Best of the Northwest Fall Show, SECS Fest, and More Cheap & Easy Events Under $15 by EverOut Staff

Well Seattle, it's been a hard week and there are difficult days ahead. Take care of yourselves and each other this weekend. If you're looking for something to do to take your mind off things, we're recommending events from Best of the Northwest Fall Show to a Community Fruit Pressing at Republic of Cider and from Seattle Hmong New Year to SECS Fest 2024. For more ideas, check out our guide to the top events of the week.

Carson Ellis with Jon Mooallem
If Portland City Illustrator were a job, I'd want that role to go to Carson Ellis—something embedded in the Rose City-based artist's naturalistic, folk-inspired, muted, yet richly detailed aesthetic falls in perfect harmony with the Pacific Northwest landscape. Ellis' adult debut is an illustrated memoir filled with paintings depicting memories from a 20-something-year-old journal. One Week in January digs into Ellis' first experiences living in a Portland warehouse in the early 2000s, during which time she met future hubby Colin Meloy (who, as I'm guessing you know, fronts the Decemberists and penned Wildwood). LINDSAY COSTELLO
(Elliott Bay Book Company, Capitol Hill, free)

Hong Kong Cuisine, Jamaican Curry Pizza, and Khao Soi by EverOut Staff Could you use a little extra comfort this weekend? Same. Allow us to suggest cozying up with some dumplings from Cheers! Hong Kong, a Jamaican-inspired pie from Pizza by Ruffin, or a steaming bowl of khao soi from Spoonfull Thai Kitchen & Bar. Plus, learn where to find apple cobbler doughnuts and chorizo biscuits and gravy. For more ideas, check out our guide to nachos in Seattle and our food and drink guide.

NEW OPENINGS & RETURNS

Cheers! Hong Kong
Restaurateur Sen Mao, who owns the Seattle and Kirkland locations of Dumpling the Noodle and formerly owned the now-closed hot pot joint Fun DJ, plans to take over the former Lionhead space this week with this Hong Kong-inspired bar and restaurant serving cocktails, bubble tea, beer, dumplings, and noodles. In addition to dishes like pork char siu with egg sauce and curry pork chops, they also appear to have several vegan options, including crispy vegan wontons and mapo tofu made with Impossible meat substitute.
Capitol Hill

The Stranger's only news round-up. by Nathalie Graham

International District stabbings: On Friday, someone stabbed five people in what appears to be a random, unprovoked attack in Seattle's Chinatown International District. The same person is believed to be responsible for other stabbings in the neighborhood that occurred between Thursday and Friday. In total, police believe the suspect stabbed nine victims in two days. Police arrested the suspect on Friday. His bail was set for $2 million.

Back at it: Around 300 people gathered over the weekend at the Space Needle for a rally against Donald Trump's re-election. It feels like we were protesting Donald Trump's presidency just yesterday. Time is a flat circle when your country keeps electing a fascist.  

Hundreds of immigrants, students, activists and union workers are protesting in Seattle against U.S. imperialism, violent policies against migrants, police violence and structural economic violence and exploitation by the capitalist class. pic.twitter.com/dZ9JFFPAii

— Guy Oron (@GuyOron) November 9, 2024

Wet, wet, wet: The rain is here. I hope you like it. 

????️ Showers are here to stay, with wet conditions on track through the week. #WAwx pic.twitter.com/0yM2lMdZH7

— NWS Seattle (@NWSSeattle) November 11, 2024

Income tax when? According to 2023 census data, the median wages for tech workers in the Seattle area last year was about $157,200. That's a $14,000 increase from 2022's tech-worker wage estimate, according to the Seattle Times' FYI Guy. Meanwhile, the median income for non-tech workers in Seattle was about $81,100 and only bumped up a measly $2,800 since 2022. 

Vaccinate your kids: Stop being stupid and get your kids their shots. Whooping cough is on the rise with nearly 1,200 cases documented statewide. Of those cases, over 80% are in children. "This is just the tip of the iceberg. We’re starting to see the impact of waning immunization," Dr. James Lewis, a health officer with the Snohomish County Health Department, told KIRO7. 

Help SIFF staff out: Go see a secret staff pick on Wednesday and throw a few bucks in the kitty to help support SIFF workers who are out of a job now that the Egyptian Theater out of commission. 

A pipe burst at The Egyptian and SIFF staff need our community’s support!

