Dan Le Sac Vs Scroobius Pip come from the UK and they are brilliant. They recently visited Seattle for the second time and while Dan Le Sac and Scroobius Pip had their dinner before the evening’s show, I asked them all sorts of questions. Things about tattoos, the video for Beat That My Heart Skipped, and what they think of Prince.
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Q: I saw your video based on Cribs – it was fantastic.

Scroobius Pip: Glad you liked it. It’s a nice little house.

Q: What kinds of things have you cooked on your George Foreman Grill?

SP: I cook anything but then I got dragged into the actual George Foreman brand, like pork and beefsteaks and turkey. They are really low fat. I don’t really eat any fruit or vegetables so making eating meat healthier for me is a winner. I’m healthy, as you can see my dinner is 4 chunks of meat [he was eating chicken satays].

Q: You need your protein. Do you take vitamins though?

SP: Not really. I’ve started to be healthier and eat more vegetables now but by anyone else’s standards I’m unhealthy.

Q: What kinds of things do you read, like on the road?

SP: I can’t read in vehicles.

Dan Le Sac: Chuck Palahniuk and Irvine Welsh. But every now and then I pick up The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.

Q: I looked up your hometown, Stanford-le-Hope, and I couldn’t find too much on it but there was a guide online to hooking-up spots.

SP: Really? I need to look that website up.

Q: Is there a big singles scene there?

SP: Not really. There’s not enough of anything for there to be any kind of scene. I think there’s like probably eight pubs, a few takeaways, a pool hall . . . there’s a library, it’s a small one but it’s decent. Not a lot going on there. My mom runs the libraries in the area – that’s how I know they’re good libraries. They’ve got our album in there, so it must be good.

Q: I’ll have to look at the site again and see if maybe the library is one of the hook-up spots.

SP: Yeah, it might be. Kind of bizarre.

Q: I read you’ve been doing a cover of Sugababes on the tour.

SP: Yes, the Sugababes’ Push the Button. A brilliant pop song.

DLS: We don’t do it in America though.

SP: Not many people know who the Sugababes are [in America]. We’ve got three covers that we do and only one of them is by an American. [People think] that we’re doing it ironically but we’re not.

Q: Dan, you studied photography at University of Reading? Was it commercial or art?

DLS: Photography and Digital Imaging – a general thing, somewhere in between useful and not useful. It was cool. It was a nice way to spend three years of my life although I worked full time while I was at Uni.

Q: Did you two meet at University?

SP: No, we met at College properly– before Uni. Then we both went off to Uni, then we met up again at HMV when we were working in the record shop. Then we re-met up again on myspace. We’ve had a long career in meeting and losing each other.

Q: I was reading you do all your song writing via email?

SP: All over email. We’ve still never sat down really and written together. There’s not as many conflicts and you’re not on each other’s backs. To make a change to a beat or develop it could take ages, so while I’m sat there waiting for another chunk I’ll get anxious and annoyed. And Dan will bet annoyed because he’ll be aware that I’m waiting for this extra little bit. It works better to do it over email and give it the appropriate amount of time.


Scroobius Pip


Dan Le Sac

Q: I'm wondering, how many tattoos do you have?

SP: I’ve got four tattoos and two piercings, all hidden away.

Q: There’s one on your arm.

SP: That’s the battery compartment, where I keep my batteries. I’ve got one on my lip.

[He shows me the tattoo of his name on the inside of his lower lip.]

Q: Oh god. That’s awesome – that must have hurt.

SP: It was all right – it wasn’t that bad. It only took 10 minutes. Every one always assumes that but it only took ten minutes.

DLS: Whereas I’ve had my whole body tattooed. I’m mainly scar tissue.

Q: That’s going to give me nightmares. . . so, Prince. Is this someone you are both into?

DLS: I would say Scroobius is slightly more into Prince than I am. I’m more a greatest hits man.

SP: I worship him. I think he’s great.

Q: I noticed in your Cribs send-up you had a dvd of his videos. What’s your favorite Prince video?

