Results tagged “capitolhillblockparty”

Fans of thoughtful, melodic and occasionally melodramatic rock, fear not. There is a place for you at Capitol Hill Block Party as well! With the third and final part of our "Better Know a CHBP Band" series, we present Hey Marseilles, Fences, and The Lonely Forest. The last three bands of our local spotlight are among some of your best bets for heartfelt tunes that may or may not tug at your heartstrings. Regardless of what musical choices you make on the ground, with 45 acts to choose from, you’re bound to find something that will please your ears.

If we've learned one thing about our past experiences at Capitol Hill Block Parties, it is that the bands that endear themselves to the gathered masses the most are ones that get the Partyers to move. (Flashback to Girl Talk's 2008 CHBP performance.) Next up in our "Better Know a CHBP Band" series, we present New Faces and The Pica Beats. Though there are major differences between the tempos these bands employ, expect dominant rhythms, and considerable movement around both sets.

While we are no doubt excited for the biggest draws of the CHBP, we’re most excited to see some of our local favorites. Over the coming day and a half, we’ll post some words we’ve exchanged with the bands to ensure you get to know them all just a little bit better before you are faced with making choices about the three stages when you’re on the ground. First up, we present Seattlest’s favorite purveyors of rich Americana melodies, The Maldives and The Moondoggies.

BLOCK PARTY: Yep, it's this weekend. Jesus Lizard, Sonic Youth, yadda, yadda, yadda. It's a big deal, go watch a concert in the street. Changes to the layout of the party are being hyped as solving the extended misery problem that virtually everyone who's ever been to the Block Party over the last couple years has complained about, so please some let us know if you can actually move once you're on the inside. Fri. doors 3 p.m., Sat. doors 1 p.m. // Capitol Hill Block Party // 12th Ave. & E. Pike St. // tix $23 per day, $42 for both

Today, the I Saw U and Missed Connections sections are chockablock with the requisite ads from Capitol Hill Block Party attendees looking for that one girl they saw that one time at that band's set. So if you have bleached blonde hair, a cute tattoo, or were wearing a pretty dress this weekend, your suitor awaits. On the other hand, if you are Heather Tanner, somebody found your wallet and would like to return it to you---and y'all know that we are decidedly pro-wallet-returnage.

It'd be easy to bitch and complain about certain aspects of the Capitol Hill Block Party. Sure, it attracts a bevy of tools who by the end of the night are barely-standing drunken douchebags. And yes, you have to put up with the poorly-scripted political pablum in between acts. Plus, in the aftermath, there's all that garbage. But in the midst of the typical festival chaos, there are plenty of things to praise about this year's block party. Here's our list:

Head Like a Kite: By the time we got into Neumos, we'd unfortunately missed most of their set. Whatever they were playing when we walked in, it was awesome and everyone was into it. It wasn't long, however, before they went into show-closing mode with more ethereal, experimental jam stuff. We dig Head Like a Kite, but they also bore us sometimes.

Ahh, Saturday! A chronologically arranged discussion of the Block Party, Day Zwei (Day Eins here):

We're sitting in Moe Bar, and the key word there is "sitting." After four different bands we needed to rest our sandaled feet, and so we retreated from the steadily darkening, crowded intersection of the Block Party. No photos to share (yet) but here's what we've seen so far!

Friday: Catch Common Market (4:30) and U.S.E. (5:30) at the main stage, then skip over to King Cobra for the second half of Truckasaurus (6:00). Take a dinner break (may we suggest eating something protein-heavy?), then get yerself to Neumo's for Thee Emergency at 7:45. After that, we suggest Das Llamas (it's their last set...THEIR LAST ONE!) at 9:45 at the Cha Cha. To round out the night, buy yourself a fancy rum drink at Havana and party until the wee hours with DJ Curtis.

Casey Neill is one of our personal favorites from that other Northwest city with the other great music scene. He and his Norway Rats play hard-drinking folk-rock ala the Dylan meets the Pogues, meets early R.E.M, and they'll be joining some great Seattleites, Kasey Anderson and the Crying Shame's Arlan and Dylan, at the Sunset this Thursday.

Tonight, if you're not already going to the second sold-out Magnetic Fields show, there's still a few tickets left for John in the Morning at Night at Neumo's, with the Duke Spirit, the Voom Blooms, and Tulsa. There's also PWRFL Power's (aka Kaz Nomura) second CD release show at the Vera Project. Since Kaz won a slot at last year's Capitol Hill Block Party (via the Stranger's Block Star contest last spring), he also won a spot in an Esurance ad, resulting in "the most unusual Esurance commercial to date." Check it:

We're all wondering why you're not named on the lineup for The Program at Neumos in December. What gives? Will you be joining Khingz on stage?