Join us on November 13th at 7pm for a free screening of a VERY secret and VERY good movie. Tickets are free, but please donate to the fundraiser linked on our web page! https://t.co/AjQjZHaWJf pic.twitter.com/GLANjC3Hrs

— Northwest Film Forum (@nwfilmforum) November 9, 2024

Analysis suggests Gaza dead are mostly women and children: New analysis from the United Nations Human Rights Office found that 70% of those killed by Israel in Gaza were women and children. The UN verified the details of 8,119 people killed in Gaza from November 2023 to April 2024. Of them, 26 percent were women. Around 44 percent were children, most commonly between five and nine years old. The report said the data indicates "an apparent indifference to the death of civilians and the impact of the means and methods of warfare." 

Wildfire to the East: Dry, windy conditions are to blame for a brush fire in New Jersey that now covers 39 acres. The blaze is currently 30% contained. Meanwhile, at least six more fires are burning in the state. And at the same time, two acres burned in the middle of Brooklyn’s Prospect Park, killing a teenage park ranger. Wildfires have increased in east coast states thanks to historic droughts. Boston to New York City and Philadelphia to Washington, D.C are under red flag warnings. The bad news is everything is going to get worse thanks to who we elected president. 

Meanwhile: A California blaze tearing through Ventura County is 31% contained and still covers 32 square miles.

Trump chooses UN ambassador: New York Rep. Elise Stefanik has been chosen to fill the role. Stefanik, who serves as House Republican Conference Chair, is a Trump loyalist with little foreign policy experience. Trump called her a “strong, tough, and smart America First fighter.” 

Bird flu in Canada: The first presumptive case of bird flu in a human has been identified in British Columbia. The infected person is a teenager who likely contracted the illness from contact with animals. So far, the virus hasn't spread from human to human. 

Another abortion horror story: A woman in Georgia was 18 weeks pregnant with her second child when she miscarried. Despite her bleeding and her risk of serious infection, doctors could not perform a routine dilation and curettage due to abortion laws. They had to wait 24 hours or until the woman seemed like she might die unless she received the surgery. Sure enough, they waited until her hemoglobin levels were perilously low and then operated. While she survived, the pain and fear she went through was not medically necessary. Her pain was legislated.

Wicked whoopsie: Mattel released special dolls for the new Wicked movie. On the bottom of the packaging, Mattel listed "Wicked.com" to drive people to the movie site. Only Wicked.com is a porn site that makes parody porn movies. Mattel said sorry. 

A song for your Monday: You like to groove, right?

The Blood Brothers, Justine Doiron, and More by EverOut Staff

Stay busy with some of the many top-notch events happening this week, from The Blood Brothers to Justine Doiron with Becky Selengut and from Shrek Week to opening weekend of WildLanterns. And check out our November events guide to see what the rest of the month has in store.

TRANSA Listening Party
Get a first listen to Red Hot Org's forthcoming compilation album TRAИƧA, a 46-track-long "spiritual journey" of trans storytelling featuring icons like Sam Smith, Teddy Geiger, Perfume Genius, Hunter Schafer, Beverly Glenn Copeland, and countless others. Red Hot Org writes: "As a right-wing movement continues to escalate a violent culture war against trans and gender-expansive people and our families, TRAИƧA carves out a global space for trans expression and healing." The nearly four-hour-long album will be played in full at the listening party and community gathering, with Transmasc Seattle tabling alongside other trans-centered local organizations. AUDREY VANN
(Vera Project, Uptown)

Salami Rose Joe Louis plays Madame Lou's on Monday, November 11. by Dave Segal

Recording for Flying Lotus's Brainfeeder label, Salami Rose Joe Louis (Lindsay Olsen) has blazed a distinctive trail in that fertile sector of California's underground where electronic music and jazz converge. On early releases by this multi-instrumentalist and producer—such as 2019's Zdenka 2080—Olsen sings in a hushed, dulcet manner over sparse, melodious electronic music that wears its jazz inflections gracefully. Faint echoes of '90s and '00s introspective, minimalist IDM (intelligent dance music, if you don't know) acts such as Múm insinuate themselves, too. It's ultimately dream pop, but not in the cloying way manifested by the genre's try-hards.

