As a Seattle venue, I respect Chop Suey. Their shows begin at decent hours—something aging individuals like myself appreciate. The bill for this rainy August evening included three artists, opening with Stencil, a band I was unfamiliar with. (The other two artists included my good Austin friends The Lovely Sparrows—stay tuned for an interview next week and a review of their debut album the week following—and local trio Toy Gun.)

Each Ball Of Wax compilation has a theme behind it and this one is the thirteenth quarterly comp that Seattle artist Levi Fuller has done. What Fuller does is concoct a theme (at least on some… several have no theme other than being “music to enjoy”) then gather a mass of (usually) local Pacific Northwest artists, who all write and record an exclusive song for the release. This was my first time seeing several of the performers on the list, from St Rainbow (the folks behind Hollow Earth …

August 21, the night of the fourteenth Ball Of Wax CD release party. I dropped by Sunset Tavern here in Ballard at about 8:30, just in time to see Levi Fuller, the mastermind behind this quarterly compilation series, play his song from the album. But a highlight of the evening would come when I discovered that Smile Brigade (MySpace) would be laying down a set toward the end of the evening.