Posts tagged “The Jesus Rehab”

Last Thursday night Carrie & I went up to Darrell’s Tavern in Shoreline to be a part of an extremely important evening: the Julia Massey’s Surprise 30th Birthday Party! It was thrown by her husband Jared and dozens upon dozens of people showed up with a singular message: “Julia Massey, we heart you!”

There was another surprise after the initial surprise. A whole bunch of Julia’s musical friends performed covers of her songs for her. Below is the lineup. Where possible I’ve linked to the websites or Facebook pages of the performers, and linked to Julia’s original versions of the songs for download. Enjoy:

1. The Jesus Rehab:
   Rock duo The Jesus Rehab (Julia’s Husband Jared on guitar & his brother Dom Cortese on drums) did a rockin’ version of Light Reminder. It might have been a little bit cheating since Dom is also the FFD’s drummer.
2. Jon Yoon:
   Mr. Yoon did a lovely acoustic version of Bottom of the Ocean.
3. Michael Raley:
   Mr. Raley did a spoken-word performance of Good Fish.
4. David Miner:
   Mr. Miner is the guy who mixed Julia’s latest album! He performed a saxophone-only version of Outro.
5. Bob and Sheldon:
   Bob and Sheldon are a very talented duo who specialize in covers. They performed at Julia & Jared’s wedding! They did two songs from Julia’s first album: Try to Convince You and Dancing in the Kitchen.
6. Yevtushenko:
   I first saw Yevtushenko the week prior when they opened the Five Letters From Far Away CD Release Party. They’re a 4-person rock group headed by singer Amber Shine. She and her guitarist performed Aghadoe.
7. Andy Kingham:
   Mr. Kingham has quite a history with Julia and Jared; he used to play bass for both of them! He rocked out two songs: Bullfrog and Salty Schemes.
8. Robb Benson:
   Seattle music mainstay and all-around rockin’ good guy performed a really heart-felt version of Here Is a Stone Wall.
9. Christa Fisher:
   Ms. Fisher heads the group Christa Says Yay! She has a gorgeous voice and absolutely belted out an amazing version of Someday, Our Bodies Are Gone.
10. Safeword Sasquatch:
    Safeword Sasquatch is sometimes also known as DVoD. They’re headed by the duo of Eric Weber on guitar, and Liz Mayer on cello and ukulele. They did #712 and bridged it to Spaceships, then did a great version of Don’t Worry ‘Bout Us where the piano parts and much of the bass solos of the original song were done on electric guitar.
11. Terrapin, AKA Gary Lappier with Katie Stricker:
    Gary did an extremely spaced-out version of Skatepark with his lovely fianceé Katie doing backing vocals. It was cool because it was so way different than the original version. This was Carrie’s favorite performance of the night.
12. The Crazy Boy Floyds:
    Geoff & I programmed an absolutely batsh*t crazy version of Yeah, which Geoff sung while I activated an animated band on a laptop screen. Sorry we only have a MySpace page to link to, but we haven’t actually done anything for a few years.
13. Three Ninjas:
    Threeni did a very cool electronic version of Honeycombs.
14. Katie Larson & Jill Cimino with Jared Cortese:
    These two girls did a version of Brains & Bubbles (which is a very funny song that isn’t available on any album) with Jared backing them on Guitar.
15. Red Heart Alarm:
    Catacombs and then did an absolutely scorching, country-tinged version of Soaked Through Matches. Red Heart Alarm was very impressive and super polished; it sounded like they’d been playing these songs for years, and they killed Soaked Through Matches so hard that they made it sound like it was their song.

It was a pretty amazing night. It was humbling to see how grateful Julia was for everyone who showed up, and it was an honor to be involved in it (even as little as I was).

I didn’t take any photos because (A) my camera phone is crappy and (B) I was too busy having a good time and enjoying the night to worry about taking photos. Luckily, another blogger took plenty: LiveSeattleMusicInTheClubs (who didn’t even know Julia; just happened to be there when it all went down) blogged all about the whole night, even the parts after Carrie & I had to leave (which was right after the tribute part). So check that out as well.