With 2023's Akousmatikous and this year's collab with Flanafi, Sarah, SRJL's rhythms get jazzier and the instrumentation fuller, with help from Soccer96 and Miguel Atwood-Ferguson, among others. The songs are more kinetic while the vocals retain their breathy, Julee Cruise-like sweetness. The music's levitational feel and smooth propulsion belie lyrics about catastrophic ecological degradation and the dangers of propaganda/disinformation. Enchanting listeners through understatement and mutedly sparkling tones, Olsen offers the most pleasant dystopian sci-fi soundtracks extant. For this show at Madame Lou's tonight, she'll be joined by guitarist Flanafi, bassist Tone Whitfield, and drummer Luke Titus—most of whom played on the exceptional new Salami Live at 2131 North Kacey Street EP.

<a href="https://salamirosejoelouismusic.bandcamp.com/album/salami-live-at-2131-north-kacey-street">Salami Live at 2131 North Kacey Street by Salami Rose Joe Louis featuring Flanafi, Tone Whitfield, Nazir Ebo</a>

Salami Rose Joe Louis plays Madame Lou's Monday, Nov 11, 7:30 pm, $21, 21+.

The left tries to find its footing before Trump takes power again. by Hannah Krieg

Photography by Ananya Mishra

Seattle lefties gathered at the Space Needle this weekend to hype themselves up for what promises to be a rough four years under a second Trump administration. Speakers acknowledged that the future feels foggy, and that it's unclear what the first fights will be.

Unlike many of the protests around the country, Seattle’s wasn’t organized by the Women’s March or driven by Trump’s attacks on abortion, women, and LGBTQ rights. But it was an important opportunity for local activists to start saying some of our new realities out loud: that we’re about to have a president that seems determined to level Gaza, deport both documented and undocumented immigrants, undermine worker power, and continue to allow cops to kill with impunity. 

Perhaps unsurprisingly, though, not everyone left feeling hyped. The protest lacked the same energy that they harnessed in the wake of Trump’s election eight years ago, or even some of the other protests around the country this weekend. The calls to action—“resist, organize, fight”—felt too vague, especially when the left has had so little success organizing on the national stage. “It felt like we went from resistance to resignation and that this was just perfunctory," one attendee said. 

But we’re also only six days into this new paradigm. And we captured what promises to be the first protest of many as Seattle’s left finds their footing, and their energy. 

The Stranger's morning news round-up. by Ashley Nerbovig

Goooooood morning: The National Weather Service predicts a 50% chance of rain today, with a breezy evening ahead. Meteorologists expect wind speeds to possibly top 29 miles per hour, so batten down your rotting porch pumpkins people!

Time to talk dollars: Want to tell the City Council how to spend your tax dollars? Go to public comment tonight at 5 pm at City Hall. Or you can participate remotely. You can go to tell them to support a capital gains tax, or oppose cuts to tenant services. Or tell the Council to respect the Jumpstart spend plan and actually use the payroll tax to pay for affordable housing, as it was intended. Check back on the blog for more coverage of the budget from Hannah. 

ICYMI: With the blowout loss for former Council Member Tanya Woo, Hannah tells City Council Member Sara Nelson to count her days. Local politicos plan to mount a serious challenge to the conservative Council President Nelson next year in the hopes of ousting her and her pro-cop, pro-business agenda out of office.

Rob Saka Seeks Street Car phase-out: Saka proposed phasing out the South Lake Union streetcar and redirecting the funding to bus service in the City. The budget for the street car is about $4.4 million, which isn't a whole lot of money when you consider Saka wants $2 million to remove the Delridge median so he can take a left turn.

Last week, the Office of Police Accountability (OPA) completed its investigation into Seattle Police Department (SPD) Officer Kevin Dave, who hit and killed 23-year-old Jaahnavi Kandula as she crossed through a crosswalk in January 2023. The OPA found Dave violated the department's driving policies as well as its policies requiring officers to follow the law. The City must hold a Loudermill hearing for Dave, which allows him to tell his side of the story before deciding on his discipline, so it may be a couple months before we know the final outcome. In the meantime, Dave continues to fight the traffic ticket Republican City Attorney Ann Davison issued him for his killing of Kandula. Seattle Municipal Court shows Dave's next hearing is scheduled for 8:30 am on December 18 in courtroom 301. 

BREAKING: OPA concluded its investigation into SPD Officer Kevin Dave on Friday and sustained policy violations for breaking the law and vehicle operation. Next step will be deciding discipline for him.

