It's only ten days until our 2011 Imaginary Holiday Spectacular out at Columbia City Theater? Holy ____! If you haven't done so already, take a moment to mark your calendar and pop on over here to pick up your tickets. Done? Great!

As we whittle away the days until then, we thought it might be nice to give you a little more background on the artists that have graciously agreed to join us for this year's event. First up: Heligoats, aka Chris Otepka. Currently functioning as a one-man show, Chris Otepka hails from Bellingham and had the honor of being featured last year as NPR's Tiny Desk Concert's 100th performer. Here's a little more from them on his compelling performance:

He may be a lone guy with an acoustic guitar, but Chris Otepka gives fans a lot of ideas to unpack. Even his backstory necessitates some explanation: The former lead singer of a criminally underheralded band called Troubled Hubble, Otepka now performs solo and unplugged as The Heligoats — a strange name for a guy strumming a guitar, but oddly befitting someone who stuffs his songs with so many sideways ideas and observations. Given the yarns he spins here, it's easy to imagine Otepka envisioning a herd of goats with propellers and setting the concept to music.

[…] His music is best heard in an intimate setting, where his words can unfurl clearly and he can hold a small room rapt — which he does here, to say the least. But he also nicely symbolizes the sheer oddness of our arrangement, with songs and stories that reward the attention and bear repeating.

We couldn't have said it better ourselves. Dig his sound? Then make sure you're at the party on time next Friday night, as Chris will be taking the stage to kick the night's performances off around 8:30.

{More info on Heligoats / Chris Otepka here.}