Maybe you prefer international intrigue to tired stories of puppy luv; if so, Eux Autres could be your cup of tea. The brother-and-sister duo’s second album, Cold City, was released in early December, but now it makes a great Valentine’s gift—for a friend who loves pop but isn’t in love.

Although Nicholas and Heather Larimer are American and live in Portland, Ore., they’re famous for singing in French, the same way lots of Asian and European bands of the past charmingly sang English lyrics they may or may not have understood. Even when Eux Autres’ lyrics are English, things don’t always make sense. Are they really cooing about “military history” and sports (as they claim), or are they sneaking in verses about an unrequited crush here and there? It’s kind of nice not to know for sure. Just enjoy how well these siblings can play together. Cause that’s indie pop/rock love.

And P.S.: If this is your first introduction to Eux Autres and the name seems a tad pretentious, don’t worry—it’s really not. Their website includes a band name pronunciation guide so us non-French-speakers can confidently say we like “Ooz oh-tra” and not “Ooks aw-trays,” or whatever.

In this fantastic downtown frenchie spot, treat yourself to some awesome music once in while.  Every Sunday there’s something cool going on. 

This month:

Sunday, Jan 20, 2:30pm    
The Return of Javier Anderson!
Welcome back our Bossa Nova Favorite

Sunday, Jan 27, 2:30pm    
Greg Ruby and Maggie Kim
Valse, Musette and Gypsy Guitar

Le Pichet | 1933 First Avenue | Seattle | WA | 98101

I think it’s cool when music has a very specific effect on the listener. Like the Beastie Boys command us to fight for our rights. “YMCA” causes everyone to move their arms in cheerleader-type configurations. And Tender Forever makes you wanna find a mullet-haired girl to roll around on the carpet with.

Released this week, Wider is the second album from K Records’ French phenom Melanie Valera, aka Tender Forever. (Pick up a copy of RIVET’s Green Issue for our review of her debut.) Though The Soft and the Hardcore was mostly controlled chaos, Wider is similar in that it meanders a bit like you imagine Valera’s train of thought might, if she’s excited about a person or a song or a Post-It note album cover concept. This is clearly a woman who spends a lot of time thinking when not playing a bunch of instruments and traveling between Europe and her adopted home of the Pacific Northwest. Her new songs are as warm and ultra-personal, but not quite as catchy, as those from the first album. Here the first track, “Tiny Heart and Clever Hand,” is probably the best. But you’ll keep going all the way to the end with “So We Could Deal”—cause when Tender Forever is on the stereo, you listen.

On a given day, how many things do you complain about? It’s too hot outside, too cold in the office. I hate traffic. My Cheez-Its are stale.

Well, it’s that one time of year when we’re supposed to cease in our petty malcontentedness, and pretend to be thankful for all those little things we usually ignore. In doing so, I realize I am thankful for a great many things, and in an effort to trivialize the process, here is a list of some of them.

1. Matt Fraction – Fraction writes comic books, mostly for Marvel, including The Immortal Iron Fist, The Order and Punisher War Journal, but his best work is his original creation Casanova. I’ll blog more about that later.

2. Haruki Murakami – My favorite author. His book After Dark came out in English translation earlier this year. It was very good.

3. Chris Potter – A world-class jazz saxophone player who has put out a couple albums recently. I’ve asked for them for Christmas. I’ll let you know more, like, when I’ve actually listened to them.

4. Seijun Suzuki – Japanese film director who made one of my favorite movies, Tokyo Drifter, known for his theatrical style and absurdity. I’m currently watching through his Taisho Trilogy, which is weird as frick.

5. The start of college basketball season.

6. Heroes – I don’t love this show, but I enjoy it, and more importantly, I’m grateful that television like this is successful.

7. Mr. T – Mr. T is awesome, and I dare any one of you to try to prove otherwise.

8. White Ninja Comics – This isn’t my favorite web comic, but it’s probably the one I laugh out loud (LOL) at the most. Check it out every Monday, Wednesday and Friday.

9. YouTube – Redefining entertainment two minutes at a time. In the case of “Chocolate Rain,” four minutes.

10. Friends, family and loyal readers – Puts a tear in your eye, don’t it?

Go now, eat turkey.

“Hi there … twee fan?” About a year ago, a band called The Hermit Crabs sent me a message on MySpace that opened with this question. The answer was (and is) yes. I was shocked—contact from a band whose music actually matched my taste? But I absolutely adore Camera Obscura, so it’s no surprise that another Glasgow pop band with pretty melodies, warm strings and dreamy female vocals would be my cup of tea.

