This weekend, some of Seattle's best music websites (and even better friends) are celebrating their birthdays and they've got your weekend booked with fantastic shows that showcase the talent and diversity of the Northwest. Back Beat Seattle is turning one on Friday and Ear Candy is celebrating it's birthday with what its founder, editor, chief, etc... Travis Hay calls "Ear Candy's Weekend of Awesome" and has shows Saturday and Sunday night at different clubs. Also quite thrilling: Dagmar and Amelia from Back Beat and Travis from Ear Candy have all written for TIG before starting their own flourishing websites.

Back Beat's show is Friday at the Blue Moon and it features Blood Red Dancers, THEESatisfaction and What What Now. It all goes down starting at 10pm and you'll need $5 and ID proving you're at or over 21 to get in the door.

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For some reason as stressful as it is sometimes to do, I found myself compiling a bunch of year end and decade end lists over the holiday weekend. So many so, I decided to spread out all my lists throughout the week. Today we'll start with the meat of the list -- my favorite releases of 2009.

As long as I've been making lists, it's always been apparent that I'm partial to Pacific Northwest bands... and this year it's especially so. I'm sure I've forgotten something that I love beyond belief.. but here is the list as of *right now*. What are your favorite local and non-local releases of 2009?

 

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I don't know how it happened, but half the year officially is over! That means that we're half way to end of the year list time! I know that for a bunch of us, there are few things we love more than lists and mix tapes (I usually make a mix for friends of my year-end list favorites) -- so it makes sense we should do a mid-year check in and see what's topping our Best of 2009 list. Here's my off-the-cuff list of what albums would vying for Top 10 of 2009 in my book:

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Truckasaurus, Chuck Yay-Grrr, No-Fi Soul Rebellion at Sunset Tonight!What a Friday pre-Valentine's Day blast!

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Seeing this photo from last week's No-fi Soul Rebellion show made me think: No-fi are like the anti-Florida. They are zany and weird and tattooed and loud and outlandish and all sorts of things that people in Florida are not.

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at Neumo's

I fall in love with their love every time I see them live.

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Noise for the Needy has announced the final lineup for their 2008 festival, which takes place June 11-15 at various venues around Seattle and raises funds for Urban Rest Stop.

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This JUST in: local non-profit Noise for the Needy has just pre-announced some great show dates for their forthcoming 2008 musical festival.

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at Sonic Boom Records

From rocking the sidewalk to touching. himself on top of the counter to making us all lay down on the ground, No-Fi Soul Rebellion rocked us.

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After seeing Eduardo Brambila's photos from the No-Fi Soul Rebellion show at Sonic Boom Records last night, I CAN'T WAIT to read the full review.

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