We Are Scientists formed in 2000. They’re from Brooklyn and I am pretty sure they’ve been to Seattle several times (at least once or twice). So why did it take me until 2008 to see this band? Okay one reason is I don’t live in Brooklyn and the other reason is . . . I am not sure what my other reason is. Every so often it takes me a while to check a band out. I remedied this terrible accident the other night when the band opened for Kings of Leon at the Paramount and I am very sad I have missed them all this time. On the other hand I finally saw We Are Scientists – a band whose music punches you in the face with its impressive pop sounds.


Keith Murray - photo by Dagmar

During Nobody Move, Nobody Gets Hurt the stage lights were nearly extinguished but for a few dim white lights. So picture a band singing: My body is your body/ I won't tell anybody/ If you wanna use my body/ Go for it, yeah, in basically the dark. It’s striking. On a side note, the girl seated next to me actually was stretching during part of the set. She impressively stretched one of her legs behind her head. I am not making this up and I wondered if the band saw this, and whether they had ever seen this while putting on a show before.

From It’s a Hit and Great Escape from their first album, With Love and Squalor to Chick Lit off their latest, Brain Thrust Mastery they have the most wonderful songs. Keith Murray (guitarist and lead singer) and bassist Chris Cain are like frenzied hurricanes onstage - we should all see much more of this band with such presence. They said they had programs and beer at the merch table - I would hold them to this next time.


Chris Cain - photo by Dagmar

For more photos, click here.
A full set list for the show can be found here.

I took some pix of Angels and Airwaves when they opened for Weezer a couple of weeks ago. I really, really, really like this band. According to a photographer friend of mine who was shooting with me, I was going all giddy. Well, here's why:


Tom DeLonge


David Kennedy


Tom DeLonge

They're just awesome photo subjects, right?

More photos? Yes, more photos:
Angels and Airwaves @ Key Arena

We have a winner! Keep checking and I hope to do this type of thing again!
The correct answer is Victoria.

The Kooks are coming and I have a double pass for the show this Tuesday, October 21st in Seattle. The show is all ages.



The first person who emails me at dagmar@dagmarsieglinde.com with the correct answer to this question wins these tix (note - it's one ticket to the show + 1):

Which song by the Kinks has the band covered for a 2009 charity album?

I’ve mentioned dream triple bills before but this one really took the cake – you’ve got Heartbreak opening, the Presets in between and Cut Copy headlining and you’ve also got a crowd of seriously crazed fans I don’t think I have ever seen matched at the Showbox.

Heartbreak, a British duo made up of Argentinian singer Sebastian Muravchix and Ali Renault, nailed their performance with truly hot synth pop pieces such as Regret and We’re Back. This band should be big – Muravchix’s theatrics and dancing are totally fun to watch. Muravchix’s voice reminds me a bit of Jake Shears of Scissor Sisters – something that endears me to this band more than I can say.


Sebastian Muravchix - photo by Dagmar

The Presets are immaculate. You could say I would think this because I grew up listening to synth music like Depeche Mode, Erasure, Pet Shop Boys, Visage, New Order. The fact is the Presets capture all that is great with these rhythms and singer Julian Hamilton has a miraculous voice – at times it’s dirty, cruel and then at other times it’s just touching. If you don’t think Are You the One? and This Boy’s in Love are perfect examples of what modern music should be, well, you’re wrong. If you don’t recognize that drummer Kim Moyes is part of the same gene pool that produced Keith Moon, you’re wrong again. They just have too many great songs for their own good.


Julian Hamilton - photo by Dagmar


Kim Moyes - photo by Dagmar

I saw Cut Copy open for Franz Ferdinand three years ago, so they’re not exactly that new an international band but they are now frankly too large a band for this venue. They’ve become so in not a sudden way but rather in an explosive way. There honestly was a near-chaotic frenzy among the audience but the crowd eventually hopped up and down as one. Singer Dan Whitford’s keyboards seemed at one point to come close to falling off stage during all the excitement. I’m still stuck on the song Hearts on Fire – it’s so lovely, and with Whitford’s soothing voice it too is as classic as they come.


