I'm sitting upstairs in Neumo's listening to the raucous sounds of sludgy punkers Unnatural Helpers, and thought you out there in internet land might want to hear about what's been going down at Day 1 of the Capitol Hill Block Party. Heer's a quick rundown of what I've seen so far.
Macklemore: The crowd was plenty receptive to this local MC and his band, which included some super trumpet and violin action. Macklemore is a charismatic and energetic showman, and his brand of hip-hop was exactly what I was looking for to kick off the weekend.
The Young Evils: Down in Cha Cha Lounge, this rag-tag group fronted by a KEXP DJ played a sweaty set of surf-country-jangle-pop, with a tinge of Neutral Milk Hotel strumminess. Fittingly enough, Mark Pickerel, Seattle's undisputed king of the aformentioned (and purely made-up) genre, sat in on drums and provided his trademark retro shuffle.
Shabazz Palaces: Son of a gun! If this is where hip-hop is headed, count me in. It's refreshingly free-form, yet easy to get into.
I wrote the below preview of the Capitol Hill Block Party for Crosscut. Click the jump to read the entire article.
The Capitol Hill Block Party is possibly one of the best-kept secrets in the world of summer music festivals. But that may change this weekend, when the festival takes over the main Pike/Pine hub of an area some call “Party Mountain” due to its sometime raucous nightlife scene.
On the surface the CHBP is your typical Seattle summer music festival with corporate sponsors, lots of local buzz and a lineup that includes some heavy-hitting headliners peppered with loads of amazing local talent. Dig a little deeper and you’ll find the things that make Block Party such a great event, which is why it might not be our little secret anymore.
Heavy metal is a brutal beast of a musical genre. There's loyal and dedicated fans, loud guitars, screamy and often angry vocalists and pyro, lots and lots of pyro. All of those things and more were on display when the Rockstar Mayhem Festival hit White River Amphitheater in Auburn last week.
The festival featured some of the bigger metal bands pounding out music today (Lamb of God, Hatebreed, Korn, Rob Zombie along with plenty of relative fresh faces metal fans that made favorable impressions on metal fans (3 Inches of Blood, Chimera, Shadows Fall, Atreyu) which made Mayhem Fest an adequate heir to Ozzfest, which once was the Mecca of traveling metal tours.
I bet if you were to take all of the acts who have performed at Bumbershoot throughout the festival's 39-year history, ranging from REM to the Black Eyed Peas, you'd get yourself quite a cool karaoke playlist.
If you wonder what that playlist might look like you should head on over to Ozzie's in Queen Anne tonight for Bumberaoke. It's a Bumbershoot-themed karaoke contest that begins at 9:00 and the person who delivers the best karaoke rendition of a song by an artist who has performed at Bumbershoot will walk away with tickets to this year's Bumbershoot Arts & Music Festival. Contestants will be judged on five categories including: song choice, vocal quality, showmanship, audience reaction and the mysterious 'X' factor.
Full disclosure, I will be one of the judges for the contest along with KEXP's DJ El Toro and Imaginary Victoria from Three Imaginary Girls. We'll be judging contestants starting at 9:00 and going until around 12:20 a.m. The selection of karaoke songs for the night will all be songs by former or current Bumbershoot artists.
So warm up your pipes and come on over to Queen Anne tonight for a shot at free Bumbershoot tickets.
The Capitol Hill Block Party is a few days away and if you're anything like me you've been closely analyzing the lineup trying to figure out how to cram in as much music as possible into this three-day smorgasbord of entertainment. CHBP 10 features a lineup of some heavy-hitting headliners peppered with loads of amazing local talent. While acts like Atmosphere, Dead Weather and MGMT are the attraction for casual music fans, locals like Unnatural Helpers, Head Like A Kite, Grand Hallway and Macklemore will be there to satisfy the musical appetite for those looking for a bit more than what the mainstream has to offer. This means that like every Block Party, or every music festival for that matter, there are plenty of conflicts. How do you choose between Shabazz Palaces and Unnatural Helpers? Or the Redwood Plan and the Head and the Heart? Luckily, no matter what decision you make you're going to end up winning since this is one of the strongest CHBP 10 lineups to date. If you haven't bought your tickets I encourage you to do so now because three-day passes are all gone and word on the street is that Friday is sold out.
Last weekend Minus the Bear played to a not-quite sold out crowd at Showbox at the Market. This band’s tour was in support of their latest release, Omni, which came out to some pretty mixed reviews. Admittedly, it’s not excellent – especially to the unforgiving ears of this long-time listener. It is however, a decent pop-leaning indie-rock album that leans a little too far in a few spots. But the venue was still packed.
