All posts by Kelsey Kaufman

Kelsey Kaufman dabbles in music, fashion and events in the Pacific Northwest. You can often find her traveling along I-5 somewhere between Portland and Seattle. Originally from Oregon, Kelsey spends her free time online shopping, drinking a glass (or three) of whiskey and taking her cat on road trips. In addition to her gig at The SunBreak, Kelsey is also the marketing coordinator at Kaufer DMC in downtown Seattle.
News

Ticket Giveaway for the Fremont Fair Concert Series!

June gloom be damned – the Fremont Fair is this weekend, June 20-22!

New to the Fremont Fair is the Solstice Concerts, an all ages, outdoor ticketed concert on both Friday and Saturday evenings. So break out the face paint because we’re giving away a pair of tickets for each night.

Built to Spill headlines a rock lineup on Friday (with The Young Evils, TacocaT, and Campfire OK), and Blue Scholars headlines a hip-hop lineup on Saturday (with The Flavr Blue, The Physics, and Cascadia ’10). Both nights, the concerts kick off at 5:30pm and feature 4 bands each night.

Details on the concerts are online here http://fremontfair.com/concertseries.html

To enter, please send an email to before 9am on Friday, June 20th with the subject line “Fremont Fair Friday” OR “Fremont Fair Saturday” OR “Fremont Fair Both.” Please also include your full name and e-mail address. Two lucky winners (1 pair each for Fri. and Sat.) will be drawn at random sometime after Friday morning and notified shortly after. The concerts are all-ages, so anyone can enter.

Tickets can be obtained here for $20 in advance or $25 at the gate. Two-day passes are also available for $35.

Watch the video for Blue Scholars’ “Slick Watts” and Built to Spill’s “Conventional Wisdom” below.

 

Music

“We’re going rogue in 2014”: Catching up with PAPA

Photo: Kelsey Kaufman

This is the third time I’ve talked to and watched PAPA perform in less than year. Darren Weiss is wearing a striped turban and Danny Presant is limping slightly from a pulled ligament in his foot. A college student named Jake has replaced Darren’s older brother on guitar. This isn’t the same PAPA I saw open for Rogue Wave last July, and we both know it.

The band’s debut LP Tender Madness (2013) has weathered the tour circuit, and is now headed back out into the summer festival season. While some of the songs are nearly three years years old, both Darren and Danny agree they still have plenty to share from the record.

“As we tour the songs survive little mutations through our interactions with an audience. There are different kinds of life breathed into each set,” says Darren. “Or maybe they liked Tender Madness and were over it, so now we’re about to fuck their shit up all over again.”

PAPA is deep into writing their second album, set to release later this year. During their Sasquatch Sunday night performance on the Yeti stage, the band gave us a taste of some of their new material. It isn’t the PAPA you’d expect, but it’s still the PAPA you adore.

“We’re exploring actually less sounds and more songs,” says Danny. “The sound is more people in a room throwing shit off each other rather than finding sounds that we think are cool.”

On stage, Darren sings, adlibs and shouts so attuned to the music that predicting the next moment is impossible. The chants of “PAPA” mid-set proved that it’s not just me who’s caught on. There’s a reason they call their fans #papaarmy. PAPA pays homage to those kindred spirits and encourages them to proceed with abandon.

It’s an interesting time in music right now. PAPA doesn’t quite fit – nor do they want to. They are somewhere in the middle: not quite indie darlings, not quite mainstream. PAPA is like the bridge between the two trying to wake everyone the hell up.

“As we grow in popularity, I think we continue to be able to put ourselves in a position of not giving a fuck about what people think about us,” says Darren. “We’re focused on being the most interesting, toughest, sexiest versions of ourselves and allow that to speak on our behalf.”

As fairly young artists in the music industry, PAPA has seen (and consciously avoided) the fame game played out by musicians in Kia commercials and in the hands of A&R execs. PAPA is more concerned about evolution – of themselves as artists and of others.

Their most recently released track “I’m Not Sorry” echoes these sentiments. “One of the most important lines to me in that song comes in the bridge, ‘go ahead / call me crazy all you’d like / until you realize / it doesn’t matter if you’re right.’ If insanity is what’s true then that’s so much healthier and better than trying to fit into some bullshit societal position.”