Dan Whitford - photo by Dagmar


Cut Copy - photo by Dagmar

Additional Photos:

Heartbreak at the Showbox

the Presets at the Showbox

Cut Copy at the Showbox

How do you get a Seattle crowd to adore you even more than they already do? Point out, as Rivers Cuomo did on Saturday night that, "Without Seattle there would be no Weezer."

Weezer acknowledges this as well in Heart Songs with a reference to Nirvana's Nevermind: Back in 1991/ I wasn't havin' any fun/'Till my roommate said/"Come on and put a brand new record on"/ Had a baby on it/ He was naked on it/ Then I heard the chords that broke the chains and no matter how you feel about Nirvana and whether you'd enjoy Weezer's cover of Sliver as I did - I am guessing you like them if you're reading this - you have to admit that Weezer, beholden or not to those before it, is its own lovely beast and has been for very long time. May they continue so.

I have also never seen a rock band feature a trampoline on stage. This was novel and entertaining.

For a full gallery of my photos click here: Weezer @ Key Arena


Rivers Cuomo


Rivers Cuomo on the trampoline


Rivers Cuomo


Brian Bell


Rivers Cuomo


Weezer


Scott Shriner


Patrick Wilson

I first heard Travis when I came across their song Why Does It Always Rain on Me? – it was in an episode of East Enders and Ian Beale was in a car, processing the discovery of his wife’s affair. It was raining. Perhaps it’s a strange way to discover a band but I have found EastEnders features many bands I have come to love. The Man Who, which came out in 1999 was actually Travis’ second album and it was obviously glorious. As good as Why Does It Always Rain on Me? is the album also featured The Fear and one of the most beautiful songs I suspect I will ever hear, Luv. Travis’ first album, Good Feeling, included All I Want to Do is Rock – still a great anthem – and Tied to the 90s. Tied to the 90s they aren’t, they’re more tied to being Travis and thank the heavens they’ve maintained their strengths through the new millennium. The Invisible Band and 12 Memories are brilliant albums as well – though perhaps 12 Memories had its detractors it’s my favorite Travis album in totality. Peace the Fuck Out indeed. 2007 saw the release of The Boy With No Name, a superbly charming panache with Closer and the stomper Selfish Jean. Now Travis has released Ode to J. Smith and struck out on their own with Red Telephone Box Records. It’s out now in the UK and will be released in the States on November 4th. You can hear several songs off it on their myspace page. They have succeeded again.

I talked with Fran Healy and Dougie Payne before their show at the Moore in 2007. It was before Healy moved to Berlin and Payne and wife, actress Kelly Macdonald became parents to Freddie Peter Payne. I wanted to find out what they thought about their home Glasgow, their new Prime Minister Gordon Brown . . . and how exactly these guys all found each other.

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Q: You were a scout when you were a kid?

Dougie Payne: Yes, I was! What on earth brought that up? Have you been looking at Wikipedia?

Q: So you learned how to do all the survival things?

DP: Yes I did. It’s funny, I was talking about this to my nephew the other day – he’s a scout now. I was asking him, what kind of stuff do you do? It seemed like it was hardcore when I was a scout compared to now – now it’s all trips abroad and going to Prague. When I was in it, it was sitting in the wet in the West Coast of Scotland and skinning rabbits. And sticking sticks up their asses to roast them over the fire. It was all pretty hardcore – maybe that was just growing up in the 80s - none of this nanny state that goes on now.

Q: They wanted to toughen you up right away.

DP: Exactly. It didn’t work.

Q: I just thought it was cute, they sent you out there to learn to survive on your own.

DP: As an eleven-year-old. They left us on an island once, a tiny little rock in the middle of the North Sea. They left us for two days to fend for ourselves, just the six of us. I remember that, that was good fun.

Q: That’s scary.

DP: It was good. Perfect training for going on tour.


Dougie Payne - Seattle 2007 - photo by Dagmar

[Fran Healy joins us.]

Q: I was just grilling Dougie on how he used to be a scout.

Fran Healy: He was. People love that - people love the scouts.

DP: Until quite late . . . until I was about 15.

FH: That’s quite impressive.

Q: You two met in school?

DP: Just after school . . . just before art school. So we were 17.

FH: Dougie knew Neil [Primrose], our drummer. He worked with Neil in a shoe shop.

DP: A scout shoe shop.