— Ashley Nerbovig (@AshleyNerbovig) November 11, 2024

What's your plan for this week anyway? Maybe you're checking out Christmas Dive Bar? Or maybe it's too soon? Maybe you're trying to enjoy something with more Thanksgiving vibes? Well, as always, our sister publication EverOut has you covered with the top 41 things to do this week in Seattle.

Republicans likely to control the US House: As it stands, Republicans have won 214 seats in the House, with Democrats at 205, and 16 races yet to be called. To control the House, Republicans need only to pick up another four seats, which they seem highly likely to do. Congress returned to Washington this week, ready to start setting Trump's right-wing agenda into motion.

Trump plans to pick Senator Marco Rubio for Secretary of State: The worst people in American continue to jockey for a position in Trump's new administration, with Florida Republican Rubio possibly securing the role of America's top diplomat, according to Politico. We're sure to hear more names in the coming days, including people such as Tiffany Justice, co-founder of Moms for Liberty, who Trump may consider for Secretary of Education. The nightmare continues. 

Israel kills 14 in Gaza: Two Israeli strikes killed 14 people in an area Israel had mostly declared to be a humanitarian zone. The deaths included at least two children, according to the Associated Press. 

Migos’ “Bad And Boujee” (Feat. Lil Uzi Vert): Been a minute since I checked out Tom Breihan's the Number Ones column, and I'm glad I plumbed it for a song today because I normally wouldn't think about Migos around holiday season, but that's when "Bad and Boujee" climbed to the number one spot on the charts, so I suppose that makes it a holiday classic.

Freakout Festival was back in full force this weekend, featuring over 100 bands at seven venues. For their twelfth go around, the traditionally Ballard-only festival invited the good folks of Fremont along for the ride. While we sincerely wish we could have attended every set, that was literally impossible. But we still managed to groove with some wildly far-out bands—and lucky for you, we’re here to freak and tell. Here’s some of our favorites from the weekend. by Brittne Lunniss

Freakout Festival was back in full force this weekend, featuring over 100 bands at seven venues. For their twelfth go around, the traditionally Ballard-only festival invited the good folks of Fremont along for the ride. From November 7–10, Tractor Tavern, the Sunset, Conor Byrne, Ballard Smoke Shop, Salmon Bay Eagles Club, Nectar Lounge, and High Dive hosted international, national, and local performers. The predominantly psych-rock festival welcomed heavy-hitting touring acts like the Black Angels, Flamin’ Groovies, and Black Lips—as well as hometown heroes Biblioteka, TeZATalks, Shabazz Palaces, and Acid Tongue, just to name a few. The Mad Alchemy Light Show (an analog liquid light show produced by Lance Gordon) worked their magic to provide trip-worthy psychedelic visuals, and you were never too far from a mosh pit. If this sounds like a place where you do mushrooms in faux fur and crowdsurf through a lava lamp… it absolutely is. 

While we sincerely wish we could have attended every set, that was literally impossible. (Trust me, I tried and was very offended by the rules of science.) But we still managed to groove with some wildly far-out bands—and lucky for you, we’re here to freak and tell. Here are some of our favorites from the weekend.

Seaside Tryst / Thursday / Ballard Smoke Shop

Seaside Tryst (which is what the band describes as a gayer way of saying “sex on the beach”) commanded Ballard Smokeshop’s stage Thursday night. Hailing from Olympia, the new wave-indie-twang-goth conglomerate earned their festival spot after winning the Freakout Weekender battle of the bands earlier this year. Best described as the lovechild of Orville Peck and Future Islands’s Samuel T. Herring, frontperson Avery Kanode is the moody queer cowboy of our dreams. Sauntering across stage while clutching his pearls, Kanode flirted with band members and doe-eyed the audience during crowd favorite “Ghoulfriend,” a song about gender-neutral love in the afterlife. Synth player Frankie Champagne periodically left their keys station to dance in front of the audience, Ryan Pangilinan (donning a yellow “No One Is Treading on You, Big Guy” tank) held it down on bass and backing vocals, and Jesse Peoples on drums. The foursome will be playing Ballard again on December 1 at Sunset Tavern–which, for one night, is about to become Seattle’s twangiest, twinkiest new-wave goth club. 

