A night at Showbox SoDo with Girl Talk = the best party you'll find in town tonight (and tomorrow night, for that matter).

Seriously. How can you not? Whether you're holding out for some Dolly-Parton-laced Boy George or a Jay-Z / adult contemporary mash-up, chances are that the two shows Gregg Gillis are bringing to the SoDo stage are not going to disappoint. In fact, we predict that even the most cement-footed stand-in-the-back city folk will have a hard time not getting their groove on at the show. If you've seen GT before (the Capitol Hill Block Party and 2009's appearance at Austin City Limits come to mind), you know the crazy of which we speak.

This is the part where we'd link you over to the Showbox site to get tickets, however, a bit of internetting shows that both nights are 100% sold out. There's no mention of tickets being released at the door -- but a little rumor-birdie (with a name that rhymes with Twitter) told us you might be able to catch Mr. Gillis tonight down at the ChaCha later this evening as a prefunk to the Showbox show. Truth? Dare? You may want to go for happy hour and find out.

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I've been thinking a lot lately about the intersection of food and rock music. It seems natural as everyone eats and in a lot of ways, high-profile chefs have become "rock stars" in their own right (see Bourdain, Anthony, et al). It's not just that, though, as the food scene in Seattle has become a powerful force in this city and they often have the same people intersecting and interacting with one another. There's also the popular dinner series The New Guard (ran by some good friends of mine), who combine food, music and visual art in a monthly dinner.

It's natural then that there would be an event like Seattle Soundbite, which has its third annual event tonight (Thursday, April 8) at Showbox Sodo. It it headlined by The Maldives and features a bunch of different (and diverse) restaurants as well as performances by some local bands that also have ties to restaurants. The press release is after the jump.

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at Showbox Sodo

For an up-and-coming young band, the Soft Pack definitely has serious potential. They're punchy and tight and draw from a lot of atypical influences. During the set, I heard strains of Reverend Horton Heat, Buzzcocks, Yo La Tengo, Suicidal Tendencies and The Pixies. They managed to pull off a fairly extensive set for an opening band, presenting eleven songs in all (I counted 12 but the set list says otherwise!).

The Soft Pack took the Sodo stage right on time Saturday night and burst promptly into characteristic garage-y, speedy surf sounds. I barely had time to absorb their first song before it was over, but they quickly burst right into the short and punchy "C'mon." I will admit that initially I thought they were singing "Octomom" but realized my mistake later. Ha.

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{Anjulie plays at Showbox Sodo on Monday, November 16 with Raphael Saadiq and Melanie Fiona.}

Fans of pop music know this: the first time you hear a great and catchy song, one that has a big hook, it will grab you immediately and stick and you’ll want to hear it again and again. When you hear a song like that, you’ll be thanking whoever invented the repeat buttons on CD players or iPods. Such was the case the first time I heard a song called “Boom”.

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They Might Be Giants may be the most imaginary of bands. Imaginary Liz is a super-fan who even got to interview one of the two Johns, John Flansburgh in one of my favorite TIG interviews ever.

What I love about TMBG is the randomness that comes with every one of their live shows. I've seen them in bigger venues (The Paramount) and smaller places (EMP's Sky Church) and on Tuesday night they are continuing "Play your most influential album(s) week" in Seattle* with their first (and I think only) platinum album, Flood. While I'll miss the unpredictability of their sets (they have almost thirty years of songs to pull from a hat to play), Flood is a really great album with a lot of favorites, like "Istanbul (Not Constantinople)" and "Particle Man". Their shows are plenty wild - they turned that packed Paramount crowd into the largest conga line I've ever seen.

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If you're going to either of the Girl Talk shows tonight or Monday night, might I suggest getting there a little early to catch opener Junk Culture? Taking their name from an Orchestral Maneouvres in the Dark album, the project comes from Deepak Mantena and his laptop (live it features his brother Nitin on drums) and the project is not disimilar to Girl Talk, their tourmates and their Illegal Art labelmates. Deepak combines his songs with samples of random bits of noise here and there and combines them with electronics from his laptop and some instrumentation, all ran through a handheld recorder. Illegal Art be releasing the debut Junk Culture album, West Coast, late next month.

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A Girl Talk show is a unique and unforgettable experience. It’s a chaotic dance party where the DJ is mobbed by fans desperate to dance on stage. All of this is welcomed by Gregg Gillis (aka Girl Talk), who has become one of the most discussed artists in music over the past several years.

Gillis crafts songs that are compiled with samples of (often) recognizable songs, maybe a vocal hook here or a bassline there or a drum fill from somewhere else. Somehow it sounds chaotic and random but also flows together cohesively. His most recent album, Feed the Animals found itself on a lot of critics’ top ten lists last year (including placing fifteenth overall in the Village Voice’s Pazz and Jop poll). It was offered online for fans to download in June of 2008 for whatever price they wanted to pay, followed by a subsequent CD release in November.

Girl Talk has two upcoming Seattle shows, the first is on Friday, September 18 at the Showbox Sodo and sold out quickly and a second show was added on Monday, September 21 at the Showbox at the Market. In advance of those shows, I spoke with Gregg Gillis by phone about how he finds inspiration for sampling, his chaotic live shows and what he’s working on next.

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They're droney, they're dreamy, they're fuzzy, they're screamy (wait, this IS Yo La Tengo and not the Addam's Family) and a ticket to their 10/22 show at the Showbox SoDo can be yours all yours for the price of NOTHING!

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If the little taste of "Periodically Double or Single" gave you a tingle, then get ready to rock and roll with Yo La Tengo this fall. US fans are in luck! They will be touring stateside first, then heading to further points across the Atlantic. Though touring on their new album Popular Songs (release date September 8th), here's hoping they will play selections off of Fuckbook as well.

 

For YLT fans requiring a bit more instant gratification, Popular Songs can be purchased from the Buy Now Get Early program (see the Matador website for more info) starting August 4th. This option comes with a virtual cornucopia of radness.

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at Showbox Sodo

Ladytron was the better band on the bill and they should have been headlining the night. I decided to pretend they actually were.

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