If you've been within shouting distance of me anytime in the last two weeks, you've undoubtedly heard me talking about The Orwells, specifically their 2012 release, Remember When. I first heard these kids on Greg Vandy's Best-Of-The-Year Roadhouse show on KEXP at the end of December, and now that I've got the album in-hand, I can't listen to anything else. It's gritty, sloppy-tight Chicago post-garage, mostly about girls and death. Take a listen to "In My Bed" (below).

This band makes me want to bust out of a high school classroom and blow off my classes to take pills, hang out with my friends, and pretend to be disinterested in girls -- all in some kind of lo-fi frame-skipping movie sequence. Get the whole album direct and leave it on repeat until Saturday, when they come to town to play The Crocodile with Wimps (!!!!!).

While you're picking up that Orwells album, PS, click above and go get the Wimps demo FOR FREE. These will be the best two moves you make today, I promise.

{All ages / $12 adv / Wimps and Grim Smiley open. Tickets available here. Orwells photo courtesy of the band.}

Last Friday was a pretty sweet little surprise for me (and for anyone else that was at the Crocodile). Maybe it's the shift in weather, but I always seem hungry for a intimate concert experience this time of year -- and this show was just that.

The headliner was Patrick Watson, Montreal Quebec's very own mix of Andrew Bird, Grizzly Bear and Jeff Buckley (???). Now, I had just been referred to Watson's recently released album, Adventures In Your Own Backyard, and had been hooked by the warmth and genuine emotion of it, almost right away. Watson and his band walked onto a completely blacked out stage with small lights strapped to each member's hand, casting a faint light onto their instruments and the stage itself, before starting off with the eerily beautiful opening track off of the new album, "Lighthouse." It served at once to draw everyone's attention to Watson's silky, ghostly vocals and the tasteful build-up of the band behind him. I knew about half the songs that were played as I have been listening to the latest album on repeat for the last week -- but every song I didn't know was just another reason to like the band even a little bit more. I was most taken by the craft of the band and their ability to manipulate their instruments in order to get sounds that truly gave the songs a personality of its own, the guitarist even using a toothbrush on his strings at one point in the show.

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As promised, we're coming to you today with a bit more of an in-depth look at some of the artists playing Wintersong, the Team Up for Nonprofits benefit we told you about last week. On the odd chance you're holding off on buying a ticket and putting fifteen of your hard-earned dollars to work for the cause, let's see if we can't get you on board with the lineup:

Naomi Wachira

Naomi Wachira is going to be one of the artists starting the evening off at the Crocodile in a few weeks, and are we sure glad that we took the time to listen to what she's been putting out into the ether. Holy heaven in a soundbyte! Rooted in Kenya and now hailing from Seattle, this local artist has got a style all her own, with a sound that "blends elements of African rhythm, American folk, and soul" -- all while dropping vocals like fine-tuned bells: punchy, clear and poignant in their every tone. Take your ears on over to the few tracks she's got up on her ReverbNation page, and be immediately sold. We can't wait to hear more at the show, and we'll be up front early on in the night to make sure we don't miss a minute.

Go-to track: "You Better." If you can get with Nathaniel Rateliff's hits-to-the-gut crosshatched through with African soul-sensibility, you'll love this brand of groove.

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Today, tickets go on sale at 10am for the latest Gigs4Good benefit, "Wintersong," which will be taking place on Wednesday, November 28th at the Crocodile. This go-'round, the money by G4G raised will be going to Team Up for Nonprofits, a radical nonprofit that brings awareness, resources, and funding together to -- you guessed it -- help out other nonprofits in the community. Awesome!

There's a great selection of local artists on the roster for this event, including Ivan and Alyosha, Shelby Earl, Tea Cozies, Tom Eddy, Kevin Long, Ben Fisher, Naoimi Wachira, and more TBA -- and they'll all be performing winter-themed songs. Over the next few weeks, we'll be showcasing more information about these folks, so stay tuned for a few in-depth features about why we think this would be a great way to invest a few (specifically: fifteen) of your budgeted holiday dollars this season.

You can get more information Gigs4Good here, Team Up for Nonprofits here, and learn more about the show via the Facebook page here.