SP: I’d like to go for Cream. It’s got this whole preamble before it starts. I haven’t watched any in a while because I’ve been on the road so much. I’m really into Darling Nikki at the moment as a Prince song. I’m not sure if there’s a video for that one – I’ll have to look when I get home.

DLS: Wasn’t the last time you watched that when you got pulled over by the police?

SP: We were on our way back from a gig, so it’s me and [friend] Paul and the driver. So they pull us over, open the back of the van and there’s me and Paul with no shirts on, drinking wine and watching Prince videos. It was a weird scenario. We’d played Brighton the night before and both of us had got tattoos to mark the tour. We’d sweated a lot with these fresh tattoos and they were dripping. The police just popped their heads and go, okay? That was a weird experience.

DLS: I led that.

SP: A good tour story.

Q: Prince will get you into trouble.

SP: He just makes you take your shirt off.

Q: Where did you find the girls for the Beat that My Heart Skipped video?

DLS: We found them on myspace.

SP: I put a bulletin out saying that we needed some girls for a video. The director got a couple of professional pole dancers in for some of the pole dancing. It was meant to be set in a strip club but not your typical one. We didn’t want bleached blonde [hair] and fake breasts . . . we went for more alternative looking girls. The girl who’s playing the one who isn’t a stripper, the one at the bar being hit on, is a singer called Paloma Faith. Again as we have a very low budget or no budget it needs to be favors. All of our videos have included myspace bulletins.

Q: It was good casting.

SP: One of the girls, Nina Kate is on the cover of Bizarre Magazine. She’s got a clothing company. The latex stuff (in the video) is from her clothing company. It works as a good advert, so that’s cool.

Q: How would you describe the look of Dan Le Sac Vs Scroobius Pip?

SP: Hairy. I wear a hat sometimes. I like leather ties – I always wear a leather tie on stage.

DLS: I’ve recently moved to wearing a round-necked tee from a long time wearing a collared tee.

SP: A polo shirt was typical of Dan for a while.

DLS: Oh – balding. I’m losing my hair. That’s part of our look.

SP: It’s true. I think that [Dan’s] sideburns are getting bigger and bigger and longer and longer and turning into a beard as the hair disappears on top in an Einstein-esque manner.

DLS: And that guy was a hit with the ladies.

SP: He was.

DLS: [Speaking of] brains not brawn – Stephen Hawking. He managed to leave his wife and cheated on his wife with his nurse. And then married her and had two kids.

SP: I don’t think that’s an indication of brains over brawn. Callum Best is a big hit with the ladies in the UK and he’s an idiot, but he’s very handsome. Whereas Stephen Hawking has a lot of money, which I think influences the deal on that kind of thing in general.

DLS: I don’t know how much money I’d need – he does need a lot of looking after.

SP: But still that’s a good wage. My girlfriend’s a carer so she looks after people like Stephen Hawking on far less. [For Stephen Hawking] it’s like I’m your carer but also your girlfriend. That’s all the girl had to do, surely.

DLS: They had two kids!

SP: They did not. They may have adopted two kids or may have built two kids.

Q: He’s so smart though I don’t know what anyone would talk to him about.

DLS: Jazz – he likes jazz. You can talk silly voices. Famous cyborgs.

SP: I’m sure he could get any voice, so you could say tonight I want to have a chat with Sean Connery and he’ll type in as Sean Connery. That’s how he gets the ladies.

DLS: His voice in his head now is that computer voice. He’s had it so long so when they tried to upgrade his computer system, they’d given him a new, more humanized voice and it freaked him out.

SP: I’ve heard about this before but I don’t think in sentences in my own mind. I don’t think, I wonder if I need to go to the toilet? Yeah, I might as well . . .

DLS: But when that sounds going out and coming back into his ear it was not sounding like him. We’ve had this conversation before and I couldn’t answer it, so I’ve spent some time waiting for this topic to come back up.

SP: There’s a podcast that Ricky Gervais, Stephen Merchant and Karl Pilkington do – Karl wonders if people think in their own accents and use terminology in their heads that’s local to them. And they figured out, particularly the terminology thing, you don’t think, "Happen I will."