Saw You Dancing (following last December’s Feel Good Factor EP) is the Hermit Crabs’ first full-length album, out with Matinee Recordings. Upbeat tracks like “Friend’s Folk Festival” and “Lean Free Summer” best showcase the band’s talent for crafting completely catchy tunes. Camera Obscura drummer Lee Thomson plays on four songs; but even when these bands sound a lot like each other—and Belle & Sebastian, too—it’s the stories they tell that set them apart. Just as well as she emits joy, Hermit Crabs lead singer and songwriter Melanie Whittle can evoke feelings of loneliness and longing with a simple lyric: When I saw you, I ran back to my homestead / Pulled the covers right over my head / Back to my homestead / Listened to some punk rock instead.” Then again, that’s from a song called “Closet Fan,” so maybe it’s really just about their fellow hometown bands.

Halloween may be just a memory, but until Thanksgiving comes, it’s still the season for tricky treats. The Lolligags are like Hansel and Gretel, uncovering the sinister crunch of candy-sweet electropop.

Split by geography, the duo—Dallion Lollihag, aka Leslie, in Athens, Ga. and RG Lollifag, aka Ryan, in Nashville—composes music over the telephone. But lack of technology (synth man Ryan does not own a computer!) hasn’t hampered them, and a four-song EP, Wired, is out now on Happy Happy Birthday to Me Records.

Leslie’s new wave voice doesn’t completely belie the naughty content within: She sings “Creepy Things” from the perspective of a stalker’s stalker; “Staircase Mystery” tells a twisted fairy tale and “Kitten, Come Over” is a pouty invitation to sex. The band just played its first show ever last Friday and has two more November dates scheduled in Athens. Go check them out, but for safety’s sake, be sure to leave a trail of bread crumbs.

I’ve been listening to the new New Pornographers album (Microsoft Word doesn’t like it when I type “new” twice in a row), Challenger, and I really dig it.

I need to qualify this.

The first couple of reviews I read were pretty negative, but they compared Challenger to NP’s previous album Twin Cinema, which was a masterwork of rock/pop. No, Challenger isn’t as good an album. It doesn’t have the same fun factor, it isn’t quite as inspired, lacks the sheer exuberance. But it’s a more mature musical statement, a necessary and enjoyable step in the growth of the band. They’re exploring new sounds without abandoning their roots. It’s folksier and earthier. It’s contemplative where their previous albums were explosive.

They could have produced another Twin Cinema, but bands that tread water are the bands that get forgotten. And the critics would have panned them then for making more of the same. Remember the Beatles? There’s a reason why. Every album was an adventure. Not to ascribe such lofty status to an indie rock outfit, but they’re on the right road to making consistently fresh and meaningful music. Check it out.

Get decked out in your Saturday night best and join RIVET’s publisher, the Shunpike, at the third annual Factory Party.

Here’s the scoop:
Once again, the Shunpike takes you back to 1970s New York, where the artists were the art, the vibe was DIY and the dress was retro even before it had been worn the first time. Most important were the parties, where the glamorous, the hip and the creative mingled and collaborated until the break of dawn.

And the deets:
Saturday Nov. 3
8 p.m.
At Lo-fi
429B Eastlake Ave E in Seattle

Admission is $15—mention RIVET at the door and half of that will go directly to your favorite Little Magazine That Could.

I love listening to Cake when I drive. Their new CD (out this week) is decent, but it doesn’t have any of the cohesion of earlier albums. And it’s not supposed to; B-Sides and Rarities is an assortment of covers, instrumentals and leftover recordings. It plays like a dozen stand-alone tracks, setting the CD up to be cannibalized into iPods.

Track two (“Ruby, Don’t Take Your Love to Town”) is by far my favorite. I never thought I’d be looking up Kenny Rogers, but this cover’s got me humming a country song written more than a decade before I was born. That’s not easy, especially if you’re not Johnny Cash. “It wasn’t me that started that old crazy Asian war, but I was proud to go and do my patriotic chore.” Korea or Vietnam, I guess, but the soldier begging his love to stay true definitely resonates through to our modern patriotic chore.

“Mahna Mahna” is a cool track to own (who doesn’t love the Muppets?) but it doesn’t have enough staying power to hold its place at third in the track list. If it had been the last track, it would be an occasional sweet treat—but number three, I end up skipping it a lot.

Other Cake fans tell me that it’s all about “War Pigs.” Maybe if I knew Black Sabbath better. There are two “War Pigs” tracks and the bonus, sung with Steven Drozd of The Flaming Lips, rocks right off the pop culture meter.

After listening to the CD a few times, I read that the casing was scratch n’ sniff. I don’t know. My copy smells vaguely sweet, but it’s no Like a Prayer cassette. I’ll go scratch it and hope for banana.

Listen to our very own Ryan Trager on KUOW today discussing this issue’s POWER soundtrack on “The Beat”!

Pretty cool!