The Head and the Heart had some issues at the show in Minneapolis over the weekend helping them to realize it's time to readjust to the lives they're now leading. It can be rough being on the road for so long without even a day to take a breather. They're still together, but there was speculation by fans that things weren't looking good that night. more ›

Yuck may be a relatively new buzz band on the scene, but their strong penchant for '80s and '90s vintage rock evokes a sense of familiarity and nostalgia. Although Yuck's fuzzed out, howling guitars and lethargic vocals channel established bands such as Dinosaur Jr, they're proof that old tricks still work. That's not to say the young, London-based quartet is a knockoff. Using a lo-fi indie rock sounds as a foundation, Yuck adds their own power pop melodies, giving them an overall vibe that is earnest and emerging. Once these rockers get some extensive tours under their belts and push inventiveness further, we can only surmise that their followup tunes will be even more impacting. more ›

It's obvious this band doesn't take themselves too seriously. Their bio reads like an AD/HD valley girl's phone conversation, incoherent babbling and every other word is "like". Plus, who would name themselves Yuck without some sense of humor about it? more ›

It's just about time for a music-themed blog round-up, so here we go. Here's what we listened to while we compiled this: Mazzy Star's "Fade Into You," Patty Griffin's "Rain," Edwyn Collins' "You'll Never Know," and The Thermals' "Returning To The Fold." more ›

We rolled into Chop Suey in time for the opening band Obi Best last night, and found the place jam-packed already. You could have knocked us over with a feather. But then we thought about it and it made perfect sense: Obi Best is led by Alex Lilly, who sings backup in the headlining band the Bird and the Bee. Two great tastes that go great together. (Read about how that happened in our sister site LAist's interview.) more ›

The Breeders played at a packed, swampy Neumos last night; the air was heavy and humid from the approaching rainstorm, and by the time they came on, at 11:30 p.m., we were a coupla-few beers into the evening and our eyelids were a little droopy. more ›

A little while ago we were scanning the Best of Craigslist with a feeling of alarm that there might be some kind of Humor Gap growing between Seattle and other, funnier cities. So we demanded that you, Seattle, step up your game. We're delighted to see evidence of that with a recent Best of Craigslist entry that combines Seattle's indie bands, Georgetown, and bicycles to produce a truly Seattle-flavored oddity. It's a great honor to present: "Self-Proclaimed Yoko's Seek Band For Special Project." Sample quote: "Look, I'm not a fortune teller, but I do have a haunted vagina, notches on my bedpost that total over 100, and I can help you break up your band if you don't have the balls to do it yourself." more ›

. Casella, a physician, draws on her intimate knowledge of the health industry to construct a dramatic portrait of the subtleties and complexities of medical malpractice, when a child's death on the operating table sends an anesthesiologist's life into a tail-spin. more ›

If you've been monitoring the lives of "Awesome" lately as we have, you know these things: more ›

Ah, those crazy Frenchies, at it again. This time, they're going to pull off a robbery. The gang that couldn't shoot straight, but with accents, The Band of Outsiders. The cute gal is Anna Karina, her boyfriends are Claude Brasseur and Sami Frey, and the director is the embodiment of French cinema's nouvelle vague, Jean-Luc Godard. more ›

We're as guilty as anyone else when it comes to not knowing that Nada Surf has been living a second life of sorts -- a new life, all their own, long after "Popular," the satirical high-school anthem that ruled MTV circa 1996. more ›

When your band's roster (Gonzalez on trumpet and congas; Andy Gonzalez, bass; Larry Willis, piano; Steve Berrios, drums; Joe Ford, sax/flute) has been in place since 1990, you have time to develop the musical telepathy that makes jazz jazz. And when that telepathy communicates both the bebop-and-beyond mainstream and Puerto Rican popular music (via the Bronx), you have an unusually savory mix. more ›

Last summer (ah, summer!) we drove down to Portland for their annual Pickathon Roots Music Festival, where we found ourselves exposed to all manner of folkies from Portland and beyond. One of the bands that stole the weekend for us was from Indiana, of all godforsaken places. On Saturday night, Reverend Peyton's Big Damn Band played a show in the barn that seriously blew our mind. Joined by Seattleite Jason Webley, they just played a flat-out barn burner of a show. more ›

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This weekend's highlight for Geoff will be a Brewer's Dinner at The Collins Pub held by Hair of the Dog Brewery from Portland. 6 courses paired with 6 beers, plus a few special releases to boot. As a Bears and now semi-Seahawks fan, he'll be hoping that Brett Favre breaks a hip during Saturday's Seahawks game at Lambeau Field. more ›

