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7pm doors, 8pm showAll ages welcome
The Young Fresh Fellows
For a band approaching its fifth decade, the Young Fresh Fellows have never sounded less interested in nostalgia. If Loft feels like it exists slightly outside of time-part document, part reinvention, part living, breathing experiment-that's because it was born from motion rather than reflection. The record did not emerge from a carefully planned writing cycle or a deliberate attempt to commemorate the band's past. Instead, Loft arrived the way so many of the Fellows' most enduring moments have: unexpectedly, collaboratively, and with an almost stubborn insistence on forward momentum.
The story of Loft begins, fittingly, during another anniversary. In 2024, Scott McCaughey, Jim Sangster, and Kurt Bloch took the Young Fresh Fellows back on the road to celebrate the 40th anniversary of The Fabulous Sounds of the Pacific Northwest, touring behind a newly remixed edition of their 1984 debut. With drummer John Perrin stepping in for longtime bandmate Tad Hutchison, the tour was both a tribute and a transition-a reminder of what the band had been and a test of what it might still become. Night after night, the Fellows proved they were not interested in embalming their catalog. These were living performances, sharpened by decades of shared instincts and newly energized by Perrin's presence behind the kit.
Somewhere between show load-ins, long drives, and the physical wear that comes with touring, the idea of recording again emerged-not as a plan, but as an opportunity. On the band's lone day off, they found themselves at the Loft in Chicago: Wilco's recording studio, rehearsal space, and vast warehouse of instruments. The Loft is the kind of place that invites music simply by existing-a maze of guitars, keyboards, amps, and half-forgotten sonic possibilities. With no gear of their own in tow, the Fellows plugged into what was available, picked up instruments they didn't overthink, and began recording.
What followed was a full album tracked in roughly eight hours.
At first, the intention was modest. McCaughey arrived with a folder of half-formed songs-lyrics scribbled in notebooks, melodies preserved as phone voice memos, chord structures waiting to be tested in real time. The band assumed they might cut a handful of tracks, maybe enough for an EP. Instead, once the tape started rolling, the familiar Fellows momentum took over. One song led to another. Ideas crystallized as soon as they were played. Decisions were made instinctively and rarely revisited. By the end of the day, they had recorded eleven songs, most of them captured in one or two takes, always using the final pass.
That initial session became the first incarnation of Loft: a raw, in-studio document released exclusively at three Pacific Northwest shows in April 2025. That version-sometimes referred to as Loft: Stage 1-plays like a cinéma vérité snapshot of a great band operating on muscle memory and trust. Sequenced in the order the songs were recorded, it preserves the arc of the day itself: the tentative early moments, the tightening groove, the gradual exhaustion, and the quiet beauty of its final piano-led track. It is unfiltered, unadorned, and unmistakably alive.
But Loft did not stop there.
Once that live document existed, it freed the band to imagine something else entirely. If one version of Loft could serve as a snapshot, why not create another that explored how far the same material could stretch? This second version reveals Loft as something closer to a stage production than a standard rock album. It opens with an "Overture," closes with "Exit Music," and even includes an "Entr'acte" to close out side one. These cinematic flourishes are not affectations so much as extensions of McCaughey's lifelong habit of filtering inspiration from films, books, and cultural detritus into his songwriting. The album unfolds like a performance, acknowledging its own artifice while still grounding itself in the sound of a band playing together.
Musically, Loft may be one of the most expansive records the Young Fresh Fellows have ever made. It moves effortlessly from sharp-edged punk ("I'm a Prison") to hushed balladry ("Books Don't Burn Twice"), from jazz-tinged waltzes ("Harpoon in the Hay") to deeply personal meditations ("Before the Deluge"). While the band's garage-rock roots remain intact, they are no longer a boundary. Instead, Loft embraces elegance, restraint, and unpredictability in equal measure, mirroring the way the Fellows have always approached the stage: nothing is off-limits if it feels right.
That sense of openness extends to the album's personnel. While the core band provides the spine of the record, Loft features an unusually rich cast of guest collaborators, many of them longtime friends. Jonathan Segel (Camper Van Beethoven), Neko Case, Morgan Fisher (Mott the Hoople), Peter Buck (R.E.M.), John Stirratt (Wilco), Jenny Conlee-Drizos (The Decemberists), Steve Berlin, and others appear throughout the album, adding strings, horns, harmonies, and textures that broaden the emotional palette without overwhelming it. Crucially, these contributions never feel ornamental. They are woven into the fabric of the songs, enhancing rather than distracting from the band's chemistry.
That balance-between polish and spontaneity, precision and looseness-is at the heart of Loft. Some tracks retain demos recorded on McCaughey's famously out-of-tune piano. Others feature lush string arrangements or layered harmonies assembled remotely and stitched together later. Yet even in its most ornate moments, the album still feels like it was made by people in a room together, reacting to one another in real time. That sensation is anchored by the original Loft sessions, whose live backbone remains audible beneath every subsequent overdub.
