The Greenwood Car Show June 27th

As if there wasn't enough cool stuff going down this weekend in Seattle, there is also the Greenwood Car Show. I've hit this the past 2 or 3 years and it's always been great fun, lots of cool old cars and street rods. They close down Greenwood Ave on Saturday and pack it with cool cars, vendors and bands (Mamma Tried and the Greenwood All Stars will be performing). For more details check out: greenwoodcarshow.com

Georgetown Musicfest this weekend!

While it's running against Seattle's Pride Festival this weekend, what the Georgetown Musicfest has going for it is it has a ton of bands, it's free, and it's running in conjunction with Georgetown's art festival Artopia. For the full list of bands and set times, go to: georgetownmusicfest.com

I Love Happy Drunks!

I've never understood the dudes that like to drink and fight. They get drunk and fight with their girlfriend, their friends, or try to pick fights with strangers... it happens at punk shows fairly often. I, along with most of my friends and family, are the kinda people that get happier, more talkative, goofier, more outgoing and funnier when we drink. It's a party, we want to have fun. Take this guy in the picture for example. I was in Vegas two weeks ago. It's close to 2am and there is a full crowd watching some ridiculous cover band in a low-rent casino lounge. They are singing along to '80s rock songs and this dude, who's totally wasted, is balancing a beer can on his head and dancing. He notices me taking a picture and says, "Waaaaaaiiiit" and does this goofy pose. Awe. Some. I take the picture and not only do he and I start cracking up, so does everyone around us. The drunken goofy happiness is infectious and everyone joins in, because of you, beer can on the head guy. Good job for being a fun drunk!

Catholic Comb... reinventing '80s British rock

In Portland Friday I saw a band called Catholic Comb. I had a full '80s flashback to highschool when watching them. The lead singer looked like a Dogs in Space era Michael Hutchence. And musically they were somewhere between Gene Loves Jezebel, The Dream Academy and The Chameleons. Kinda pretentious '80s UK alternative rock with a dark or goth edge to it. Totally not what I'm into, although I used to see bands like this all the time in the mid-'80s. But they were great at what they do.

Great poster art at Portland's East End

I was down in Portland last weekend and for the second time went to the East End, a bock or two off East Burnside, not to far from the Doug Fir and Jupiter. I dig this place, it's like a normal bar up top and in the basement more of a rock'n'roll bar where they often host live shows. The show area is small, much smaller than Seattle's Funhouse, it probably only fits 50 music fans squished in watching a band, which makes it perfect for smaller more intimate shows. And damn if they don't have a great poster artist. This shot above is from the bathroom, that's covered with past posters from East End shows. I love, love, love the consistently interesting and cool looking artwork.

And I have no idea how they could do the Black Lips here, that show must have been crazy!

Steve Wiebe and 250 pinball and arcade games!

Thousands of pinball and arcade game fans from across the U.S. will be attending the 2009 Northwest Pinball and Gameroom Show this weekend at the Seattle Center. The show is the biggest of this type of event in the Northwest. The 2008 show featured over 100 games and drew 2,000 visitors. This weekend's show will have over 250 games all set on freeplay, including one of mine. Along with unlimited play on 250 games, there will also be tournaments, raffles, guest speakers and over a dozen top level players competing for new world record scores.

On hand during the show will be many special guests from the arcade and pinball world, including:

• Steve Wiebe, star of the hit documentary “The King of Kong.” In the movie Wiebe waged an epic battle against Billy Mitchell for bragging rights to the world record high score on the game of Donkey Kong. Wiebe will be attempting to unthrone Mitchell and take back the Donkey Kong high score this weekend!
• Bill Carlton, star of the award winning documentary “High Score,” which was released in March 2009. “High Score” follows Carlton’s attempt to beat the 20 year old world record on Missile Command.
• Dennis Nordman, pinball designer of games including Elvira and the Party Monsters, White Water, Wheel of Fortune and Pirates of the Caribbean.
• Walter Day, founder of Twin Galaxies and score keeper of the world’s gaming records, from ‘80s arcade games to modern Playstation 3 and XBOX games. Day is star of the documentary “Chasing Ghosts” and was the enthusiastic score keeper and classic game activist in the referee outfit in “The King of Kong.”
• Greg Feres, pinball graphic artist and the man behind the artwork of Fathom, Medieval Madness, Revenge from Mars, Speakeasy, Scared Stiff, Strange Science, Dr. Dude, Star Trek: The Next Generation and many more.
• Clay Harrell (AKA Shaggy), star of the hit pinball restoration series “This Old Pinball.”
• Brian Schmidt, who has done the sounds and music for such pinball games as Apollo 13, Back to the Future, Batman Forever, The Simpsons, Frankenstein, Star Wars, The Who’s Tommy, The X Files, Black Knight 2000, Banzai Run, King Kong, Hook, Jurassic Park, Independence Day and Guns N’ Roses.
• Todd MacCulloch, ex-pro basketball player (Philadelphia 76ers, New Jersey Nets) and local game collector who is now a nationally ranked pinball competitor. Ask MacCulloch what it was like playing against Shaq in the NBA playoffs while he kicks your butt in the pinball tournament!
  