Happy almost-holidays!

We've got some killer rock-portraitry shots from new imaginary photographer Jon Kaplan and his trip to the A Place to Bury Strangers / This Will Destroy You / Duster show last week at the Crocodile -- check 'em out! It was a killer time, up to the brim with awesome -- here's a few pics from the night so you can see for yourself:

Duster

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Remember that killer time you had at this year's Dancing on the Valentine celebration at the Croc? Of course you do. It was wall-to-wall with killer performances from John Roderick, Katie Kate, Lesli Wood, Daniel G. Harmann and the Trouble Starts, Noddy, Hotels, NighTrain, Princess, Exhoxo and Fly Moon Royalty (just to name a few), raised close to $8,000.00 for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society, and was basically the best thing to happen to your February!

Ringing any bells? We thought so. Well, on top of the actual show and all the do-goodness that it does every year, one of our favorite parts of the Dancing on the Valentine celebrations {besides Jenny George herself, of course!} has got to be Ben Haley's photobooth -- and this year, he's truly outdone himself. On top of generating a ton of incredible photos, he's stitched them all together for a fully titled, freeze-frame style video for "The Reflex" that very well may be our favorite thing ever to exist on the internet.

Go check it out and relive all the fun! And get excited for DOTV8 {in 2013} while you're at it!!

Whether he's taking the stage alone or with the rest of his band, the Old 97's, one thing is for certain: Rhett Miller knows how to put on a show. We had an incredible time when he last came through town and stopped at the Triple Door, sharing the night with Dan Mangan and plowing through his opening songs in a way we'll never forget: some sound issues cropped up about a verse into his first song, "This Is What I Do," leaving him to belt out the whole song (and the one following) acapella while soundfolks furiously scrambled to fix his connections during the performance. I'm gonna sing this song forever about a girl that I once knew / And how she is always leaving, this is what I do / This is what I do for a living, this is what I do he howled, never missing a beat -- in the face of what might have been a nightmarish start to his set, he instead generated an energy that was positively un-fuck-with-able. SWOON. We can still hear the cheers and thunderous applause! And before that, of course, there was the show where a good portion of the imaginary staff turned Rhett-O-Sexual, spending a night down at the Showbox with all of the Old 97's that included a private soundcheck, a sweaty, serial-lady-killer set of excellent music (with an extra button undone, 'natch), and more fun than we'd ever dreamed we could have had out together at a show.

So, suffice it to say, we loves us some Rhett Miller! And hopefuly you've already sold on all the do that Rhett does, but just in case you're not, we want you to come and see what all the fuss is about firsthand -- on us! Yep, we've got a pair of tickets to give away to Rhett Miller's solo show at the Crocodile this Friday. Just send an email to tig {at} threeimaginarygirls {dot} com with the subject line "ThisIsWhatIDo" sometime between now and 10a on Thursday, June 21st. We'll choose a winner on Thursday morning and notify you by email that you're on the guest list for Friday night's show. Simple as that! Good luck!

{8p / 21+ / The Spring Standards open. Tickets are $18 adv. and can be purchased here. Photo of Rhett Miller at the Triple Door by Victoria VanBruinisse.}

Seriously, people. How can you not love the Young Evils? On top of playing great shows and just generally being awesome, they've been building up some great press lately -- even moreso than usual -- like the recent recommendation in Paste magazine as an upcoming Seattle band to watch, for example. The band is making good on that bet with the release of their newest track, "Darker Blue Bayou," which is off of their forthcoming EP Foreign Spells -- and while we haven't gotten our hands on the whole EP yet, we're pretty damn sure that we're in for something good. Perhaps even a contender for our best-of lists for 2012.

