The show began around 9 with four dudes creeping out onto the stage and launching into probably the most rousing cover of Phil Collins’ “In The Air Tonight” that I have ever heard.  As a shameless lover of all things Phil Collins/Genesis, I was sold, just like that.  A fitting start to what was an awesome set by Seattle natives Kithkin.

This thing in the air I felt that night came from these four dudes who had so much energy, so much charisma, and so much obvious love for what they were doing that it was impossible not to laugh at their silly showmanship and dance right along with them.   They made me feel like there really was something special happening that night and just by being in that place, watching them play, I was a part of it.  The music is pretty intense though, straight up crazy with all the drumming and percussion going on, I don’t even really know how to classify them but it doesn’t really matter.  If you saw these dudes live you would have a really great time, you just have to.

Think drums, drums, drums, and more drums.  They all play drums and sing, the main singer has the biggest drum set though and the other guys play keyboard, guitar and bass.  That’s it, just these four dudes pounding out with so much intensity and having a fantastic time with it.  Check out their E.P. Takers and Leavers here.  But go see these guys, seriously, they are from Seattle so you should have ample opportunity.

Oh yeah, and I saw Los Campesinos! that night too, on tour after the release of their fourth album Hello Sadness, which came out this past November. I had been reeled in by the undeniably catchy first single “By Your Hand” and ended up listening to the album a good bit, mainly for two songs, “To Tundra” and “Light Leaves, Dark Sees pt. II,” which are intense, emotional kind of anthems that I quite enjoy for the sad poetry and music that kinda reminds me of the early 90s (the musical glory days of my youth).  I like the way the dude writes: witty, sarcastic, ironic, bitter, you know, all the tortured self-loathing emotions.  One of the things I like most about this album is that it sounds very honest and personal, there’s some real raw emotion coming through the lyrics and the music that I keeps me listening.  I hoped that they would bring this same raw intensity to their live performance and I was not disappointed.

The show was really good.  They band all seemed to have a good energy and the crowd was super into it, people were dancing and singing and even lots of crowd-surfing, surprisingly.  I found the show to be pretty solid, overall.

Did I leave way more impressed with the opening band than the headliner?  Yeah, yeah, maybe I did.  But I couldn’t help it, the energy of Kithkin is way too infectious to be denied.  As lead singer Gareth Campesinos! pointed out, the crowd was a little bit too into the opening band and he found it kind of rude.  A joke?  Perhaps, but not entirely untrue. People were so into Kithkin that I even wondered how many people were there just to see them and if they even cared about the headliners.

There are some really good pictures from the show in this article from the KEXP blog as well, for those who are curious.

A note about the venue, because it’s relatively new.  It was at the Neptune Theater, owned by Seattle Theater Group, who also operate the Paramount and Moore Theaters in downtown Seattle.  A pretty cool little venue, an old restored theater at about 90 years old, big enough to book good bands and small enough to feel intimate.  Try to get up there and see a show soon, they have some good shows coming up.

Okay, it’s been great, catch y’all next time.

~Leah

There’s nothing like a good all-ages hardcore punk show! Don’t believe me?

Well it’s time to make a believer out of you.

Sunday Februrary 19th there will be a Free All-Ages Hardcore Punk Show. If you’re not down to party on a sunday night, well..then you’re just not down to party. Luckily this show starts relatively early with doors opening at 6:30pm. So even the responsible ones among you will be able to attend.

The show line-up is as follows (All genres are punk):

• Secret People (San Francisco)
• Growing Stronger (Seattle)
• NUDES (Los Angeles)
• Adjustment to Society  (Olympia)

From what I’ve heard of these bands; this show should be standard punk. So grab your leather jacket with the studs, pre-game with a 40 in hand, and get ready to throw your body weight against complete strangers. On Sunday the 19th, it’s on.

(Print it out and pass it around)

Though this is a free show, I highly suggest bringing donations to help support both the local and touring bands. I don’t know the house rules for the venue, but I would assume that they are something along the lines of “enjoy the music, respect the house, and don’t be a dick”.

Need help getting to the venue? How about a little help from THE INTERNET.

Personally, I plan on attending this show and writing some post-show jibber-jabber. So, there’s always that to look forward to. Once again, if you have any opinions or information about these bands or this show; then don’t hesitate to tell us in a comment.

