GAMES (AND THE PEOPLE WHO MAKE/PLAY THEM): If you're a gamer, then you've already planned to spend your entire weekend around the convention center for the Penny Arcade Expo. What better way to spend the last days of summer than indoors playing the latest and upcoming games, talking to developers and hearing gamer-friendly music? It's officially sold out, but it never hurts to try. If that doesn't work, there's always PAX East in March. Convention Center, Friday-Sunday. more ›

Last night, Seattlest hit up the Red Bull Big Tune 2007 Championship at Neumos just like we said we would. The idea of the competition was to showcase U.S. hip-hop producers in the form of a beat battle, tournament-style; in between rounds we were treated to the skills of DV-One and Just Blaze, and also to a mini-concert from giants De La Soul. We were not expecting this last, and it was kinda fun. Our favorite part was seeing Neumos packed with locals excited about hip-hop, though. "The whole city's here," Courage of Eastern Sunz commented before the rounds began. "Do you know what the prize is?" No, we did not, but later we discovered the winning producer would be going home with some expensive sound monitors and a recording date in LA with a hip-hop star. Sweet. more ›

Heads up, Seattle: there's a Beat Battle going down at Neumos tonight (Thursday)! It's called something dorky like "Red Bull Big Tune Championships," but don't let the name fool you. De La Soul will be there, Brainstorm will be there, Daps1 (we hope) will be there. Vitamin D's on the bill, and Sabzi of Blue Scholars is planning on strutting his stuff. Neumos has DV-One of recently (some would say wrongfully) convicted fame on the bill as the host DJ... It should be a fantastic time. We'll report on Friday. more ›