Loft also marks a turning point for the band's rhythm section. With Tad Hutchison stepping away after decades behind the kit, John Perrin makes his recording debut with the Fellows here-and immediately sounds like he belongs. A lifelong fan of the band and a former member of NRBQ, Perrin brings a lighter, more nimble touch that subtly reshapes the group's feel. On tracks like "Harpoon in the Hay," his interplay with Jim Sangster explores rhythmic territory the band has rarely ventured into before. Sangster, meanwhile, remains the album's quiet anchor, his bass lines guiding songs with a sense of patience and purpose earned over years of playing together.
Kurt Bloch's contributions are nothing short of remarkable. Despite battling illness and what he later described as "total brain fog and misery" during the session, Bloch delivered some of the finest guitar work of his career-often in single takes he barely remembers recording. His lead parts throughout Loft are varied, melodic, and deeply intentional, whether cutting sharply through punk arrangements or drifting gracefully alongside strings and piano. Bloch even expands his role further by contributing saxophone, most notably on the reimagined version of "Harpoon in the Hay."
At the center of it all is McCaughey's songwriting, which feels both restless and reflective without ever tipping into self-conscious retrospection. Songs like "Before the Deluge" stand among the most emotionally resonant he has written, while tracks such as "Three Gasconading Saints" revel in linguistic curiosity and surreal imagery. Elsewhere, Loft showcases McCaughey's ongoing willingness to reshape his own work-rewriting lyrics, reassigning vocal leads, and allowing songs to evolve across formats. "Destination," sung primarily by Neko Case, becomes the first Fellows recording to feature a non-member as lead vocalist, not as a marketing move but because it simply sounded right.
Even the album's visual presentation reflects this philosophy. The Loft cover art deliberately echoes the band's 1985 album Topsy Turvy, released exactly 40 years earlier. But rather than a pristine recreation, the homage is faded, weathered, and imperfect-an acknowledgment not of decline, but of lived experience. The resemblance is there if you look for it, but the message is clear: the Young Fresh Fellows are not interested in preserving their legacy in amber. They honor it by continuing to work.
Ultimately, Loft is less a statement than a process made audible. It captures a band choosing creation over commemoration, curiosity over certainty. In an era dominated by metrics, algorithms, and endless digital content, the Young Fresh Fellows remain defiantly uninterested in chasing relevance. They release multiple versions of the same album because it amuses them. They sell records at shows because that's where their community lives. They make music because, quite simply, they still love doing it.
That love is audible in every corner of Loft. It's there in the rough edges left intact, the unexpected turns, the quiet confidence of a band that knows exactly who it is-and doesn't feel the need to prove it. Forty-plus years in, the Young Fresh Fellows aren't looking back so much as looking around, picking up the nearest instrument, and seeing what happens next.
Girl Trouble
Girl Trouble played their first show in March, 1984 for a Battle of the Bands at Fort Steilacoom Community College. They came in second. Coming in second has been the life blood of one of the longest running bands in the Pacific Northwest. Their motto? "See us now, or see us later, eventually you'll have to see us". Simply wearing people down has been a successful career strategy for this Tacoma foursome. They've released albums on most every independent record label in the PNW, toured the US, Canada and Europe, published 24 Wig Out! fanzines, and are featured in the documentary "Strictly Sacred, The Story of Girl Trouble".
For Girl Trouble's 40th anniversary celebration, the band has selected a series of special guest singers to open the show. These amazing vocalists will take turns performing a Girl Trouble song with the band. A regular Girl Trouble set will follow and, time permitting, an all-cover dance set will close the show.
Dale, KP, Kahuna and Bon say: We hope you can join us for this special night of head-bobbing, finger-snapping, toe-tapping entertainment.
GIRL TROUBLE is a long-running rock band from Tacoma, Washington, including KP Kendall (vocals), Kahuna (guitar), Dale Phillips (bass) and Bon Von Wheelie (drums). Playing their first show on March 9th, 1984 they have gone on to release vinyl albums and singles on Northwest labels K, Sub Pop, PopLlama, eMpTy and their own Wig Out! label. They've played in just about every Pacific Northwest venue with most every band you've ever heard of, striving to "put on a show" every time they take the stage. In addition to records the band also published 24 issues the fanzine Wig Out! Girl Trouble has toured US, Canada and Europe and continue to play shows all over the Pacific Northwest. They are in the process of releasing a compilation of various songs that have been recorded over the years. This is their 39th year of rock.
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Spanish Ballroom, 565 Broadway, Tacoma, WA 98402-3907, United States
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