Just Announced! Lucky Liquor in April.

12670043_1186670031360680_8333721719566863652_nIn the 14 years of The Bad Things existence, the band has played a variety of venues; from swanky cabarets and concert halls, to music festivals, breweries, schoolhouses, underground speakeasy’s and punk rock dive bars.

The latter has always been the true spiritual home of the band however. The character’s that inhabit their songs are daily drinkers that spend their last pennies at working class bars in an effort to black out the work week. The band’s first shows were at places like the 9LB Hammer, at the time a sole outpost of underground culture in a neighborhood that Seattle forgot.

Boy have times changed. Georgetown has become a hipster mecca and true dives are becoming harder and harder to find. This in a city that once boasted some of the dingiest shit holes known to man. A port town whose central business district was once dominated by strip bars, porn and gun shops, prostitutes and hustlers. Now you’d be hard pressed to find a dive bar not filled with ironic moustaches, tweed jackets and trust funders drinking PBR and Old Crow in an attempt to mimic authentic working class culture.

That’s why this show at Lucky Liquor, a punk rock dive bar if there ever was one, feels special. Located on the far south end of Boeing Field, on the shores of the Duwamish, one of the most polluted waterways in the United States, this feels like a homecoming of sorts. A return to the real south end, yet to be compromised by gentrification and hipster entrepreneurs, to gritty old Seattle, the true spiritual home of the Bad Things universe.

It’s made even better as they’ll be joined by fellow purveyors of vintage Northwest grit: Bakelite 78 and The Mongrel Jews.

Come celebrate Friday night and bask in an irony-free haven for the real working class. This will be the real deal my friends.

The Bad Things
Bakelite 78
and The Mongrel Jews
Friday, April 22, 2016
at Lucky Liquor – 10325 E Marginal Way S, Tukwila, WA 98168
Doors at 8pm. Cover is $8 advanced/$10 at the door.

Lineup Announced for the 12th Annual Cabaret Macabre!

Cabaret Macabre LogoThat’s right kiddies. The Bad Things return to the Columbia City Theater for their annual Halloween bacchanal, Cabaret Macabre, celebrating its 12th anniversary.

This year’s lineup is set to be a humdinger, with Baby Gramps returning for his annual appearance, Balkan misfits Bucharest Drinking Team bringing their bombastic take on Eastern European party music, the gin-soaked rag-blues of The Jug Banditos and interspersed throughout the evening, burlesque and dance performance from Sinner Saint Burlesque and Miss J9 Fierce, co-producer of Cabaret Macabre. Diva Le Deviant returns as our host and closing out the night, will be your own Bad Things.

Tickets go on sale on Tuesday, September 1st at 10am at Brown Paper Tickets, unless of course you were lucky enough to attend in the past or are on The Bad Things mailing list. If that’s you, check your inbox for a special fan club pre-sale. The rest of you hang tight and get them tickets quick before they’re gone on September 1st!

Still need some convincing? Here’s us performing with J9 Fierce last year:

Cabaret Macabre Next Week!

PrintTen years ago, we had the bright idea to throw a weird-ass Halloween party. At the first Cabaret Macabre, we rolled into Georgetown after a crazy night in Portland, playing at Porky’s in Northeast with Reverend Glasseye. Our old banjo player showed up to the gig drunk and ended up attempting some acrobatics off of a table at Porky’s, which ended with him landing squarely in Glasseye’s drum kit! We always knew how to make a good impression on a national act.

So, it was with crippling hangovers that we started this now decade-old celebration in a raw, warehouse space featuring a fine collection of all our weirdo friends. The first one was ramshackle, but somehow, perfect. It was so good that there are folks that have attended every year and since then, it’s been held at Jules Mae’s in Georgetown, the Rendezvous, ACT Theater and, for the last three years, Columbia City Theater.

Here’s Iva Handfull in 2010 at the Columbia City Theater. She’ll be joining us again this year!

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10th Annual Cabaret Macabre Tickets on Sale Friday at 10am!

photoIn 2004, The Bad Things hosted the first Cabaret Macabre in a warehouse space called Jem Studios in Georgetown, now home to The Mix and other businesses. Held on Halloween, it was a night of strange costumery, drunken debauchery, sideshow splendor and junkyard sounds. The lineup included performances by Seattle Semi-Pro Wrestling, some stomach-churning suspension piercing by PURE, music from Reverend Glasseye, Dark Carny, Baby Gramps and, of course, The Bad Things, who were pulling double duty as bartenders, door staff, stage techs and security!

