{photo by Fnarf}

I am beyond honored to be join Rachel Flotard (Visqueen, Fretboard Journal, lady about town) and Lyall Bush (Executive Director of the Northwest Film Forum), along with host Steve Scher on KUOW's Weekday program TODAY around 10.40am.

We are all going to sit around the preverbal water cooler and chat about about a few of the topics making the rounds. The topics are subject to change at a moment's notice - but it looks like we might gab about the Grammys, George W. Bush's hidden painting talent and the state of the film industry.

Fill your mug with something warm and join the convo!  It starts at 10.40am today (TUESDAY 2/12) on KUOW.org / 94.9fm.

This chat room segment was recently been made famous by recent participants  Sir Mixalot and John Roderick who spent their "chat room" time talking about the gun buyback program here in Seattle (and a couple other lighter subjects like the Super Bowl and Macklemore's success).  You can listen to their the segment on the KUOW website, it starts about 36 minutes in.

It's a Christmas miracle! A mere few days after all the fun was had at our Imaginary Holiday Spectacular, photos of you and Santa are ready for your viewing pleasure.

Just click on over here to check them out! Huge piles of gratitude to John E. Hollingsworth for capturing all the fun.

Happy Holidays, everyone!

Come on down to Chop Suey tonight and help us celebrate the last event of our tenth year anniversary! 2012 has been a very good year, so let's get together and see her out right: with a bunch of great bands and a ride on Santa Roderick's lap. We'll have the lovely and talented John E. Hollingsworth on hand to take your photo!

Seriously, you guys. This could be you:

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I've loved Pablo Trucker just about as long as I've been in Seattle. Literally.

Picture it: Capitol Hill, 2008. It's summertime. I've got a habit of hiding out at the back bar in Victrola during the morning, often before I head in to work at my temp agency gig. Andrew Rudd, drummer and vocalist for the band, is my faithful barista, always taking a moment to chat with me while he crafted my morning brew. One day, our conversation turns to an intriguing red flyer on the front of the espresso machine. Pablo Trucker, it claims, playing one night of a Jack Wilson and the Wife Stealers residency at The Sunset. "You should come," Andrew says to me, over the whirr of the grinders. Having never heard of the band, knowing nothing of the sound, I tell him I'll be there with bells on.

And such was my introduction to Pablo Trucker. I made my way down to Ballard that fateful Monday night, rife with apology since it was getting late, and I wasn't sure if I'd make it through the whole show. Well, I wound up fighting those dayjob schoolnight blues, staying on for the set, and the mighty Pablo Trucker melted my face off with awesome. Never in my life had I seen and heard so much coming out of two people -- here's a clip from my first ever imaginary writeup:

I feel like I should have worn more layers, or prepared somehow otherwise, for what wound up transpiring. One guitar. One drumkit. Two voices, red spotlights, and enough ache to last all of us well into next year sometime. Beyond that, I don't even have any words for it, except go buy the album the minute it comes out, and go see them live next time you have the chance. Seriously. They're my new favorite everything. 

Fast forwarding to this past fall: when I checked in with Andrew to see if he and Brian Wagner were up for playing our holiday show, I knew it was a shot in the dark. You see, the Pablo Trucker has been a bit dormant as of late -- Kory surfaced in Pickwick, Andrew and Brian haven't done m/any shows out -- a few of us had begun to wonder if Pablo Trucker was no more. Friends would tweet about how incredible a reunion would be, but no plans were laid out for a show anytime soon. And then, Andrew responded to my email with an enthusiastic "Count us in!"

Well, we've been party plannign ever since, and now that we're a day out from our Imaginary Holiday Spectacular {do you have your tickets yet??}, we found a few minutes in the happy holiday mayhem this week to catch up with Andrew about life since then, what's going on with the band these days, and more.

TIG: So, what have you and Brian been up to? We haven't heard much from the Pablo Trucker camp since that Christmas album you did in 2010.

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It’s probably impossible that you haven’t heard Lesli Wood sing, either from her awesome Ms. Led days, or covering songs for Jenny George’s annual Dancing on the Valentine benefit, or fronting her kick-ass band The Redwood Plan.

It also goes without saying that the imaginary girls LOVE the heck out of Ms. Wood, and are beyond thrilled that she’s agreed to sing at our Imaginary Holiday Spectacular this Friday! (that’s the 21^st, people! SO CLOSE!) Every time she takes the stage, I’m personally blown away by her powerhouse vocals and amazing presence. Hell, sometimes when I see her out and about in Seattle I’m too awe-struck to say “Hi” because I’m rendered unable by my starstruck fandom.

I can’t imagine anyone NOT loving Lesli Wood, and I’m so looking forward to seeing her play on Friday. You’re coming too, right?

Head on over to the StrangerTickets site to grab some $10 tix before they sell out, because we really really really really want you to be there to celebrate the holidays with us!

Photo by Victoria VanBruinisse. 

Happy Friday! You know what that means, right? Well, besides the end of the work week, of course, it means that a mere seven days from now, we'll be gearing up for the Imaginary Holiday Spectacular at Chop Suey, full of friends and good cheer. On Monday we told you a little bit more about show openers Brite Lines and our pal Chris Otepka, and today we'd like to get into our middle-set stars, Cristina Bautista and Leif Anders.

We've loved Cristina B. oh-so-muchly for as long as we can remember, from her time in Connecticut Four to her days as a member of Visqueen {photo above from Visqueen's Last Show at the Neptune, RIP} to her much-loved recent excursions as a solo artist. If you only know Cristina in one of her previous incarnations, take a trip on over to her website to get a sample of her sound. It's sweetly upbeat without sounding saccharine, clean and gritty alt.pop without the pomp and circumstance, all while remaining decidedly Pacific Northwest: Gold Parts, specifically, is a soundtrack for the days when you need to kick ass (or be kicked in the ass) -- and fills those train-out-the-window movie-scene grey-day quotas we need filled around here in the wintertime too. [Editor's note: Am I the only one who thinks "Long Divisions" should be synced up with some kind of tormented day-starting modern-day Angela Chase scene in whatever the 2012 My So-Called Life equivalent is? I can't be!] 

