Posts from August 2014

That’s TOMORROW!

Comedy & Bendy Straws.

It seems like we just went through this last year, but yes, ’tis true: Fools Play Improv‘s run at Olympia Family Theater ends this Saturday (tomorrow) night. And once again we are uncertain about where or when our next venue will be.

So for now let’s enjoy one last hurrah at our current venue!

Details:
Fools Play’s Final Show at Olympia Family Theater (Facebook event)
Saturday, August 30th 8:00-10:00 PM
@ Olympia Family Theater
112 State Ave NE, Olympia, Washington 98501 (Map)
All Ages, Only $5.00

In the meantime you should keep up with any Fools Play news at foolsplay.net on the internets or on the Faced Book Also I’ll most likely post about it on this here blorg.

But that’s in the future. Tomorrow I WHILST BE AT YON OLYMPIA! SO SHOULDST YE BEEEEE!

At beautiful Columbia City Theater.

We went to a hippity AND hoppity show over the weekend, and (as is my nature) I made some animated .GIFs from the performances. Enjoy!

Julie C hosted the event, and she graced us with two songs! Wish she could have done more, but it was great to see her go. She has quite the stage presence, as can be seen by just how much she jumps around in this .GIF:

Go, Julie, go!

And here are some animations of Mr. Open Mike Eagle:

Mike at his board.

Go, Mike, go!

It was an enjoyable show, and Mike kilt it deed. Although with so many acts on one bill some of them went on a li’l too long. Well I’m pushing 40 now, and Carrie & I get tired starting around 11:00 PM.

Something rotten in the state of SHIELD…

Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014): ★★★½

Directed by Anthony & Joe Russo

This is easily one of the best movies in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Whereas the first Captain America was a purebred, Feel-Good WWII War Action movie, and The Avengers was a top-notch Tentpole Popcorn Movie, The Winter Soldier takes a completely different tack: it is an extremely tense Dark Political Thriller. More… »

Lots of the hippity hoppity happenity this Saturdaty.

HEY! What’re all y’all doing Saturday night? Well, if you’re in the South Puget Sound area, you should probably go see Fools Play Improv, because it’s their penultimate show before they must leave their venue in Olympia, so it might be your last chance for a while.

But if you’re not in a position to easily access Olympia on a Saturday night, then you shouldst prolly head to Columbia City Theater in Seattle to see a hippity-hoppity show of somewhat epic proportions!

It’s headlined by my pal Open Mike Eagle, and it’s emceed by the one-and-only Julie C, a mainstay of the Seattle indie hip-hop scene (and someone on whom my wife has a great big girl-crush).

The crushable Julie C.

There are also a great gob of other acts who will be performing on the stage, the only other one of which I’ve seen perform before is Graves33 (warning: video autoplay), whom I saw at an Open Mike Eagle show a couple years ago.

Details:
Open Mike Eagle @ Columbia City Theater hosted by Julie C (Facebook event)
Saturday, August 23rd 8:00PM
@ Columbia City Theater
4916 Rainier Ave S, Seattle, WA 98118 (map)
21+, $10 (adv) $12 (door)

Should be a goot time!

Jared Cortese, Dom Cortese and Julia Massey, in their basement house party venue “The Cortex,” July 15, 2014. PHOTO CREDIT: PORTAITS BY HAYLEY YOUNG

Seattle Magazine, an actual, real-life magazine, just published an article on their website entitled “The 50 Bands Rocking Seattle Music Right Now.”

You should peruse the entire article, but here are the three highlights for me: Look at the Indie Pop section and you’ll immediately see some of my favorite musics being avidly represented:

• Julia Massey & The Five Finger Discount / The Jesus Rehab
  Anyone who has been reading this website for any length of time (or who knows me in real life) knows what fondness I have for these two bands, so it’s really exceptionally awexome to see them getting the same amount of love from an actual, real-life website and not just mine. Here’s a sample of what Seattle Magazine had to say about them:

  Massey recalls Regina Spektor, with her playful voice, prolific songwriting and bouncy pop lyrics, and Cortese’s sound is reminiscent of Weezer, for its big power chords and shrieking, catchy solos.

• Prom Queen
  It is much to my chagrin that I have never seen Celene perform live as Prom Queen, only as her chiptuned alter-ego Leeni. But I have a great liking of Prom Queen’s dark, David Lynch-esque 60s pop stylings. And I proudly backed the Kickstarter for her very ambition Midnight Veil project. Seattle Magazine sez:

  Also known as Leeni, this prolific Seattle singer first came on the scene with chiptune compositions (using Nintendo Gameboy sounds) and has since honed a 1960s Parisian noir aesthetic.