Here we are ten years later and most of those organizations are now defunct. Georgetown is quickly turning into a hipster mecca and the local cabaret scene has grown into a nationally recognized phenomenon. Luckily, two veterans from that faraway night are still with us, the legendary Baby Gramps and, of course, The Bad Things.

Over the past decade, The Bad Things have since hosted Cabaret Macabre in a variety of venues and neighborhoods and have featured acts from around the world. This year, in an effort to re-capture the underground party vibe of the first Cabaret Macabre, the Bad Things are taking over Capitol Hill’s FRED Wildlife Refuge for one night of dance, aerial performance, burlesque and music.

We’re also super excited to welcome back to Seattle: Miss Michele Frances! Michele has performed aerial at countless Bad Things events over the past decade. She moved to Austin about a year ago but is back for one night only to perform with us. We couldn’t be happier.

Dia De Los Muertos-themed pageantry is highly encouraged! We’ll be announcing more details on the party as they emerge but we can guarantee an immersive evening surrounded by Seattle’s favorite macabre miscreants that you won’t soon forget.

Musical Performance by:
The Bad Things
Baby Gramps
Nu Klezmer Army
and EuroDancePartyU$A! (featuring members of Nu Klezmer Army and Orkestar Zirkonium)

Dance Performance by:
Sweet Violets (Miss J9 Fierce & Diva Le Deviant)
Danse Carousel
Leslie Rosen
and Maysun

Burlesque Performance by:
Iva Handfull

Aerial Performance by:
Michele Frances (Austin, Texas)

Friday, November 1, 2013
The 10th Annual Cabaret Macabre
featuring The Bad Things, Baby Gramps,
Nu Klezmer Army and more!
FRED Wildife Refuge – 127 Boylston Avenue East
$18 advanced/$20 day of show

Advanced tickets available at 10am on Friday, August 30, 2013 via Brown Paper Tickets! We are offering a special “Early Bird” price of $15 for a limited time. Tickets will only be available at this price until Friday, September 6. After that, advanced tickets will go up to $18 advanced.

We are also making the Artist Tickets available for purchase for this event. By donating $0.25 extra on your ticket price, you will get a special limited edition ticket adorned with original artwork by Jim Woodring or Ellen Forney. All proceeds will go towards the Cafe Racer Love fund. Please choose this option when purchasing your tickets.

Thursday! Come help spread the Racer Love.

AT_CF_launchparty_postThis Thursday we will party with the ghosts of our lost friends and shake the rafters with singing and celebration. You can read more about the event here and here’s a spot from last night’s news report at 6pm on KOMO TV featuring our own Jimmy the Pickpocket.

Six Months Later….

165644-250So, it’s been six months since the Cafe Racer shootings. Seems like a lifetime ago and yet again, it seems like yesterday. We are playing two shows in December to raise money for the families and lone survivor of the shootings. I think right now, more than ever, these folks need our help and it gives us the opportunity to remember our friends, honor their memory and have a good time drinking and singing!

The first of these events is the Tom Waits Tribute Night where we’ll be playing two Waits songs alongside a bevvy of musical homies. I think we go on around midnight but the whole night should be great and it all happens at Conor Byrnes on Friday, December 7.

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Coming Up! TV and a Sporkestra/Ebola Extravaganza.

Thanks to all that came out to the Columbia City Theater on Sunday night. A good time was had by all.

The Bad Thing’s next public appearance will be a live television broadcast! That’s right, good ‘ol live Bad Things action beaming right into your living room. I get tingles just thinking about it. Our television debut will air on Friday, March 30th at 8pm on the Seattle Channel (Channel 21) as part of Art Zone with Nancy Guppy. We’ll be performing one brand new song and one Bad Things classic. The episode will also be re-broadcast throughout the following week so check out the schedule and find a time that’s convenient for you.

After that, on Friday, April 6th, we’ll return to the Columbia City Theater with the great Titanium Sporkestra headlining and Oakland’s legendary Bobby Joe Ebola and the Children MacNuggets opening. This is a dream lineup for a Friday night and a good opportunity to engage in questionable behavior in a non-judgmental atmosphere. Hey, what happens in Columbia City, stays in Columbia City. We promise.

You can pick up tickets from Brown Paper Tickets right over here. I recommend picking them up in advance as this will be a packed show.

Here’s a little preview of Bobby Ebola’s classic “Life Is Excellent.”