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Happy Monday, imaginary friends! We're here bright and early this morning to start the week off right: there's just two weeks until our annual Holiday Spectacular {taking place on Friday, December 21st at Chop Suey}, and that gives us just enough time to get you as excited about the bands taking the stage as we are. Off we go!

First up, a familiar face: Chris Otepka of The Heligoats. If you think you recognize Chris from last year's party, you're right -- we adore him so much, we had to have him come and play for us again this year! We've waxed on and on about all the things we love about Chris, from his quirky songwriting perspective to his charming, bard-like delivery. If you know his sound, you know why we're so excited to have him back for this year's lineup -- and if you don't, check out some of his internet on his Facebook page, and then come to the show early and catch some of his beautiful deliriousness for yourself. Chris will be taking the stage second, after our show openers Brite Lines. 

{Superfans, take note: The Heligoats have a new album in the works! It will be available in February, so keep your eyes here for release details and supporting tour dates.} 

Brite Lines is fronted by our pal Zach Gore, and even in the band's simplicity, they span such a wide array of adjective from song to song (as evidenced on this year's EP Make Shift) that they're hard to sum up in a few short sentences. The music is earnest, rooted in New America; part haunted songwriter; broken-hearted and hopeful, with an all-encompassing catchy post-indie rock folk vibe. Somewhere between the pain of breaking up with your last girlfriend and the day that the sun finally shines through the clouds on your face lies your allegiance to this band. 

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(photo: Victoria VanBruinisse)

This year has been chock full of amazing shows and some really fabulous releases.  Throughout the year, we've chatted about the songs and bands we are lovin', but the time is nigh for us all to start working on our end of year favorites lists!

To kick start this wonderful spreadsheeting process, I'm going to humbly join Seattle's very own Larry Mizell Jr. of The Stranger / KEXP's Streetsounds / a number of amazing Seattle bands, Beth Warshaw-Duncan of The Vera Project, and KUOW's Steve Scher in an end of the year look at our favorite 2012 releases of the year at the lovely KUOW, 94.9 FM studios TODAY at 9:30am.

It's been hard, but I've narrowed down my list to a handful of songs to share on the radio this morning.  What bands and songs and albums are on your Favorites of 2012 lists? 

Join the conversation by emailing the Weekday show at weekday@kuow.org, or phoning in at (206) 543-5869.

Yep, you guessed it -- with the passing of Thanksgiving, the holiday season is now officially in full swing, and with that, we're super excited this morning to announce the 2012 lineup for the Imaginary Holiday Spectacular!

Get your calendars out and mark the date: this year's show will be taking place on Friday, December 21st, and we'll be returning back to the Hill {Chop Suey, to be specific} for a 21-and-up night of music, good vibes, and Santa-lap hilarity. This year's theme is Open Mic Night, and will be featuring some stripped-down sets from Pablo Trucker, Lesli Wood (of The Redwood Plan), Cristina Bautista, Leif Anders (of The Orca Team), Chris Otepka (of The Heligoats), and Brite Lines. Of course, we've got the inimitable John Roderick playing Indie Rock Santa for the evening, with John E. Hollingsworth bringing his photo-tastic skills to capture your special holiday moment. Hooray!

Tickets are on sale now, and if we do say so ourselves, ten dollars (!) is a mighty fair price to pay for an evening of all this fun! But if you still need convincing, stay tuned: we'll be posting features in the upcoming weeks about all the artists taking part in this year's show. And PS, be sure to head on over to the Facebook page for the event to stay in the loop.

Happy almost-holidays!

{Photo of John Roderick and Eric Elbogen from 2011's Imaginary Holiday Spectacular by John Hollingsworth.}

It's time for another TIG event to celebrate our 10th Anniversary! And this time, it's a film event, because y'all know how I feel about the film. So ... dig out your flannel and Docs, because we're taking you back to the 90s with a showing of HYPE! at the Grand Illusion!

If you haven't heard of it before, or you know, in case you're not quite as old as I am, HYPE! is a great documentary about the Grunge scene, including interviews and performances from TAD, Mudhoney, Nirvana, Soundgarden, Coffin Break, The Gits, Love Battery, Flop, The Melvins, Mono Men, Supersuckers, Zipgun, Seaweed, Pearl Jam, 7 Year Bitch, Hovercraft, Gas Huffer and the Fastbacks.

We've planned a BIG evening of fun, starting with some nostalgic clips of Seattle bands, and Grunge Trivia hosted by Jen from Scarecrow Video -- complete with prizes! (Don't worry; we've got a mix of easy and hard questions to satisfy both grunge amateurs and aficionados.) We even have the cutest Three Imaginary Girls film buttons to give away, thanks to the extreme craftenating skillz of imaginary liz. 

Join us as we relive Seattle's 15 minutes of fame. (jk! we love our city!) Bonus points if you come in (almost vintage, right? gawd, it pains me to say that) clothes you actually wore in the 90s. 

Three Imaginary Girls presents Seattle Grunge: A Dream of the 90s

Featuring: a screening of HYPE!
Grunge Trivia by Scarecrow Video w/prizes!
and a short clip show packed full of 90s nostalgia*

at the Grand Illusion Cinema
Saturday, November 10, 8:45pm, $8

*Videos provided by Scarecrow Video; editing by Brian Alter. THANKS, GUYS!