~Darion

Few things here. First of all, Kalamazoo Michigan is a real place. Second of all, deep within the recesses of what I thought was a fictional realm invented by doctor suess, is The Extreme Unicorns. Third, I know this is kind of late, but! Nothing Nice to Say is off of hiatus, (wooooo!!!!!!) so that’s pretty cool I guess.

Anyway- The Extreme Unicorns. Vocalist/bassist Lex gives the band that sort of, tamer (relatively speaking) almost riot grrl vocal sound you might find in Slutever or The Gits. Plus, guitarist Tim (one word) and drummer Rob O’Toole have soft gingery beards that have been known to cure blindness.

They do some really great covers of The Misfits and Britney Spears, and! They only have one original song out now, so now is your chance to say you liked them before they were cool!

Go the their website or buy their merch. Listen. Be amazed.

Hybrid Moments (Misfits Cover)

Also check out these awesome tracks from The Extreme Unicorns:

• I Wanna Go (Britney Spears Cover)

• Winter is Coming

- Andrew

Anyways, I’ve already talked about white wards in a past post so I won’t re-engage ranting, but I am quite a fan. You can download their 7″ here. Likewise if you’re into death metal or  hardcore thrash death, Bone Sickness is just fucking dandy to see live. I’ve never seen the other two bands, so out of laziness I’m not going to write anything, but fuck it go anyways. I command you, all twenty-six people who may ever read this.

- Andrew

This coming Friday at 9pm, the Oly Music Awards is putting on a  pre-show to help showcase some good local bands. If you’re interested in local music, then this isn’t an event you want to miss. At some point after the pre-show, there will be an award ceremony to honor local bands. See more info at OlyMusicAwards.com

Line-up is as follows:

• Fight For Change (Alternative Rock with punk and indie influences)
• Elbow Coulee (Alternative rock with a good rang of sounds)
  
• Jabi Shriki (soft rock and folk)
  
• Point Process (????)

From what I’ve listened to of “Fight for Change” and “Elbow Coulee”, I would very much enjoy seeing them live. As for “Jabi Shriki”, well… he’s not exactly my genre. I had trouble finding information about the band “Point Process” online, but if I find out about the genre or find a sample of their work then I will go back and post it here. In the meantime if you know something about Point Process or any of these other bands, then please tell us.

(Print it out and share it around)

^ Look at all of those sponsors! I’m hoping to make it to this event, however if I don’t then perhaps one of our other writers would be willing to write a little blurb about it.

About the venue: I’m a big fan of Le Voyeur Cafe. Though I’m not a vegan or vegetarian, I still enjoy stopping by for a tasty sandwich when I’m out and about. The cafe also doubles as a venue for all kinds of music (except metal…not to say that they exclude metal, I’ve just never seen it there). Expect a slightly intimate show because the venue space is kind of small. Most of the shows I’ve seen at Le Voyeur have been rap, hip-hop, or electronica, so this should be a treat.

P.S. If you’re looking for something to do the day after this event, why not check out the Free Radio Olympia Valentine’s All You Can Eat Event.

~Darion

Come one come all to the FREE RADIO OLYMPIA ANNUAL VALENTINES ALL YOU CAN EAT EVENT!

What says Valentines Day more than stuffing your face with all the Sushi and Dim Sum you can eat for only ten dollars? Bring your Valentine, or come as a lone wolf, but either way you will be supporting the future of Free Radio Olympia broadcasting.

(Print it out and pass it around)

Need some more information about this event? I suppose I can help with that. For copy & paste purposes the info seen above can also be found below:

• Free Radio Olympia’s Annual Valentines All You Can Eat.
• Bring $10. Then eat lots of food.
• Event goes from 6pm-10pm
• Address: 1620 Thurston Ave. NE

~Darion

For those of you who don’t know what Spotify is, allow me to explain: Spotify is a free music service that, when downloaded to your computer, allows you to listen to a huge library of music for free.  Cool huh?  Well, that’s not all.

"It has it's merits"

It allows you to make playlists and share the music you listen to with your friends on facebook and other social networking sites (which I actually think is a huge break-through in social networking. TAKE THAT itunes!).  While this is all fine and dandy, Spotify’s free services are limited.  Some artists and songs are unavailable, the music is ONLY available while your internet is connected to Spotify, and though it will sync up with existing songs on your computer, it will not play certain (and fairly common) file types.  These small annoyances surely don’t ruin the whole of it though, right?  Correct.  There are many merits to Spotify that warrant downloading it, and keeping it around for a while. Interestingly enough, these merits are not what the folks at Spotify would want.