While discussing the current state of music in this country, Darren brings up the song “Rock N Roll Nigger” by Patti Smith. He pauses for a moment, knowing he must be careful with his words.

“The chorus of that song is: ‘outside of society / they’re waitin’ for me / outside of society / that’s where I want to be.’ That’s where I think PAPA exists culturally and that’s where our identity as a band is,” says Darren.

“And even if that makes us less popular but more meaningful to the people who understand what we’re trying to do, that’s infinitely more important to us.”

Danny straightens up on the couch and agrees, “We’re going rogue in 2014.”

Music

“It’s like a disease”: Catching up with Iska Dhaaf

Photo by Kelsey Kaufman.

Nathan Quiroga and Benjamin Verdoes couldn’t be more different. Nate’s raw lyrics and stage presence can be abrasive. His passion when talking about Iska Dhaaf might make you uncomfortable. Ben on the other hand is patient. He molds melodies and adds a touch of grace. Without sounding too much like a Hallmark card, they are each other’s Ying and Yang.

We all know their musical backgrounds, so let’s skip the hype. What’s interesting about these two is how they came together. “I was consciously trying to distance myself from my life at the time,” says Nate. “I didn’t think about where I’d be or where I’d end up or how it would come to fruition. I was just following what I wanted to do.”

Admiration for one another helped. In the two years it took to record Even the Sun Will Burn, Nate had to learn how to play guitar and keys. He couldn’t even hold a pick in his hand.

“During the long incubation period was a lot of learning,” says Ben. “But also, it was important to us to give ourselves time to write because one the machine starts – once your sitting down doing interviews and touring a lot – there’s a certain something that happens. I’ve experienced that before so I wanted to make sure that our foundation was really solid.”

Songwriting is of huge importance to these two, and it shows. Even the Sun Will Burn is rich with irony. There’s a natural arc to the album that fights with desires and ends with acceptance. And just as their band names suggests, the vignettes in the final track “Even the Sun” battle with the issue of “letting go.”

“The name started as this thing that I would say to him all the time,” says Ben. “Sometimes I’d be like, ‘alright Nate, finish this song if you have to.’ It’s like a disease. If he’s writing a song you can expect that he’s going to obsess over it.”

These obsessions have translated into something bigger than both of them anticipated. A spot at Sasquatch!, Capitol Hill Block Party and Bumbershoot are just minor indications of the buzz surrounding Iska Dhaaf. The anticipation is palpable, and Nate and Ben are clearly ready for it.

With another two records already in the works, a lack of inspiration when these two get together obviously isn’t an issue. “Ben and I have developed a system because we write so much that we’ll take an idea and be like ‘that’s in this group’ or ‘that’s in this solar system,’” says Nate. “Meanwhile we’re kind of orbiting around in space.”

While most bands are fighting to stand out against the latest and greatest artist to transcend the Northwest, Nate and Ben are embracing it. In their most recent video for “Everybody Knows,” Ben Haggerty aka Macklemore plays Bob Hope.

“Macklemore represents this figure…like, he did it,” says Ben. “He was an unsigned artist and he pushed forward gay rights. He also talks about materialism. He’s like the Steinbeck, the everyman. He’s also larger than life and we made this video that’s larger than life.”

Naturally, the YouTube views were quite a bit higher than “Happiness”, but it hardly fazes them. There have been no ramifications for Iska Dhaaf’s unorthodox ways so far, only curiosity for what happens when these two opposing forces meet. In theory, Iska Dhaaf shouldn’t work, but it does.

“We don’t really think about that kind of stuff…the consequences,” says Nate. “It’s more about ‘does it feel right?’ And this does.”

Music

Sasquatch! 2014: An Interview with Cloud Control

It’s just after 8 p.m. on Saturday at The Gorge and it’s that time of day us festivalgoers know best. The golden hour is setting an orangey-pink glow over Cloud Control’s warm, psychedelic pop vibes.

Little did the audience know that Cloud Control had woken up in Kansas that same morning. Alister’s hair may have been a tad more disheveled than usual, but besides that, there were no indications of tiredness. Currently on tour with Metronomy, Cloud Control is in for one kick-ass summer. And if there blissful set had any indication for what’s to come, you better watch out for these Aussies.

