"heading to NYC to play the PORTLANDIA premiere!" - The Thermals

"OMG just saw Carrie Brownstein at the airport SHE'S ON OUR FLIGHT!!!" - The Thermals

"whoa there's a lot of sluts on this flight. c u in NYC!" - The Thermals

"good flight. I finally learned what the mile high club is. I always thought it meant getting stoned in Denver" - The Thermals

The Thermals @ 2009 Pitchfork Fest (more by Joseph Xu)

"Allow us to introduce you (against their wishes) to Forbidden Friends!

Forbidden Friends is part secret society, part torrid love affair. The kind of experience you cherish, yet would kill to keep secret. Well as of this moment the secret is OUT. You can wash your dirty sheets as many times as you want, but once the world knows all your steamy indiscretions there's no going back! Might as well post all your (formerly) deep, dark secrets as your next status update. Forbidden Friends may have hoped to keep their little club private, but it's too late now! The gossips have spoken and won. Let's tell EVERYBODY. Please help us!

Forbidden Friends is a new band from Hutch Harris, lead singer and mastermind of The Thermals, Portland's last great post-pop-punk-power trio. Initially conceived as a way for lovers to send hidden messages in plain view (isn't there an app for that?), Forbidden Friends is now a legitimate, public work of art. The band is at once old fashioned (acoustic instruments, mono mixes), forward thinking (reference-less, incredibly danceable), and timeless (classic lyrical themes of love and desire.)

Forbidden Friends will release their debut single, "Tiny Hands", on the Kill Rock Stars label March 15, 2011, on vinyl (7") and digital download. It is accompanied by the b-side "For You". Harris played the basic instruments (drums, guitar, bass, vocals), and was assisted in the studio by his fellow Thermals Kathy Foster and Westin Glass, as well as Michael Lerner of Telekinesis, on percussion. Both songs are truly upbeat and fun, and are the perfect introduction to this exciting new band." [Kill Rock Stars]

Forbidden Friends have no upcoming live dates, but (not counting the private party that Hutch has been tweeting about - see the top of this post) The Thermals do, as do Portlandia guest stars and Thermals' Kill Rock Stars label-mates Corin Tucker and the Decemberists.

Portlandia, starring Fred Armisen and Carrie Brownstein, premieres on Friday, January 21, 2011 at 10:30 PM ET/PT on IFC, but you can watch it now in the video embedded below.

The Thermals, after the Portlandia party (1/19), have some dates scheduled on the west coast followed by a European tour with The Coathangers. Their list of dates, and Carrie's new band Wild Flag's updated set of dates, and pretty much every upcoming Kill Rock Stars-artist tour date currently listed by the label, is below...

Continue reading "Hutch of the Thermals forms new band 'Forbidden Friends' (Thermals playing a Portlandia party in NYC & other dates)"

"People on the subway are staring at my scabs"

Fred Armisen, Kristen Wiig, and Jim Carrey performed as "A Taste of New York" on Saturday Night Live this past weekend (on 1/8). A Taste of New York is an "authentic" band from "an area between Avenue B & Avenue C" in New York City. And though Holy Sons are from the West Coast, we have learned that the sketch/song was inspired by new Holy Sons song "A Chapter Must Be Closed" from the recent Survivalist Tales. Fred Armisen watched the video for the song and the rest is history. Compare/contrast the videos below.

Musical duo The Black Keys also played Saturday Night Live on 1/8, a few days before they appeared on the Colbert Report with Ezra. Video of both songs they played are below too.

Musical duo Fred Armisen and Carrie Brownstein (ex Sleater-Kinney, current Wild Flag) go way back. Their Thunderant series of videos have been making the rounds online for years, and so it's pretty awesome that they've landed a "6-part IFC Original short-based comedy series" called Portlandia which premieres on Friday, January 21, 2011 at 10:30 PM ET/PT on IFC. "Each episode's character-based shorts draw viewers into "Portlandia," the creators' dreamy and absurd rendering of Portland, Oregon."

An assortment of guest stars inhabit PORTLANDIA, including Kyle MacLachlan (Twin Peaks, Sex & The City), Aubrey Plaza (Parks and Recreation), Selma Blair (Legally Blonde, Hellboy), Heather Graham (The Hangover), Edie McClurg (Ferris Bueller's Day Off), Kumail Nanjiani (Michael & Michael Have Issues), Jason Sudeikis (SNL, The Cleveland Show), and Gus Van Sant (Milk). Singer/songwriter Aimee Mann also guest stars, alongside James Mercer (The Shins), and local Portland musicians Jenny Conlee and Colin Meloy (The Decemberists) and Corin Tucker (Sleater-Kinney).

