Saturday, July 28, 2007

The Spits


The Spits burst onto the Seattle music scene wearing a variety of goofy costumes and belting out keyboard and guitar punk reminiscent of the late '70s Killed By Death era of punk rock. Brothers Sean and Erin Wood were up front trading off vocal duties and playing guitar and bass and they were backed by quite a number of different drummers and keyboardists. Their live shows have always been great because not only of the costumes and fun catchy music, but bad jokes, banter with the audience, and the two brothers arguing, sometimes to the point of fists being thrown, on stage. I took this photo of the band in when I interviewed them at their house in Wallingford, the date stamp from my camera has to be wrong. When I was on the Bumbershoot Advisory board I managed to talk them in to booking The Spits for the festival. I think they got caught drinking beer they brought in the bathroom of the EMP and got banned from playing there again... but their show of course was great! They've released a variety of records since their debut 7" on Dirtnap in 2000, including a live LP or two. The essential Spits stuff to pick up is their albums on Nickel and Dime, Slovenly and Dirtnap.

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