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Aspiring Musicians: This is a Networking Wet-Dream

Here’s a helpful hint to all the aspiring indie rockers out there: Go to this show! The top-billed performers—Bazan, Walla, and the Winters’ John Roderick—are a triumvirate of local musicians who could help your career immensely. Between them, they have talent for miles, but they also know the bulk of the town’s most influential music-makers, many of whom will be in attendance, so bring a stack of download cards and distribute them liberally.  » read more

The Long Winters Took a Look Back at the Bowery Ballroom

John Roderick and Sean Nelson, the two founding members of the lapsed and debatably defunct band the Long Winters, took the stage at a sold-out Bowery Ballroom on Friday night under the auspices of a reunion that maybe was and maybe wasn’t. They had gathered to play their seminal sophomore record, When I Pretend to Fall, just six months past its 10-year anniversary. Roderick was in his usual biting form, cracking sardonic jokes about fans’ online relationship with the band: “Now the fans can go home and express their displeasure on the Internet. Back in the old days, you just had to go home and suck it.” Nelson, an on-again-off-again member of Harvey Danger, nodded approvingly as those in the audience chuckled.  » read more

How Barsuk Began, an Oral History

Josh Rosenfeld and Christopher Possanza started Barsuk Records to put out their band’s 7-inch singles. Then things got serious. The label grew, launched one of indie rock’s most successful bands, and survived the most tumultuous decade the record industry has ever seen. This is how it started.

“Right now I’m working on little details, logistics. When are bands arriving, where are they staying, do they have their floor tom properly tuned?”  » read more

How an Indie-Rock Label Saved My Life

There's no way I should have been able to make a career as a rock musician. I mean, there are thousands of singer/songwriters out there who are better, younger, smarter and prettier than I am. My career should have ended up like most of the bands I came up with, like most of the frustrated and talented songwriters everywhere. You give it your best shot and then quit when you turn thirty and get a job at Amazon or Microsoft. That's the Seattle way.

The reality is, I didn't even release my first album until I was thirty-two. By all rights I should have been laughed out of every bar and record label office in the country, but instead I spent ten years on tour in America and Europe, bought a house, and continue to make a living as a musician even now, all while most people, even hardcore music fans, haven't heard of me. How?

The answer is: a small, indie record label.  » read more

New Winter

Last week, at a benefit for 826 Seattle, I interviewed two students—Ameera, seven, and Issiah, twelve—onstage at an event called People Talking and Singing. The master of ceremonies for the evening was John Roderick, a tall man with long copper hair, a bushy beard, a missing front tooth, and a resonant voice that could easily be heard anywhere in the hall without amplification. In his banter with comedians and writers of all ages, Roderick was funny and generous. He wore a brown paisley velvet jacket, a turquoise shirt, a dark-green tie with light-yellow dots, and enormous black glasses that, if they were not actually made in 1976, were designed to look as if they were.  » read more

The Long Winters' John Roderick Doesn't Hate Everything -- or, The Commander Eats Aloud

Much has been made around the blogosphere this week about the diary John Roderick of the Long Winters kept about Bonnaroo. (For excellent exclusive photos of the event -- including one of Beatle Bob dancing and Jeff Tweedy playing baseball -- go here!)

In a nutshell, he hated almost everything -- although he described bands in a hilarious way. For instance, about the Hold Steady: "I felt like I was at a dot-com Christmas party and a bunch of drunk webmasters got up on stage to jam, with the company cut-up rapping their mission-statement out of a three-ring binder. And everyone at the party said, 'Whoa, those guys are actually good. They should form a band.'"  » read more

Note: for TLW content see item 5 of the list, encores

10 things that take fun out of live shows

Dealing with a beer being spilled on your skirt can ruin your night

Live music used to be so simple. Whether black Xs perpetually stained the backs of your hands during a Minor Threat-obsessed youth, or a savvy roommate guided you to your first Dinosaur Jr. show, the feelings are the same — live performances present us with a sense of immediacy that we just can’t replicate at home.
Connoisseur that you now are, you’ve begun to sense some fatigue. Whether your left foot has been stepped on by a woman in high heels one too many times or you’ve begun waitressing on weekends in order to afford ticket “service” fees, you’re not as easily impressed anymore.
Here’s a list of the top complaints (in no particular order):  » read more

Photos & Perspective: Three Nights With The Long Winters, The Hold Steady, and Not Shooting Ryan Adams at City Arts Fest

​This post is part of a series in which longtime Seattle music photographer Laura Musselman provides her thoughts on what it was like to be at, and shoot shows.
By Laura Musselman

The Long Winters, Thursday, Showbox at the Market: I've seen them so many times I've lost count, in at least six or seven states with six or seven different lineups. If I could pick a best show, this one would be up there near the top. Sean Nelson's guest vocals? Mind-blowing. John & Sean's back-and-forth sarcastic banter? Classic. A backing band made of incredibly talented and adorable kids? Made my cheeks hurt from smiling all night.  » read more

City Arts Fest Day 1: The Long Winters

“My between-song banter is like Bill Cosby B-sides.”

The Long Winters' front-man John Roderick is known to amuse with his musings, and even when he's playing this fact down he's funny. Walking onstage and greeting the audience in a pink shirt, black tie, khakis, glasses, beard, and side-parting, he said he wants tonight's show to invoke “a familial feeling, like we're all in this together.”

“But I am an artist, and that could change at any time.”

Standing solo with an acoustic guitar, he opened with “Seven.” He's not a great singer or a great guitar player, but John Roderick possesses wit, likability, and a magnetism that makes you want to listen to what he has to say.  » read more

John Roderick Reverb Residency: Seattle's Stalinism

Hey, John: Tell me something: Why do Seattleites call Nevermind "the Nirvana Record"? What, we're just supposed to know which record they're talking about? How pretentious!
--C.R.K., the south end

Roderick: The first paradox of Seattle is: No one will discuss Nirvana with you in a straightforward way unless they're sure you can be trusted, and it is impossible to trust anyone who wants to talk about Nirvana. You have to understand that the grunge years were a period of Stalinistic paranoia. Agents of the Credibility Police were listening in on every conversation, their stocking caps and long underwear stained with the tears of the insufficiently blasé. I watched many good people, innocent people, publicly SNEERED TO DEATH for even suggesting that the band Bush might have a couple of good songs.  » read more