{Photo by Alex Crick}

Day five of our countdown to the Imaginary Winter Holiday Spectacular {December 23 at Chop Suey} and we're happy to spend today focusing on our headliner: The Redwood Plan.

We have yet to find anyone (critic or otherwise) that isn't dazzled by both of the The Redwood Plan's 2009 eps.  Their guitar punk is spiffied up with mesmerizing synth and handclaps in the most infectious of ways.  Lesli Wood  took a moment to answer some questions about The Redwood Plan and confirm the fact that Tegan and Sarah, just like the rest of us, have really big crushes on The Redwood Plan.

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The Imaginary Winter Holiday Spectacular {December 23, 2009 at Chop Suey} is less than a week a way! As we countdown to the big holiday party, let's replay our recent chat with one of the bands on the bill: the Nightgowns. We never know what's going to happen when the Nightgowns fellas are in the house, but it always ends fabulously. And for the record, we don't know what's going to happen when they play this year's Imaginary Winter Holiday Spectacular {December 23, 2009 at Chop Suey}, but we suspect it might involved swirly guitars, keyboard twirls and some mistletoe.

We chatted up Cody Nightgown recently and found out what happened the night they opened for Grand Duchy, their "lucky" charm, a loveletter from them to Wallpaper {also playing the IWH Spectacular} and what they want to find under the tree.

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{photo: John E. Hollingsworth}

Day 2 of the countdown to the big huge wonderful Imaginary Winter Holiday Spectacular at Chop Suey on December 23rd {an evening full of big huge wonderful fun including, but not limited to Christmas Belles, free mega-raffle ticket goodness, MC David Schmader!}.

The band that is going to kick off the evening is the Special Places, a Seattle duo who recently started to take Seattle by storm with opening slots at BOAT's album release show and Aussie Darren Hanlon's recent visit. You might know them as 2/5 of imaginary favs Tullycraft, so you can imagine we jumped at the opportunity to sit down with them for their first ever interview as the Special Places. Jenny and Corianton spilled some deets on how they started out and whether or not they are secret (or not so secret) lovers. Now we're doubly looking forward to seeing what they have in store for us at the Spectacular.

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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'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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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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For the better part of this decade, The Raveonettes have projected a cool, sexy black and white style that has meshed perfectly with their music. “Cool as ice cream” is a lyric from “Bang!” a song on the latest Raveonettes album, In and Out of Control (Vice), and it sums up their aesthetic and music nicely: sugary pop music with a rougher component. As we were told by Andre 3000 a few years ago, being ice cold is cooler than being cool. In 2009, The Raveonettes are still cool as ice cream and have plenty of style to burn, but now they’re asking what that means.

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