The day after we saw young new Everett act the Familiars play the Showbox's Green Room last Wednesday, I got a call from our unusually excited photographer, Curt Doughty, saying how much he loved the band and how glad he was to have been at their show. I think his positive reaction well represents the general consensus among everyone in attendance that night--even though "everyone" seemed to mostly consist of the band's female fans/friends who helped them drive out from Everett. Although they definitely seem like a young band (three of the band's four members are in high school, and their ages range from 17 to 19... the drummer still sports a pair of braces) you could feel the potential coursing through their music as the band spat out a contorted fusion of Hendrix-influenced electric blues and virile garage punk. Their frontman came alive as the set went along, performing barefoot (and eventually shirtless), and writhing around on the floor, on his way to the men's room and, at one point, smack into the cocktail waitress. He even managed to clumsily crash into his drummer's kit (the drummer, who came to the small stage wearing 3-D glasses, was hidden almost entirely under a mess of long curly hair, turning him into Animal from The Muppet Show as he played). The Familiars are definitely onto something good.
That same night, Electric Blanket and Teen Cthulhu played Zak's. I missed Electric Blanket, but liked the cassette demo they passed along. The vocals are totally snotty in this prep school, James Spader as a young man kinda way, especially on the track with the lines, "If you call that dancing, I've got something to show you," while the music has a poppy garage sound with melodies drenched with fuzz from a lo-fi production. I did make it in time to see Teen Cthulhu, though, who were on fire that night. With the keyboards dragging haunting melodies behind their caustic metal/hardcore hybrid, the band sounded like a metal-heavy version of the San Diego avant hardcore sound that spawned the lovely Locust's sci-fi madness. After the show, Cthulhu frontman T. J. told me his band was offered a prestigious Peel Session in the UK, but unfortunately they had to turn it down due to time constraints. (And on a related note, the Earaches made it on to BBC Radio 1 DJ John Peel's Tracklistings... a variety of Seattle bands are continuing to make their marks internationally these day, which kicks ass.)
Thursday night Kinski played the Seattle Art Museum's After Hours series, a really cool program that brings young punks to the art world--or old farts to the music world--for the price of museum admission. The band played two sets stationed at SAM's entranceway and the reactions of people passing by were almost as entertaining as the music. Older museumgoers not hip to--or just not interested in--Kinski's instrumental acrobatics walked by with scowls, plugged ears, or, in one case, middle finger raised high--but overall the crowded entryway seemed packed with appreciative fans. The local four-piece started out with a looped electronic track, adding an instrument at a time until their sonic momentum was so strong and loud it could almost crack windows. What better place than a museum to put the "art" back in art rock, though, as Kinski experimented with the tones and textures of an electronic flute, an electric bass played with a violin bow, bells, and rows of effects pedals, careening between beautifully spacy passages and abrasive, high-pitched calamity. That same night, the Fenix Underground reopened down the street in Pioneer Square with an enormous, sleek, overwhelming new space that's part upscale rock club/part upscale dance club. The place was packed with industrial goth types, suit and tie types, and enough fake cleavage to float a barge across the Sound.
And Go-Kart records sent me a new record by Seattle's Amazombies that I used as my driving soundtrack over the weekend. The interplay between main vocalist/guitarist Kim Kelly and her backing chorus of bassist Noriko Kaji and drummer Josh Kramer comes off close to flawless on Bitches & Stitches, a record with equal parts punk grit and pop kick, and enough anthems to get you going--especially the band's excellent cover of "Riot in Cell Block #9."
