The festival is produced by Noise Pop and Another Planet Entertainment. The first day is Electronica-influenced performers , the second day is more indie rock focused.

Confirmed:
Belle & Sebastian (confirmed via fall tour schedule)
Ra Ra Riot (confirmed via fall tour schedule)

Rumored:
Broken Social Scene
Four Tet
Superchunk
Yeasayer

The current rumor lineup is:

Saturday
LCD Soundsystem
KiD CuDi
Ratatat
Four Tet
Miike Snow
Kruder & Dorfmeister

Sunday
Belle & Sebastian
Broken Social Scene
The National
Owen Pallett
Ra Ra Riot
The Sea & Cake

(rumors via consequence of sound)

I got the CD from the band and I have to say, I’m impressed that they are still relevant.  The opening track of Tearing Down Paisley Garden, “Only Dreaming” is a pop gem you’ll be adding to your summer play list; the rest of it is great too.  More of a mini album, Tearing Down Paisley Garden clocks in at around 30 minutes.  I love shorter works like this; it makes you kind of want to listen to it over and over again!  Up and coming bands take note; just because you have 80 minutes on a CD doesn’t mean you have to use it.

The Purrs have nailed it.  Frankly, when I turn on the radio I want to hear something like them – not some of the crybaby indie rock which is so popular right now.  The Purrs sound like whiskey, cigarettes and dive bars; they’re a perfect example of why Seattle is known as a no bullshit rock and roll town.

The Purrs are playing The Crocodile (2nd and Blanchard in Belltown) this Thursday with Brent Amaker and Battle Hymns.  Listen to The Purrs here

Our goal for SUPERCUTS is to share music from the 80′s which you may not have heard before.  Besides unheard of bands, we are digging into the crates and flipping to the B-sides and rare tracks from some of your favorite artists of the 80′s and late 70′s (and sometimes early 90′s).  SUPERCUTS happens at the Bus Stop on the 2nd and 4th Thursdays every month (The Council, Seattle’s Premiere Brit Pop night occurs on the 1st and 3rd Thursdays)

This Thursday, May 13th, John (aka DJ Toast) and myself (aka DJ UpAbove) will be manning the decks from 9-2.  Come by and introduce yourself and have a stiff one.  Like they say, if it ain’t STIFF, it ain’t worth a fuck!

Join our facebook page for regular updates featuring rare music videos and live performances from the 80′s!  Even if you’re not from Seattle, you’ll love our updates!

DJ Girth’s 5 hour set list after the jump!

1) Haunted – Shane MacGowan & Sinead O’Connor
2) Haunted When the Minutes Drag – Love and Rockets
3) Madame Butterfly – Malcolm MacLaren for Bobby Frederick Tilley
4) I’m Sick of you Tasting like Somebody Else – Marc Almond
5) Souvenir 10″ Extended Mix – OMD for Chris Xefos
6) Soul in Isolation – Chameleons UK
7) A Forest – The Cure
8 ) Love Hangover – The Associates
9) Don’t Tell Me 12″ – Blancmange
10) Can’t You Take a Joke – Henrietta
11) Love is the Slug (Bargainous Longerer Mix) – Fuzzbox
12) Feast on my Heart – Pylon
13) Born in Xixax – Nina Hagen
14) Dancing with the Big Boys – David Bowie
15) Promised You a Miracle – Simple Minds
16) Give me Everything – Magazine
17) Buffalo Gals (DJ Cut, Special Stereo Mix) – Malcolm McLaren for Aldo Alvarez
18) Square Pegs – The Waitresses
19) The Day the World Turned Day Glo – X-Ray Spex
20) Fire – Lizzie Mercier Descloux

Tom’s Mini Set 1

1) Turning Japanese – The Vapors
2) All You Ever Think About is Sex – Sparks
3) Tell That Girl to Shut Up – Transvision Vamp

