Bloglander

Damn, the Globes sure have come grown up. A band that took one of our “Buzzworthy” crowns back in 2007 (in which we said their “mature and distinctive sound belies their age”), they made the rounds of the RAWK Final Four and BOBfest back in the day, and now they have gotten what so many young Spokane bands dream of: a record deal.

Barsuk Records — home to David Bazan, Mates of State, Rilo Kiley and Dismemberment Plan — had been following the band for a while. But they came calling with a deal when the band’s latest record, Sinter Songs, came out.

We got on the phone today with Erik Walters (guitar/vox), as the band drove to their gig tonight in Dallas, to hear about the record deal, how the band has evolved since its early days, and their surprise move back to Spokane.

The last time we interviewed you guys was back in 2008. Catch me up on the last two years.
Well, we moved to Seattle after the majority of us graduated from high school. We got a house together and we just started working on new material. We were figuring out how to be a band as a four-piece. Our main motive for moving to Seattle was to expand our horizons a little bit and challenge ourselves in a bigger city. We played as much as we could and toured here and there. And over the course of a year we managed to write 11 songs that we were happy with.
I guess about a year and a half after we moved to Seattle, we met Josh Rosenfeld from Barsuk, and he started coming to our shows and we developed a relationship with him. He seemed very interested in us, but we weren’t exactly sure if we’d be working with them.

Through some connections that we had with him and mutual friends, we ended up getting ahold of John Goodmanson (Blonde Redhead, Death Cab for Cutie, Unwound) to produce [Sinter Songs]. We spent October through December of last year working on our full-length record. And when Josh heard the record, he was ecstatic about it, and he made the decision then that he wanted to sign us. ---

You just went on tour with Menomena — what was that like?

Yeah, for a week in the Midwest. It was great. They're very sweet guys, very talented — a great band. The shows were a lot of fun. It sucks being out with a band like that for that short of a time because you don’t get to get to know them as long as you’d like. It was a very good experience, though. And we’re on our 11th show with Minus the Bear. We’re headed to Dallas right now. We’re not home til December 18, and we started in Chicago on October 10.

Holy crap. That's a really long time to be gone.
Yeah, it’s been great so far, though. We all know each other really well — we’re used to each other, so being in the van for that long isn’t a problem. It’s gone by very quickly, actually.

How has living in Seattle helped or hindered your band?
It’s tough because there’s so many bands there. It’s really hard to get your foot in the door. I don’t really feel like Seattle is that big, to be honest. But the music community is so thriving. It’s every night, everywhere — there’s something going on. There’s bands coming through. There’s something to do and someone to meet and someone to go see. More than anything it’s just a good place just to meet people and develop relationships. But if you’re not 21 … that was a problem for us when we first moved over. We couldn’t go out and make these relationships with people because we weren’t 21. That was tough. That’s what made us really focus on writing and acclimate to the city and the lifestyle and living to together and playing all the time.

Do you feel like being from Spokane influenced you as artists?
I think it definitely has influenced us. We’re all really proud to be from Spokane. Even when we moved to Seattle we were, like, 'We’re not a Seattle band, we’re a Spokane band that lives in Seattle.' Spokane’s not a perfect city by any means — no place is. But it’s cool to be proud of where you’re from. And I feel that Spokane is a unique and interesting place. I think it’s had an impact on the music we make and who we are. It’s the root of where we’re from and why we’re together making music.

I should say, we actually moved back to Spokane about a month ago.

What?! I didn't know that.
When [we last talked] we were still on the fence about it. We moved back about a month before we left for this tour, as a way for us to kind of have a home base for awhile while we’re out on the road, because it’s so damn expensive in Seattle. It's great being back and it’s cool to see our families. We’re doing it on the cheap, but our families are really supportive. Even though we lived in Seattle for a couple years, we never stopped feeling like Spokane was home.

Well, the votes are in. We got plenty of very sharp (and some pretty entertaining) guesses as to what we destroyed this week on Lunches and Punches, where the food came from, and how we destroyed it. But our first and best guess came from Bloglander reader Allison Beall, who takes home $10 toward a meal at O’Doherty’s. 

Is your curiosity piqued? 