I don’t know about you, but I’m a college kid who has no money, which means that I do not have the extra income to spend on monthly subscriptions to the latest fads.  So far, Spotify is merely one of the latest fads and I am not about to go spending $10 a month to listen to it and put songs from it on my ipod.  For less than that price, I can stream tons of movies for free on Netflix (this is not a plug).  Plus, I am happy with looking up songs and setting smart playlists while I waste time on facebook and reddit.

What is the alternative?

Simple:  Old fashioned piracy!

I’m not about to go paying Spotify to listen to their music (if you have the disposable income then be my guest) but I do like the ability to browse entire discographies for certain bands and discovering/remembering similar bands that are suggested.  Most of all, I like to make playlists and add favorite artists.  It is these functions that may lead to either death or a change in format for Spotify.

Why would I pay for songs if I can listen to them, judge whether or not I would like to own them, and then download them for free somewhere else?

Piracy has been getting a bad rap lately but yo-ho-ho and a bottle of  “fuck off” to those haters.  Piracy is as great as ever.  Here’s a few more tips (you may recall a previous article we published on this topic) on downloading music.  Most good songs will find their way to youtube, sometimes entire albums.  It’s not hard to find a decent quality song and merely go to a site that converts youtube videos to MP3s.  There are lots of sites that do this, here’s one that I’ve used: SCAMMIN’

Sites like these however can be annoying when you want to download lots of files at once (jeez have a little patience, IT’S FREE) and you usually have to manually change the song title and artist in your itunes or whatever you use (but let’s be honest, it’s probably itunes).  When you need to download entire albums or discographies, that’s when sites like The Pirate Bay come in handy (recently downloaded all of the 1960s Space Ghost episodes from The Pirate Bay.  Why?  BECAUSE I CAN!).

If you take this route, then I must give you some words of caution. Torrents CAN give you viruses.  This scares a lot of people away from torrenting, but it’s not nearly as scary as it sounds.  Just use your head, and don’t download something with negative user reviews.  If someone posts that the torrent has a virus, and others confirm that it does, THEN DON’T FUCKING DOWNLOAD IT.  Trust me, if it’s a bad virus, people WILL be disgruntled enough to return and warn others/give bad feedback.  This is the internet.  People do shit out of spite, and bitterness towards the world.  Which is how some viruses end up in torrents in the first place…

Remember to download torrents that have a lot of people seeding them, positive reviews, and a somewhat large download count. The worst you’ll usually get is a little trojan.  Which brings me to an important point: have current anti-virus software.  There are lots of free versions you can download.  In fact, if you are a Comcast customer you can call them and acquire a free copy of Norton Antivirus which they offer to all of their customers.  Pretty nifty huh?

Also, as an added safety precaution, don’t have your admin account on your computer be the account that you use to download things.  In fact, set up the admin account and leave it alone.  Create another account and only use the admin account to verify that downloads are allowed.  Not many people think about it, but if a virus takes over your admin account…then it has control.

Another thing you should know about torrenting (fuck, I feel like a father talking to his kids about safe-sex) is to download a good program like uTorrent which will process the torrent files.  In fact, I highly recommend uTorrent specifically.  It’s free and easy to use (allow for proper downloading time).

I know that downloading music illegally is kind of a dick move, especially when you’re downloading music from new, obscure or under-appreciated artists.  But most of the money usually goes to the record labels and not the artist themselves.  Artists typically make the majority of their money from ticket and merchandise sales while on tour.  So if you’re going to pirate, just make sure you are supporting the artist in other ways.  Go to live shows, purchase a shirt or something, and make sure you tell other people about the bands so they can get as much exposure as possible.  Not to mention that when an album is REALLY good I will go out of my way to buy it.  No matter how easy it is nowadays to get digital copies, I still like to physically hold my music from time to time.

I have heard that listening to Spotify (somehow) gives money to the artist that you listen to (also they acquire statistics about music trends).  This is pretty cool, but if the artists are getting paid by me listening, then why should I pay for the premium service?  I don’t want to give my money to Spotify, if anything I want to put my money directly in the band members and artist’s pockets. When I can’t do that, I say FUCK IT, and get it for free.