Though Seattlest would love nothing more than to give you a proper review of the KEXP barbecue, we've come to the stinging conclusion that it's simply not in the cards. We just got a work deadline thrown at us like a ton of cliches and this is the best we can do for you right now.

Oh Seattle, you make us feel so .

Seattlest arrived on scene soon after the Capitol Hill Block Party had opened. We wandered, checked out the stage locations and thought about getting a beer, then spotted a booth touting free bottled water. It looked like the booth had something to do with praying to the Earth Spirits or some other new wave white hippy crap, but we decided to take our chances. We asked for a water and oddly enough their were no questions asked of Seattlest, no "Is your spirit at peace with the world?" or "Do you ever cry for Mother Nature?" We did, however, get thoroughly eye-fucked by our water purveyor. We told him thank you, took a mental bath and off we went to hear some music. (And before you reactionaries out there start accusing us of homophobia, get over yourselves. We're not talking about getting "checked out." We're talking about a look that said, Right now, in my mind, I'm eating spaghetti off of your chest.)

Not that we care anymore ( crushes will be in Tacoma tonight strutting their stuff for the girlies. We can hardly contain our amusement that this tour is being sponsored by Pop Tarts. That's just brilliant.

This is a big weekend due to the Esurance® Capitol Hill Block Party alone. Tickets are not sold out yet; if nothing else, just by 'em at the door. But what to do if you want to avoid the Hill and the confluence of all those hipsters?

The above vid is a live performance of "Our Bovine Public," the barrelling leadoff track from The Cribs' latest release, Men's Needs, Women's Needs, Whatever. Even if the album wasn't really, really good (and basically all we've been listening to lately), we'd have to recommend it based on the awesomely ambivalent title alone.

We know that the weather has been rainy and overcast and downright crummy these last few days, but never fear: things are looking up! And just in time for this weekend's Capitol Hill Block Party, which over two days features three stages and nearly fifty bands.

So a friend gets an email from another friend saying they were on the Capitol Hill Block Party website last night and Viva Voce had just been added to the Friday lineup. She tells us this and we think, Great! Now we can see Neko Case this Saturday and not feel bad about it!

Finally, someone else sees things our way. Like peanut butter and jelly, there has been one natural combination longing to be put together: having a beer and thinking about your favorite insurance company. Thank God Online providers Esurance have stepped up to the plate. Meshing together insurance needs with scenester whoredom, that's right, this year it's the Esurance Capitol Hill Block Party.

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.

After kicking our collective asses for four consecutive days, the heat is finally backing down. So pull yourself together. Go outside again -- especially to Capitol Hill this weekend.

Hopefully you didn't waste your money this weekend having lunch in hell, because tomorrow the long-awaited Carnavas from the Silversun Pickups will be released – just in time to pick it up and get acquainted before the Silversun Pickups do their thing at the Capitol Hill Block party this Saturday.

As avid folk music connoisseurs, we’ve done our time in various Unitarian churches listening to obscure out-of-towners mouth off about Bush in the nicest possible (read: no cursing) sort of way. But for the past couple of years, a small venue on Capitol Hill has been integrating The Lord with great music and free coffee on a whole different level.

With the first days of summer already on us, it's a perfect time to start thinking about your summer music plans. There were two recent pre-sale ticket announcements that got the gears turning in our heads at Seattlest: Bumbershoot (Sept 2-4) and the KEXP BBQ (Aug 13). While the complete line-up for both of these events has yet to be announced (We aren't overly hyped on the initial Bumbershoot line-up!), both events will give more than enough bang for your musical buck. Right now, you can get pre-sale tickets to all 3 days of Bumbershoot for just $50 (code: BUMBERFAN) – and pre-sale tickets to the always Sold Out KEXP BBQ for $20. Of course you'll want to start your summer off with a bang at the Capitol Hill Block Party (July 28-29), which just announced their complete line-up over the weekend (a Seattlest guide is on the way). In the meantime, enjoy these local boys done good: Band of Horses (playing Capitol Hill Block Party).

It was just a single line in the weekly newsletter from the Northwest Film Forum, but it set Seattlest's heart a-flutter: