STG Presents Bright Eyes, Jens Lekman, Mason Jennings & Hey Rosetta!

STG & Sealed With A Kiss Presents Bright Eyes
Date: September 28, 2011 @ 7:30pm
Venue: Paramount Theatre
Price: $25.00 & $29.50 in advance, $27.50 & $32.00 day of show, not including applicable fees
Seating: General Admission Flat Floor & General Admission Balcony (All Ages)
On Sale: Friday, July 22nd @ 10am
Ticketing Information: Available online at Tickets.com, in person at the Paramount Theatre box office (M-F 10am-6pm), 24-hour kiosks located outside the Paramount & Moore Theatres, charge by phone at (877) 784-4849, or online at STGPresents.org.

The People's Key - the band's seventh studio album - is the eagerly awaited follow-up to 2007's acclaimed Cassadaga. Since 2006 the once revolving cast of Bright Eyes players has settled around permanent members Conor Oberst, Mike Mogis and Nathaniel Walcott, with additional musicians joining them in the studio and on tour. Fully realized and bursting with charisma, The People's Key is an assured and accomplished album, artfully arranged and filled with the engaging and mesmeric songwriting for which Oberst is renowned. Bright Eyes' success snowballed in early 2005 when the simultaneous release of the sister albums "I'm Wide Awake", "It's Morning and Digital Ash In A Digital Urn" saw the Nebraskans hurled into the limelight and the Billboard Charts. To say that the band became a household name would be an overstatement but for a few months they seemed ubiquitous; from magazine covers to late night talk shows, they were name-checked by everyone from sports casters to country stars. Conor Oberst has spent much of the last few years recording and touring with friends and musicians, The Mystic Valley Band, as well as releasing a a highly acclaimed album and tour as part of the so called indie supergroup Monsters of Folk. 

Jens Lekman
Date: Saturday, October 1, 2011 @ 9:00pm
Venue: Columbia City Theater
Price: $18.00 in advance, $20.00 day of show, not including applicable fees
Seating: General Admission (21 & Over)
On Sale: Tuesday, July 19th @ noon
Ticketing Information: Available online at Tickets.com, in person at the Paramount Theatre box office (M-F 10am-6pm), 24-hour kiosks located outside the Paramount & Moore Theatres, charge by phone at (877) 784-4849, or online at STGPresents.org.

Jens Lekman, born and reared in Gothenburg, Sweden, is a songwriter, adventurer and retired bingo hall employee. Traveling our globe as a wide open receptor of all it has to offer, Lekman repurposes for his own oeuvre the world's great, lost pop hooks of past and present. He breathes into them his droll senses of humor, romance and melody and gives them a newfound buoyancy. Since his 2004 trifecta of EPs (Maples Leaves, Rocky Dennis in Heaven, You Are the Light) and right on through his acclaimed 2007 full-length, Night Falls Over Kortedala, Lekman has made hopeless romantics of us all. In a musical language that has roots in the work of Arthur Russell, The Magnetic Fields, Calvin Johnson and Modern Lovers, Lekman's songs serve as a reminder to look closer at the world around us, to appreciate the beauty when it's both in and out of context; at its most heartbreaking, its most loving, and its most absurd.

Mason Jennings
Special Guest: The Pines
Date: Friday, October 14, 2011 @ 9:00pm
Venue: The Neptune (1303 NE 45th St)
Price: $20.00 not including applicable fees
Seating: General Admission (All Ages / Bar w/ ID)
On Sale: On Sale Now!
Ticketing Information: Available online at Tickets.com, in person at the Paramount Theatre box office (M-F 10am-6pm), 24-hour kiosks located outside the Paramount & Moore Theatres, charge by phone at (877) 784-4849, or online at STGPresents.org.