Set 2

1) Sex Beat – Gun Club
2) Love is the Law – Toyah
3) Dream Baby Dream (Long Version) – Suicide
4) Hate the Police – The Dicks
5) Does Your Pussy do the Dog? – The Cramps
6) Musclebound – Spandau Ballet
7) Some Velvet Morning – Lydia Lunch and Rowland S. Howard
8 ) Weirdo – Charlatans UK
9) Rockin’ Back Inside my Heart (Tibetan Single Mix) – Julee Cruise
10) Looking form a Hilltop – Section 25
11) Sweet Surprise (1986 Mix) – Chris ‘n’ Cosey and …
12) Slow motion (12″ Mix) – Ultravox
13) Upside Down – The Jesus and Mary Chain
14) Gone, Daddy, Gone – The Violent Femmes
15) Love is Pain – Joan Jett
16) Beat so Lonely – Charlie Sexton
17) A New Way of Life – The Sound
18) Dazzle – Siouxsie & the Banshees for Michael Guerra
19) Close (the the edit) – Art of Noise
20) Heart & Soul (12″ Extended Mix) – T’Pau
21) Deep in Vogue – Malcolm MacLaren
22) Atom-Rock – Quando Quango
23) I Want More – Can
24) Black Stations/White Stations – Martha and the Muffins
25) Mechanical Man – Visible Targets
26) Don’t Mutilate My Mink – Cristina for John Campos

Tom’s Mini Set 2

1) Pump Up The Volume – M/A/R/R/S
2) Strawberry Fields Forever – 12″ Version – Candyflip
3) Into the Groovy – Ciccone Youth

Set 3

1) Levitate Me – The Pixies
2) We’re so Cool… – The Au Pairs
3) ’55 – The Perfect Disaster
6) Walking Machine – Royal Trux for Aaron Aldorisio
7) Kisses Sweeter than Wine – Bongwater
8 ) Girls don’t count – Section 25
9) Your time will come – The Eurythmics
10) Lost again (Remix) – Yello
11) Heaven (12″ Remiix) – Anne Clark
12) The Magician (Perky Plus Mix) – Secession
13) Punch – Colourbox
14) C’mon Every Beat Box – Big Audio Dynamite
16) Dub be Good to Me – Beats International
17) Tempus – Tara Cross
18) Bustin’ Out (Seize the Beat Version) – Material with Nona Hendrix
19) Shack Up – A Certain Ratio
20) Home – Lene Lovich
21) Jolene – Strawberry Switchblade
22) The Wedding – The Wolfgang Press
23) Mouth to Mouth – Tee Glove
24) Methods of Dance – Japan
25) The Boy with the Thorn in his Side – The Smiths
26) I Spent my Last $10 on Birth Control and Beer – Two Nice Girls
27) Ways to be Wicked – Lone Justice
28) For what its Worth (whats that sound) – Holly Beth Vincent
29) The Pope Song – Judy Tenuta

Shadowplay is Written + Directed by Josh Whiteman, Produced by Jason Byrne, Cinematography by Marin Johnson. Highly recommended for anyone with the slightest interest in photography, music, or art. I hope it screens in San Francisco soon, but for now, get thee to the Bloor Cinema if you live in Toronto. Screens on May 7 at 9:15 p.m. at the Bloor Cinema and on May 9 at 1:00 p.m. at the Bloor Cinema.

The photographer behind the landmark iconic images of Bowie, Queen, T-Rex and Lady Gaga among others, MICK ROCK will join NYU’s faculty to offer sage advice in this summer’s “Music Photography Masterclass.” at The Clive Davis Department of Recorded Music Teaming up with former Geffen Records creative director Joe Mama-Nitzberg, Rock will reveal his unique artistic process and will work directly with students to help shape their photographic vision. Students who enroll in the class will get the added benefit of studying music fashion history and they’ll also get the extraordinary opportunity to observe on a Mick Rock photography session as well.

Classes for the first summer session begin May 17 2010, registration is available online.

You can also call (212) 992-8400 for more information.