FH: Neil worked in a bar in Glasgow called the Horseshoe Bar and I used to go in there after school. I knew Dougie independently of Neil and Neil knew Dougie independently of me. Neil didn’t know you knew me and you didn’t know Neil knew me.

DP: Fran and I met just before you went for the audition for Glass Onion [Travis’ former name] –

FH: No, I went for that the day we matriculated in the art school. I met you way before that, like a year before that.

DP: That’s right, because Neil was working in the shoe shop and he said, we’ve got a singer coming in to audition. He was going on about this band, Glass Onion all the time. He was always playing with things that looked like drumsticks in the storeroom. He was always going on about Glass Onion, how we’re going to audition this singer who’s really good. And then I slowly put two and two together – it’s the same guy.

FH: The first week of art school Dougie and Andy got matey.

DP: They were giving away pound a pint Guinness and me and Andy got drunk and talking about the Monkees. We kind of all met each other very independently.

FH: I was in this band [with] Andy, myself and two brothers, eventually – five years later we got rid of the two brothers and Dougie came in. As soon as Dougie came in it became – it wasn’t a band that had advertised for anyone. It was just suddenly four mates. That was the keystone of the band, four friends. The weirder thing is that Dougie and Andy’s fathers go back twenty years – without them realizing.

DP: Me and Andy didn’t notice but they were both bank managers in different banks. Before they were bank managers they were clerks in different banks on the same street. Andy’s dad and my dad used to go for lunch together back in the 60s, when they were about our age when we met.

Q: How tough a city is Glasgow?

FH: Now I don’t think it’s any tougher than any other city. Every city’s got its –

DP: Glasgow is a bit fucking crazy though. Honestly I am not putting any bad adverts out but you and I both know people who have been punched or slashed out on the street. I haven’t heard of that anywhere –

FH: In London.

DP: I don’t know anyone in London that I personally know that’s been – maybe it’s because London is a bigger city.

FH: It’s got a reputation that stems from the 60s. Places like Liverpool, Manchester, Glasgow, Sheffield . . .they’re all places that are traditionally working class and not particularly wealthy. They’re based on heavy industry, like Sheffield and steelworks. When the heavy industry leaves there seems to be a build up of testosterone. Maybe it comes out in ways that it shouldn’t. There are aspects of it [Glasgow] that are tough but it’s a great city.

DP: It’s a brilliant city.

FH: I think it’s definitely becoming more civilized.

Q: I was impressed when you had those terrorists drive into the airport and people started beating them up.

FH: That’s Glasgow. That’s quite Glasgow. There’s a website dedicated to one of those guys called johnsmeaton.com. Only in Glasgow would people actually run towards . . .

DP: Try to get a boot in. You come to Glasgow and you’re not going to get away with that. I like that attitude towards terrorism.


Fran Healy - Seattle 2007 - photo by Dagmar

Q: Fran, I read you’re planning to move to Germany.

FH: Yeah, to Berlin. My wife is German and I want to change the backdrop. We thought Berlin would be a good place. New York was a place we were going to go to but before we go there we’re going to Berlin. It’s closer to our mothers and the boy’s grandmothers. New York’s just too far away.

Q: How’s being a dad changed you?

FH: It makes me want to work harder. I enjoy my job more. I feel more mature – but that might have nothing to do with being a father. It might just be to do with being 34-years-old and having been doing this job for 10 years. All I know that as a father, as a parent, it’s great. It’s a pleasure watching someone grow up and to be there for them and not judge them. Let them become who they’re going to become. Obviously they’re going to pick up traits of you and other people. It’s such a nice thing to see.

Q: Dougie do you know if you’re having a boy or a girl?

DP: No, Kel was quite keen to know. She wanted to know if she was having a boy – she said she wanted to know if she’s got wee balls. But then a friend of mine said, don’t find out - it’s the only time in your life that you get to meet somebody with absolutely no preconceptions whatsoever. I told Kel that and she was like, that’s quite good.


Q: I read you like to test music on kids?

FH: I was kind of worried at first because I would play Clay music and he would just sit, motionless. He wouldn’t move a muscle when he listened to music – for a year. For over a year he had no reaction to music. If he had a reaction it was to sit really still – almost in a trance. Now he’s started to dance and I think he’s started to sing. Anything melodic on the radio that comes on he goes, Paba. I’m Paba.