I sat down with two of Cloud Control’s members, Alister Wright (guitar, vocals) and Jeremy Kelshaw (bass, vocals) to talk about those famed cover songs and the payoff for doing shit that scares you.

You guys have recorded in some pretty remote places (a cave in the Kentish countryside, inside a stone house in the Blue Mountains). Is it purposeful to remove yourself from the chaos? Is the Cloud Control sound best found outside of the city?

Jeremy: It’s kind of on purpose and it’s kind of what’s convenient at the moment. The whole idea of taking sounds and vocals from Dream Cave and re-amping them in the cave was to try to find some kind of natural, organic sound to bring to the record. So yeah, I guess you’re right.

You guys have covered two 90s mega hits: “Praise You” by Fatboy Slim and “Dammit” by Blink 182. Why these two?

Alister: I loved those songs when I was a kid. That’s all it is!

J: The music you grow up listening to as a kid stays with you forever.

A: There are songs that you associate with a certain point in your life, songs that you get an unreasonable connection to… For all of us, those two songs have a really special, nostalgic feelings attached to them.

J: The time when you’re a teenager is such a crazy time. Being a teenager is weird. It’s extreme.

A: People think it’s fun! It’s fucked up.

Are their any other 90s songs you’d like to cover?

J: We haven’t recorded it, but sometimes we cover “Pepper” by Butthole Surfers. We don’t do the whole song; we’ll just throw it in the middle as a bridge section. If we play that during a show, you know we’re having a good time.

A: If we’re having a great show, I’ll nod at Jeremy and then we’ll play it. And if we don’t, it doesn’t mean we’re having a bad show…it just means maybe the audience isn’t ready for it. (Laughs)

What was your reason for doing a free acoustic tour? It seems like a pretty raw and intimidating thing to willingly choose to do.

A: We are pretty good at playing songs like that because we rehearse a lot like that. A lot of the work we did on Dream Cave was done that way…

J: It wasn’t foreign.

A: We rehearsed for like four hours and it went really well. It also made me want to do more acoustic shows in the future because there was crowd surfing, stage invasions and it was actually really rockin’. I think you get that with a full band because you’re hitting people over the head with loudness. But if you can do that with an acoustic set and have people get really into it, it feels like you’re meeting together in the middle.

Music from Australia is getting more recognition and attention lately. Who are some bands that may not be on our radar that you enjoy?

A:Total Control, Royal Headache, The Avalanches, Pond and Bloods. There’s a really good dance scene going on as well with like Flume, Chet Faker and Future Classic. And I’m going to mention my brother’s band, Fishing!

J: Have fun Googling that!

In interviews, you guys seem to emphasize music as this type of escapism – telling people to leave their troubles behind at your shows even if just for a few minutes. So what do you hope people walk away with after they see you live?

A: I was just thinking…well, it’s so ridiculous because it’s just a show and we’re just a band playing a rock show at a festival… But I think people should always be thinking about what they’re doing and what their life means. If we didn’t have this band, I would have just gone to University and got a job. It’s weird for people to do anything that’s slightly different from that, so I would encourage people to follow their dreams. I hope our band can inspire that.

Arts & Entertainment, Music

RECAP: Sasquatch! Music Festival 2014

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Lucius
Danny Presant
PAPA

(Photo: Kelsey Kaufman)

John Van Deusen of The Lonely Forest (Photo: Kelsey Kaufman)

Lucius (Photo: Kelsey Kaufman)

Danny Presant of PAPA (Photo: Kelsey Kaufman)

PAPA (Photo: Kelsey Kaufman)

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It’s not Sasquatch! if your neighbors aren’t Canadian and you don’t see at least one person who thinks they are at Paradiso. While this year wasn’t nearly as stacked as last year and there was that whole second-weekend-cancelation ordeal, The Gorge Ampitheatre was as lively as ever.

Best Overall: Outkast

The big rumor swirling around pre-Sasquatch was that Outkast got booed at Coachella. Who knows whether it’s true or not [ed. note: it is], but the air Friday evening was thick with nervous anticipation. Everyone wanted it to be amazing, and it was. André 3000 and Big Boi played the hits (“Roses”, “So Fresh, So Clean”, “Ms. Jackson”, etc.), plus a few older tracks to please the hip hop heads. Fuck Coachella.