Valgur / Thursday / Salmon Bay (Lower Level)

Post-punk Oaxacan sibling-duo Valgur was a fever dream I didn’t want to wake up from. Their lyrics are in Spanish, but Valgur communicated a story that didn’t require translation. In what appeared to be a tale of youth, the siblings entered the stage joyfully, interacting playfully with one another. After a mid-set game of pat-a-cake, their youthful naivety began to wane—facial expressions and body language becoming heavy, sad. Elizabeth held a teddy bear and gazed dolefully at the floor prior to taking out a cell phone during their song “Vanidad.” The song begins with an unsettling synth and swells into a videogame-worthy electronic beat. A driving bass rhythm makes you feel rushed, like someone running past you on an airport walkway. Elizabeth turned away from the audience, holding her phone high enough for those in front to see the screen. She began frantically scrolling through Instagram and playing videos of herself. Valgur later explained the song was about hyper-fixating on the internet and caring too deeply about how others perceive you there. Just like their set, Valgur’s latest album, ARMEGGEDON, is a synth-pop commentary on religion, violence, and the downfalls of modernity. 

Carrion Kids / Friday / Sunset Tavern

Mexico City’s punk rock hellions Carrion Kids coated Sunset Tavern in blood, sweat, and beers Friday night. The band has become a staple of Freakout Fest, and for good reason. For several Freakouts now, attendees have flocked to Carrion Kids sets for moshing, crowd surfing, and, if you’re lucky, screaming into front-person Micki Navajas’s mic. Decked in red lipstick, blue eyeshadow, and facepaint, he wore a wrestling onesie with a bolo tie hung loosely around his neck. Known for his on-stage shock value, he frequently enters the crowd, contorting his body on the ground and even vomiting on himself. With raging guitar, aggressive foundation, and an avant-garde cast of characters, Carrion Kids is best described as a sensory experience. The group, who says they’re heavily inspired by Devo, is currently on their “Shit Storm West Coast Tour” with Mexico’s wildly eccentric Silverio.

Hate Knife / Friday / Salmon Bay (Lower Level)

Seattle trash-punk gremlins Hate Knife ripped through Salmon Bay Low on Friday night. The band is loud, raunchy, and funny. With songs like “I Miss Sex” and “Knuk Tats,” Hate Knife consists of the best kind of punks—ones that never take themselves too seriously. Reminiscent of groups like Static Vision, Hot Tubs Time Machine, and Gustaf, Hate Knife is like that point in a college party where the police arrive and everyone runs out the backdoor. Inappropriate and frenzied, Hate Knife is a newer Seattle band that continues to blaze their own path. The group earned their way to Freakout Fest as was one of the Freakout Weekender battle of the bands participants. You can look forward to new music on other random yet heavily relatable topics in the new year. Catch them on December 7 at Lucky Dime if you, too, enjoy sex and knuck tats. 

TeZATalks / Saturday / Salmon Bay (Upper Level)

Hardcore popstar TeZATalks ate the entirety of Salmon Bay Saturday night. Leaving zero crumbs, TeZA performed music from her newly released album, Black Girl American Horror Story. A blend of alternative, rap, and electronic, TeZA (Tasia Thomas) has become a pioneer of the Seattle nu-wave scene. In fishnet tights and a singular yellow contact lens, TeZA performed creepy-catchy hits like “ELVIRA,” in which she sings, “I’m the monster underneath your bed / I’m the reason why your parents told you to be scared.” The genre-bending Seattleite, similar to Tokyo Project and Boon, took a moment mid-set to exclaim, “Change the state of this country or we’re all gonna fucking die,” before a mosh pit broke out during her rowdy anthem “BREAKSHIT.” A Sonic Guild grant recipient, the politically charged TeZA uses her music to incite rage, protest, and a sense of community. One thing is for certain: don’t sleep on TeZA Talks—she may just crawl out from under your mattress and bite you.

The Black Angels / Saturday / Salmon Bay (Upper Level)

Under a sea of liquid light, Austin’s the Black Angels headlined Salmon Bay High on Saturday night. The psych-rock legends, influenced by the likes of Black Sabbath and Led Zeppelin, played a 21-song set, featuring hits across their discography. Fan favorites like “Entrance Song” and “Young Men Dead” sent crowd members into a hypnotic, head-banging sway. With trance-inducing tempos and fuzzy reverb, It’s easy to lose yourself in the retro groove of The Angels. While their musicality alone is worth the listen, it’s the Black Angels’s lyrics that speak rock ‘n’ roll. Focusing on themes of environmental destruction, social action, and political divide, the Black Angels felt extra relevant this Freakout season, with lyrics like, “Empires falling, it’s history on repeat. Our nations pleading from street to bloody street.” The Black Angels provide a mighty reminder of the political, cultural, and social impact of music. Fueled by resistance and counterculture, the Black Angels transported us to the heartbeat of psych rock.