Geoff recorded audio for the whole tribute, but I don’t know when or in what capacity that’ll be available to me. I’d love it if he would record a studio version of our Yeah. Hint-hint, Geoff.

If you would like to get in on the Julia-loving action, she and the FFD are playing a show tomorrow (Thursday) night at the Tractor in Ballard! We will be there. So can you!

Anyway, happy birfday, Julia! We love you! You deserve it.

Sunday was a Pancake Party! It was also a fundraiser for KSUB, a Seattle University radio station that lets its DJs play literally anything they want. So: good cause.

I took crappy cell phone photos! And then I put them into Instagram. And now I put them here:

There Were Real Pancakes @ The Pancake Party!

Neighbor Gary/Terrapin

He is All Three Ninjas

Julia Massey AND the Five Finger Discount

The Jesus Rehab Gives You Wings!

It was a lots of funs!

You say you like musics? Well, now’s your chance to prove it. This Sunday, the 7th of October 2012, my fave venue the Skylark Café is playing host to an epic Pancake Party.

If you haven’t been to a Pancake Party, here’s the deal: you get to listen to great live music and eat freshly-made pancakes. How is this not the best thing ever?

Bonus: This Pancake Party is also a fundraiser for KSUB, one of the last truly-independent college radio stations around (they let the DJs play literally whatever they want).

Another Bonus: This show is ALL-AGES.

Bonus the Third: This show begins on a Sunday afternoon! That means that it’ll probably be over at a reasonable enough time that you can get on back home to your bed and have some quality sleepytime before you gots ta go to work at work-o-clock-in-the-morning AM.

Bonus IV – The Final Bonus: There are SEVEN (count ‘em) Pancake Party artists gonna perform their musics for your ear holes! Ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-check it out:

1. Terrapin
2. Three Ninjas
3. Safeword Sasquatch
4. Julia Massey & The Five Finger Discount
5. The Jesus Rehab
6. Christa Says Yay
7. Certain Inertia

Will there also be “special guests?” There might, rabbit, there might. You gots ta show up and see this thing, yo! There’s one o’ them Facebook events about it, so if’n you on that Facebook, you can get all up ons that event.

Here are the deets:

Here are approximate play times:
3:20-3:50: Terrapin
4:10-4:40: Three Ninjas
5:00-5:30: Safeword Sasquatch
5:50-6:20: Julia Massey & The Five Finger Discount
6:40-7:10: The Jesus Rehab
7:30-8:00: Christa Says Yay
8:20-8:50: Certain Inertia

I will be there! SO CAN YOU!

View Larger Map

This weekend I skipped Fools Play (gasp! I know) because Carrie & I were invited to go to the wedding of Seattle’s powerhouse musicians Julia Massey & Jared Cortese.

It was a nice outdoor ceremony at Golden Gardens park. Luckily it cleared up shortly before the ceremony (it was very cloudy all day) but it still wasn’t too hot, especially for the last half of July.

Photo from KSUB

Julia had a very lovely dress, but I had seen it before—last Tuesday, when Carrie & I went up to her place so she could try on the jewelry that Carrie had designed for her. That’s right, Carrie did the wedding jewelry! She made a bunch of different pieces (two necklaces and five pairs of earrings) for Julia to try, but she couldn’t decide and so made us basically choose for her.

Look at that pretty jewelry!

And, yes, that is me photobombing in the background. But I totally didn’t mean to! I saw Jason & Julia looking at Jason’s camera, and it looked like they were taking a photo of something in front of them, not of themselves. So I leaned over to look at the screen to see what they were trying to photograph right as Jason took the picture. I immediately realized that I had accidentally photobombed them and apologized profusely and we all laughed quite a lot.

Julia got her revenge pretty quickly, though:

Revenge Photobomb!

And then she enjoyed that so much she decided to photobomb some more!

Photobombing Jason & Jason (or JJAASSOONN as I like to call them)

The reception was great fun and much enjoyment. Instead of having a cake they had gobs and gobs of donuts on a multi-tier cake stand! What a brilliant idea! There was much dancing to a really excellently-danceable selection of music. I didn’t take very many photos because my cell phone camera is really crappy. But I did snap one picture that took advantage of my camera to create a very nice effect:

She’s glowing!

