VIDEO: The Head and The Heart at Easy Street Records on West Seattle Summer Fest Eve 2026

(Photos and video by WSB contributor Anne Higuera)

To celebrate the new vinyl release of a 15-year-old recording, The Head and The Heart appeared at Easy Street Records on Thursday night during West Seattle Summer Fest Eve. The “Live at Neumo’s” record is an Easy Street exclusive, and purchase was required for admission to the in-store show during which three of the band’s members performed, with the others joining them for Q&A afterward. That was moderated by Easy Street proprietor Matt Vaughan, who introduced the band and talked about how they started as a “consignment band”:

Members share a bit of history too – our video below is their song “Down in the Valley,” which singer Jonathan Russell explained was inspired about a night shortly after he moved to Seattle from Virginia, when he was stranded at a bar in Fremont and ended up walking seven hours to the Central District:

Russell, Charity Rose Thielen, and Matt Gervais played the songs, and then were joined by bandmates for the Q&A.

Russell answered a question about how songwriting has changed for the band over time, and mentioned that, though they don’t all live in they plan to gather in Seattle this fall to work on a new album, though he acknowledged it’s hard to just be able to work together for a couple of weeks and have it be productive. “To take a week or 2 and meet up and just hope that things are working and firing and sometimes it doesn’t, sometimes it does … And I think, you know, this band basically merged out of a collective mindset. We’ve remained like a democratic band in terms of, you know, sharing, splitting everything equally … movement within that collective … but at the heart of who we are, we’re a real band (where) everyone kind of contributes and steps up in different ways in terms of the right writing and performance … And so it’s going to be amazing.”

Admission to the performance was contingent on the purchase of the band’s new vinyl album, The Head and The Heart Live at Neumo’s, recorded in 2011. “What prompted the release of a 15-year-old recording?” asked Easy Street’s Vaughan. Several band members took turns answering. They said they felt insecure about it in the immediate aftermath, so “it was put away for a long time,” until they started working on their 15th anniversary package and ended up talking with Sub Pop about making the custom release. “It’s such a fun listen to go back and eel the energy from that time … it was such a hurricane, it was like a whirlwind that was happening in this city around us and it’s such a good document now. So I’m just proud that we kept it …”

Besides the capacity crowd inside, people gathered in the carless-for-the-festival street, and the windows were opened after a while so they could listen in as the music rolled out.

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