We've been hitting shows on the Seattle music scene for about four years now, and if there's one thing we can say with certainty, it's that Seattle doesn't need more musicians, it needs ones. Such may be the consolation of learning that next week, the Seattle chapter of Paul Green's School of Rock opens. If Green's now famous "school" can help create a new generation of musicians whose influences go deeper than Green Day, that alone will be an achievement. more ›

Redmond native and actual Guitar Hero Carrie Brownstein did some work on the advertising of the game Rock Band. You might have seen these commercials; four rocker-lookin types sit around and cut on each other in the jaded and weary fashion of musicians on the road. That's not her work, thank god. She was on a different team pushing a different concept. Anyway, she's got an article up at Slate today about her experiences with the game, which, ultimately, she ends up kind of liking in an "it's not as evil and fake as American Idol" kind of way. Of course anything less than an absolute trashing of the game leads us to suspect she's still on the payroll, but she's a music writer so we'll say no. It's an interesting take on the game either way. more ›

Above is a six-minute sampling of Melbourne-based noise quartet The Drones and their not-easily-classified dirty blues/swamp rock sound. Wikipedia makes a valiant effort, in describing the band as "The Birthday Party kick the shit out of Neil Young in Hendrix's garage." That's a start. more ›

Melbourne-based quartet The Drones are a little bit country, a little bit blues, and a lotta bit rock 'n' roll. And check it out, they've got one of the most eclectic list of influences we've ever seen: Van Morrison or Dylan or Suicide or Bad Brains or Nina Simone or Black Flag or the Scientists or Ornette Coleman or Thelonius Monk or (australian)X or Townes Van Zandt or John Lee Hooker or Karen Dalton... more ›

After kittens yawning and cross-species friendship, dear sweet Jens Lekman may be the most precious thing found in all of nature. The Gothenberg Swede makes orchestral pop songs in the vein of Morrissey or the Magnetic Fields without even being gay (just European). To promote Night Falls Over Kortedala, one of the best reviewed albums of the year, Jens has been touring around the States with his almost-all-girl backing band: more ›

If you’re gonna make an album with orchestral arrangements care of living legend composer Van Dyke Parks, you’re gonna have to go all out to perform it right. That’s why the first half of super English major/elven queen Joanna Newsom’s grandiose show last night at Benaroya Hall featured the accompaniment of local 29-piece chamber orchestra the Northwest Sinfonia to cover her last full-length, the epic five-song masterpiece Ys ("ees"). It’s not hard to recreate a lushly recorded album when you’ve got the combination of the Sinfonia, Newsom’s three-person touring group---which she’s termed the "Ys Street Band"---and Newsom plucking complex polyrhythms (and making it look easy) on an ornate harp, itself a work of art. more ›

Katelyn Hackett attends local hiphop shows. She will write about them for Seattlest. more ›

In a few seasons, Seattle indie stalwart Sub Pop will shed its adolescent husk and turn 20. Bruce Pavitt and Jonathan Poneman, the dudes who put Soundgarden and Nirvana in bins before major label reps stormed Seattle, will, according to this bio, celebrate "as conspicuously as they can manage." more ›

he 1960 Huskies, who will be honored en masse Saturday when the Dawgs play #1 USC, lost only one game and beat #1 Minnesota in the Rose Bowl, the only time the UW's beaten a #1 team. more ›

Well, shit. This weekend has been kind of a bust for shows Seattlest was supposed to see. Friday night, we were supposed to go see Hillstomp at Conor Byrne. We thought we had seen them, and we thought they rocked our socks. Apparently, we saw Miss Mamie Lavona the Exotic Mulatta and Her White Boy Band. more ›

Big Sonics fan Dave Dederer of the Presidents expresses a rather Emmett Watson-esque opinion in an interview with ESPN's True Hoop. Asked what he thinks would be a fair arena deal for the Sonics, Dederer says:

Our major sports franchises need the city and county much more than we need them. Frankly, my fantasy is that the Sonics, Seahawks and Mariners all move away and .

Friday night, as planned, we drove up to Bellingham for the 6th Annual Subdued Stringband Jamboree--something we've never experienced before, and about which we were somewhat excited. Having spent last weekend revelling in the Americana down in Portland, maybe our expectations were a little high. more ›

Remember the cover of Nirvana’s Nevermind, the album that made the band—and the word "grunge"—a household name? A naked baby, swimming blithely in pristine water, reaches for a dollar bill—a dollar bill that's on a large fish hook. The image is memorable for its ironic, dangerous, clear message. Courtney Love didn't catch the meaning. Director AJ Schnack does. more ›

Fate, karma, kismet -- call it what you will but the week before A Fine Frenzy came to town a friend in Switzerland sent us a YouTube video of her song "Rangers." We listened, found the album, and two days later noticed she was coming to town that Sunday. Here is the video, just so you can follow along: