MUSIC: If you're not taking the ferry Friday night to Bremerton's Admiral Theatre to catch Death Cab for Cutie (we understand if you're not, it's a real schlep) and if you don't have tickets to Blitzen Trapper/Fleet Foxes at Neumo's (it's sold out), then my god, what the hell were you planning on doing? How about a trip up to Everett for the Everett Symphony's Tribute to Burt Bacharach. (We agree, Mrs. Hendy, he......

Right on the heels of the announcement that the Mars Volta was added to the Sasquatch lineup, and right before tickets go on sale this Saturday, the three-day music festival has seen fit to delineate who will be playing on which day: Saturday, May 24th R.E.M. / Modest Mouse / M.I.A. / The New Pornographers / The National / Ozomatli / Beirut / Dengue Fever / Fleet Foxes / The Breeders / Okkervil River......

After months of wild speculation, the official 2008 Sasquatch lineup has finally been announced: R.E.M. / The Cure / The Flaming Lips U.F.O. Show / Death Cab For Cutie / Modest Mouse / M.I.A. / Flight Of The Conchords / Rodrigo Y Gabriela / Michael Franti & Spearhead / The Breeders / Built To Spill / The Hives / Tegan & Sara / The Presidents / Ghostland Observatory / Ozomatli / The New Pornographers......

Chris Walla is best known for being the guitarist in Death Cab for Cutie. Or he's known as a producer for Tegan & Sara and the Decemberists. Or maybe you heard about the little incident he had with Homeland Security confiscating his computer last fall. Now Walla's got another reason for notability: his first solo album, Field Manual, out today on Barsuk Records. Singer-songwriter stuff ain't exactly our bag, but Walla's smooth delivery ensures......

If you haven't yet heard through the grapevine, Death Cab will release their 8th studio album in May of this year. Teaser video HERE. (After watching the trailer, go on and check out the new look of their site. Sexy!)......

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 better 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,......

Bumbershoot 2005 hosted the inaugural People Talking and Singing show, where 2,800 festival attendees packed McCaw Hall to see Dave Eggers, Daniel Handler (Lemony Snicket), Mike Doughty, Sarah Vowell, and Death Cab for Cutie, all the while raising $18K for 826 Seattle, the youth writing center in Greenwood. Last year's event, also at Bumbershoot, was hosted by Daily Show Resident Expert™ John Hodgman and singer Jonathan Coulton. Eggers, Handler, Gibbard, and Vowell were back......

If you would've told us back in the golden days of Heart, back in the "Barracuda" days, that Ann Wilson would one day record a version of "A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall" featuring guest vocalists Shawn Colvin and Rufus Wainwright, Seattlest would've told you to shut the hell up. But now here we are in 2007, when Mandy Moore and Babyface have gone and recorded folk music records, or at least records that show......

First things first: the Tegan and Sara show at the Triple Door tonight is sold out, but we did see a lot of SRO happening last night, so you might take your chances. Or simply show up at the Queen Anne Easy Street Records at 4pm today for their in-store appearance. Either way, they come highly recommended by us, and you might as well make plans to see them at the Showbox on December 3.......

We spotted Jim from The Office--real name: John Krasinski--having drinks at the Crocodile Friday night with Ben Gibbard of Death Cab for Cutie (who Seattlest Jack chatted with last week). Messrs Krasinski and Gibbard commandeered a booth in the back along with a retinue of dudes and girls. Outside, we saw Krasinski very patiently and very politely agreeing to appear in photos with various Croc patrons. One mid-30s skater dude announced that his was "goin'......

The rumor is that liberals don't vote. That goes for presidents as much as it does for American Idol, and our guess would be that it applies even more to the latter. We've heard it from several people that adults don't vote, either. After last week's grossly misguided injustice, we're fairly certain both rumors are true. That's why we're making it a point to head off further sadness the best way we know how:......

--Ben Gibbard of Death Cab For Cutie is reported to be set for his big screen debut in the adaptation of David Foster Wallace's Brief Interviews With Hideous Men. Gibbard himself is not a hideous man, though. --There is what they're calling a "serial peeping Tom" on the loose in the University District. --Yesterday Mrs. Seattlest opened the commemorative Spirit of Washington chardonnay for cooking and today there's word that the dinner train may not......

Sunday 12/10 @ Neumo's Juno Ted Leo + the Pharmacists Junior Boys Cold War Kids SOLD OUT! Sunday was the much ballyhooed Part Two of the sold-out KEXP Yule Benefit. These are always great shows because the crowd is diverse and the mood is chill. The bands know they are playing for KEXP music afficionados like ourselves so they also tend to put on a slightly better show. Sunday was no exception. This odd......

Tuesday, December 5 >>> Peter Walker at El Corazon. Not to be confused with Paul Walker or Peter Weller, Peter Walker's in town to support Young Gravity, his second album. We have read, though, that Walker evokes another Pete--Yorn. With maybe a bit more bite. 7pm doors; $10. All ages. With Division Day. Wednesday, December 6 >>> Victrola's own folk chanteuse Molly Rose headlines a singer/songwriter parade of not-yet stars at the Sunset Tavern.......

Seattlest doesn't find this picture funny at all. We know firsthand how hard those awkward years of high school can be. The pimples, the pants that didn't fit right, the God-awful hours spent wishing Heather Cannon would think of us as more than that creepy guy staring at her. If you think this picture is funny, well, you're a bad person. Tuesday 22nd >>> Reigncraft Vol. 6 Record Release Party at Chop Suey. It's......