Watch the carnage:

A big thanks to Allison and everybody else who voted. An even bigger thanks to the enthusiastic people from An Dochas, the Flying Irish Running Club and O’Doherty’s, who were — it never ceases to amaze us — totally game to do this with us.

Check out more food madness.

Long before the Twilight and Saw films took over big screens, there was another monster in the house. 

Performed by Max Schreck, the vampire Nosferatu terrified audiences around the globe in the film by the same name, directed by F.W. Murnau in 1921. Released in Germany in 1922, Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror is now considered a masterpiece and the character basis for many filmic vampires to follow — including Gary Oldman’s interpretation of Count Dracula and even the glittery lovesick ones. The film classic will be shown at 9 pm this evening.

If Schreck’s creepy interpretation of blood suckers is just too much for you, consider Boris Karloff’s performance as Cabman John Gray in the film The Body Snatcher, based on the story by Robert Louis Stevenson. Karloff plays a cabman hired to dig up fresh corpses for a surgeon. His character subsequently gets greedy and decides to commit murder in order to increase his profits. Shows this evening at 7:30 pm

If both of those films just sound way too scary, consider the comedy horror Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein. In it, the comedy duo encounter many classic monsters like Dr. Frankenstein’s monster, Dracula and the Wolf Man. This film is sure to incite more screams of laughter than terror. Shows at 6 pm.

All films playing at the Bing. Films are $5 each showing.

The sorrow came from the film freaks almost immediately. On art house film forums and listservs, people bemoaning the death — yet again — of the Magic Lantern.

Almost as quickly came the offers to help. Ideas ranged from fundraising to doorbelling (seriously) to taking it over from owner Joe Davis to, oddly, just beginning to screen films in people’s houses.

Davis has taken one of those offers.

On Friday, the Magic Lantern will reopen its doors, now under the management of Zana Morrow.

There’s a lot up in the air right now, but the theater has films booked through the week of December 10: indie darlings Mesrine (parts one and two) and The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest.

Below is the schedule for this week. (If you haven’t seen A Film Unfinished yet, you should consider it your duty to do so.)

A Film Unfinished (89 min)
Fri/Sat: 5:00, 7:00
Sun: 2:00, 4:00, 6:00 -- Mon: 6:30, 8:00
Tues-Thurs: 6:00, 7:45

American Grindhouse (82 min)
Sat: 8:35
Sun: 7:35

The Secret in Their Eyes (129 min)
Fri: 4:30, 6:50
Sat: 5:30, 7:50
Sun: 2:30, 4:50, 7:10
Mon: 7:50
Tues: 5:20, 7:35
Weds: 4:30
Thurs: 5:30, 8:00

The SpIFF Professor Series will also be returning:

Dr. Strangelove (95 min)
Wed: 7:00 (one night only

Not a ton to get excited about in film this week, besides the return of the Magic Lantern. Otherwise it’s Saw 8,000 or Ed Norton as an arsonist, presumably with a heart of gold.

SAW 3-D
Saw 3-D is also known as Saw VII 3-D, which is really all you need to know about it. They claim it’s going to be the latest in the Saw franchise, but since the last one wound up making $50 million, you probably shouldn’t hold your breath. The plot’s a little bit unclear, because there really isn’t one, but if you’ve seen one of Saws I-VI, you probably already saw this one, too. (DH) Rated R | SHOWTIMES

STONE
Norton, De Niro, Jovovich: They’re so well known, we’re going without first names here. Norton, a convicted arsonist, is trying to manipulate his parole officer, De Niro (who, as a police officer in a movie, is therefore about to retire). To seduce De Niro, Norton turns to his sexy wife, Jovovich (Ed. note: “sexy” and “Jovovich” are redundant). Things get a little heated — in more ways than one. (DH) Rated R | SHOWTIMES

It’s Thursday morning. That means it is time once again for Lunches and Punches, the weekly video series in which we take an otherwise perfectly palatable local lunch and do something just really unappetizing to it. (See last week’s video, in which we blew a Crazy G’s hot dog out of a corn cannon up on Green Bluff. For being the first to most correctly guess the combo of destruction, Bloglander reader Davianne Barber Buckley won a gift certificate to Crazy G’s.)

Now, to this week’s business:

Tell us:

• what is it,
• where did it come from,
• and how did we destroy it?

