Videos, Videos, Videos

We've been busy digitizing video tapes of old shows, and posting them one by one on our Facebook page. These are all videos shot by us or by friends back in the day. They have not been on Youtube previously. More to come, and more-er to come if you have stuff to share. We could even digitize tapes for you if it's stuff worth posting.

Like our page to see the newest videos as they arrive, and feel free to leave a comment or send us a Facebook message if you have video or audio you'd like to share, and tell your friends if you want to see what this community can uncover. We've been told that all RKCNDY shows were videotaped. Any leads on those?

Alright, without further ado, here's a roundup of what's been posted so far.

The final Raft of Dead Monkeys show, not counting the one-off reunion show, which I also have, and will post later.


If you went to the Tri-Way Grange a lot in the late 90s, there's a good chance you saw Luner Lander. If you're reading this post, there's a 100% chance you are seeing Luner Lander. 


Before Parenthetical Girls, there was Swastika Girls. Here's a song from their second show ever, featuring Eric Yates (Portal, Male/Female) on the left and Jeremy Cooper (Display, The Past) on the right. The song was later on the debut Parenthetical Girls EP.


I filmed nearly all of FCS North's Bumbershoot set in 2001 before my battery died. I used to see these guys play all the time. Not sure what they thought of themselves, but we thought of them as Seattle's kings of post-rock.


It's always interesting to see an effects-heavy band play without any of those layers. Here's an early Display show, their only acoustic set, thrown together for an acoustic-themed house show. 


Here's a 2003 set from Chromatics, during one of the lineup phases after everyone not named Adam Miller left to form Shoplifting, and before Johnny Jewel joined the band. I believe it's Nat Sahlstrom on bass and Ron Avila (Get Hustle, Antioch Arrow, etc) drumming.


The final show from Jim Paschall and Jeremy Cooper's pre-Display band, The Past.


Bonus video: video: Black Eyes at the CoCA in 2003. Though not a Seattle band, this show was part of a series of amazing shows put together by Parenthetical Girls' Zac Pennington, who handles the opening remarks here. If you attended these Slender Means Society or Loss Leader shows, particularly the all-day themed event shows at Secluded Alley Works, we'd love to see whatever pictures or videos you have. Carrie Brownstein's first-ever solo show at the lady-focused one, the kissing booth at the love one, the geodesic dome and costumes at the post-apocalyptic one, the one where Phil Elvrum (pre-Elverum) played the last few songs of his set while hoisted 10 feet in the air, upside down, held up by audience members with a rope and pulley? Those were amazing shows

Male/Female - First show since 2007

When Jim Paschall moved back to Seattle recently, he didn't just get Display back together, he also un-dormanted (I swear that's a word. Go ahead and challenge, man, you're just gonna lose a turn.) his other band from the same era, Male/Female. Initially a side project where he could play mainly guitar (he played bass in Display), Male/Female continued after the breakup of Display, and released one (to my knowledge) CD-R EP in 2006, Slow it Down in the Mineral Bath. 

Along with Paschall, the art noise kraut groove punk foursome comprised Eric Yates, formerly of Portal and recently of Tit Pig, on synths, bass, and sometimes guitar, Emily Lohuis on drums (now Emily Moore, as she is married to Display's drummer Danny, thus obligating them to regular marital drum-offs), and John from the New Avenues, whose guitar duties have been handed over to Colby Ford for M/F V2.

Download the 2006 EP here. Go to their Bandcamp site to hear a few more, including the one embedded below, a personal favorite.

Male/Female play The Black Lodge this Saturday, August 17th, with Grave Matters and Sweet Weapons. 9pm.

The Prom - Final Demos

The Prom that appeared on Barsuk records consisted of Omaha transplants James Mendenhall at the piano and David Broecker on bass, along with Joel Brown lightly pounding the proverbial skins. At some point following The Prom's last released album, 2002's Under the Same Stars, Brown left and was replaced by Kevin Barrans, who in the years since has gone from what I can only assume from this picture is a Harlem Globetrotters understudy role to playing in Suffering and the Hideous Thieves, The Maldives, Sons of Warren Oates, and this lottery ad (look for the ZZTop beard). In addition, the trio recruited Justin Wilmore, marking the first time the band regularly included guitar. Around the same time, Wilmore played bass for future Pickwick member Kory Kruckenberg's Deardarling project.

Though the new format re-energized Mendenhall's songwriting, his apparent depression and other internal struggles made the project unsustainable. Track 3, the most intense song in the band's catalogue has the line, "Someone please stop me/I fear I'll kill myself", and along with the screamed "I gotta keep moving" at the end, the delivery makes it clear that he was in a really rough state at the time. The directness of the whole song is quite startling, and makes for quite a switch for the band that recorded Under the Same Stars.

There are 7 tracks here, half are still without vocals. I believe these were recorded in early 2004, and to my knowledge, the unfinished songs were never completed.

Download the demos here.

Hero Killer King - When Wanting Becomes Needing

I found this cd at Goodwill the other day and picked it up because I remembered the band name and they thanked Harkonen on the lyric sheet. Now, I know I saw HKK at least once, there's a flier on the facebook page from a show at Ground Zero, but The Powers of Darkness Shall Rain Blood Upon This City For 500 Years is the only band I have any actual memory of seeing that night - and this is probably due having gotten stoned out my mind with some friends while celebrating a birthday before the show. Anyways, I know nothing about these guys but if you like the harder, screamier stuff that gets shared around here, you should check this one out

Hero Killer King - When Wanting Becomes Needing

Lo-Life: Early Tapes from Damien Jurado

Lo-Life was an experimental folk/pop/indie/art project that essentially served as the solo debut of a young Damien Jurado (with help from Yu-Kim and Nadine Lewis). Self released on cassette via his Casa Records, and as the name implies, very lo-fi in its production aesthetic (both physically and sonically), these two tapes are chock full of songs of both the full and impressionistic variety. Restarts and recorder clicks are par for the course. There are sound collage interludes, answering machine messages, and a lot of lovely analog distortion. These really give you a portrait of a young artist finding his voice, full of joy and ideas and restless creative energy.

I don't know exactly when these came out, but the second tape has material recorded in 1994 and early '96.

Download both tapes, with scans of the handmade sleeves and such here. 

Vermilion post updated - added second demo tape

I finally got around to creating the separate mp3's for my other Vermilion tape, and have updated my earlier Vermilion post. Go there, or just download the tape directly here.

The Need - Live @ RKCNDY 9/21/98

This coming Saturday, March 30th, Behead The Prophet and The Need are playing at the Vera Project in Seattle. In my excitement for and in celebration of this upcoming show, I'm planning on doing a few posts this week that are specific to those bands.

First up, we have a live set by The Need that was recorded at RKCNDY on 9/21/98, which was just about a year before that club sadly closed it's doors. The lineup that night also included Built to Spill and Modest Mouse but this is the only audio from that show I've ever come across. If you know The Need, you know what to expect but in case you don't here's a brief description: artsy, no-wave, post punk.

9/21/1998