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I love to give them shit for sport, but Sub Pop certainly deserves a round of applause for staying in business for 14 years. On Sunday, April 14, the label threw itself a party (which was also a benefit for the Vera Project) at the Crocodile featuring some of its brightest talent. Hot Hot Heat kicked off the night with an energetic, oh so Canadian set of snotty, keyboard-laden rock (the singer sounds a lot like Robert Smith!), followed by Rosie Thomas, who began her set as her alter ego Sheila, the neck-brace-wearing geek who is head over heels in love with Sub Pop's Jonathan Poneman (Thomas is a comedian as well as a singer), and then lit into the beautiful, poignant songs from her album, When We Were Small. (And I'm sure all the women in the audience will join me in cavewoman speak when I ask "WHO HE?" about the gorgeous guitar player accompanying Thomas. Jesus God, that is one hot guy.) And speaking of hot, of course Mudhoney blew us all away with a preview of their new album due out on Sub Pop sometime in August. Oh so psychedelic! Who was there? Well, the always well-behaved (ahem) Peter Buck, for one, as was his wife Stephanie. Scott McCaughey, Jason Finn, Ken Stringfellow, Martin Feveyear, Chris Walla, Phil Ek, and Jack Endino were all there too. But no sign of Jared Leto, who just three days earlier was spotted literally pressing his face up to the window of Bimbo's, checking it out like he read about it in a magazine or something. Last time Leto was in town he was sporting a blue mohawk; now he's working some kind of squashed Flock of Seagulls look.
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Another congratulations goes out to Pretty Girls Make Graves guitarist Nathan Johnson, who got married to his sweetheart just hours before his band's April 12 show at Chop Suey. No shotguns involved, folks, just young love goin' on there. The missus plays in Los Angeles band Your Enemy's Friends.