DLS: But there’s one school of thought that says that you do. [There are some people] who visualize their thoughts and others who word them out. Like I can’t imagine something, full stop. If he [Scroobius] walks away I can’t imagine him. I can describe him perfectly but I can’t get a clear, fixed image.

Q: I have been reading a lot about your beard, Dan. What is the ideal conditioner?

SP: Aussie Leave-In – you can leave it in. I haven’t got a lot of time – a lot of good conditioners you need to leave in to soak for 3-4 minutes and then rinse out. I’m an on the go guy.

Q: How did you come across the artist, Jock Mooney?

SP: We saw this little Hitler in a tutu figurine. There was some dumb luck with the line Thou Shalt Always Kill and Hitler stealing Nietzsche’s ideas of having to destroy to progress. . .


Album art for Thou Shalt Always Kill.

Q: What’s the story behind Waiting for the Beat to Kick In?

SP: It was originally a rambling spoken word piece. All the people I meet in it are film characters. All the messages that they give are messages I learnt from that character in that film. I love films, films that have got a good meaning.
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I looked the characters up from Waiting for the Beat to Kick In and here are their respective movies:

Elwood P. Dowd = Harvey
Lloyd Dobler = Say Anything
Billy Brown = Buffalo 66
Walter Neff = Double Indemnity

They did not perform their cover of Sugababe’s Push the Button – instead they did a smashing cover of Prince’s Cream.

Currently they are touring in Europe.

Look at more photos from their Chop Suey show here.

I talked with Sune Rose Wagner and Sharin Foo of the Raveonettes before their most recent show in Seattle. I wanted to know about what scares these cool people and I had to grill Sune on his Christmas fixation. This is a band I fell in intense love with the first moment I heard them – they have held this love now for over six years.

Since the release of the astounding Lust Lust Lust in early 2008, Sharin Foo had her first daughter, Molly, and the band released three more eps: Beauty Dies, Sometimes They Drop By and the Raveonettes Remixed . Plus there's talk of a Christmas ep.

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Q: I have some questions that I have never seen asked of you two. What are your earliest memories?

Sune Rose Wagner: That is actually a very good question. Sometimes I think about it and I really don’t know. I have a lot of childhood memories but I don’t know which would be my earliest.

Sharin Foo: I think some of my earliest are probably from when I was in China – when I was three years old. I think that was so intense and different for me. I have some very vivid memories from being there. I was in a village where my grandfather was from and they didn’t have any toilets. So my dad had to take me outside and they had these little black pigs that would run around and I was so scared that they would come towards me. And they would – they would get into everything.

Q: That would be scary.

SRW: That’s terrible.

Q: So what are some good memories – or bad, I guess?

SRW: I remember burning my hand on the electrical lawn mower once. I couldn’t have been very old because my dad was still living at home – it was before they got divorced. I remember it being wrapped up in a big bandage and we used to call it the crocodile because it resembled a weird looking crocodile. But I think I was pretty old, like six or seven. I lost all my memories.

Q: Sharin, your dad was a musician – what does your mom do?

SF: My mom works in accounting.

Q: Sune, you’ve mentioned your parents weren’t musical?

SRW: No, my dad was working with antennas . . . an engineer. My mom’s been a school secretary all her life.

Q: How did they come up with your names, like your middle name?

SRW: My middle name is my mom’s name.

Q: And they spelled Sharin with an i?

SF: That’s from my dad, back in those days when he was meditating a lot. I was supposed to be Simon if I had been a boy. I don’t have a middle name.

Q: What scares you? What’s your biggest fear?

SRW: My biggest fear? I think there’s a lot of them.

SF: There are fears on different levels. I mean I’m scared of spiders and I’m scared of the dark. But if you say biggest fear it would be the atomic bomb, or a big world war.

SRW: I’ll quote that guy from that great movie Young Sherlock Holmes “My biggest fear is that I never want to be alone”. I think that’s kind of true. I like that.

Q: What frustrates you?

SRW: A million things. Lack of sleep. Being sick. Working too hard.

