TDP SEASON 1 FINALE: Trapped In The ‘Zoid! (feat. Miiko Valkonen)

Welcome to the Tape Deck Podcast’s Season 1 Finale!! Since early February this year we’ve managed to push out (nearly) an episode a week, and we figure now it’s time for us take a step back and work on making the podcast even better! We’ll be gone for just a couple of months, and then we’ll be back with new guests, new topics, better stuff all around!! If you’ve been listening until now, thank you so much for sticking with us since the beginning as we’ve been getting used to our sea legs, it means the word to us!

Anyway, today’s podcast features Miiko Valkonen of Seattle’s Don Forgetti, as we talk about The ‘Zoid, a U-District DIY festival that occurred the weekend prior. Join us as we talk about the impetus behind its creation, as well as the behind-the-scenes work that allowed the festival to take place.

Also, I realized this as I was editing the episode down, but I completely forgot to talk about a lot of the stuff that made the ‘Zoid special, including that alien abduction! I’m stupid! Here’s a small summary of what happened there:

-Picture this: you’re about six full sets in and you’ve wandered into the front yard of this house with a porch that’s been set up into a stage. There’s this strange dome assembled out of cloth and pipes that’s been set up above everyone’s heads like a giant water tower, and when you realize what its for there’s a wave of excitement mixed with a sudden urge to get out fro underneath it, just in case. Velvet Q’s set starts, and they stun, playing like they just arrived from this makeshift UFO, riffing and screaming like they just synthesized the entirety of Frank Zappa’s discography in two minutes. Then guitarist Rebecca Henry sits at the keyboard and embraces the alien role entirely, singing stark words into two vocoders as an organ rings out. It’s silly and moving and monolithic, and when she suddenly leaves the keys to walk toward the black drapes of the UFO’s abduction beam, the band picks up the slack. The excitement builds during the set-up, and then the pieces come together one by one: the bright light illuminating the drapes, the smoke pouring out of the bottom, and Henry, clothes nearly shed and suspended by a cloth rope, twirling and bending and increasingly rapid speeds. She was being abducted. As she climbed upward into the body of the improvised spacecraft and the song slid to a halt, a band with a reputation for theatrics somehow managed to top themselves. At a HOUSE SHOW.

Also check out all these bands!
–Actionesse
–Antonioni
–Artem/s
–Baywitch
–Bear Axe
–Black Ends
–Dogbreth
–Drew Martin
–Fabulous Downey Brothers
–Flesh Produce
–Fruit Juice
–Gestalt
–iji
–Laser Beam
–Lydia Lund (of Chastity Belt)
–Plum
–Powerbleeder
–Salt Lick
–Screaming Multitudes
–Smack Talk
–Sunday Night Heat
–Tres Leches
–Wednesdays

Intro/outro music: “saffron” by sunking
Buy their album here!

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