Category Archives: News

Big Al Brewing & Sassparilla!

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Usually we take the month of August off. In fact, in the past, we’ve taken most of the summer off, but this summer kicked off with a bang….in a bad way…and we found ourselves playing a ton in June, which led to us booking a show in July, which led to us booking two shows in August, so no rest for the wicked or the bad….things that is.

We played Big Al Brewing in White Center last year as part of their Summer Concert Series and had an absolute blast so we were honored to be asked back. We’ll be gracing their stage this Saturday, August 4th. It’s just us all night, or at least until 10pm with things kicking off around 6:30pm. Because they are technically a tasting room, they can have kids there and adults can drink as well so it’s a great deal for south end parents: free show, all-ages, adult beverages, surly drunks with accordions and banjos on stage, food carts and Zippy’s Burgers down the street. Plus, we’ve been known to bump our favorite 60s and 70s ska, rocksteady and reggae classics between sets so it’s a guaranteed good time. Hope to see you all there.

Now, I know a lot of you don’t live in the south end and adhere to a later schedule and are adverse to the presence of children. Don’t worry, we understand. That’s why we were excited to get added to this last minute bill with our good buddies from Portland, Sassparilla at the High Dive on Friday, August 17. This will be your more typical Bad Things gig with us headlining in the wee hours after way too many PBRs, Jim Beams on the rocks and…ahem…herbal performance enhancements. It’s always tough to follow Sassparilla because they put on a kick-ass show. Plus, opening the night will be the really high-quality twang of Jackrabbit, who we are new to but already big fans of. So, despite having to weave through the Friday night douchebags in Fremont to get to the High Dive, this is guaranteed to be a kick-ass night of amazing drinking music. Check out this video of Sassparilla busking at Folklife last year and you’ll get an idea of what I’m talking about.

Fire Fundraiser on #Indiegogo is Live!

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Many of you know that back in May, The Bad Things lost their beloved practice space and a large amount of equipment and memorabilia to an overnight fire (see more here). Given all the recent tragedies that have struck our music scene here in Seattle, we have been  slow at organizing a way to recoup some of our losses. But, today we are launching an Indie Go Go campaign to help us replace some of our lost equipment so that we can proceed with our plans to record our fourth album in the Fall.

The fundraiser features tons of great perks like a pre-released copy of the new album once it’s completed, merch, signed CDs, a night out with the band, a private show, and more. We are asking for only half of the dollar amount of what was lost since this should be enough for us to get back to business without spending the money that we’d set aside for the new release.

We’ll be running the campaign for the next couple months, so if you’re low on cash now, wait until you can comfortably contribute. If you have friends that love the band, let them know about the campaign. Spread the word, contribute, get some great stuff and know that you’re helping some folks through a very difficult time. We’ll not only pay you back with the perks, but will give you many more years of junkyard cabaret in return.

Visit the campaign page here and contribute today!

Family-friendly Bad Things?

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Summer has arrived in Seattle and last week’s show at the Rogue & Peasant kicked it in with a vengeance! We got a couple more for the summer season and the next one will happen next Saturday, July 7th at The Q Cafe in Magnolia. This is part of a great series of matinees that Artist Home is putting on that brings bands that grown-ups love into a kid-friendly environment.

As all you parents out there know, seeing great live music gets harder and harder once kids come along. It can be painful to see “kid-friendly” bands when you’re a discerning music lover with eclectic tastes. Well, no worries! These shows are for you. They happen on Saturdays between 4 and 7pm so you can rock out with your kids and then get them home in time for a proper bedtime.

Now, I know a lot of you out there have the crazy idea that we aren’t such a family friendly band, but kids love us and we promise to curtail some of our raunchier material and language. Our singer Jimmy the Pickpocket’s 17-month old boy Desmond will be rocking out in the front row with all the other kiddies so you know he’ll have to behave.

Opening the show will be one of our favorite local bands at the moment, Nu Klezmer Army so this is a no-brainer. Even if you don’t have kids you can come out, see great music and then go out for a night on the town. We only have one other show this summer and that’s not until August so come out and enjoy. You can get more information and RSVP here.

The Bad Things perform with #ska legends this Saturday!

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With The Castaways at The Neptune Theater.

Wow. What a month it’s been. Incredible lows and highs. The lows were talked about in our previous post, the highs were all the amazing celebrations of love and life we were lucky enough to have been a part of, Hales Palladium, The Neptune and then the other night at Conor Byrnes and The Tractor. Thanks to all our fellow friends and musicians that shared the stage with us. It was fantastic to have everyone together for such an important cause. Don’t forget, you can still donate by clicking on the widget to the right. The families of the victims and the lone survivor could really use it.

