Philly rapper Freeway at Chop Suey on Saturday: gruff, powerful, in control. Prodigious beard. His set was a pleasure to behold, with thick, thumping, meaty beats over which his growl sounded just right. Such sparkly bling, too! Our only complaints are that he cut off "It's Over" way too early and there were a couple too many a capellas, but the man can keep filthily perfect time and impresses regardless of the beat behind him.......

The East Coast got two new toys this month and Seattle didn't get any. We didn't even get a Microsoft/Yahoo buy-out like we were promised. Why can't Seattle get a bike-sharing program of our own, a la Washington, D.C.'s new "SmartBike DC"? Our city has a dedicated (at times, frighteningly dedicated) cadre of bicyclists who will shoot down objections that Seattle's just not bike-friendly. If we can embrace Zipcar, as undoubtedly Seattle has, we......

Saigon descended upon Neumos Wednesday night in true East Coast style, backed by three hype-men, two photographers, one DJ, and for awhile two dancing "homegirls". (Yes, his shirt did come off for a brief moment, and we did get to see those famous bulging arm muscles.) A sparse but expectant crowd watched as the New York rapper and his posse blew through an aggressive set that included the extra-tight club favorite "C'mon Baby" dropped......

Wild speculation surrounding the possibility of Radiohead playing somewhere in Washington sometime in the next year has got us pissing ourselves with excitement. The P-I A P-I reader blog called Ear Candy** thinks they might headline the Sasquatch Festival at the end of May with REM and The Cure but our sources are suggesting the band will embark on a West Coast run after their European summer tour ends. As of right now, the......

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......

This Seattlest had some family visiting this weekend and felt it was his duty to show them some of his favorite beer spots in town, even if they could probably care less. There were quite a few beers of note that were on tap and should still be around. We also found a few bottles of Lost Abbey Judgement Day at Esquin Wine this weekend. We didn't realize the Seattle market was getting this......

Sometimes we just want a slice of pizza. Not a pie. Not a square. Not a round. We’re talking a slice – one that you can grab with a hand, fold inward, and then tilt downward to watch the grease drip to the paper plate before you take that precious first bite No forks and knives for us, thanks. We’re doing it New York style. And given our East Coast sensibilities, we know not to......

Tonight and tomorrow, it's your last chance to see one of the year's best-reviewed documentaries at the Grand Illusion. King Corn follows two friends who move from the East Coast to the Iowa heartland to raise an acre of the highly-subsidized titular crop and follow it through the "corn industrial complex." It ain't pretty, but the film helpfully points out the extent to which corn is a part of the average American (and the......

Well! Seattlest lives for weekends like the upcoming one. On Saturday night, we've got Seatown representing rather well at Chop Suey. Assisting North Carolina all-star Little Brother in making the night oh-so-memorable are 206's tough-spitting Dyme Def, rhyme maestro Grynch, The Physics (thank you, God!), and DJ Top Spin. That's right, mutha-flippin Grynch will be there. Seattlest is going because we missed The Physics a couple weeks ago and truly regret that. We are also......

Out and about in Belltown, we espy a hand-lettered chalkboard in the window of Bambino's, promising "New York Style" sandwiches, including our favorite, beef tongue. Aha! A chance to write a post in support of a neglected cut of deli meat and say something nice about Bambino's for a change, instead of griping about the lackluster "East Coast" pizzas and the dinner server's tattoos. (Not just Bambino's, either; tats last week at Cucina DeRa, too,......

Seattlest took a little trip to the Oregon coast recently. We experienced two opposing points of the coastal experience within several miles of each other. True to its name, the city of Seaside is the archetypal slutty seaside town replete with an arcade, candy stores, cheesy tourist shops, and snooty beach-fronting hotels that will be the first to go when the tsunami hits. One would think that this is the place one would find......

Maybe it's because we're from the East Coast, but we're firm believers that there's some sort of force field around the West Coast, keeping all the singer/songwriters from becoming world famous and conquering the planet in the same way that eastern folksingers like Dar Williams and the Indigo Girls have. Occasionally, however, some random West Coaster—Laura Love, Brandi Carlile—manages to break out of the force field and become adored by everyone else in our......

Which of the following will you not hear on a Mariners television broadcast this season: A. "Lined back up the middle, and that is Vidro's third hit of the game." B. "Swing and a miss, and it's over. The Amazing Horacio has come through again." C. Rick Rizzs D. All of the above. Sadly, the answer is D. The Mariners have announced their 2007 broadcast team, following the departure of Ron Fairly, and Rizzs is......