Even way back in November, the new material was sounding brilliant -- and to prove it, here's a snippet we typed up after the show they played that blew us away at the Rendezvous, (coincidentally enough, with a nod to the newly released track):

While we're still in hearts for everything we know and love off of Enchanted Chapel, we've got to say -- this performance, and particularly the newer songs we heard in the set, made us giddy with joy to hear what's next so far as studio efforts go from the Young Evils camp. With a solid lineup finally in place, we're able to really hear the beginning stages of the evolution of this band, as they go from playing together to playing as a cohesive unit. Perhaps they've felt solid for a long time, as they well should -- but whatever's going on with this next crop of songs we're hearing is really starting to translate off the stage and out into the crowd for a tangible, can't-deny kind of shift. We're particularly swooning over -- if the set list was in order -- a ditty called "Darker Blue Bayou," a track that was so good that the people behind us in the crowd were trying to discern what mega-band wrote it and how great the Young Evils were for choosing to cover it.

You don't have to take our word for it -- you can catch that heady new-music buzz for yourself, and do some good while you're doin' it: The Young Evils will be playing at the Crocodile this Friday {tomorrow!} with The Redwood Plan, and Land of Pines {holy lineup, Batman!} as part of the 2012 series of Noise for the Needy shows. These fundraiser shows have been going on around town since June 1st, and on top of the Young Evils show, there's still plenty left to catch. The NFTN gigs are going on through this Sunday, and you can catch up on what's left of the calendar the official site here.

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My love affair with Plants and Animals is glittery and vast, and spans back to a fateful day at South by Southwest back in 2010. If you were in Austin that year, you remember it well: a seeming thirty (I exaggerate, but still) degrees below the rest of the week's "normal" temperatures, windy as all get-out, and absolutely not the day for the only clean-ish thing for me to wear being a blue and white polka-dotted summer dress -- but that was indeed the case. After battling Chicago-worthy windtunnels between buildings on otherwise innocent-seeming side streets, I found myself outside of a packed venue trying to talk my way in to a capacity show: Okkervil River was playing with Roky Erickson out on the back patio, and Patrick Pestorius just happened to be standing inside the door rocking out to the band playing in the front room. Hoping against hope that he'd remember me from the one very brief moment we'd met at the Showbox two years prior, I got his attention and somehow managed to charm my way in to the venue, planting myself sidestage along next to him.

Wide-eyed and instantly blown away by the gritty, big-guitar laden, all-out indie rock that these guys were pumping out on to the crowd, I thought to myself, what the fuck! who are these guys? but apparently, back in real life, I'd actually said it out loud. "PLANTS AND ANIMALS," Patrick shouted back over the din. "I KNOW, RIGHT?" We both nodded in approval and stood there, mesmerized as the band slayed on. It's all a blur after that, as are most South-by trips -- but Patrick left at some point to go prep for the set with Roky out back, the wind died down, and all was right in the world that day in Austin.

Cue arrival back in Seattle and obsessive Googling for dates for / albums by the bands I'd learned about that year from the trip and some friends there (P & A among them, along with the now-notable First Aid Kit, Good Old War, the then-newish Local Natives, already-favorites the Middle East, and so on) and I stumble across this, on the KEXP website. Of course. Undoubtedly one of the best single tracks from a band in recent memory, "Tom Cruz" completely and immediately packed in everything that Plants and Animals were capable of: shredding full-frontal guitar riffs, that mesmerizing otherworldly melodic place that they were capable of venturing off to, and everything in-between that makes their brand of rock rock. Later that year, I was thrilled to see them middle slot for the Frightened Rabbits show at the Showbox, and minus the din and the blustery weather, they were every bit as good (if not better) than the showcase in Texas.

Which all leads up to the point (yep, I have one! Swear!): Plants and Animals are playing, here in town, tomorrow night {that's Thursday, March 23rd} at the Crocodile, and you'd be a fool to not check them out on such a stellar stage.

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If you’ve never heard of Eighteen Individual Eyes before, you may not be alone -- but if you don’t take a listen now, you soon will be. Irene Barber’s soaring siren call is so thoroughly appealing that it’s easy to ignore the hint of danger lying in the jangly, dirty guitars underneath. Although tender, their songs are eerily disturbing. It's a transfixing combination.

EIE’s talent was obvious on their early EP, Slightly Frightened, Mostly Happy. For their soon-to-be-released debut full length, Unnovae Nights, the group recorded with Matt Bayles (Minus the Bear) and took a big leap forward. You can hear how beautifully Bayles picked apart the intricate tangles of their sound on the track “Four Poses,” available to listen now.

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