DP: Like Robbie Williams.

FH: Robbie Williams came on the radio and I was like, son – no! I was thinking last night actually about how when I grew up I didn’t have any musical instruments around me and I gravitated towards them. To do music as a career it’s a whole different ball game but just playing an instrument . . . if you’ve always got them around you, you will gravitate towards them. When I was first gravitating towards them it was always this thing you couldn’t get. There was always this guitar and it was always in a window or in a catalog.

Q: How is Gordon Brown doing?

DP: We don’t really know at the moment because we’ve been away for months. In general I think he’s great. I really like him. I met him once at a premiere of one of my wife’s films and I thought he was fantastic. I thought he was the exact opposite of the way he’s portrayed in the British media. He’s portrayed as very dour and very serious and not particularly charming. He is incredibly charismatic, very intelligent, really charming and a really nice guy. He’s got a lovely way about him. During the Blair years – which were full of optimism and playing with the media and all that I feel like there’s a grown up in charge again rather than a celebrity. I don’t want a celebrity running the country, I want a decent politician. He seems like a pretty decent guy.

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For more photos of their show at the Moore, click here.

Team Gina's Gina Bling & Gina Genius (with mathematix) perform U.N.I.T Why Not? - singing:

I'm not a bitch
I'm not a ho
I'm not a slut
You didn't know?

These ladies are Seattle's musical sweethearts as far as I am concerned.
From their sassy dance moves to their charming vocals to their coordinated outfits, they move me.

Want to see more pix of Team Gina? Click here:

Team Gina at the Sunset

On Saturday night I saw the band See Me River at the Tractor. I am ashamed to admit this was the first time I had ever been to the Tractor, a cozy venue indeed.


Kerry Zettel of See Me River

Their song, Wake Up Are You Wasted has been stuck in my head all weekend. I like the contrast between Zettel's evil voice and the tiny xylophone sounds.

For more photos of the show go here: See Me River @ the Tractor

The Royal Bear's debut ep is ideal. It's got four songs on it filled with a juicy wallop of flickering guitar work and New Romantic rhythm – add to this synths and pensive vocals, then shake it up and let it have its way.


The Royal Bear - design by Russ Smith

At its heart it's dance music. Pins in My Heart pops open the ep, complete with cowbell, rapid drumming and lines like In class we would share glances/keep secret our romances – I always like things that rhyme and it's cleverly done. Last Leg is a perfectly dramatic heartbreak piece with groovy guitars: I can stay out way out later than you every night till I don't know you anymore. Better Off Lonely has some really cool bass work in it, another thing I think that is important in music – as are the lyrics that fit so well: This conversation's making me lose my sentimentality . . . Save your tears/I'm sure someone will be impressed. The final song of the ep, Dance Alone, gathers all strength and explodes: Your fishnets make me sweat . . . Don't make me beg or dance alone.

Though the band's sound is nearly an anomaly in Seattle, they remind me a bit of Classic Nouveaux, Visage and Ultravox – singer Rain's vocals are quite similar to Midge Ure's yet different enough that they are not derivative.

I talked with 2/3rds of Israel’s Monotonix before their sold out show in Seattle. Ami Shalev, singer and Yonatan Gat, guitarist and I sat down in front of the Comet Tavern on Saturday night. Passersby chatted them up. We gained a fellow-interviewer. A hotdog vendor did brisk business and a fire truck raced by.

The hard-rocking, hard-touring trio Monotonix, including new drummer Haggai Fershtman, are probably coming to a city very near you if you live in the States or the UK. Their music and shows are genuinely awesome and you have every reason to check them out. Plus these guys have a wry sense of humor - quite a few of their responses to my questions were tongue in cheek, although I would believe these foxy guys are fighting off chicks and maybe I believe that the drummer is a good businessman.

Q: Do you ever get injured during your shows?

Yonatan Gat: I got this three weeks ago in Portland. [He points out a cut above his right eyebrow].

Q: Did you get stitches?

YG: No, we had to fly to New York so we didn’t have time.

Q: So you just toughed it out.

YG: I guess.

Ami Shalev: Nothing really serious – except I broke a shoulder.

Q: That’s pretty serious.

AS: Nah, I was in the Army.

Q: I wanted to ask you about that – I read you were a tank commander? What did that involve?