Seattlest attended the Danielson show Tuesday at Chop Suey and we would have written about it sooner, but our newest contributor, Chris Hanger, came down with some "mysterious illness," so we are only getting around to posting it now. Quoth the Hanger: Danielson took the stage around 11:30. The crowd steadily filed in from their twenty-minute smoke breaks. Ben Gibbard of Postal Service and Death Cab for Cutie fame showed up following the opening......

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!" People certainly do drink up at the Gorge. Maybe it's that country air. Saturday night we were down on the......

It looks like the Summer Nights concert series is going to move to Gasworks Park this year after last season's flop on the other side of the lake and we say it's not a moment too soon. Gasworks is a fantastic park that has been underutilized for as long as we've been in the neighborhood. It's such a great space and it's so wasted on the handfull of kite flyers, slack liners, skateboarders and resting......

We can continue giving Death Cab hometown welcomes when they breeze through town, but we should keep in mind that it only takes one certain television appearance to give them a new home in the eyes of the outside world. Gibbard and co are taking their show across the pond in February and when people report on this there's no mention of "trading the soggy streets of Seattle for the soggy streets of London." Instead......

When this week began, wrestler Eddie Guerrero and TV pioneer Ralph Edwards were both alive. No one outside Steel Country had heard of Rep. John Murtha, and Bob Woodward still had credibility. Next week is really only three days, so probably nothing will happen. Thus, we at Seattlest intend to enjoy ourselves over the weekend. Seth's going to the Ballard JazzWalk tonight. Two performers he's looking forward to seeing: Dawn Clement, an inventive young pianist,......

We managed to miss Mike Doughty when he made a super-special appearance at Bumbershoot alongside Death Cab as part of the 826 Seattle benefit. We won't be making the same mistake tonight when Doughty appears with his new band at the Showbox. Seattlest was never a superfan of Soul Coughing, blasphemous as that may or may not be, but we're mighty fond of the work Mike (nee "M") has done since. His double CD......

There's a whole bunch of good shows coming up these next few days, so if you didn't get Arcade Fire or Death Cab tickets (both long sold out) and if you're also skipping Wolf Parade's solo set at the Croc (for which you would be both unbelievably short-sighted and incredibly lame), you can spend your evenings at few other events going on around town--- It's hard to believe, but the Northwest Film Forum is officially......

Our mysteriously long commute this morning (the rain? aurora borealis centralized on 99?), in concert with an even more mysterious mp3 player outage (battery power? the gods telling us we need an iPod? technical ineptitude?) forced us to catch Harvey Danger on KEXP. KEXP is broadcasting out of the Museum of Television and Radio in NYC currently, which has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that Harvey Danger (we think it was Sean?)......

The final day of Bumbershoot (last Monday, September 4th) usually brings out the biggest crowd (well, at least it did last year with the Pixies headlining). This year’s main stage headliners, the reformed punk legends Iggy Pop and the Stooges headlined with local grunge kings Mudhoney warming up the crowd for them. While it was a little more crowded than the previous days of Bumbershoot - it was nowhere near as packed as it......

Seems like everybody and their mama has been raising money for the Red Cross or other agencies helping in hurricane relief efforts. Even Seattlest's local karaoke dive bar was taking cash for the cause last Sunday night. What follows is by no means a comprehensive list, but just a smattering of upcoming events by local businesses where your money can make a difference: · Restaurants: If you dine at any Chow Foods eatery (5 Spot,......

If the names "Captain Oats" and "Princess Sparkle" mean nothing to you, you'd best plan to skip to the next post. Because Seattlest is about to geek out in a major way over the approaching season premier of- some of you guessed it- The O.C. A teen soap, yes- but a teen soap with depth, dammit! And breadth- strewn with more pop-culture references, adventurous music choices, and nerd-chic than any show can contain and expect......

1) Mercir (EMP Sky Church) - We started the day with some electro indie rock. With moody vocals, usually more atmospheric than lyrical, this three piece uses guitars, keyboards and a latop computer to create a rich wall of sound. 2) Citizen Cope (Main Stage) - We keep hearing about how great Citizen Cope is. That “Bullet in a Target” song is everywhere. Prior to Saturday, the other songs we heard by him (aka Clarence......

Despite the fact that their new album has been flooding p2p networks for weeks (naughty emo kids!), the new Death Cab album, 'Plans' is officially available tomorrow. It is expected to sell approximately 100,000 copies in its first week, which isn't bad considering lead singer, Ben Gibbard, has the world's roundest head (de-throning former champ Phil Collins). After napping through last night's VMA, with host Diddy (who is about as musically relevant these days as......

Since we are wearing our official 'O.C.' fan club t-shirt and matching socks, we feel honor bound to let you know Death Cab for Cutie's MySpace page has their new song 'Soul Meets Body' available for your streaming pleasure. From what I can tell from the comments left by the bands MySpace friends, the new song is 'awesome,' 'steller,' 'f*cking awesome,' and good for 'mellowing out' and as we all know you should believe everything......

In case you haven't quite had your fill of Death Cab for Cutie cameos (the O.C.) or interviews (we talked to British Sea Power yesterday) recently, guitarist Christopher Walla interviews writer and NPR great Sarah Vowell at Salon.com today. Vowell's book "The Partly Cloudy Patriot" apparently had quite an effect on Walla and led him to purchase multiple copies for friends and family and, eventually, brought about this interview. They mostly discuss Vowell's new book......