Think you know? Email joels [at] inlander [dot] com by 2 pm today. When we post the video at 2:30, revealing the answer, we’ll announce the lucky winner.

Slainte!

The case of the haunted fire truck Just four days before Halloween, an unmanned Spokane fire truck — mysteriously! — rolled 100 yards from where it was parked at the scene of a seizure call and — creepily! — plowed into the home’s porch. As if driven by a ghost! (Or left un-braked by a firefighter.) (KXLY)

More details on the latest police shooting Authorities have identified the sheriff’s deputy who fatally killed a Spokane Valley man on Sunday as 12-year veteran Rustin Olson. The victim, they say, charged Olson and his partner with a seven-inch obsidian knife. (KREM)

Lock up your Honda Nearly 70 of them have been stolen in Spokane since Oct. 19. (KHQ)

Third Tankovich trial may end today Juries are expected to deliberate today in hate crime case of two white Coeur d’Alene men accused of threatening a Mexican man. (CdA Press)

Oh, and in case you missed this:

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Barack Obama Pt. 1
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Rally to Restore Sanity

Each Wednesday on Bloglander, we give you a taste of happyhours going on at bars around town that night. (Read previous posts

Bottles of wine are half price tonight at Rain Lounge. That includes the Novelty Hill Cabernet that is normally sold for $60. Until 6 pm, well drinks are $6 per shot, select bottled beer is on sale for $2.50, select draft beer is $3 and house wine by the glass is $6. The calamari is on sale for $8. 

A few streets away, at Soulful Soups & Spirits, the wine is also half-priced. Wells are $3 per shot, Moose Drool Brown Ale by Big Sky is $3 per pint. Fireballs and the Tullamore Dew Whiskey are $4. Tonight, they are also offering a special where if you purchase your first pint of Mirror Pond Pale Ale for $5, you get to keep the glass, and refills are $3.

On the South Hill, at Waddell’s, domestic beers are are $2.50, Alaska IPA is $2.50 per pint. The chicken wings, sweet potato fries and hummus are each $5 until 5 pm.

At the Viking Amber Red Ale, Hop Trip IPA, Bud Light, Red Seal Pale Ale and Blue Moon pints are $3. The personal pizza, onion rings, and chicken quesadilla are each $5 until 6 pm.

At Tonicx, on Francis, Kari Marguerite & the 76 will perform. Hefeweizen pints are $3 and appetizers are half-priced until 5 pm.

Formally the Office Tavern, BoJAKS—still waiting for their liquor license— is offering a dollar off pitchers.

Chris Voigt is beginning to re-think his direction in life.

Voigt, executive director of the Washington Potato Commission, made a goal recently to eat only potatoes for 60 days to prove that potatoes aren’t junk food. They’re good for you! 

But now, after just a month, he says he hates it. He told MSNBC that he wishes he had set his goal a bit lower. Say, 30 days. (Too late.) 

Turns out potatoes can make a man crave other food! Like pickles! At least his blood sugar is stable.

When interviewing Gonzaga Prep’s Bishop Sankey for a story on breaking the GSL single-season rushing record this week, his verbal commitment to WSU — though he affirmed it — seemed a little shaky. He says he's still going to take visits to other schools, including the University of Washington and the University of Minnesota.

"I'm still verbally committed to WSU, but I have a good relationship with the running back coaches at some of the other schools, too," says Sankey. "They really want me, so I just want to go and see what else is out there. Make sure I'm picking a college that's truly good for me."

Sankey says his original decision to select WSU was based, at least in part, on the rapport he developed with running back coach Steve Broussard. Broussard, however, resigned the position in February to take a job as a wide receiver coach at Arizona State. Dave Ungerer, whose experience is far more rooted in special teams, was hired as the running back/special teams coach to replace him.

"I had a really good relationship with [Broussard]. But he left. I was really close to him, he was a really cool guy," Sankey says. "I just talked it over with my dad. I feel like I would be selling myself short if I don't see what else is out there."

If he's considering the University of Washington, WSU fans are just going to have to hope the grass looks greener on this side of the Cascades. I don't know exactly how they'd react to so overt a betrayal (in their eyes), but I'm guessing it wouldn't be pretty come Apple Cup.