But, no worries, because the beat goes on and we got a show coming up this Saturday with some of our favorite rude boys. Opening the night will be Eugene’s ska kings, The Longshots and then Seattle’s own rocksteady rulers The Georgetown Orbits with an extra special appearance by none other than Lynval Golding of 2 Tone Ska legends The Specials! Also, our buddy Bill Geoghegan of Notables/Stingers/Contra Coup fame will be holding down the keys. As many know, we’re big fans of classic Jamaican music and it’s going to be a blast to get our dance on before we hit the stage. It all goes down at the Rogue & Peasant in Fremont, this Saturday, the 23rd. See you on the dance floor. More info here.

After that, on Saturday, July 7th, we got the Artist Home Family Matinee with our buddies in Nu Klezmer Army and then nothing ’til August. Summer vacation! See you guys at one of these fine events. Onwards and upwards!

RIP Drew and Joe. It’s Been Good To Know Ya’!

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Tragedy struck our Seattle music scene a week ago. We’ve been decidedly silent on the website so I wanted to include a little tribute to two good friends of The Bad Things that were taken from us in an act of senseless violence. I’m sure most of you know what we’re talking about but if you don’t, you can read about it here and read about the friends we lost here…along with the other victims of this horrific crime. As you can see by our previous post, we had just played a show with them, so this really hit home hard.

Also, tomorrow, we will be playing a tribute show to them and the other victims alongside their former band mates and musical compatriots and performers that they’d worked with. More on that here. We will also be partaking in another tribute/fundraiser at The Tractor Tavern on Tuesday, July 19th so stay tuned for more information on that. And there’s a widget on our homepage that will take you to the site where you can donate money and find out about all the fundraising events going on in Seattle for the families of those lost and for the one survivor of this horrible event.

Here’s a beautiful song recorded at Drew aka Shmootzi’s birthday party at Cafe Racer last year. Listen and cry and drink and repeat. Also, check out Jimmy the Pickpocket’s tributes to our uber-talented, fallen friends after the jump.
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Ashes

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A sad day for The Bad Things. A fire took out our Georgetown clubhouse. We loved this space. It was our home. Our safe haven for the better part of the last decade. Not only did we lose many memories, memorabilia and some equipment, our drummer Lord Kamke lost pretty much all of his worldly possessions, including his beloved drum kit.  Our good friends the Jesus Chords lost almost all of their equipment. The outpouring of support on Facebook has been overwhelming and humbling. It sounds like some fundraisers are in the works already and that means so much to all of us. We’ll be meeting in a couple days after the shock has subsided somewhat to decide how we want to proceed but we just wanted to say “THANK YOU”  from the bottoms of our hearts. It’s amazing that this little old drunken polka band can receive such an outpouring of support. It almost seems that all our naive belief in the power of art and expression weren’t in vain after all. We love you all! Ashes to ashes, Wilcor….we’ll miss you!

Record Player added to our website. Album favorites and rare tracks!

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That’s right folks! We’ve added a Record Player to our site that allows you all to listen to highlights from each of our albums and share them to your hearts content via our SoundCloud page. You can also comment on different sections of the song, so you can say “Hate that banjo solo” or “Oh god help me, not another song with accordion” or “Are you serious?” You get the picture. Just go to Record Player in the menu bar and either pick an album from the drop-down menu or click on the picture of the phonograph and it’ll take you to our SoundCloud page.

Also, there’s a section called “Rarities and Oddities” which will feature rare Bad Things tracks, live tracks, new songs….hell, we may even throw up some song ideas we’ve been kicking around. In fact, there’s a brand new song up there right now. Enjoy!

P.S. This WordPress site should soon be living at http://www.thebadthings.com. It looks promising. Cross your fingers.

Podcast Tonight. Show Friday! #SporkestraBadThingsEbola

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Well, life is certainly different now that we’re big TV stars. We can barely walk down the street without being mobbed. It’s crazy!

Not really but we can dream can’t we? If you missed the show, you can watch the highlights online. Here’s us doing Georgia Lee Is Dead. And, here we are premièring our new song Not Tonight. And here’s the whole darn show.

Tonight at 7pm, we’ll also be featured on the online radio station 1337ology Radio courtesy of our buddy Josh Black AKA Ronald McFondle’s brand new podcast Reversible Battlemat. This is their debut show and Josh will feature a musical act every week. We’re honored to be featured on their grand debut. Remember, that’s tonight, Tuesday, April 3rd at 7pm PST.

Then, of course, this Friday, we’ll be causing havoc and getting rowdy with our buddies Titanium Sporkestra at the Columbia City Theater.

Quite a week for us Bad Things!