The Popular Monsters

Hey monster fans! Just wanted to bring up that we are having our CD release show next month – Wednesday the 13th at the Sunset Tavern (one of the truly best venues out there). We are going to really pull out the stops for this show, and without going into too much detail, I can pretty much promise that you will witness things that have never seen before at a Pop Monsters show.

While we are practicing up and honing our skills to better BLOW YOUR MINDS, y’all can waltz on over to facebook and RSVP to the event we have going on there!  Bring your friends, and mark your calendars!

We will of course have many copies of The Unrepentant Symphony of Days at the show!

Our new album, The Unrepentant Symphony of Days, is out now! Go take a listen at Our Bandcamp Site! You can buy the album there too!!!!!

We are also playing a show on Wednesday, May 11th at the Comet Tavern! We will sell you our CD there! The relevant deets are on our Facebook Page

Hey everyone, we are going to be playing the Sunset Tavern in Ballard on Sunday March 13! With Prairie Empire with Harlowe and the Great North Woods.

More info at the Sunset’s website

(Originally posted 12/1/2010)

Hello everybody!

Come to our show at the Blue Moon on Friday 12/10! http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=153735028002703

I’m excited and proud to announce that The Popular Monsters are playing a show on a FRIDAY NIGHT, December 10th, at the Blue Moon Tavern (in The University District). We will be joined by energetic rock superfriends The Hoot Hoots and The Steve Neilson Band. So clear your calendars!

For all of you who have dragged yourselves out to shows on a Monday or Sunday, this is a chance to catch us live and still sleep in the next day as God intended. For those who haven’t been able to make those difficult-to-attend dates and times, here’s a chance to come out and see us play live! And what is especially exciting is that IF YOU ALL COME OUT AND HELP US BLOW THE DOORS OFF THE BLUE MOON WE MAY NEVER HAVE TO PLAY A MONDAY AGAIN! That’s right, if we go out and do this thing right we can build up the kind of rep that keeps us playing weekend dates for months and years to come. We will remember you when we are famous, promise.

In addition, we will bring our ever-expanding flavor of knock-your-socks-off-fun so we can show you all the good time you so richly deserve. Here are the ever-lovin’ deets!

The Popular Monsters, The Hoot Hoots, The Steve Neilson Band
FRIDAY December 10th, 9pm
The Blue Moon
712 NE 45th ST

As always, you can also support the band by continuing to listen to our music, and consider ‘liking’ us on facebook. Or forward this message to a friend, or just tell them about the band!

(Originally Posted October 19, 2010)

After long days in the studio at Simpler Times and an extensive mixing and mastering and overdubbing phase, The Popupular Monsters are proud to announce their upcoming release will be titled The Unrepentant Symphony of Days! While the release date has yet to be finalized and we are currently progressing through a slight lull as some local heavies weigh in on the production, we are fairly sure that there will be 11 tracks, and the list will look something like this:

The Unrepentant Symphony of Days

1. Overstayed
2. Rock, Paper, Schism!
3. Captain America
4. A Subtle Dragon
5. Queen of Bad Decisions
6. Sue Bird
7. Shattertown
8. Smile for a Friend
9. Enkidu’s Private Skyline
10. Making Time with New Media
11. Fifth of Courage

We can’t wait until this all wraps up and we can share all the songs with you!

(Originally Posted September 11, 2010)

Listeners of our local sports radio sensation 950 KJR reportedly got a sneak listen to one of the tracks off of upcoming new Popular Monsters album. “Sue Bird” is a song written as a tribute to Seattle Storm guard Sue Bird after their first championship title, and recording this summer by the band as the Storm were making their groundbreaking sprint for the Western conference title. Go Storm!

(Originally posted July 1, 2010)

The Popular Monsters are in the studio! Which is the same as our practice space, but with more cables. And more opportunity to feel weird about how you sound on tape. Recording is a dark art, and like all dark arts is best approached in an amateurish fashion and with little regard to convetional wisdom; because, really, it’s when you accidentally scuff that pentagram with the heel of your shoe and let the demons out that things get really fun and interesting

Being in a band is a gear-intensive past time, and recording is no exception. When I was getting into this I had all sorts of notions about what was entailed by a “rock and roll lifestyle”, but now that I’ve done this for a while I have come to understand that really all of it is just carrying heavy equipment in and out of structures, for ever. Sometimes you get to plug in an instrument and doink around for a while, but to get there it’s like eight solid days of carting around slant-back cabs.

Our practice space / recording studio is in an unlikely part of town, one not normally associated with the excess and depravity of rock and roll. It is also at the bottom of a cliff; there are, I believe, 92 nearly-vertical steps that are the only way in and out of that place. And every piece gear has to come down those steps. Every time we play a show, every piece of gear has to come back up them! And we, your indie-rock Sisyphus, doggedly roll that stone up the cliff face time and time again. Because we love you. And attention.

With luck, there will be some chatter about the fruits of our recording labors here sometime soon. If I haven’t jinxed it!

(Originally posted June 1, 2010)

It’s just plain tacky to leave the site at a single post for any length of time, so I thought I would weigh in on some of the thoughts that run through my mind about being in a band from time to time. Today’s thought had to do with Morrissey and the Smiths, and how he was really into being a vegetarian to the point of forcing all the rest of the members of the band to declare that they didn’t eat meat, even though they did. And how that’s like this total jerky megolamaniacal thing that, if anyone we knew personally tried to pull that kind of crap, we would instantly call them out on it. But instead it’s like this feature that seems to just build the cult of personality around Morrissey and reinforce the legend of The Smiths and all.

Anyway, in the larger context, well first of all I think Meat is Murder is a great album except for it’s miserable title track, and second I was thinking maybe I should adopt some totally absurd thing, like a hatred of primary colors or something, that I would then push on the other members of the ‘Monsters, as a way of further building the Popular Monsters brand. Because, really, if you can’t get away with totally bizarre and anti-social affectations like that, what’s the point of being in a band? It’s like, the creative process is strange and seldom understood, so with the truly awe-worthy artists the most dedicated fans are unwilling to question any behavior, no matter how strange. And how that sway inevitably leads to some strange freakin’ behavior. (I’m looking at you, Bowie, among others).

Anyway, that said, we’ll be hard at work cranking out the awesome so that maybe, someday, we can be accepted for all the crazy shit we’ll pull when we are famous.

There’s projects afoot, also. More on that later.

If I may take the opportunity to address the folks that showed up to the show we played at the Skylark Cafe last week, each and every one of you is a bright shining star and you are doing wonderful things. It’s always a little bit of a challenge to rally the troops for a weekday show, but as usual several brave folks showed commendable courage and dedication in the face of adversity, and as a result were rewarded with what I consider to be our best show yet.

Much of this is due to the wonderful Skylark Cafe, who have provided an excellent and warm space to play in West Seattle. I think West Seattle gets a lot of guff for being kind of a weird part of town that’s off to the side in sort of a funny way, but places like the Skylark are really going the distance to educate people to the charms of the neighborhood (as a Rainier Beach resident, I am frankly pretty jealous and wish we had something cool like the Skylark around.)

Anyway, Seattle has kind of a rep for a subdued scene but everyone who showed up last thursday pretty much put that rumor to rest. It’s hard to describe how much of a rush it is to be rocking out during a show like this! We also got to the last show (with current lineup) of Middle Age Crisis, who were a treat, and Green Handshake’s soulful bar rock was perfect accompanyment to the crispy Stella I enjoyed after the show.