My Morning Jacket | Massive Attack | Pavement | Ween | Vampire Weekend | MGMT | Band of Horses | The National | LCD Soundsystem | Tegan & Sara | Broken Social Scene | Passion Pit | deadmau5 | She & Him | Public Enemy | Nada Surf | The New Pornographers | The Hold Steady | The xx | Dirty Projectors | OK Go | Drive-By Truckers | Kid Cudi | The Long Winters | Minus the Bear | The Mountain Goats | Quasi | Camera Obscura | Fruit Bats | Brother Ali | Midlake | Dr. Dog | Caribou | Simian Mobile Disco | City & Colour | No Age | The Temper Trap | Vetiver | Miike Snow | Portugal. The Man | Telekinesis | Mayer Hawthorne | WHY? | Girls | Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros | Wale | The Lonely Forest | Japandroids | Boys Noize | YACHT | Freelance Whales | Laura Marling | Patrick Watson | Past Lives | Cymbals Eat Guitars | The Low Anthem | The Very Best | Phantogram | Neon Indian | Nurses | The Tallest Man on Earth | Fresh Espresso | Mumford & Sons | Jets Overhead | tUnE-YarDs | Shabazz Palaces | Fool’s Gold | Morning Teleportation | Z-Trip | Dam-Funk | Hudson Mohawke | The Middle East | Local Natives | Avi Buffalo | Booka Shade | A-Trak | Yes Giantess | Craig Robinson | Rob Riggle | Garfunkel & Oates | Luke Burbank

“Outside The Crowd” is a photo exhibition sponsored by The 2010 Noise Pop Art and Music Festival. The opening reception is Thursday February 4th from 7-10pm.

This group show of rock photography offers a glimpse into those intimate moments in which we feel a personal and almost spiritual connection with the musicians who bare their souls for us. Seeing a live show can be a direct way to share a profound moment with the musicians, one that we do not get to experience by listening to a recording. There is a certain magical element to sharing a specific moment and the physical space of the artists themselves as they are creating. But these moments aren’t always during a performance. There are intimate moments in the process of creating that the general public does not see, but has been captured by an observant photographer. These images aim to illustrate the musicians’ artistry and individual personalities through a single still photograph, and share the intimacy of artistic creation with the public.

FEATURED PHOTOGRAPHERS: Ashod Simonian, Charlie Homo, Deb Zeller, Heather Bernard, Jay Blakesberg, Jeanne Ellenby, Josh Withers, Misha Vladimirskiy, Paige Parsons, Peter Ellenby

FEBRUARY 4 – MARCH 3, 2010
HOTEL BIRON
OPENING: THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 4, 2010, 7-10PM
NOISE POP RECEPTION: THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 25, 2010, 7-10PM

The Sandwiches – Back to the Sea

Purchase How to Make an Ambient Sadcake via Endless Nest.

So far the following acts are confirmed: The Magnetic Fields, Atlas Sound, Rogue Wave, Four Tet, the Soundtrack of Our Lives, Mark Kozelek, John Vanderslice, Foreign Born, Zee Avi, the Limousines, and We Were Promised Jetpacks.

I’m slated to shoot the Noise Pop Festival for the festival organizer, Noise Pop Industries, and also for Ice Cream Man, and I’m really excited about the bands so far.

The 2010 festival will take place February 23rd – March 1st across a bevy of San Francisco music venues, including long-time favorites such as The Great American Music Hall, Bottom of The Hill and The Independent, as well as smaller upstarts like Benders and the Swedish American Music Hall.

The festival also hosts a music industry mini-conference called Industry Noise, featuring speakers, panels, discussion groups, and individual mentoring. Industry Noise has been set of February 27 at the Swedish American Hall.

We’ll keep you up to date as new acts are announced…

Support your local artists, people!

As we reported back in May, Gary Hustwit, Director of Helvetica, the documentary about typography, graphic design and global visual culture, has a new project, Objectified. Objectified explores industrial design and the manufactured objects we surround ourselves with on a daily basis.