There will be seminars and autograph sessions during the day on Saturday featuring many of the special guests. Saturday night, Walter Day of Twin Galaxies will publicly host the inaugural Video Game Hall of Fame awards ceremony. The ceremony will honor world record players from the past and present.

The show will be held in the Northwest Rooms of the Seattle Center, located at 305 Harrison Street in downtown Seattle. For information about hours and what games will be at the show, go to: nwpinballshow.com

Interview with Audrey Ewell, co-director of "Until The Light Takes Us"

"Until The Light Takes Us" is a documentary movie about the Norwegian black metal scene directed by Aaron Aites and Audrey Ewell. I've always had a bit of a fascination with that scene's over the top corpse paint make up and church burning and violent actions. This movie looks at its history and growth and peels back the imagery to look at what it's really about, told by the musicians themselves. The movie is currently touring the festival and special screening circuit and will be playing Seattle at the Northwest Film Forum theater (1515 12th Ave on Capitol Hill) on Thursday May 28th and Saturday May 30th. Both showing are at 11:30pm, to keep them late and creepy. The directors will be at both showings.

I was fortunate enough to talk with co-director Audrey Ewell for a little bit about the movie. Here is our conversation...

10: I saw an interview with you where you mentioned you weren't really a fan of black metal and more into indie rock. Since 10 Things is mainly a music blog, I was curious as to what are some of your favorite bands?

Ewell: Right now I'm actually listening to a lot of '70s folk/psych; Fairport Convention and pretty much anything with Sandy Denny is working for me. I also have a pretty big soft spot for a band called MV + EE out of Vermont. The MV part was a major part of Tower Recordings, and now he and his girlfriend (the EE part) tour around the U.S. with their van and their dog and play shows. They are somewhere between Royal Trux, the Grateful Dead, and Tower Recordings--really lovely and spacey and sometimes jammy, but not in a bad way.

The idea that we're not into black metal is false though. We were introduced to it many years ago and were actually fascinated by the way it had things in common with a lot of the really great low-fi music that we were already fans of, like the Dead C, Throbbing Gristle, Current 93, etc. And there was an immediate, raw rage and beauty and somehow it all sounded incredibly genuine and not at all crass. A really nice change of pace from so much of the self-conscious music that always reigns supreme. I'm talking about the stuff from the early '90s, early Darkthrone, Burzum, Mayhem, etc. It's great.

10: What in the black metal scene drew your interest enough to want to do a documentary about it?

Ewell: Well, a lot of had to with the seeming contradiction between the violence and the clear, almost postmodern sensibility of some of the music, particularly Darkthrone. We were also intrigued by the fact that we loved the music, because we had not previously been into any kind of metal. It challenged our preconceptions. That's a good thing.

10: What do you hope people that see your movie take away from it?

Ewell: I hope they leave talking about it. Whether they are fans who get to see such an intimate portrayal of these very masked figures, or whether this is someone's introduction to the people, events and story of the film, our goal was to make it operate on several levels. The film tells the story of black metal, but it's about more than that. If I just state it outright, that takes away from the experience of watching the film, so I'll let the audience have whatever reaction they have, and just be glad if it affects them in some way. It has so far. Some people are disturbed by it, but most people seem to get it, and there are things that we do want to communicate through it. So far, it seems to be working, and I'm really glad, because it was tremendously hard to make, it took a really long time and was kind of an awful experience in many ways! We're sticking to fiction films after this.

10: One last question... have you ever put on corpse paint make up like the bands in the movie?

Ewell: No, but our friend in Japan has some kind of app on his phone that lets him apply corpse-paint to pictures he takes, so he's done that to ours. Japan is just awesome like that.

For more information about the film, it's showing, tickets or to watch the trailer, go to:
http://www.nwfilmforum.org/live/page/calendar/892