Living in the Northwest Will Make Your Penis Bigger
 

Considering my scene is more popular than Catie's (I have Death Cab, Modest Mouse, The Shins, etc.) I'm going to focus on obscure side projects when it comes to famous musicians and then just generally unheard of bands.

Heatmiser
http://i201.photobucket.com/albums/a.../heatmiser.jpg

Heatmiser was Elliott Smith/Neil Gust's mutual project when at college but the band later relocated to Portland where they formed the line up we all don't know of today. Which would later be reconfigured to include Sam Coomes and on their final tour John Moen on drums.

Heatmiser were sonically interesting in the sense they really didn't have a set sound. They were more punky than the grunge bands when they started out but they slowly started to become many things: mostly what Elliott Smith's music would become as well as Neil Gust's. All in all they were at times kind of dull but for the most part when they wrote a good they really wrote a good song.

When the band was around they were kind of a bunch of misfits because they didn't fit in with the whole grunge trend too well and the media labeled them "Homocore" because Neil Gust was openly gay. They also weren't anywhere near as serious as the moody grunge bands around at the time, they often joked around on stage and then there was their name of course. All in all Heatmiser basically missed the success train and are more known for launching Elliott's career but they did have some influence on bands like Built to Spill and even Jimmy Eat World.





http://i38.tinypic.com/15cde77.jpg

"The music was loud and kind of aggressive sounding compared to grunge. We were more into the DC bands that were going on then. Like the Discord bands. Basically we kind of wanted to be Fugazi, you know, but we didn’t sound anything like Fugazi." - Elliott Smith

But the northeast will make your penis even bigger than that!

S
http://i201.photobucket.com/albums/a...es__/jenn2.jpg

S is the moniker of ex-Carissa's Wierd singer/songwriter Jenn Ghetto. By herself Jenn shows the more raw side of Carissa's Wierd best seen on Ugly But Honest as opposed to the more polished later work (though some songs like Sofisticated etc sound pretty much like S songs.) Her songs are very dark and even more raw and intimate than her non-solo work as unbelievable as that sounds.

She has two albums out Sadstyle and Puking and Crying. The former is much more of a raw just her and electric guitar type album while the latter has other people involved and has more going on but I don't think the songs are as strong on it. I'm pretty sure she's working on a third one and from what I've heard it's probably going to be her best yet.

I don't rate Carissa Weird as highly as you but I really like this.

hell yes.
north westerners report in.

Mini-Mix #1
Your Heart Breaks-New York (tweeish, I mean I guess)
Mirah-Don't Die In Me (top notch singer song writery)
Adrian Orange-The Real Wild World (heavily phil elverum influenced)
Unwound-Antifreeze (the early years were fun!)
Karl Blau-Into the Nada (played in D+ (with phil elverum), has a beard and all the qualifications, fun song)

It's only 15 minutes so get it.
Northwest Mix 1.zip

Hell yeah.

I'm a big fan of Mirah. C'mon Miracle was a fantastic album.

All of her stuff is really good.

I agree, but especially that album.