Objectified will have its US television debut (a shortened version, 53 minutes versus the original 75) this Tuesday, November 24th on PBS, as part of the Emmy Award-winning series Independent Lens. Check your local listings for exact show time/date in your city. PBS has launched an Objectified mini-site and come up with yet another cute game (remember What Font Are You? for the Helvetica broadcast?) to go along with the film’s premiere: play Which Object Are You?

Timing is everything, they say. I got the advanced copy of Sea Wolf’s sophomore album, White Water White Bloom last week, Sea Wolf’s show at Bibmos is this Friday, and the album hits shelves on Tuesday. I’ve decided to hold off on writing a full album review until I’ve had a chance to hear some of the new stuff live. But in the meantime, I’d like to direct you to what I can only assume must be the first single, Wicked Blood.

I heard this track about a week before I had the album, so it’s had several weeks and umpteen-dozen listens to sink in, but I knew after a few notes this one was a keeper. The chaos of instruments at the start reminded me of the railway sounds at the beginning of “Leaves in the River” and there was plenty of the warm wandering cello that I love in the chorus. Yummy!

Alex Brown Church, aka Sea Wolf, created beautiful imagery with the lyrics from his first album. Each song painted a story with tiny bits of rich visual detail. The imagery of Wicked Blood didn’t really hit me till I heard Alex fill in the backstory in short-but-sweet “video podcast” put out last week by Sea Wolf’s label, Dangerbird records.

Alex explains, “I went to college at NYU. I lived in NYC for four years, just living on the east coast as a west coast kid. When I was there I definitely felt culturally very different, not what I was used to. Wicked blood pulls on that feeling and that experience.”

He continues, “I like the contrast of posh, upper-class, blue-blooded woman having an affair with and someone like me, who comes from a west coast working-class background. Totally two different worlds.”

After hearing Alex describe the roots of the song, the next listen was a visual epiphany, like having a full HD video in my head and I understood the “Wicked Blood” reference. “You’d have my blues for your Nantucket reds” and “These lines were here /long before we came around” made for a wonderful story, damning the situation but neither of the two protagonists. This sense of joy, loss, distanced reflection, fate, and acceptance of events long past is one of the things I enjoy most about Church’s lyrics.

The fated fading lines of the song, “there’s an ember in the rafters/and it’s going to burn this whole thing down” juxtapose in my head with the image of Church and band mates standing on the edge of a precipice. Wicked Blood and the rest of the songs from the new album have yet to be played live, the CD has yet to be released to the world. The fate of Sea Wolf is yet to be written, but I have a hunch you’ll be hearing many gushing words of praise for the shows and CD from both The Color Awesome and the rest of the blogosphere in the days ahead.

Download Wicked Blood

Sea Wolf plays Bibmos 365 in San Francisco this Friday September 18th.
You can pre-order White Water, White Bloom from Dangerbird.
Read all our Sea Wolf coverage.

Wicked Blood Lyrics
We met in the east
Poured in like a flood
You’re the whispering kind
Dark sapphire blood

A vision of veils
all shimmery white
Like a backdrop of sails
all aglow from the light
Of the wonder behind
at a starry night

In the mountain’s song
and the blue jay’s call
My heartbeat flows
in crystal waterfalls
You’re so beautiful
in your elegant bed
You’d have my blues
for your Nantucket reds

I’d wait in the dark
balanced on a thread
So I’d wait in the dark
balanced on this thread

And under the church-light
You stand there
with your wicked blood and your curls
Yeah, under the church-light
You stand there in your fur and your pearls
These lines were here
long before we came around
Yeah, these lines were here
and there’s an ember in the rafters
And it’s going to burn this whole thing down

In the neon mist
I heard you breathe
An exquisite sound
some secret symphony
Your silken skin
my fingers rough
In the midnight din
we went home and touched
beneath the chandeliers
in your Persian’s dust
beneath the chandeliers
in your Persian’s dust