Out of all 50 of the bands listed in the article, I had only ever seen two others perform live:

• The Hoot Hoots
• Katie Kate

Yikes! I had heard of most of the acts in the article (and heard a handful of them on KEXP), but many of these are complete unknowns to me. The article seemed to be skewed strangely, with some of the genres having dozens of included acts whereas the hip-hop genre only included three acts (none of which were Three Ninjas, bee-tee-dub).

But still it is very cool seeing Julia Massey & The Jesus Rehab get a modicum of the praise they deserve.

SPEAKING OF seeing The Jesus Rehab, they’re having a show this Friday evening! It’s on Bainbridge Island!

Jesus Rehabbed on an Island

Bainbridge Island is, unfortunately, a bit over an hour’s drive away from my house (it might be much shorter than that for Seattle peeps depending on the ferry schedule). So I am a very soft maybe for this show.

But if all possible YOU SHOULD GO!

Details:
The Jesus Rehab with Specters at Spaceship (Facebook event)
Friday, August 22nd 7:00 PM
@ Spaceship
10598 NE Valley Rd, Bainbridge Island, Washington 98110
21+, $10 (adv) $12 (door)

HOORAY FOR MY FAMOUS FRIENDS!

More resources:

• Seattle Magazine: http://www.seattlemag.com/
• Julia Massey & The Five Finger Discount: http://www.juliamasseymusic.com/
• The Jesus Rehab: http://www.thejesusrehab.com/
• Prom Queen: http://promqueenband.bandcamp.com/

And right in my own backyard, too…

HEY! This Sunday 8/10 there is going to be an ass-kicking musics show right here in Tacoma town! Three of my favorite musics are happening all at once… and I won’t be there to see it!

Yes, Friday morning all my girls and I are heading up to remote B.C., Canada for a several-day vacation. We won’t be back until (very late) Tuesday evening. So we’ll miss this one.

But that doesn’t mean you should! You should go see Julia Massey & The Five Finger Discount (especially since this might be the last time to see Geoff B. Gibbs playing bass for them for quite a long while)! You should go see The Jesus Rehab (especially if you like to have your face rocked off)! You should go see Terrapin (especially if you like trippy, rocking, spacey, shoe-gazing guitar loops)!

Bonus, it’s all happening at the New Frontier Lounge in the shadow of the Tacoma Dome (not literally, of course), one of the coolest venues in all of T-town, daddy-o.

Details:
JM+FFD/The Jesus Rehab/Terrapin (Facebook event)
Sunday, August 10th 7:00 PM
@ The New Frontier Lounge
301 E 25th St, Tacoma, WA 98421
$5, 21+

I definitely WON’T see you there. But you can see each other there! And when I come back I’ll be coming back with a vengeance, with a new Movie Review and e’ryfing!

As threatened, last Saturday night after Fools Play I went to Le Voyeur to watch my friends do the musics. As is my nature, I made some animated .GIFs of the evening.

First off was my friend Tangentbot performing his SPIRIT▴SHRINE project. Take a look!

Spirite[triangle]Shrine

Y’know, perhaps animated .GIFs of DJ sets aren’t the most exciting, eh?

After SPIRIT▴SHRINE came Urban Fantasy, a keyboardist and rapper. This was their first-ever live public performance. They explained that they usually have a third member, but she wasn’t there because she was suffering from “the consumption” like you get in the Oregon Trail video game. That was funny. I didn’t get a .GIF of them.

At the end of their set my friend @KowaiHitsuji excused herself to the restroom to get ready for WINDOWSNINETYFIVESECONDEDITION‘s set, which she was going to take part in. When she left @extropic_engine turned to me and asked if I was aware of what getting ready entailed. I said I didn’t, and he urged me to wait and see.

When @KowaiHitsuji emerged from the restroom she was dressed thusly:

That’s not a Creepy Sheep, it’s a Totoro!

And it was thusly that she performed with WINDOWSNINETYFIVESECONDEDITION:

Sing me a song, Totoro.

As usual, Le Voyeur and its audience was its own weird self, but I enjoyed to see this show. I don’t think they’re performing again until September sometime (you can look at my calendar to see updates about that).