Q: Is this the first cd you’ve produced on your own?

SF: No - Whip It On, too.

Q: Is it easier to do it all yourself?

SRW: We’ve never really worked with a producer in that sense. With Richard Gottehrer [producer of Chain Gang of Love] he was our friend, so it was more based on friendship and wine. I’ve never tried to work with, you know, Rick Rubin so I have no idea what that would be like. We’re not a regular band – we don’t have a drummer and a bass player and we don’t write songs together. It’s very natural to do stuff at home.

Q: What are some of your scariest or best drug experiences?

SRW: Scariest drug experience? I don’t think I’ve ever had one of those.

Q: That’s good.

SF: I had a bad experience with ecstasy. I was hyperventilating. And then one time I was smoking weed . . . hash is not my drug because I get too stoned.

Q: I was reading that you edited the video for You Want the Candy – do you want to do more of that?

SRW: I hope not, no. We [Sharin and I] weren’t in the same place together and we needed a video. Someone had to do it.

Q: I just thought maybe you’d found some new love.

SRW: No, it would probably be fun if you had time to do it.


Sune Rose Wagner and Sharin Foo in Seattle, March 2008 - photo by Dagmar

Q: Was the new cd difficult to make? It seems like the vocals are very complicated.

SRW: I don’t think in that sense it was hard but it took a little bit longer to find out what we wanted. That’s actually the part I don’t like about starting a new album. It seems very exciting at first but then once you get started you hit on dead ends. One day you like this and the next day you like something else. It just seems so confusing. I like it when you know what you want.

SF: It wasn’t more difficult than the other albums in the recording process but like Sune was saying, it was a longer time coming.

Q: How did you decide The Beat Dies was going to be just Sharin? And Blush is mostly Sune?

SRW: The Beat Dies just sounded really great with her voice on it. It just fit the song really well. With the Blush thing, I think I had just recorded a vocal on it, so I had it but I just ended up liking it. It seemed very passionate, so we liked that. Both of those songs were very hard songs to harmonize to.

SF: It’s also nice to utilize the fact that we have two different voices. Oftentimes when we sing together they sort of melt together. It’s hard to tell who’s who, and I think it makes it more multi-faceted – the different personalities in the vocals.

Q: I was reading something in Filter about Sune liking Christmas a lot and having Christmas trees up all year round.

SRW: I like all the lights. I think it’s nice ornamentation. It’s just a nice place for me to relax and feel comfortable. It’s not something I really think about, it just makes me feel comfortable.

Q: I can understand that. There are a lot chimes and bell sounds in your music – do you think that’s where it comes from?

SRW: It could be. When I was a kid I was alone a lot and I liked being alone. I used to sit in my room – in the old days it used to snow a lot, it doesn’t snow that much anymore – and I just remember sitting in my room. It was all nice and warm and it was dark and snowing outside and I had the lights on. It was just a nice place for me to be – I felt inspired and very happy. Maybe it’s just something that’s stuck with me over the years. I do like a lot of old Christmas music that I think is very beautiful. Even some of the tacky stuff like Perry Como. Nat King Cole, Phil Spector, Bing Crosby, Dean Martin and Sinatra – there’s a lot of good stuff on it. And obviously with the bells and chimes and stuff, some of it came from there for sure. We used to use the jingles a lot in our music. We don’t use it on this album but even from Whip it On there are a lot of jingles on there. That Great Love Sound has jingles.

Q: I love that.

SF: We do listen to Christmas music. Maybe we are sort of brainwashed.

Q: What do have dreams about?

SRW: I have nightmares all the time. Everything – killing people, shooting people . . . at least four times a week. I think I’m just growing through a change and my dreams reflect that. I need to get rid of a lot of bad things, apparently.

SF: I dream about my friends a lot – and my family.

Q: Here’s kind of an open question, what do you find sexy?

SRW: I like women who have jobs. I like women who are very determined and have a goal. I like career people, people who strive for something, who burn for something. I think that’s very sexy. I never really liked people who didn’t want to do anything or who were lazy. That does not appeal to me whatsoever.

