Day two of Capitol Hill Block Party 2010 is over. Two notable acts I saw were !!! and THEESatisfaction.

!!!

Nic Offer lording over the dance

Big thanks to KEXP for booking !!! (say "chk chk chk") for a semi-exclusive performance in Caffé Vita's bean room. The sky-lighted storage facility adjacent to Block Party's beer garden was pretty much the opposite of the festival's Main Stage, where the touring band played later in the day, and a much better venue for experiencing ecstatic trance/dance jams.

Front man Nic Offer made the most of the unusually intimate environment and soul-rapped in everyone's face, not stopping until front-row bench-sitters and back-row wall-standers danced at least a little bit. He did a few different tours through the room, and on one pass (unintentionally?) danced with a handful of local music writers and DJs. Couldn't've been bad for business.

While Offer climbed on top of eight-foot-high stacks of coffee bean bags and swiveled his hips with great passion, his band played circular funk loops on guitar and drums. Droning synthesizer arpeggios added a certain slo-mo build, and for at least one person who'd never listened to !!! before or seen the band live — me — everything clicked.

THEESatisfaction

L-R: Stasia Irons, Catherine Harris-White, Chocolate Chuck, OC Notes

"Do you like good music?" asked DJ Chocolate Chuck to a stuffed-in audience at Neumos, eliciting big cheers.

"Do you like black lesbians?"

Riotous whoops and hollers.

Seattle's premier jazz-rap girlfriend duo (and Matson on Music live broadcast performers) Stasia Irons and Catherine Harris-White of THEESatisfaction slayed a friendly crowd with their Block Party set, entering in a flurry of acid wash denim and vintage Seahawks gear, dancing like spun-out cartoons, rapping and singing with tag-team bob/weave poetry style. Slipping and sliding around some words and ratcheting directly onto others, they performed several songs from early-period album "Snow Motion" (2009), the entirety of "THEESatisfaction Loves Stevie Wonder" (2010), and kept the crowd dancing and shouting throughout.

Harris-White sounded great singing the hook on "Washington," giving the line "sometimes I feel you holding me down" brightness and also frustratedness. "Moonday School" rolled through the Neumos speakers swift and slamming, sounding unstoppable. Area basement producer OC Notes hopped on stage for the woozy "Icing," leading the audience in a faded two-step.

"Bob Ross" set a scene of looking out the window at falling snow: "It's really coming down," said Irons and Harris-White, fingering fake flakes and gazing into imaginary weather, creating a completely different world than the sun-soaked mob scene outside the club.

Photos by me