As one grows into adulthood, remaining steadfastly single-minded about one's pursuits gets increasingly difficult. The musician becomes a band mate navigating the creative energies of those around them. He becomes a boyfriend, a husband, a businessman. She becomes a lover, a mother, a practitioner of her art. Life becomes multifarious, and the pressure to not let the disparate threads of a chaotic life unravel can cause strain on any relationship. With his new album Minnesota, Mason Jennings crafts a collage of love trying to survive the transition into being a grown-up in a complex world. "Love is the most important thing to me, my relationship with my wife and kids," Mason says, adding "And music has always been as important as breathing to me. I have come to realize that to have it all, I have to take the long view when it comes to integrating all these parts of my life." Increasingly, a sense of place and community has become important to him as well. "The album is called Minnesota because it's a metaphor for an ever-changing landscape. More than any place I've ever been, things change so much here, even month-to-month. But even as things change, Minnesota is where my home is, where my center is." His profession often takes him away from that center. Being on the road and finding the personal space to create while at home has caused him to examine how he balances his loves. He generally writes from an intensely personal point of view, but Minnesota represents a step toward the light after the darkness of Blood of Man, his last album. Mason often encounters couples after his shows who tell him his music played a major role when they were falling in love. "Raindrops On The Kitchen Floor" is an unadulterated love song, with that love being so visceral that it can seemingly transcend the possible ("How am I gonna live forever/Promise me you will/Call it off, the age of reason/There's no more time to kill"). "I guess this is music to stay in love to," he jokes. Minnesota finds Mason Jennings more at home than ever: More at home in his adopted state and more at home with the integration of the self that is required to live an artistic life while enjoying the community of his friends and loved ones.

Hey Rosetta!
Special Guest: The Jezabels
Date: Friday, November 11, 2011 @ 9:00pm
Venue: The Crocodile
Price: $10.00 in advance, $12.00 day of show, not including applicable fees
Seating: General Admission (21 & Over)
On Sale: Friday, July 22nd @ 10am
Ticketing Information: Available online at TheCrocodile.com. More information can be found at STGPresents.org.

Hey Rosetta! hails from the rocky and cold northeastern province of Newfoundland,
Canada. In 2005, Tim Baker arrived home from a road trip with a suitcase full of poems and melodies. Hey Rosetta! formed soon after with the addition of a string section (cellist Romesh Thavanathan and violinist Kinley Dowling) and rhythm section (bassist Josh Ward, drummer Phil Maloney and guitarist Adam Hogan). Since then, they've blossomed into a powerful group whose explosive live shows have earned them a devoted following. The band's new album, Seeds, was produced by Tony Doogan (Belle and Sebastian, Mogwai, Wintersleep) and reveals a maturing lyrical depth and an adventurous musical atmosphere rooted to the band's passion for epic musical experiences. It was while recording 2008's breakthrough album Into Your Lungs (and around in your heart and on through your blood) that Tim Baker began to fully realize his remarkable vocal and lyrical abilities, and the band made a huge creative leap forward. They spent nearly three years on the road, touring in support of Into Your Lungs and were named one of Billboard's Top 5 Canadian acts to watch. The album garnered a slew of awards and critical accolades, and was shortlisted for the renowned Polaris Music Prize. It was while touring Into Your Lungs that the concept of Seeds was born. "The title track, "Seeds", came about while out on the highway a few years ago," muses Baker. "In a way, it's about what our lives had become, and how we're like seeds that float around into different fields and cities, bringing something and trying to build something for the people that come to see us."

ABOUT STG:
STG is the 501 (c)(3) non-profit arts organization that operates the historic Paramount, Moore & Neptune Theatres in Seattle, Washington. Our mission is to make diverse performing arts and education an integral part of our region's cultural identity while keeping these two landmark venues alive and vibrant. STG presents a variety of shows from Broadway, off-Broadway, dance and Jazz or comedy, concerts of all genres, speakers and family shows - at both historic theatres in Seattle and at venues throughout Puget Sound and Portland, Oregon.

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