Hip-hop is ruled by ego. Whether it's the ego of an MC, that of a DJ, or a combination of the two, hip-hop is dominated by superlatives. Descriptions of being the biggest, baddest, and richest are the typical trappings of mainstream hip-hop, which is nothing new. The underground scene has its own failings, focused instead on being "realest," clamoring to fit as many syllables as possible into every bar. In both cases, the result is staid, tired output, dominated more by formula than feeling. After the lackluster Boot Camp Clik show a few weeks ago, Seattlest has been lucky enough to see the more desired portion of Sturgeon's Revelation the last few days, with MCs unafraid to be more than lyrical automata. more ›

Realizing it would only make us crazy to attempt to create a playlist of both bands for the day, we went with the "prepare for the first" approach. Doors for the Rentals were at 8pm with only one opener, while Boot Camp Clik had about a slew of openers and a later door, so it was a safe (and correct) assumption that the Rentals would start first (and there was no way we were going to miss that). The hours before the show were spent getting into rock-out mode, with a soundtrack consisting of old Weezer (Blue Album for life!), Dalmations (we certainly had our awesome on), and on the walk to Neumos, Daft Punk's Coachella set (Technologic indeed). We arrived just in time to see frontman Matt Sharp take the stage. more ›

Apple launched a missile at Redmond today by releasing software called Boot Camp that allows its super sexy new Intel-based hardware to run Windows XP. For some reason we thought it was going to be the other way around. We imagined the first bomb would be Apple releasing a version of OS X that played on standard Wintel computers which shows how much we know. Is Apple a hardware company or a software company? Boot Camp would seem to imply that they're first and foremost a hardware company. more ›