With one of their largest lineups yet, it’s clear that Freakout Fest isn’t going anywhere anytime soon. More than ever, this year showcased the impact of alternative music movements. Bands used their place on stage to draw attention to the current fuckery of global destruction derived from broken political systems. Festival-goers often turned to each other during sets, nodding their heads in agreement at lyrics that may have previously drifted out the door. The weekend served as a stunning reminder of the social impact (and responsibility) of music to speak to the masses. Long live Freakout, and long live rock ‘n’ roll.

"These pigs locked me up to see what color I'd rot into!" by Suzette Smith

Like any fan of Seattle hardcore band the Blood Brothers, I have found myself at a show, pressed up against a wall of people, shouting the wrong lyrics to their songs. For instance, on their hit "USA NAILS" there's a hook where you think you're singing a cheer-style "one, one, and two!" but the lyrics are actually: "These pigs locked me up to see what color I'd rot into!"

The energetic screamo group was active from 1997-2007, during which time they released five critically-acclaimed albums, completed several European tours, and even played a set on Jimmy Kimmel Live, overcoming the reservations of the show's freaked-out producers. Perhaps the best indicator of their success is the fact that their US reunion tour—which hits Seattle on November 14 and 15—is selling out in several cities.

Ever ones to cut the bullshit, Blood Brothers don't have a new record; they're playing the fucking hits. Still, the tour is timed with Epitaph's anniversary reissue of one of their biggest albums Crimes (2004) on vinyl.

When we sat down to talk to Johnny Whitney, who fronts the band with fellow singer/screamer/guttural whisperer Jordan Blilie, he noted that plenty of lyrics websites list incorrect verses for Blood Brothers songs. "It's hilarious how wrong some of them are," Whitney said. "The lyrics on Spotify are not even close to what I'm actually saying. Just buy the fucking CD, and look it up. Come on, people."

We spoke with Whitney and Blilie separately, over sprawling phone calls that we have organized into this piece. For clarity, we're listing their responses together, as we seek to get into the nitty gritty of this group's  danceable, screaming-nightmare material.

Foremost, Whitney and Blilie both began by gushing about the other three members of their band: frenetic drummer Mark Gajadhar, vigorous guitarist Cody Votolato, and ultra-versatile bassist Morgan Henderson, who is currently best known as a member of Fleet Foxes.

"I cannot fucking believe that I got to work with these guys," Whitney says. "I just took all those things for granted at the time. Everybody was, and still is, coming from totally different places [musically], but there was always something really special about all of us together that was there from the moment that we started."

THE STRANGER: Johnny, I've always gotten the impression that you're the major force behind the lyrics.

JOHNNY WHITNEY: I came up with the majority of the lyrics, but it certainly was collaborative between Jordan and I. I would freewrite as much as I could, to have material to draw from, and going back to those notebooks kept things as free and fresh and not contrived as possible. The drawback of that approach is the lyrics are very abstract and hard to parse direct meaning from, but that's also kind of the point. I found myself writing about the absence of answers, or the absence of concrete truths that you can hold onto.

A lot of times, my process would center around coming up with a cool idea: a song name or some common refrain that we would want to work into a song, like "Burn Piano Island, Burn." Something that has a hook or conveys an image or feeling. Then we would reverse engineer the lyrics from that.

JORDAN BLILIE: I would absolutely say that I felt like Johnny was the driver, and for good reason. He's really good. When you see someone who is in a flow state, you do your best to accentuate and collaborate, to help mold and shape and add your pieces. It was always stuff that I was really excited to dig into. It was just that rich and that vibrant. The challenge for me was what can I add to it, you know? It always pushed me to try and come up with the most creatively-inspired stuff that I could.

You two have such an engaging stage style. People would call it sassy, but that has always felt like a description from people who have never been to a play and can't recognize theater. Do either of you have a background in theater arts?

WHITNEY: I wanted to be a child actor—I actually auditioned for that movie Blank Check (1994). Actually, a year after Jordan and I met, we were both in a Jr. High production of Alice in Wonderland. He was the Mad Hatter, and I was the Mock Turtle.

BLILIE: Why would you say that? [Laughs]

"USA NAILS" was such a hit, and it involved a phone number everyone could scream. How did that come to be?