The setting at Golden Gardens Park was quite excellent. I’d never been there before. It actually has a really nice, sandy beach, which is really difficult to find in the Seattle area. People were sunbathing and everything! I know!

Big congratulations to Julia and Jared! Good job, guys.

*Ring Ring* It’s the Congratumaphone! It’s for you!

Friday Night Carrie, Lala, & I all trekked up to Seattle to go to Seattle University’s radio station, KSUB 89.1 FM. Why? Because their special in-studio guests that night were our two favorite Seattle bands, Julia Massey & The Five Finger Discount and The Jesus Rehab. And it was free and open to the public.

KSUB has a really neat setup. Once you get into the building (which can be an adventure in itself seeing as how many of the doors are locked after a certain time of day, and only students can open them) and go down into the basement of the residence hall, you’ll find a decent-sized room full of comfy couches on which you can sit. They all face one end of the room, and that’s where the music magic happens.

Julia Massey & The Five Finger Discount

The Jesus Rehab

It was a great show from both groups, and props as always to Dom who is the drummer for both bands and therefore had to play the entire two+ hours.

It was especially fun to watch some of the college-age girls there fairly fawn over Jared (TJR’s Guitarist/Singer). It was also very cool when Jared name-checked me and thisischris.com on the air (it was because this was one of the first websites to post news of their No More Tears for Me single back in November and their EP Drunken Hillbilly Fight Bar is my Album of the Month this month), so big thanks to him. I wonder if I got any spike in traffic at all? Hold on, let me check Google Analytics.

Nope, just the same general amount of visitors that I would normally get on a Friday before a holiday weekend (i.e., not very many).

Anyhoo, thanks to JM+FFD & TJR for putting on a rocking good show, and thanks to KSUB for hosting it and letting us all come and watch. And everyone should, of course, buy the latest albums from JM+FFD & TJR:

Here are some grainy photos taken with my phone’s inadequate camera (it seriously sucks in low-light situations) and filtered through Instagram!

DvOd

Julia Massey on keyboard

The Five Finger Discount

Julia Massey & The Five Finger Discount

The Jesus Rehab

Voila! Please to enjoying.

A bunch of my favorite musicians and bands are having a bunch of shows in the area this Spring, so I’ve compiled a list here. There are a lot more shows than this happening, of course, but these here are the ones that I’m either going to attend or would like to attend:

March 30, Friday

A Pancake Party with Julia Massey & the Five Finger Discount!
@ Monkey Grind Espresso, 518 North 85th Street, Seattle, WA (Map)
7:00 PM

April 13, Friday

Julia Massey & The Five Finger Discount, Three Ninjas, & DvOd!
@ Mars Bar, 609 Eastlake Ave E, Seattle, WA (Map)
8:00 PM

April 16, Monday

Marian Call!
@ Forza Coffee, 5275 Olympic Dr. NW, Gig Harbor, WA (Map)
7:00 PM

April 17, Tuesday

Marian Call!
@ Mandolin Café, 3923 South 12th Street, Tacoma, WA (Map)
7:00 PM

April 21, Saturday

The Jesus Rehab Album Release!
@ The Josephine, 608 NW 65th St, Seattle, WA (Map)
7:00 PM

April 27, Friday

Julia Massey & The Five Finger Discount!
@ Empty Sea Studios, 6300 Phinney Ave N, Seattle, WA (Map)
8:00 PM

May 12, Saturday

Julia Massey & The Five Finger Discount!
@ Eddie’s Trackside, 214 N Lewis Street, Monroe, WA (Map)
8:00 PM

June 2, Saturday

Locust Street Taxi!
@ The Spar, 2121 N 30th Street, Tacoma, WA (Map)
Details TBA

I would love it if all of you could join us for some/all of these shows. Even the ones that I don’t end up going to myself. Can you join someone if they’re not doing the activity? Does that count as joining? THESE ARE IMPORTANT QUESTIONS SHUT UP.