STG Announces Upcoming Events: The Shins and More

Seattle Theatre Group (STG) announces the following concerts going on sale this week.

Yeasayer

Date: August 30, 2012 @ 8:00pm  

Venue: The Neptune (All Ages)
Price: $30.00 not including applicable fees    
Seating: General Admission
On Sale: Friday, June 1, 2012 @ 10am     

Since the release of their critically acclaimed 2007 debut All Hour Cymbals, Yeasayer has been around the world and back again. While their first record was conceived in total artistic isolation, constant touring forced Yeasayer to finally engage with their contemporaries. Inspired by musicians hell-bent on sonic experimentation as well as those more comfortable in a pop context, Yeasayer find their domain spanning across the musical spectrum. Studied, road worn, and eager to begin phase two, Yeasayer retreated to upstate New York to begin work on their new album titled Odd Blood. Odd Blood plays out at a blistering pace, yet it never sacrifices depth or content. It is immediately evident the band has advanced in songwriting as well as sonic craft. Lyrically, it is a more mature and honest album than the first, as the band demonstrates a confidence to explore more personal themes alongside vividly depicted tales. One thing is certain: Yeasayer are accomplished audiologists who are willing to pilfer decades of pop sensibilities and cultural history to create something that is uniquely their own. If All Hour Cymbals was Yeasayer's attempt at global and ambient cultural mash-up then Odd Blood takes place in an off-world colony sometime after the Singularity. Glimmering reverb haze is eschewed and replaced by a cavalcade of disorienting pitch effects and flickering ectoplasmic wisps. Instead of layered vocal harmonies the processed vocals congeal into blots and blobs of otherworldly chatter. Many organic elements are left behind and replaced by sounds and rhythms that inspire the body as much as the mind. At times Yeasayer sound as if they would be at home playing live in scene from Blade Runner or inside one of Oscar Neimeyer's concrete modernist temples from the 1960s.

The Shins

Date: Saturday, September 22, 2012 @ 8:00pm  

Venue: The Paramount Theatre (All Ages)
Price: $31.25 not including applicable fees    
Seating: General Admission Flat Floor, Reserved Balcony
On Sale: Friday, June 1, 2012 @ 10am     

The Shins are an American indie rock band founded and fronted by vocalist and multi-instrumentalist, James Mercer. The Shins were formed in Albuquerque, New Mexico, but are now based in Portland, Oregon. At a San Francisco performance with Modest Mouse in 2000, Sub Pop's Jonathan Poneman asked The Shins to contribute a single to the label's Single of the Month Club, which eventually became an offer to release The Shins' 2001 single, "New Slang", and their debut album, "Oh, Inverted World". The group spent the rest of the year touring. The release of singles such as "Know Your Onion!" and "The Past and Pending" kept The Shins' success going into 2002, cementing "Oh, Inverted World" as one of the definitive indie-rock albums of the early '00s and The Shins as one of the genre's leading younger bands. It received critical acclaim for its lyrically deft and jangly pop sound. The song "One By One All Day" was featured in the 2003 film A Guy Thing, starring Jason Lee. Two other songs from this album, ("Caring Is Creepy" and "New Slang") were featured prominently on the soundtrack for the 2004 film Garden State, starring and directed by Zach Braff, exposing the music of The Shins to a much wider audience. Oh, Inverted World appeared at #71 on Pitchfork Media's Top 100 Albums of 2000-2004. On August 1, 2011, Pitchfork reported that The Shins would be releasing an album in 2012 on Mercer's Aural Apothecary Label, via Columbia Records. The Shins also announced additional tour dates for their North American tour. The new band backing Mercer on this tour include singer/songwriter Richard Swift, Modest Mouse drummer Joe Plummer, Yuuki Matthews of Crystal Skulls and Jessica Dobson. Their latest album titled Port of Morrow and was released in March 2012. Port Of Morrow was released March 20 and has been lauded by THE NEW YORKER as an album that brings Shins mainman James Mercer "closer to the lineage he's been gradually writing himself into: the lush psychedelia of XTC, on an album like 'Skylarking,' or even seventies pop acts like Joe Walsh..."

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