WHITNEY: The name and the "1-900-USA-NAILS" comes from the chain nail salon, but we reverse-engineered it into a song about somebody using their one phone call from the county jail to call a phone sex line. It's the idea of loneliness, disaffection, and parasocial relationships with things that exist solely for their own profit or gain.

And yet it's also danceable. There are these moments live where you have an audience of people shaking their asses and shouting "to see what color I'd rot into!" Did you start with that idea and work backwards, or just jam it into that moment of the song?

WHITNEY: At that time, the band would all sit together in a room and have a kind of song tribunal about how each part should go. Then, at some point, we'd have a semi -finished version and [Jordan and I] would just try to fit lyrics to the songs. Especially on Burn, Piano Island, Burn. Some of those songs needed an editor so bad, right? I wouldn't change a thing about it, but looking back, there are parts where it sounds like everybody's playing a different song at the same time, but it kind of works, right? And for the lyrics, sometimes we just had to make it work.

That wasn't the first time Jordan whispered his lyrics in a guttural tone, but it's one of the more emblematic, right? How did that start?

BLILIE: By necessity—I don't have much of a range, you know? I have this weird baritone. Very early on we were drawing from crust punk, where you just have two voices screaming. And we didn't put a whole lot of thought into even what the other person was doing. But then, as we continued to develop, the stuff became more complex, and there was more room for different sorts of shadings of what we could do vocally. So it was just finding out: What is it I can do other than scream at the top of my lungs?

WHITNEY: Jordan's part at the end just works right? He was very inspired by Jarvis Cocker.

BLILIE: Yeah, you can trace that right back to Pulp. If you listen to any Pulp song, there's gonna be some whispery storytelling, with the compression cranked up so you can kind of hear every lick of the lips.

<a href="https://thebloodbrothersofficial.bandcamp.com/album/burn-piano-island-burn">Burn, Piano Island, Burn by The Blood Brothers</a>

BLILIE: Some of my favorite moments of writing with Johnny are the ones that we would where we would crack each other up.

Can you give an example?

BLILIE: Every lyric of "Guitarmy." We really got a kick out of the idea of opening our major label debut with the words, "do you remember us?" Because of the audacity, the absurdity of it.

So you guys all started this band when you were in your teens.

BLILIE: Yeah, we started when we were like, 15-16.

Are there any lyrics that have not aged well, in your opinion?

BLILIE: I'm sure they're the ones that we're not playing. [Laughs.] This question reminds me of something one of my professors said. It was my first class at UCLA, Queer Lit from Walt Whitman to Stonewall. In class discussions my fellow classmates would critique writing from the 1800s for not satisfying certain criteria, and our professor would say: You cannot look at the text backwards. You have to look at it forwards. You can't apply current day criteria to something that was written when that criteria didn't even exist. You have to engage with it in the context of when it was written. I don't think anything we wrote is in a canon warranting that level of examination, but it's useful nonetheless. It's a way for me to remind myself that I was 20, and I had the tools of a 20-year-old. It helps me to not beat myself up too much about it.

WHITNEY: There's a story behind this. When we were doing the song "Camouflage, Camouflage" on Young Machetes, Jordan and I were going back and forth on the lyrics. He was like, "Yeah, I'm great with all this." But he put a line through one verse, where I say: "All the girls in Montreal are smashing skateboards in the street." And I was just like: Fuck you, dude. I'm gonna keep this in. But he was right, because it sounds stupid, and it's like, really horny and makes me want to light my skin on fire. So I'm changing it to something else, probably something different every night.

I wonder about imagery in Blood Brothers' songs that seems to be responding to beauty standards at the time. Like, in "Ambulance, Ambulance" you've got this blistering segue to the chorus: "What is love? / What is scam? / What is sun? / What is tan?"

WHITNEY: That's a double meaning. Because it's like tan—like suntan—but also tan is a blah color, right? It's like the color of a dentist's office wall. If you think of the idea of love being something that could feel on-fire, passionate, the color of a dentist's office wall is the opposite. Although, tanning does come into play in a lot of our lyrics. I've noticed as well.

Or on "Beautiful Horses" the lyrics are "gallop into your romance novels / dance atop heavy pectorals."

