The Marty Riemer Funny Festival has become arguably the biggest night for comedy in the Northwest over the past six years. This year’s event is this Friday (January 15) at the Paramount and features comedians Bill Burr, Kyle Cease, Nick Thune and Jeff Garlin, one of the stars of “Curb Your Enthusiasm”, which I think is the funniest program on television right now.

This year’s Funny Festival is being billed as “Wholly independent since 2009” after Riemer’s often very funny morning radio show was canceled on 103.7 KMTT (The Mountain) last September. I met up with Marty Riemer and his equally funny co-host and partner in crime, Jodi Brothers, at a coffee shop in West Seattle to talk about this year’s Funny Festival, what people can expect on Friday, wrapping the governor in a shroud, and sex with koalas. Goddamn it.

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{Lushy plays this Sunday (January 10) at Neumos with Dengue Fever, $15, 21+.}

For a decade now, Lushy has quietly been making some of the coolest and catchiest music to come out of the Northwest. Their sound and aesthetic immediately brings to mind retro, cocktail parties but with more international influences. You hear elements of swing, jazz, bossa nova and whatever the music was in Bond films back when Sean Connery was 007 and at the same time you want to dance in between sips of your dry martini.

As the band gets ready to release their third official LP, Spaced Out, they have just started playing with a new, full lineup and have sort of rechristened the band “Lushy 9”. While previously playing with a revolving cast of musicians and using a laptop to supply the remaining instrumentation, the band has just begun playing with an expanded lineup to that now has a steady rhythm section, synths, keys and a horn section. The principle members of Lushy are singer Annabella Kirby (who sings in an indie pop band called The Moonspinners), multi-instrumentalist Andy Sodt and guitarist Matt Nims, who I met for an interview over drinks at a cozy downtown bar. Some of the musicians that have played with Lushy over its history include the KEXP DJ Johnny Horn and Lynval Golding, now a Puget Sound resident who was a member of the hugely influential (and now reunited) English ska band The Specials.

Ten people in all complete the live Lushy band, but the name Lushy 9 will remain. Kirby joked that “we counted wrong and now there are ten people in the band.” While the principles agreed that Lushy 9 would be their name and liked the ring to it, Kirby added “it’ll never be the Lushy 10, even if we have ten or sixteen people in the band.”

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{See Lisa Dank with the White Widow Dancers, Sap'N, Dev from Above and DJ Swervewon at Nectar on Thursday, December 17, $5, 21+, 9pm.}

As the final days of 2009 are approaching, music writers are regularly asked for their predictions of the upcoming year. Right now, the artist in Seattle who excites me the most and I believe has the most potential for an explosive 2010 is Lisa Dank. She is the closest thing to a legitimate pop star from the Northwest, but still maintains something of a DIY aesthetic. That she is able to combine the two seemingly mutually exclusive ideas and has a knack for putting together catchy pop songs is part of what makes her so interesting and exciting to me.

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We have a lot of fun in store at this year's Imaginary Winter Holiday Spectacular {December 23 at Chop Suey}. We've lined up a posse of sassy Christmas Belles (perfect photo opp for a holiday card), amazing huge raffle prizes up for grabs (a free raffle ticket for everyone who comes through the door!) and performances by five of the best bands in Seattle: The Redwood Plan, Wallpaper, the Nightgowns, Skeletons with Flesh on Them, and The Special Places

But, we need your help to put the jingle in our step: We're looking for a couple volunteers to share their most memorable holiday moment, be them hilarious, surprising, or (especially) embarrassing.

Tell us about the time you accidentally ended up making out with the drive-thru guy when you were sent out to pick up more eggnog or read that holiday form letter sent out to all the loved ones by your Aunt Trixie a couple years ago... the one where she talked about her rash and "the incident"? That one was a doozy!

If you've got a short story to tell or memory you'd like to recount for the class, email me at liz@threeimaginarygirls.com. We'll be sorting through all submissions leading up to the show and coordinate with the "most memorable" entrants. Everyone who takes the stage to share will get free entry to the show and a special imaginary prize.

Really, getting up on the Chop Suey stage, sharing your tale and toasting (or getting toasted because of) the holiday? There's no better way to celebrate than that.

{Thanks for the photo yalehneb}

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We're counting down to the big huge wonderful Imaginary Winter Holiday Spectacular at Chop Suey on December 23rd {at which we'd be sincerely honored tol see your fine booty at}!

We are so delighted to have Seattle band Skeletons with Flesh on Them on the evening's bill with The Special Places, The Nightgowns, Wallpaper, and The Redwood Plan. On their 2009 album, All the other Animals, they've combined straightforward sweet pop guitar and songs vultures and lust that keep us on our toes and giddy.

I recently chatted with Scott of SwFoT about where that graphic band name came from and find out if they really are as nice as their songs suggest...