And under the church-light
You stand there
with your wicked blood and your curls
Yeah, under the church-light
You stand there in your fur and your pearls
These lines were here
long before we came around
Yeah, these lines were here
and there’s an ember in the rafters
an ember in the rafters
There’s an ember in the rafters
an ember in the rafters
There’s an ember in the rafters
an ember in the rafters
There’s an ember in the rafters
an ember in the rafters
Yeah there’s an ember in the rafters
an ember in the rafters
There’s an ember in the rafters
an ember in the rafters
And there’s an ember in the rafters
and it’s going to bring this whole thing down

The ticket I purchased to your upcoming performance in Seattle has just arrived!  It’s been forever since I’ve seen a Pet Shop Boys show; in fact it was on the stunning “Performance” tour.  The stage direction, the costumes, the amazing cast of dancers and back up singers was something I have not seen before or since in a live pop music performance.  It was, and still is the best live show I’ve ever seen.  Needless to say, I was excited to be a VIP for your new Pandemonium tour -albeit I had to pay to be a VIP which is something I’m not used to.  There were no seats together for the VIP tickets, but I figured that it would be fun to meet new people who might also have attended the “private VIP pre-show”, so I went a head and purchased one.

I mean a chance to meet the Pet Shop Boys in a private location on the day of the show in a location to be determined?  A cool laminate pass?  A chance to have said cool laminate VIP pass autographed by you?  No photographs allowed?  All for a price which I won’t name here because anyone else reading probably thinks I’m already an idiot.  But boys, I think there’s a bigger problem here.  This is going to be a little tough, but I think you can handle it.

For the price I paid, I feel like the agency you hired could have been more forthcoming with the rules and regulations of the meet and greet.  These “guidelines” arrived after I purchased the ticket, not before.  These instructions are a list of things I can and cannot do, where to be and at what time etc.  There are so many demands being put on me, the fan – and I thought I was the VIP here!  The whole thing sounds like a bigger disaster than Los Angeles, but since I paid an insane amount for what you refer to as an “opportunity”, I may as well go.  I’ll probably be the one observing and not really saying much if you want to come and say hello.

I’m sure you’ll never read this, so I’ll add one more thing.  It seems that this meet and greet is a way for you to get around promoters who are another factor in the jacked up price for your ticket – they are scoundrels, at best.  But your fans are already snatching up $35 T-shirts, $20 programmes and $70 hoodies already, how much more do you really need?  A moderate fan could spend up to half of their months rent to go to your one of your concerts!  Add up the price of a couple of tickets, swag, dinner and drinks for two plus transportation costs and you’ll have an idea of what you’re fans are doing for YOU.  I’d hate to know what your crazy rabid fans spend on all of this!  I have to ask the obvious question here – How can you expect to be taken seriously?  There isn’t a solution for any of this and I admit that this was my choice, but I still feel a little tricked. 

Nine Inch Nails and Jane’s Addiction (neither of whom I really enjoy, but strangely respect) recently had a series of meet and greets and nice dinners for fans who paid a crazy amount of money to attend.  The difference between you and them is that they donated the proceeds to a very sick fan who needed a heart transplant.  It is my belief that celebrities who have more than enough should use their popularity to do these kinds of things for their fans and their communities.

Which brings me to somewhat of a challenge.  Short, sweet and to the point.  I’d like to openly ask you to consider a small donation to a local charity when you visit Seattle.  If you’d like some suggestions, feel free to find me at your meet and greet or e-mail me through our weblog!  It would be great to see a little less taking and more giving, don’t you think?

That wasn’t so painful, was it? 

All this other crap aside, I am very excited to see your show this coming Sunday.  I can’t wait to see what you have in store for your fans.  Oh, and I totally want to hear “It’s Alright”, okay?

– Phil

Pet Shop Boys play Seattle’s Moore Theatre Sunday 20th September, 2009.

Tonight they provided fans with a sneak peak. If you click over to the DCFC myspace page you’ll find a 40 second snippet. The full song will be posted on www.mtv.com Sunday during the Video Music Awards.

If you want to be one of the very first people to download the song, you can pre-order the soundtrack through the Official New Moon Soundtrack Pre-Order site. Every option will deliver ‘Meet Me On the Equinox’ to your inbox on the evening of September 13th, before it’s available anywhere else.