Music

Moving On

Sam Jayne's Seattle Homecoming

by Kathleen Wilson

Mon Dec 15, Chop Suey, 9 pm, $8.

Ask anyone, especially someone who's lived in the Capitol Hill neighborhood for more than a few years, and I'm sure he or she will back up my opinion that people don't actually move away from Seattle. They just tell you they don't live here anymore, only to commence visiting immediately and frequently. (Especially those who "move" to Olympia or--gasp!--Portland.)

Not so those who move to NYC. In fact, you can just about make out the imaginary "See ya, suckers!" tattooed on their asses as they depart for a more bustling existence. Sam Jayne of Love as Laughter left a year ago, but he's coming home for a long-awaited visit and an acoustic show at Chop Suey. Fans of Jayne's ever-evolving band will be happy to learn that in the can sits the much-anticipated follow-up to the 2001 blast of hard-rocking power pop Sea to Shining Sea. Jayne's also recorded some tracks for another solo album. That's music to the ears of those of us who've had the dreamy, lazily paced "Miss Direction" stuck in our head since Jayne left town.

Speaking from a phone in NYC, Jayne laughs and agrees with my theory about Seattle and moving before revealing the secret that keeps the expats in the Big City: "People move out here," he says, "but we all hang out together so we feel like we're in Seattle without having to move back. We keep each other from getting homesick."

kathleen@thestranger.com

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