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Zac Pennington of the Parenthetical Girls recently sent downloads of his band's absolutely delightful "mini-LP" adapting Scottish poet Ivor Cutler's imagery to their idyllic blend of artful electro-pop. I fell madly in love with the eight song cycle, and begged Pennington to answer some questions as he takes in the Old World on the eve of the Parenthetical Girls' holiday seven inch announcement and the limited availability of The Scottish Play

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David Schmader is Seattle's king of clever pop culture commentary. Most Seattle-ites probably know him from his Stranger duties {where he's been a beloved associate editor and columnist since 1998} or from his stints around town hosting and providing commentary for the 1995 cult film Showgirls, a film for which Schmader's commentary can be found in the V.I.P. Edition of the Showgirls DVD.

He also has performed a number of solo monologues shows  on both the local an national stages to deserved critical acclaims {his most recent one man play, Straight, was brilliant!}. You can imagine how honored we are to have him hosting the upcoming Imaginary Winter Holiday Spectacular {December 23rd} or excited to seehis next Showgirls showing {December 24 at the Triple Door}.

But before all that, we get to see him every Monday (starting tonight!) for the next five weeks  (from Dec 7-Jan 4) at the Central Cinema as he curates and hosts Almost Human: Madonna on Film / Exploring How the World’s Greatest Pop Star Became the World’s Worst Actress.

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The last time I saw They Live! perform was at the Showbox and they were opening for Ghostface Killah, the seemingly popular Wu-Tang Clan emcee on a Friday night. The ticket sales were way below expectations and the large Showbox seemed spacious and vacant. The first two groups to take the stage did little to engage the crowd and the audience probably wouldn’t have cared anyway as neither of those groups featured members of the Wu-Tang Clan. When They Live!, the local hip hop crew of Gatsby and Bruce Illest, took the stage, they came out with all guns firing and quickly turned the show around and suddenly everyone in the crowd was enjoying the time, not killing it and waiting for the headliner. Although he wasn’t there at that particular show, I believe I understood what local music journalist (and my friend) Travis Hay meant when he wrote, “there is nothing happening in Seattle right now that can match They Live!'s energy, stage presence and rapping skills.”

They Live! take their name from a 1988 John Carpenter sci-fi film that starred Keith David and pro wrestler "Rowdy" Roddy Piper and has become a cult classic. Gatsby is Larry Mizell, Jr., known for being in the popular group Cancer Rising, as well as a writer at The Stranger (whose weekly column “My Philosophy” is a must-read if you want to follow the flourishing local hip hop scene in as-close-to-real-time as you'll ever get) and now DJ on KEXP, hosting the weekly hip hop show “Street Sounds” (on Sundays from 6-9pm). His partner is djblesOne, who is a member of the b-boy crew Massive Monkeys and goes by Bruce Illest. They’ve become one of the standout groups in 2009 in a scene that has blown up and has limitless potential.

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It’s been five years between LPs for Norwegian pop star Annie, who just released her highly-anticipated album Don’t Stop earlier this month. Annie, or Anne Lilia Berge Strand as it likely says on her photo ID, has finally released a successor to her brilliant debut album. It’s a collection of insanely catchy pop songs made with some of Europe’s best producers, including Richard X (who worked with Annie on her debut, as well), Paul Epworth, Timo Kaukolampi and Xenomania, who are arguably the hottest songwriting and production team in Europe right now.

Her first album was 2004’s Anniemal, released with considerable buzz from online music writers floating around it. The (mostly) indie rock taste-making website Pitchfork labeled her fantastic single “Heartbeat” as the best of 2004, besting Jay-Z’s “99 Problems” and Britney Spears’ “Toxic”, amongst others - yes, 2004 was a very good year for pop. Although there was a consider time between Anniemal and Don’t Stop, Annie hasn’t been completely silent between ’04 and ’09, releasing a handful of singles, including “Crush”, “Anthonio”, “I Know Ur Girlfriend Hates Me” and “Two of Hearts”, a cover of the 1980s Stacy Q hit. She also released a DJ Kicks mix album with two original songs in 2005 and moved from Bergen, Norway to Berlin. Going forward to 2009, the road to getting Don’t Stop in record stores and on iPods was a bumpy one, to say the least.

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If you are looking for a band that embodies the essence of every completely generic moment in high school that felt momentous because of a song (and i know you are), but you're too old to believe in the importance of inconsequential instants (which i hope you're not), then the Vancouver based duo Japandroids are for you. Dave Prowse and Brian King blend together noisy yet melodic guitar and pulsing drums to match the boiling blood of teenagers in grown-up lives. Their shared screaming duties deliver angst to even their most thoughtful lyrics, layering meaning in that way in which everything meant too much when you were younger. Go ahead, read this interview and give your Tuesday a heavy injection of the way things used to feel when Japandroids play Chop Suey on the 1st of December.

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