AS: Hard training, discipline, girls, mud, dust –

YG: Gourmet food. Grease. Women.

Q: That sounds pretty good.

AS: It’s a glamour job.

Q: What’s the craziest thing a fan has done?

YG: A woman?

Q: It could be a woman. Are they just crazy all the time?

AS: Yes, the girls are crazy about us. They get crazy only when they see us.

YG: Even before we were in the band, like just walking down the street.

Q: That would be awesome.

YG: I have to push them away – I walk around with a bat.

Q: A bat?

YG: A baseball bat, to scare the women away.

Q: That would work, but some of them might like that.

YG: That’s the problem.

Q: Does the audience ever get angry about anything you do while playing live?

AS: Only when we play too short. That’s the reason most of the people get angry.

Q: I can understand that.

Q: I was impressed how you calmed the crowd at Bumbershoot when the show got shut down early.

AS: Like Dan Deacon says, safety is first.


Shalev drums on the crowd - photo by Dagmar

Q: Yonatan, I came across something about you having to give up your cat?

YG: I had to give away my cat because we tour so much.

Q: Did he find a home?

YG: He’s staying with a friend of my ex-girlfriend. She likes him a lot. Did you see the picture of the cat?

Q: I did, he’s beautiful.

YG: Pretty cute. He’s very beautiful, but he’s very mean too.

[In case you're wondering, in the notice for the cat the Hebrew means inoculated and fixed.]

Q: Is it hard to find places to stay in all the cities since you tour so much?

YG: On our first tour we used to ask people after the show, hey can we crash at your house? This is the first tour we can actually afford hotels.

Q: Now you can spend your money on other things.

AS: Wait, what do you mean by that?

YG: Like for hotdogs.

AS: We’re saving the money for bad times. For the children.

[At this point a guy to see the show sits next to us. He talks about Dan Deacon to Shalev and Gat.]

Q: Do you ever lose each other?

YG: Sometimes I have no idea what our drummer is talking about.

AS: I always have no idea what he’s talking about.

[Now the guy next to us asks me to find out if they’re going to get naked for the show.]

Q: He wants to know if you’re going to get naked tonight.

AS: Yes.

YG: If you pay us. Maybe I’ll get naked if somebody pays me. How much are you willing to pay?

Q: We’d have to negotiate – I’ve only got so much money . . . Were you very musical in school?

YG: One day they had to choose people to sing for graduation, they kicked me out. Out of 60 people they chose 50 and I was one of the 10 they kicked out.

Q: That’s sad.

YG: Now I am playing a sold-out show in Seattle and I am showing them that they were wrong.

AS: I was always out of tune. Right now I’m still out of tune but . . .

[Now a fire truck races by.]

AS: Fire Marshall.

Q: They got here early. [Monotonix has actually set fires as part of their shows – so you never know.]


Gat and Fershtman seize the center of the Comet - photo by Dagmar (on stage taking this picture)

Q: Have you been able to do any sightseeing in Seattle?

YG: We went to Lake Washington.

AS: We saw Jimi Hendrix’s gave and Kurt Cobain’s house.

Q: Yonatan, do you ever get worried about what Ami is going to do next live?

YG: Only that he’s going to put a trash can on my head.

Q: I saw him do that to the drummer.

AS: He’s the victim – he’s the ultimate victim.

Q: Have you started the next cd?

YG: We’ve written a couple of songs – we’re going to record it in the spring, in San Francisco.

Q: Ami, I read an interview with David Berman where he mentions your Dad escaped the Nazis?

AS: He was in the Holocaust. He had to run away from the Nazis when he was 9 years old. He ran away from Europe. His brother was five and his sister was seven. The funny thing is that they ran away with a group of Jewish people to Iran. From Iran they came to Israel.

Q: What is it about Monotonix that’s making you so popular in the US?

AS: Our English is perfect, especially mine. I don’t know why.

YG: Our drummer is a very good businessman. This is kind of like an oxymoron – the drummer is a good businessman. It can’t be.

Q: How do you stay in shape for all this touring?

AS: We eat a lot of Little Debbie Snacks.

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For more photos of their show click here.
You can also see in some of the photos how Shalev was again able to command the audience and get them to sit down on the floor of the Comet.


Gat, Me!, Shalev - September 27, 2008