BLILIE: I think we were seeing an increasingly vapid culture, and we were trying to dig into that—dig into: What does it do to someone when they're bombarded by these sorts of images and messages? There was a lot of that in that writing; I can't say specifically with "Beautiful Horses," but I think "Trash Flavored Trash," would probably fit under that umbrella.

<a href="https://thebloodbrothersofficial.bandcamp.com/album/crimes-bonus-track-version">Crimes (Bonus Track Version) by The Blood Brothers</a>

In "Rats and Rats and Rats for Candy" there's an ongoing narrative of rats living inside a woman. It's like a play. There are characters. And the rats eventually chew out of her and try to find a new body to live in. I wondered if that was also about beauty standards or body dysmorphia?

WHITNEY: That song, it's about that, but it's also about manipulation, right? Not to get too personal, but I grew up with somebody who weaponized being sick—faked being sick—for their entire life in order to manipulate people and extract something they needed out of them. The character in that song is kind of a victim, but like a siren at the same time. They're trying to lure somebody in.

Is that person the rats, or are they Candy?

WHITNEY: The rats are in Candy. I mean, it's both.

What about "The Shame?" Your group resonates so much with "everything is gonna be just awful / when we're around" that you're putting it on t-shirts 20 years later. What does it mean?

WHITNEY: The whole premise of that song is having to sell yourself—how to commoditize yourself. It's about how you function in a capitalist society. You sink or swim by your ability to market yourself, make yourself desirable—whether it be in relationships, job market, blah blah blah. I've always been repulsed by that and was especially at the time we wrote it, which was in Venice Beach, while we were recording Burn, Piano Island, Burn. It was the longest time I'd ever been in LA, and that's the epicenter of being a self-salesman. That line encapsulates the feeling of being sold something. And you're in a position where, in order to survive, you have to be your own salesman.

Salesmen show up in other songs, like "The Salesman, Denver Max." That's another one that almost feels like a short story.

WHITNEY: I initially cribbed the idea for that song's lyrics from the Joyce Carol Oates short story, "Where Are You Going? Where Have You Been?" It follows a narrative of a very dangerous, predatory man in the process of stalking and kidnapping somebody. “Denver Max” was a huge, uncomfortable gamble for me, because I wrote the entire song on my acoustic guitar, recorded it to a 4-track, and then played it for the guys—totally expecting them to hate it. It was really daunting to try to contribute as a songwriter; Cody, Morgan, and Mark are such talented musicians. I think they may have hated it; I don't really remember how we ended up recording it. It was nobody's favorite thing, but we just tracked it, and it sounded great and worked.

Have you read anything by playwright Caryl Churchill?

WHITNEY: Never heard of her.

"Live at the Apocalypse Cabaret" has a lyric in it that reminds me of her play Far Away, which has a scene of milliners making hats for people to wear at a public execution, so I always felt a symmetry there, because of the lyrics "the cross-eyed map of the afterlife is knitting tiny neck ties." 

WHITNEY: I'm going to be super honest, the songs that I'm the most familiar with the lyrics of, at this very moment, are songs that were going to be playing, because I've been rehearsing them. But I do remember, with that song, we were trying to be funny without being silly. Like, a cross-eyed map is a map that makes no sense, where you don't know where you're going. Knitting tiny neckties are noose ties. It's like dressing yourself up for death, right? It's trying to dress up something that's really heinous and horrible and incomprehensible, and also trying to navigate that, through a map that makes no sense.

At this moment you have cracked my understanding of a play you haven't even read. But I digress, I've read that "Celebrator" was a direct response to Toby Keith's "Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue."

BLILIE: That pumped up patriotism felt gross when taken in context with the images and much of the information that we were seeing come out of Iraq and Afghanistan.

Is that why there are so many mentions of amputated limbs on Crimes?

BLILIE: The bulk of Crimes was trying to engage with war so that's where you get a lot of that grizzly imagery.

Well, personally, it's so nice that you're touring right now. Blood Brothers are great for when you need to scream, but you can't. You can scream along to the Blood Brothers in your head, or out loud at a show.

BLILIE: I'm glad that we could be of service, in that regard. It's hard for me not to go into a really bleak mindset when I look at our current political landscape. I find myself equal parts enraged and terrified. And there are times when I have to just close all news down. I guess it is a good time to get up and scream.

The Blood Brothers play the Showbox Thurs, Nov 14 and Fri, Nov 15. Thursday's show is all ages, and Friday's is 21+. 

This story was originally published in our sister paper, Portland Mercury.

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