Best Comeback: Kid Cudi

I first saw Kid Cudi at Sasquatch! back in 2010 on the heels of Man on the Moon. I thought “Soundtrack to My Life” was the soundtrack to my life. Lolz. Anyways, he opened with a few of his newer tracks (which like ten people knew), but then things got goin’ with “Erase Me” and “Day ‘N’ Nite”. Cudi ended with a remixed version of “Pursuit of Happiness” that got the pit and hill jumping. While it was nothing new, it was a hell of a party.

Most Likely to Remember: Shakey Graves

The Yeti stage can be painfully empty or it can be totally crackin’. Plenty of men with guitars have come across that stage only to have a few stray hippies dance along with their hula-hoops. That did not happen here. People crowd surfed during Shakey Graves set – no, I am not joking. His gritty voice and dynamic chords were unique and 100% beautiful. It also doesn’t hurt that Alejandro is easy on the eyes.

Biggest Disappointment: HAIM

I almost deleted this category because I saw HAIM back in October at Neumos and it was one of the best shows I’ve been to. Ever. Danielle’s epic guitar rips couldn’t save the fact that we couldn’t hear a word coming out of her mouth. I mostly blame the sound issues, but HAIM would have been a better fit on the Bigfoot Stage. They just can’t carry the Main Stage quite yet.

Best Dance Party: Ryan Hemsworth

Mr. Hemsworth doesn’t talk much, but he doesn’t need to. The mega babe started off with slower, smoother tracks and then dirtied us all up.

Best WTF Moment: (TIE) Tyler, The Creator & Die Antwoord

Die Antwoord scared me. The important thing is to not take them too seriously, but…is it ever possible to take them seriously? To their credit though, they are wildly entertaining. Tyler, The Creator called us idiots (plus a few others NSFW names) and made us yell “Jason Derulo” at the top of our lungs, but what’s new? 

Most Talked About: Major Lazer

Diplo made a surprise appearance and Major Lazer made everyone take off their shirts and throw them up in the air. It was a trashy good time. Hey, we all haven’t showered in like three days anyways so why not pretend you’re 18 again?

Most Likely to be a Headliner Next Year: PAPA

Any man who can cover “Love Is A Battlefield” is a man after my own heart. 

Best Up & Comer: Lucius

Don’t let the blonde hair and big sunglasses fool you, these two best friends and three dudes are on the cusp of blowing up.

Other bands that rocked: Band of Skulls, BANKS, Rudimental

Music

“SKATERS makes you believe in rock ‘n’ roll again”

I’ve seen SKATERS twice now, once in Seattle and most recently in Portland at Mississippi Studios. And after both of those shows, lead singer MIC (Michael Ian Cummings) has told me the exact same thing.

“So, what did you think of the show?”

And just as before, he answers with a half-smile and says, “It was weird.”

Well, he was kind of right. It was weird. Mississippi Studios was less than one third of the way full, and me – a blonde chick in 4-inch heels – was dancing harder than anyone else there. Why is it that still, even after Warner Bros. got their hands on them and they’ve recorded in the legendary Electric Lady Studios, do they struggle to bring out that West Coast punk love? It exists, I’ve seen it. But not here.

This isn’t to discredit the talent of SKATERS. They are as musically gifted as any band I’ve seen live. Since the release of their LP Manhattan, Michael’s voice has become more demanding and refined. Drummer Noah Rubin’s tenacity is icon-worthy. And bassist Dan Burke is solid tight.

Manhattan’s analogue is about life in New York through the lens of millennial generation 20-somethings. There’s a reason why people call us the worst, most entitled, most spoiled generation. (Hey, I’m one of them so….) Generation Y has been stereotyped into being completely self-serving, and songs like “To Be Young in NYC” don’t help with those sentiments.

On Friday night, March 21, SKATERS opened with “Fun and Games” followed by “Symptomatic” and “Dead Bolt” – all of which have the rawness that early fans love. You’ll also notice a new face on stage – Miles, a talented guitarist who hails from Florida of all places.

The Jamaican reggae elements on songs like “Band Breaker” shows the guys have done their homework. When SKATERS rebels in different directions, they produce a good racket reminiscent of their early garage-punk forerunners.

As my friend that night said, “It’s the Strokes 10 years ago.” While they don’t have a “classic” album on their hands, SKATERS makes you believe in rock ‘n’ roll again.