sparkrobot

I witnessed the psychedelic sonic assault from Voyager One and visuals by Projectorhead on Saturday night. Awesome, underlined.

Analog projectionist extraordinaire, projectorhead.

Here are some photos of Sloan from the performance at Chop Suey two weeks ago.

The Golden Dogs from Toronto, Canada opened for Sloan at Chop Suey. They put on an engaging and energetic set of indie rock by the numbers. Without further ado, some photos of The Golden Dogs live at Chop Suey Sunday night.

Last week I met up with an old friend from Tucson whom I didn’t realize has lived up here in Seattle for four years. We reconnected by virtue of the unyielding and strangely magical power of the series of tubes. We decided to meet up and we head over to Cafe Venus to grab something to eat and a couple of beers.

Though there are typically live shows Thursday-Saturday at the Venus counterpart, Mars Bar, I was surprised to learn The Ruby Suns were playing later that Wednesday night. I walked home to grab my camera and headed back to the place.

Though I had picked up one their Sea Lion release early this year on a recommendation, this was my first chance to see the band live. They performed a short, lively and interesting set; a mix of triggered loops and samples, cocktail drums and live instrumentation. I actually ran into Ryan McPhun last night at the Sloan show (which I’ll post photos from soon) at Chop Suey and spoke with him briefly. He mentioned circa 1999, Sloan was one of his favorite bands at the time. Enough of my rambling, here are the resulting photographs from The Ruby Suns’ performance, in case you didn’t click on the giant photo atop this post.

From one of the darkest rooms I’ve ever taken pictures in without a flash, come some of the grainiest pictures. Tacoma band Mono in VCF playing live at the Lo-Fi Performance Gallery last Saturday night in Seattle. Mono in VCF photo gallery.

Aqueduct played a great set outdoors at the South Lake Union Block Party this year. Who want to rock with the Aqueduct? There’s a new Aqueduct photo gallery online. The photos just posted, but already one has become the Three Imaginary Girls photo of the day. Cheers TIG!

A friend of mine Rudy plays drums for Bugs in Amber. Here is a gallery of their set at the 2008 South Lake Union Block Party.

King Cobra was busy, but it was a welcome retreat the street party that clogged the arteries of Pike street and the banks of its swelling tributaries. When The Heavy Hearts took the stage at King Cobra I wasn’t sure what to expect. I’d neither seen the band nor previewed any of their available tracks on the interwebs. Wow. A dual bass guitar assault of low end and a wave of trebled up post punk heavy rock washed over the room. Almost immediately (after busting out ear protection), I decided to pull out the flash and run it hand held off camera to try to capture some of the maniacal energy unfolding on stage. I took long exposures, about 1-2 seconds and set the flash to fire on the rear curtain. Some of the results are online in The Heavy Hearts photo gallery.

So, that’s it. That was the Capitol Hill Block Party for me. After experiencing the crowds on Friday, I skipped Saturday. I guess I’ll stick to taking photos of bands before they get huge… or don’t get huge. Fine by me.