She is perhaps France's most-beloved daughter, an award-winning actress and international musical star: Charlotte Gainsbourg, daughter of the iconic Serge, who inspired a pub in Greenwood that Seattlest wrote about shortly after it opened at the end of 2008. Point being, she's in town toay and will stop by the Alliance Française of Seattle offices at the Good Shepherd Center in Wallingford tonight at 7. She's on tour, promoting her latest album, IRM, on which she collaborated with Beck. (Digital download here.) more ›

In terms of music, Saturday was definitely our biggest day at Bumbershoot. We spent most of the time running from one partial set to another. Along the way we caught Thao Nguyen and her backing band, the Get Down Stay Down. Thao's breathy voice is much bigger than the tiny girl it comes out of, and with her solid, clap-happy set, she managed to be energetic (for a singer-songwriter) without verging into crazy territory (even if she did almost perform one song twice). more ›

As an all-knowing, all-seeing hivemind, Seattlest has your Bumbershoot recommendations handled. If you're going to brave the crowds, bathroom lines, and ever-present corporate tents, you should at least be equipped with the right kind of inspiration to make it all worth your while. more ›

Electro-Pop: Matmos released their new record, , to acclaim back on May 6. The Baltimore-based pop/electronica duo have moved away from the conceptual electronic compositions of their earlier work and deliver a record of "cosmic pop" deliciousness. Check out the song "Rainbow Flag" [mp3] here, and check out the band down at the Triple Door tonight. more ›

Last night, Bumbershoot announced the first set of acts slated for this year's festival. So far, there's a name or two that could draw us to Seattle Center this Labor Day weekend. Beck? Hell yes! A reunited Stone Temple Pilots? Not so much. 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 ›

Sunday afternoon turned out to be a terrific time to hit the Fremont Oktoberfest: at one o' clock it was still gray and cloudy and the crowds hadn't arrived. For $5 extra, we ended up with a total of eight tokens, good for eight 5-oz. pours. more ›

Wowee wow wow wow. The erstwhile "Japanese Beck" Cornelius really brought it at El Corazon the other night. Keigo Oyamada (as his mama calls him) and the other three members of his fashionable group made sure that the "Sensuous Synchronized Show" lived up to its name. They put on a performance that was multimedia to the extreme, with scrims and colors and lights and videos that were a little more than the venue could handle. Seriously, the last time Cornelius was in town ('01? '02?), he played a sold-out set at the Showbox (which featured some of the same visuals, btw), and this time around he's at an all-ages and not-close-to-being-packed El Corazon? Look, we haven't been to that club since before the name change, and with good reason--it sucks. Anywhere else in town and this show would've been sold out (or at least people would've been aware of it). But we digress.... more ›

Seattlest got paid today. What does that mean? Off to the record store we go. more ›

--Flying punches, flying elbows, and flying vomit: Supersonicsoul presents the greatest Sonics v. Magic moments. more ›

think. It just made us wonder: if it were up to the -ist-a-verse, what would we be voting for? more ›

The last time Jamie Moyer was involved in a trade, it was almost a gift to the M's. They got their all-time winningest pitcher in franchise history (145), the Red Sox got 2 1/2 years of the execrable Darren Bragg. more ›

So much is in the delivery. The unsteady, sunburned drinker who wearily slurred his estimate of the time he'd spent drinking Sunday somehow packed cosmic distances into his phrasing. Or there were the two young men, fleeing the rain shower, bleating: "What's gone wrong? Where are the naked hippies? Where are the naked hippies!" more ›

-How many more "kid stumbles on human remains" stories is it going to take to get the whole area declared a cemetery? Is it just us or have there been a ton of these lately? more ›

Tired of sitting around with your friends looking stupid? Of course you are! So get off your ass and check these shows out… more ›

Call Rumsfeld! The United Kingdom is exporting weapons of mass distortion to the U.S.! [Insert laugh-track] more ›

If you are a fan of the Arcade Fire (and if you don't have a ticket for their Wednesday night show at the Paramount), then you might want to get your indie fix at the Architecture in Helsinki show Thursday night at Neumo's. Both bands have a penchant for wacky instrumentation combined male and female indie-style singing. Plus, their songs are dance-able, which is never a bad scene (unless of course you have seen us dance). more ›

Tonight, if you aren't going to see DJ-AM (you fool!), your best bet is Beck and Le Tigre at the Paramount. We know that Beck is a Scientologist, but at least he didn't yell at Matt Laurer (or if he did, it was in private). more ›

We've been through the Underground Tour several times and read Sons of the Profits, but it occurred to not-originally-from-here Seattlest that we could stand to increase our knowledge of Seattle history. So, encouraged by Jonathan Raban's recommendation of it as "one of the very best informal, intimate histories anywhere," we picked up a library copy of Murray Morgan's Skid Road: An Informal Portrait of Seattle to read between films at SIFF. more ›

We usually don't like to talk about shows in the past and/or in a completely different city, but this one involves pure comedic gold. Everyone's favorite scientologist/hipster (scientologister?) Beck performed an allegedly secret show in New York City. As Tom DeLay can undoubtedly testify, it's hard to keep a secret these days, so the show sold out almost immediately. more ›

Everyone's favorite mega-coffee-selling corporate behemoth has started to annoy some independent record sellers as they become more and more of a force in the music retail business. more ›

We have been spoiled by the decandent amount of sun recently, so we have decided not to go outside until it stops raining. Since we have a cable modem and free time, we would like to point out some free and legal downloads for your listening pleasure. more ›