Welcome to the new Seattlest! Same as the old Seattlest, of course, but a little less green with some more leg room. It kind of feels like...do you remember that Seinfeld where Kramer is on stage at the Laff Factory repaints the lanes on the segment of highway he adopted? Yeah, it's so luxurious. If you see some weird image formatting or maybe Seattlest contributors going off on long, seemingly-pointless diatribes that's just us swerving......

Garlic Gulch, that's what Belltown's Fourth Avenue has turned into, between downtown and Denny Way. At the north end, the venerable Zeek's appears to take intergalactic orders for traditional, predictable, topping-heavy slices. Bambino, a block away on Cedar, styles itself as "East Coast Pizza," whatever that means (thin crust, light toppings, one assumes). Given the flap over Domino's so-called Brooklyn-Style Pizza, probably not a great idea. Ordered a Tropicale (east-coast-speak for Hawaiian); despite 575-degree, wood-fired......

We rifled through Sunday's New York Times Arts Section cover piece about Starbucks thinking that if we looked hard and fast enough we'd find a punchline in there somewhere. When it turned out that no punchline was forthcoming we wrote it off to some kind of East Coast joke that was over our heads. Not even Gawker made any mention of the article so it couldn't have been legit and, well, we've spent thirty two......

On this date in 1918, the worldwide flu pandemic hit Seattle, as 700 cases were reported among the sailors at the University of Washington Naval Training Center on Lake Union. The disease primarily struck those between 20 and 35. Some 1,600 persons died in Seattle during the next six months despite the closing of theaters and schools, the banning of public gatherings, and the widespread wearing of gauze masks. At first, Seattle authorities acted by......

Seattlest finds the fact that a team of rowers from the Northwest have almost completed a trans-Atlantic crossing very cool, despite a couple of things, but first, it's cool. It seems like a truly difficult endeavor and the bigness of the Atlantic (big waves, big distance, big cold, etc) and the smallness of a rowable boat are somehow attractive to us. It does smell a little like rich guys ballooning around the world in......

Our little ditty against the Statuette of Liberty drew some comments from Dan Savage yesterday: And isn't there something meaningful about one Lady Liberty on the East Coast facing Europe and another on the West Coast facing Asia? (Now if we could only get one in, say, Texas facing Mexico and South America—and to hell with bronze, make that one out the bones of the Minutemen.) When you consider the United State's long history......

While exiled on the East Coast, we relied on the Internet for Mariner coverage. And we learned something surprising. The local paper that covers the Seattle Mariners best is the Tacoma News Tribune. Too often, the Times and the P-I are content to share the same story. But the Tribune reporters, Larry LaRue and Corey Brock, always seem to have something different. Today, it's a thorough recap of second-base hopeful Fernando Vina's career. Brock maintains......

In a clear case of East Coast bias among national basketball writers, the University of Washington did not acheive top 25 status in the latest AP women's basketball poll, despite having beaten #23 Utah and #14 Stanford. In a clear case of West Coast bias among national basketball writers, the University of Washington moved up to #7 in the AP men's basketball poll, with Gonzaga hot on their heels at #8, and UCLA at #11.......

What is it about the organic foods co-op that they so often invite the socially challenged to helm their cash registers? The following experience may not make it on the "most annoying sales clerks quotes" list, but only because the annoyance was too prolonged and crazy to sum up with a single quote. Follow along at home: the customer steps into Madison Market on Capitol Hill for some groceries, and is checking out when she's......

Last week we mentioned the crazy dreamers over in Bremerton that are building an elevator into the sky when one of their spinoff companies announced a new East Coast factory. LiftPort Nanotech Inc., specifically, will be manufacturing carbon nanotubes for use in plastics, glass and space elevators. LiftPort has reappeared for a return engagement in the PI this week, though, so we thought we'd point you to the interview over there. Notice we are not......

Who are the 11:30pm girls? What: #1 New York Pizza & Italian Food When: Sat, Apr 2, 1pm We’ve found the best pizza place in Seattle. It looks like a bait and tackle shop on the outside (scary) and is in Snohomish (far), but it’s absolutely worth the initial fright and the journey. And with good directions the trip is just 30 minutes from Cap Hill. #1 New York Pizza & Italian Food is......