SF: People with strong personalities – people who have a strong sense of who they are and what they want. Sweetness, intelligence and humanity. Things like that.

Q: I asked Sharin about this in our earlier interview, but Sune do you like shopping for clothes?

SRW: I do. I don’t do it very often but I’m good at speed shopping for clothes. I like vintage shopping when I know the stores are good, like in Portland. I always find great stuff there.

Q: I read somewhere that you called this your Doors album? Do you like the Doors?

SRW: I love the Doors. I meant in the sense that we have a keyboard bass on the album which the Doors used to have. If you listen to Black Satin, that rhythm is typical Ray Manzarek style playing like he does in The End and all those great songs. That’s very typical in playing the piano – you would play the bass like that. It also has a mystifying, California feel to it that I think the early Doors had, when they used to make music out on Venice Beach.

Q: What do you do in your downtime to relax?

SRW: I watch movies, I walk a lot, I go out to restaurants and I sit at home and write music and read. I go to the shooting range, actually. I really like to shoot rifles. I just try to do fun stuff. I go to yoga sometimes. I want to go play golf – I’ve done that a bunch of times and I thought it was relaxing. Maybe I’ll even go take a swing at a baseball, why not?

Q: You’re really open to trying different things.

SRW: Totally.

SF: For me it’s really, like Sune’s saying, to enjoy your life when you’re home. I just really love having my home and my family – the books and the movies – I love cooking. I like my every day life when I’m home. It’s very exotic to me because I don’t get to spend much time there. I go hiking in the mountains around Los Angeles. I like to go to the Pacific Ocean.

Q: Have you seen any cougars yet while you’re hiking?

SF: I haven’t. I haven’t seen rattlesnakes yet either. I’ve seen possums. There’s lots of little animals around. Skunks.

Q: Do either of you have pets?

SRW: No.

SF: A cat.

Q: Sune, you should have a cat too.

SRW: Yeah.

SF: He had a dog but he didn’t like it, so he sold it.

SRW: I made a profit on it.

Q: Nice.

SRW: I should go into business.

Q: What kind of dog was it?

SRW: Pomeranian.

Q: I have a question that’s probably kind of impolite. How did you hurt your tooth?

SRW: It just fell out one day.

Q: Did it hurt?

SRW: No, it was just an old tooth. I used to have a lot of accidents as a kid so most of my teeth are fake or half fake.

Q: It’s charming though.

SRW: That’s what some people say. My mom doesn’t think it’s very charming. She thinks I look like a thug.

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I took photos of their show that night and you can check out their tour dates here.
And I recommend listening to Aly, Walk With Me.

I want to get this out of the way – Blood Red Dancers sound a lot like the Doors. There’s nothing wrong with this – the Doors are one of my top bands ever. Would I still like this band, if say, I had never heard the Doors? Yes, yes, yes.

Their debut ep, Let Him Fight, I’ll Be In The Breadline, starts with Sweetie’s Gettin’ Mobbed, and it sounds like an ode to a stripper: I like watching all those boys watching you/ Some might say I’m jealous, and yeah I guess it’s true/ I find it amazing watching all that watching you go through/ I like watching all those boys watching you. It, as do the other six tracks, has a throbbing bass line that you would do well to pay close attention to. It’s also got warm keyboards - it’s sinister and it coordinates well with the rattling and brutal voice of singer Aaron Poppick.


Blood Red Dancers - photo by Mary Henlin

1000 Times features a harmonica and organ. Strange? Damn right. Does it work though? Absolutely: Drinkin’ that liquor gets me mean sometimes/ If I get that woman Lord I’ll be fine. . . You take one look at her and she’ll heal your eyes. It’s no wonder the band lists drinking, pretty girls and pretty girls drinking as influences on their myspace. The vocal delivery is again so brutal you feel like the singer is right in the room with you. All For You is a hallucinogenic song and it’s got lovely guitars carrying it.

