If you are unfamiliar with King Khan & The Shrines, I’ll make it very simple for you. James Brown’s soul has been reincarnated into a Canadian (King Khan). Some of my favorite songs that the group performed were: “Land Of The Freak”, “Welfare Bread” and “I want to be a Girl”. One antic of note was when The Shrine’s saxophone player fully depantsed himself during “I want to be a Girl” and played the remainder of the song with his parts blowing freely for the entire audience to see. Although they are strange, it’s antics like the aforementioned that set apart King Khan & The Shrines from traditional Motown acts. They are Motown without the rules. The next night Mark Sultan played a show in Seattle and was accompanied by a couple members of The Shrines. We were able to chat with some of them at the show and they turned out to be incredible guys.

I caught some photos of King Khan & The Shrine’s performance. I also posted my favorite King Khan live video (thanks Punkrockvids.com). Enjoy!

Good music + good causes = a damn good reason to buy and listen to some music.

This is a two-disc compilation by the Red Hot Organization to benefit AIDS awareness, which was released in February. The tracklisting of Dark Was the Night reads like a who’s who of current indie all-stars and hell, it sounds it. Witness Yeasayer above! For the full tracklisting, charity description, some song previews, and purchasing info check the official website. Contributors Bon Iver and the Decemberists will both be playing at Sasquatch! on Saturday, May 23rd and Grizzly Bear and Beach House will be playing on Monday. Kismet!

War Child: Heroes is marketed as the ultimate cover album. No arguments here! War Child asked legendary artists like Bob Dylan, The Ramones, Blondie, and Bowie to pick a favorite song to have a “new act” cover. Proceeds go to benefit “children affected by war in Iraq, Afghanistan, Democratic Republic of Congo and Uganda.” How cool is that? And the results are magical. A cover of Iggy Pop’s Search and Destroy by Peaches? Yes, please. TV on the Radio covering Heroes by Bowie… somebody pinch me! Lilly Allen singing Straight to Hell – WTF, but AWESOME. For more info on this project and ways to purchase this compilation go to the War Child website.

School of Seven Bells are the embodiment of what I’ve always imagined sirens sound like. Much like sirens, they lure the hapless listener inexorably forward with their beautiful, ethereal voices. Only, instead of being lead to an untimely end, SVIIB leaves us with Alpinisms; a collection of 11 haunting, yet groove-worthy songs released in 2008. Their infusion of harmonic chanting with beat-driven rocktronica (err.. rock/electronica… dig it) is assuredly a note-worthy feat. Clearly, SVIIB cannot be easily categorized.

School of Seven Bells has quite an interesting history. They formed when Benjamin Curtis of the Secret Machines and the identical twins Alejandra and Claudia Deheza of On! Air! Library! met on tour and decided to quit their respective bands and make beautiful music – a solid choice. The band is named after a mythical South American school for pickpockets. Their process is very lyrically driven as Benjamin comments in an interview with NPR “the sound is usually inspired by the words, rather than vice versa,” Curtis adds. “We always do the vocals first in this band. That’s a really big deal for us.”

I happened to see them live with Bat for Lashes about a week back. SVIIB sound great live and it was quite amusing to watch Benjamin entirely engrossed in rocking the guitar in-between the relatively calm twins. I am considering seeing them again in a couple of weeks, they were that good. They are currently touring Europe, but will begin an American tour in late May. Indeed, they will be playing Sasquatch! Festival. Sigghhh. Missing Sasquatch! is one of the major disadvantages to London life. You can see SVIIB’s complete tour schedule on their lovely myspace as well as a cool tour blog on their website.