venues, new member(s). More information to come as we figure it out.
3) HONK! Fest West. Man, one year ends and the next starts up, just like that. The pace can be punishing. Thankfully, the reward has (so far) always made up for the hours of work necessarily tied to any venture fully run by volunteers. We already know a fair bit about 2011's Fest: it will be May 20-22 in Georgetown, Fremont, and West Seattle. Still to come: bands, schedule, volunteers, food, general logistics. You know, the small stuff.
4) Strange Tales of Preston Stagger. He's a magician who solves crimes. He's also the title character of Simon Astor's two-act play. I'm writing some of the music, and will be in the pit during performances. Later in October, most of you can look forward to an invite to the theater.
5) Slap & Tickle. I am not actively propositioning you. (although you are rather darling in that outfit. The color is really good on you.) Slap & Tickle is me on washtub bass and vocals with my good friend Kate on ukulele and vox. At the moment we're doing covers of old lovely songs that some people vaguely remember. It's just like writing a new pop song, but much, much easier. And you can tell we're serious about it because we made some videos.
Tonight You Belong To Me
You're Sixteen
Five Foot Two
We play next at Trolloween, Sunday October 31st at 7pm. Invites sure to be issued at some point closer to the actual date.
On top of all that, there's everyday life and a full-time job. A loving and wonderful partner and an amazing circle of friends. There are time I am nearly swallowed by my schedule, but I wouldn't have it any other way. What I'm trying to say, I suppose, is to please not worry if you don't hear from me here that often. If I have a spare moment, I'm most likely sleeping.
For the past six months, I've been organizing a little thing called HONK! Fest West. Only it's not so little anymore.
It's huge. Sprawling three days and four locations.
It's open. Almost every performance in the street and every single one all-ages.
It's raucous. Over 20 bands--that's over 250 musicians--will play over 19 hours of scheduled music (see:1, 2). God knows what they'll be doing when we're not looking.
It's free. We are accepting donations, but all money raised goes to either the bands or festival activities. I am a volunteer. Everyone involved with HONK! is a volunteer. You should be a volunteer!
But that doesn't really get to the nut of HONK! Fest West. Although I'd be foolish to believe there's only one.
Honk! Fest West, so sayeth the thing, "is a street fair dedicated to bringing marching bands, samba lines, horn players, drum corps, and every manner of rhythmic and melodic noisemaker we could find right to the Seattle streets."
Which is to say HONK! is loud, energetic, stylistically bold, and always on the move. Samba lines, 2nd line New Orleans jazz, drum corps, Balkan folk, and anything and everything in between.
That was nut the one.
Nut the two is our community focus. HONK! events use music to remove the line between professional and novice, audience and performers. The honkers' ultimate goal is to have fun, to relish the art of making fun as a form of individual and collective transcendence, and to encourage others to see and do the same.
We love that idea. So this year we made some changes to support that vision. In 2010, HONK! is officially in the streets and all-ages!
FRIDAY: We'll be in Fremont (pic) on N. 35th St at Phinney Ave. N. from 5-10pm.
SATURDAY: HONK hits twice! From 10am-4pm, we'll be in the Central Area (pic), headquartered in historic Washington Hall. From 6-10pm, we join our good friends the Art Attack down in Georgetown (pic).
SUNDAY: We are stoked to be sharing the streets with the West Seattle Farmers' Market. From Noon-5pm, marching bands will have the run of West Seattle. You'll probably notice a difference.
We've confirmed ... The End Times will perform at The Mix in Georgetown (Seattle, WA) on April 16, 2010 to herald the release of THESE ARE THE END TIMES. Possibly another NW date or two as well, but don't quote me. There are still no-cost downloads available at the website, but only for a limited time ...
12.17.2009
One picture says 1,000 words, so I hung three. I'm still not sure that will be enough to explain why I'm so excited for the weekend.
Back in 2007, I joined a mysterious outfit called The Christmas Belles. Our mission: provide relief from the forced joy and hallmark sentiments that surround this time of year like hardened special forces. We were successful. And then, like the smart operatives we were, we went sleeper.
As we eased back into the mainstream, each of us found new pursuits. Some of us became prophets, others took up arms, and some drifted away.
But this year, the need was too great. We have re-grouped and assembled a set to decimate audiences as we sweep through the coming week towards Christmas. Our various dates are listed below, but it elides one very important one: our anniversary date at the very venue that birthed us.