My verdict? 

itunes music is a rip-off, Spotify is fun but not worth the cost, and Piracy will never die.

(Even if SOPA goes into effect)

“The average man will bristle if you say his father was dishonest, but he will brag a little if he discovers that his great-grandfather was a pirate”  ~Unknown

Until next time,

~Darion

The day the internet went dark.

We here at The Least Pretentious Music Blog ever support the strike against SOPA and are thus delaying the article we had planned for today. Keep your internet freedom and protest with the rest of us: STOP SOPA

~LPMBE

I spend a lot of time searching out and listening to new music that I would like to share with people to spark interest and discussion.  Stuff that may not technically be new but is new to me counts in my book, so if I talk about something that has been out for a while, well, don’t get all up my ass about it, okay?

I tend to find something I like and crack out on it for a couple of weeks until I find something else that gets my attention and then the cycle continues, so I should always have albums I’m all about for any given period of time.

So what do I love right now?

Okay, so we are deep in the throes of another northwest winter and won’t be seeing much sunshine for a few months, and for me that means it’s time to find some great winter, crappy-weather melodic music that I always crave come January.  Luckily, I have found just the thing.  The Lower 48, Minnesota transplants to Portland, recently self-released their debut album Where All Maps End.  I have been cracking-out for the last couple weeks and still going strong.  It evokes that timeless feeling I get when I listen to past winter favorites where it can just play on repeat for days and I never get tired of it.  It’s definitely a folky sound, and done really beautifully with some gorgeous instrumental interludes, a couple of super catchy tracks such as “The End” and “Come Awake” always demand that I sing along and do a little dance, and on the whole displays a versatility that keeps it interesting.  All of the songs are really good actually.  They are original enough so that I don’t feel like I’m just listening to recycled garbage.  Beautiful, melodic, atmospheric, intimate, innocent, and just plain good fucking shit.  Have a listen to “The End” and if you don’t find yourself wanting to hear it over and over again, well then, that’s fine, this is just a suggestion, y’all can do what you want.  But if ya like it you should definitely get the album and support these guys, I think they are gonna do good things in the future.

-Leah

Another show at The Swamp House. This one is coming up quick!  If you’re looking for something to do friday night, why not stop by and show your support for these fine bands?

Sadly, I don’t think I’ll be able to make it to this show (friday 13th I’ll be out searching for Templar Gold), but if you attend; please comment and give your opinions about the show. I do not know much about these bands, however I’ve listened to what they have available online and I can comfortably say that I like what I hear.

The line-up is as follows:

• Sunshine & Irony (blend of jazz, folk, punk and modern styles)
• Meowtain (indie rock)
• Mega Bog (Crunk, Jungle, and Soul)
• Legion of Sparrows (Folk-Punk)

(print it out and pass it around)

General rules: Smoking outside or in the Teepee, BYOB, be responsible, don’t be a dick, park on the street. The show IS free, however donations are encouraged. Help support these local bands!

Additional info:

• Here’s a link to the facebook event page: WOWZERS
• Here’s a map/ directions to the venue: LOCATION
• Doors open at 8:30.

Perhaps this isn’t your scene?

How about checking out “Mas Sol Collective Presents:Body of Art “ at The Aqua House. It promises to be night oh much art and Thalo for only a $5  *suggested* donation. Body art provided by Olympia’s very talented Ariana Throne and a team of make up, henna and hair artists.

The line up is as follows:

8pm- Crockett King
9pm- Special Guest
9:30- Thalo
10:30- Thalo and Pheno
12am- DJ G33
1am- Thalo and Pheno round 2

Once again, I know virtually nothing about these artists/ DJs.  I trust the Mas Sol Collective crowd, though. They put on a good show. However, If you have sampled their beats in the past then shoot us a comment and help fill our knowledge gap.

Link to facebook event: BWOP!

Sadly, these two shows are occurring at the same time, so you might need to make a decision between the two. Worst case scenario, you can see the show at The Swamp House and catch the last couple artists at The Aqua House.

UPDATE:

Sorry, I seem to have read the details wrong about the Mas Sol Collective show. I mentioned earlier that it was at the Midnight Sun, it is in fact at The Aqua House. The details above have been changed to reflect this.

~Darion