Wild Flag is touring in March. Some very funny "Portlandia" videos, and everything else mentioned above, below...

Continue reading "Fred Armisen inpired by Holys Sons for SNL sketch, pairs w/ Carrie Brownstein for new IFC show 'Portlandia'"

by BBG

I have it on good authority that...
Corin Tucker had more than one leg at Bowery Ballroom... (photo by killerfemme)

The Corin Tucker Band played Maxwell's on 10/23 (with Screaming Females) and Bowery Ballroom on 10/26 as part of a short leg of East Coast dates in support of the new LP 1,000 Years. The shows were part of Tucker's first tour in the East since selling out Webster Hall with Sleater-Kinney in 2006 as part of the band's final leg of dates before going on hiatus. Flanked by a supporting cast of Sara Lund of Unwound and Seth Lorinczi of Golden Bears, Tucker's new project won over the crowd at Bowery with a combination of bombast and tranquility:

At Tuesday night's show, the turned-to-11 jams (like "Riley" and "Doubt," the latter of which sounds the most like Sleater-Kinney) got the biggest reactions, but Tucker's quieter moments were the most stunning. The band paused for a brief acoustic interlude (including strings) for runs through gorgeously-arranged new epics like "It's Always Summer" and "Dragon," both of which began small and swelled to surprising crescendos. "Miles Away," which opened Tucker's encore and features little more than her gentle, dynamic voice and a rolling piano riff, is lovely on the album but became a full-blooded torch song on stage. Sleater-Kinney's songs mostly all swirl and no release, but Tucker's new approach seems to be about resolution. -[MTV]

Meanwhile Carrie Brownstein and Janet Weiss of Sleater-Kinney have a promising new band of their own called Wild Flag also featuring Rebecca Cole (the Minders) and Mary Timony (Helium, Autoclave, Soft Power). The band will record their debut LP for Merge Records and tour on a larger scale in 2011, but so far have only scheduled a handful of West Coast dates (below).

And in case Wild Flag and The Corin Tucker Band just don't do it for you, take comfort in the fact that Tucker also recently told the Seattle Weekly the following in response to questions about a Sleater-Kinney reunion: "We're all still friends and we have talked about doing Sleater-Kinney in the future again... I'm hopeful that that will happen."

The Corin Tucker Band's 1,000 Years is out now via Kill Rock Stars. Video from Tucker's Maxwell's and Bowery Ballroom sets are below, along with all Wild Flag dates...

Continue reading "Corin Tucker's band played NYC, Wild Flag hopefully will soon"

Corin Tucker on "Jesus Etc.": On the One Beat tour, I remember driving, and that's all Carrie [Brownstein] and Janet [Weiss] would listen to [laughs]. My god, that record played over and over and over again. We would just drive to the next show and listen to that record. We all loved it, and we didn't always agree on what to listen to in the van.

Pitchfork: Was there anything else that all three of you would agree on?

Corin: We all liked to listen to Led Zeppelin. We would just go through the whole catalog [laughs]. We all liked that. We all liked Belle & Sebastian. [5-10-15-20]

Sleater Kinney's Corin Tucker will be touring with Sara Lund of Unwound and Seth Lorinczi of Golden Bears (aka The Corin Tucker Band) in support of Corin's debut, 1,000 Years, due October 5th on Kill Rock Stars. A picture of the band is below.

They hit the road this October. The trip includes a Tuesday, October 26th show at Bowery Ballroom with Portland's Hungry Ghost. Tickets are on sale. All dates below.

Corin talked to the Portland Mercury about the sound of the new record...

How would you describe the sound of the record, particularly in comparison to Sleater-Kinney?

I think some of the songs are in the ballpark. It's definitely my voice and my songwriting style. But like I said, it's different instrumentation on some of the songs and a different collaboration. Seth's producing and arranging things, so that's different, too. It may be more traditional with some of the arrangements. [via Sleater-Kinney.net]

That's the cover above. All tour dates, tracklist and some Corin solo videos are below...

Continue reading "Sleater-Kinney's Corin Tucker releasing an LP, touring (dates)"