Fur Skin Coat is a weird romantic piece: Gonna get my woman something real, real nice/ once I get those pennies off that dead guy’s eyes. It’s spooky with what sounds like jangling chains and ghosts singing in the background. The Lamb is again sleazy and dramatic – and bless it for that. It swirls out of control as sometimes you want rock to do: Come and take my hand/ as we burn down the land. . . if we do it in the name of God/ Then the blood will wash off. Muddy Water starts off Poppick’s groan, then elaborates with a cool, cool bass line.

This Seattle band has made one of the best eps/cds of the year. I want more.

The Kooks played a sold out show recently in Seattle and even though they were missing under the weather drummer Paul Garred, they were alarmingly vigorous. This was my first time seeing them live and this band has the charisma to continue on their major way.


Luke Pritchard

Pritchard, with his brown wavy locks and rock star figure, has a voice and talent that set him well apart from his contemporaries. Harris, the red-haired guitarist, is equally a standout. Their new bassist, Denton, joined just this year. And to be fair I never saw former bassist Max Rafferty live, I was quite hypnotized by Denton’s playing. Hypnotized, even though I was dancing to the music.


Hugh Harris

The history of the band starts in 2003. Consider that singer/songwriter Pritchard and drummer Garred are now 23, guitarist Hugh Harris is 21, and I am putting their new bassist Peter Denton near the same age. They’re following a line of classic British rock bands that did get a young start and made it big at young ages – I am thinking of bands like the Who, the Rolling Stones, the Beatles and the Kinks. I want to point out You Don’t Love Me and Ooh La in particular. You Don’t Love Me is petulance at its best, with Pritchard screaming if you don't love me you don't care and Ooh La, one of the strongest pop rock songs to come out in ages, melts you with its sweetness and cynicism: And ooh la, she was such a good girl to me/ And ooh la, the world just chewed her up and spat her out. With songs like these, Sofa Song, Mr. Maker, Jackie Big Tits and See the World I am of high hopes the band will continue this line of rock well into the next decade. Beyond? Judging by the audience, who knew the songs and were happily appreciative, the Kooks have a committed fan base.


Luke Pritchard


Peter Denton


Luke Pritchard and Peter Denton

--- For more photos I took at their show click here.

These extremely busy guys next head to the U.K. and Europe for a string of sold out dates. Then they head to Japan, Australia and New Zealand. They are rightly in demand.

Ode to J. Smith, Travis’ sixth album, is totally beautiful. Each track stands out and they’re the kind of band whose members are absolutely integral to their sound. I wouldn’t want to swap out any of these guys from this band.



Get Up bounds along with quite tribal drumming and dare I say it, but without being a cliché it has a Celtic flavor to it. Before You Were Young, with its charming cymbals, intricate guitar work and blessed piano asks: in the days before you were young/ we used to sit in the morning sun we used to turn the radio on/ what happened? Now it could be that you can have too much rhyming – but it works in this song perfectly and I wouldn’t want it any other way. Broken Mirror and Friends groove along at smooth and wonderfully trippy speeds. Travis knows how to set a mood and move you in the process. Last Words is perhaps the most instantly recognizable as Travis (there’s very distinctive guitar playing) and I think Long Way Down is probably my top track on the album: it makes no difference when you live in a puddle/ Now that I see it/ How can I breathe
When my heart’s in my mouth/ And not on my sleeve?/ Better run little rabbit/
Back to your hole in the ground. . . then it ends with the refrain: they’re never taking me alive.

With this cd Travis set up shop on their own label, Red Telephone Box, and they’ve opened up business with a boom.

I am catching up, slowly but surely, on photos & interviews etc. I took some pix of Kings of Leon last week when they played the Paramount. This is a photogenic group if there ever was one. I especially like this photo of drummer Nathan Followill blowing a bubble.


Nathan Followill and Caleb Followill of Kings of Leon

Kings of Leon's fans are party animals - I was impressed by their enthusiasm and just craziness in general. Here is more photographic evidence of why the girls just go insane for these guys:


Caleb Followill


Nathan Followill


Jared Followill


Matthew Followill

All 150 of the photos can be viewed here.

Enjoy.

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