So why would so many people devote a Saturday night to see what some non-attendees might view as a fading, aging band that released such a lame album? To many of the people at the show, myself mildly included, Minus the Bear is like an old buddy. You know the type, think of the band as someone from your high school crew of friends (or your favorite bands in college). You hung out (listened to them) all the time during school went to parties and drank together. Then you head off to different colleges and make new friends (newer bands) and get caught up in your new surroundings and daily routine. Maybe you don't see this friend (listen to this band) for a few years, although you keep in contact somewhat through all these newfangled Facebooks and Internets (jam to an old favorite song when the iTunes is on Shuffle). But then years later you run into each other by chance one Saturday night at the same bar (Showbox at the Market).
Alas, my metaphor is kinda squashed on this one, as I’ve already seen Minus the Bear after turning 21 – at The Showbox, nonetheless. But after not listening to much of MTB for a while, I was able to post up in the back and really pay attention. Clearly professionals now, Minus the Bear came on within 15 minutes of their 10:30 listed set time. Dave Knudson, local guitar-tapping wizard and former Botch member, picked out the linear-then-effect-hiccupping intro riff of “Drilling” and sent the kids packed in front into a spontaneous pogoing fit.
We're always ones to spot and report trends here at Ear Candy and one trend that has hit pretty hard this year is the kickoff/announcement party. Yes indeed, it seems like there can't be a festival around town nowadays that doesn't have some sort of free concert or kickoff party attached to its name.
First Sasquatch! reveals its lineup with a free concert at the Crocodile in the winter. Then Bumbershoot does the same at the Hard Rock in June. Now Seattle's other major music festival, the Capitol Hill Block Party, is having its own kickoff party July 22. However, this party isn't to announce a lineup and get people pumped up to buy tickets. Ticket sales aren't a problem for this year's CHBP (the festival is very close to being sold out so act now if you want to buy tickets.). This kickoff party is more like a free prefunk featuring some of the more rocking bands playing this year's Block Party.
Editor’s note: For a full review of Tool’s Seattle concert I recommend checking out this excellent review by my colleague Ernest Jasmin of the Tacoma News Tribune.
I made a mistake. It happens. Unfortunately, that mistake is the reason why you won’t be reading a review of Saturday night’s sold-out concert by progressive metal masters Tool here on Ear Candy.
The mistake I made was not bringing a notebook to the concert. This probably doesn’t sound like a big deal, but this simple mistake combined with an inane policy and a hard-working and effective venue event staff caused me to almost be evicted from KeyArena three times and thus killed any chance of me being able to write a review Tool’s concert.
I will go on record stating that Tool performed what was undeniably one of the best arena rock shows of the summer. It was filled with stellar visuals, amazing musicianship and obsessive fans. I've reviewed Tool before so I knew what to expect from the band. What I didn’t know to expect was a policy that did not allow cell phone cameras to be used throughout the sold-out 20,000-capacity KeyArena during the concert. That policy was later turned into an absolutely no cell phone use policy and because I use my phone to take notes I did not take notes during the concert. In fact, I was told if I did use my phone to take notes I would be evicted from the building. This is of course where my mistake of not bringing a notebook comes into play.
I could deliver a review based off my memory and go without notes, which is something I have done before but Tool is a professional band I respect and its fans are very passionate, therefore I believe the band and its fans deserve an accurate and honest, professional-caliber review of the show. Also, since I was not allowed to use the only tool I had at my disposal to take the notes required to do my job and provide a professional review of the show, I will not be reviewing the concert.
This weekend the area in the west side of the city known as The Junction will be taken over by roller derby girls, street performers and ballet dancers as part of the annual West Seattle Summer Fest. The three-day street fair features all the trappings of an outdoor summer event. There’s facepainting for the kids, food booths, a farmer’s market and lots and lots of live music.
More than two dozen local bands will be providing the weekend’s soundtrack and since there will be more than live music to capture your attention here are four bands you definitely don’t want to miss.
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Last weekend Minus the Bear played to a not-quite sold out crowd at Showbox at the Market. This band’s tour was in support of their latest release, Omni, which came out to some pretty mixed reviews. Admittedly, it’s not excellent – especially to the unforgiving ears of this long-time listener. It is however, a decent pop-leaning indie-rock album that leans a little too far in a few spots. But the venue was still packed.
Editor’s note: For a full review of Tool’s Seattle concert I recommend checking out 
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