A free movie, free booze, and DJ Cide spinning while you socialize beforehand? Say yes to Scion's Route 08, an independent movie series showing in Seattle at the Harvard Exit. Audrey discussed the ins and outs of corporate-sponsored lifestyle marketing events in preview of the last film, Heavy Metal In Baghdad; go read that again so you're spiritually prepared for the onslaught of Scionism, and then RSVP on the Scion website by 5 p.m. tonight......

The video above is "Rainbow Claw," off of Tussle's latest album, Cream Cuts, out now on Smalltown Supersound. While that's well worth seeking out, what's more immediately important is the fact that Tussle play tonight at The Comet. While Tussle's recorded output faithfully captures their psychedelic funk jams (no hippie stuff though, don't worry), it's live where the material really shines. The band's rhythm section locks everything into a solid groove, with drumming so......

Sigur Ros photo by Eva Vermandel ...if you're willing to pay way more than face value. In advance of the Icelandic band's sure-to-be-epic performance this Sunday at Benaroya Hall, Craigslist is blowing up with people looking to buy and sell tickets to the long sold-out show. Seems like there's still some good tix available, but as always, be careful who you do business with. While some posts look to be from real people just trying......

If you haven't heard it yet, the above video is for Noah and the Whale's light-hearted poppy single "5 Years Time" off their debut album Peaceful, the World Lays Me Down. That catchy song just begs to be used in pretty much every movie trailer—Wes Anderson ones especially—and/or TV ad (we've already seen it in a car commercial). The folky twee British quartet plays a free show tonight at Chop Suey with openers Grand......

Talented Toronto singer-songwriter young'un Justin Nozuka has spent the entire week traversing the wilds of the internets. On his virtual tour, he already made stops to deposit videos of exclusive performances at Pop Culture Madness! and Stop Okay Go, along with his MySpace profile and iLike page. Today he pulls into the station at Seattlest with his current single "After Tonight" off debut album Holly (awww, named after his mama). In real life, Nozuka......

It's safe to say that the only person in town who loves Dr. Dog more than us is erstwhile Stranger music editor Jonathan Zwickel. We won't go so far as to say that they "sound like the best band ever," but we do agree that the Philly five-piece have the influences (Beach Boys, Beatles, Steely Dan, The Band, and so on), the sense of melody, and the spot-on harmonies to always put on a......

Tonight, drink pricey beers at the WaMu Theater (hey, they need the money!) before The Kills and The Raconteurs. You best get there early; believe us, it takes a lotta beers to make Jack White look pretty, but no drinks at all to make him sound good. If you'd rather get your face first country-rocked gently and then melted off, head to the Tractor for Shim with The Maldives opening. It's like a Bumbershoot Sky......

Say what you want about American Idol's biggest success story, Ms. Carrie Underwood—including that she can't dance, bless her heart—but it can't be said the woman doesn't have a strong set of pipes. She'll be the last major performer during the Puyallup Fair's final weekend. If there's anything in the show that remotely resembles her performance from last year's Grammy Awards, we'll just die: Seattlest doesn't have tickets (we'll gladly take a pair off the......

Seattle's known already for its pocket-sized parks tucked away on unlikely vistas, but local volunteers in conjunction with the Trust for Public Land have coordinated an event called Park(ing) Day to bring more awareness to the need for community green space. And that's a good thing. Tomorrow, eight close to thirty metered parking spots around the city (click here for locations) will transform into public park land for the day. A few of the sites......

Tonight's the all-ages Red Bull Big Tune Battle at Neumo's. It's a big hiphop competition (twelve producers are picked to compete, whittled down from the eighty who applied from all over the Northwest and even northern California), and the regional showdown for one of the only legit national beat battles. This year's featured guests are Detroit's Black Milk and Elzhi. It's also the surprisingly sold-out Rancid and Less Than Jake show at the Showbox SoDo.......

Seattlest listens to a lot of local hiphop, and after awhile most of it starts to sound the same, save a few favorite groups (The Saturday Knights, Cancer Rising, and Grayskul, to name a few). Enter the latest two albums from Seattle hiphop staples Sabzi and Ra Scion. When their powers combine, they are Common Market; they're fighting on our planet's side to take (mind) pollution down to zero, with intricate, erudite-bordering-on-incomprehensibly thick lyrical miracle......

Slaid Cleaves may not be super known out here on the left coast, but among songwriter circles in the south and back east, he's one of the most respected singer-songwriters on the scene. The man just has a way with words, and he'll be gracing us with his presence next Wednesday at the Tractor. If you're a ZooTunes-hanging Mountain listener who appreciates a good solo acoustic songwriter, then the Tractor will be your place next......

Face it, folks: it's fall in Seattle, and along with cooler nights, leaves changing color, and the beginning of football season, fall also marks the annual Scion independent film series. Yes, it's corporate-sponsored lifestyle marketing aimed at the hip youth demographic, and yes, they just want the kids to buy their damn cars, but we're willing to shill for it when 1) it's free and 2) the films shown are actually worth seeing. The......

PHILOSOPHY!: Slavoj Žižek occupies a place in the intellectual world akin to that of Noam Chomsky, at once both a (perceived) leading philosopher and theorist and a public intellectual who commands the respect of the educated masses, weighing in on the issues of the day in more accessible publications like the London Review of Books. So, after thirty-plus books in English, hundreds of articles and essays, a tabloid-style wedding to an Argentinian supermodel-cum-Lacanian theorist, and......

If you're unfamiliar, allow us to introduce you to Laura Gibson—one of the best singer-songwriters coming out of the ever-vibrant Portland singer-songwriter scene. Granted, "vibrant" is not a word we'd use to describe Gibson's work. In fact, we suggest you nap a bit on Sunday afternoon before you head out to the Tractor, because she could sing you into the happiest of bar naps if you're not careful. Her voice is incredibly soothing and her......

With this year's Bumbershoot nearly upon us, let's continue to hope that the weekend weather keeps looking good. If you don't have tickets yet, stop by your local Starbucks to avoid the lines and fees at the gates. Check out a few more tips (bring water and a jacket! take the bus! wear sunscreen! call your mother!) at the Bumbershoot site. While there's plenty of music acts to see (and to harass by requesting......

Break out the hackysack and butterfly wings, because former Phish bassist Mike Gordon is at the Tractor tonight in support of his new solo record, The Green Sparrow. Sub Pop singer-songwriters Sera Cahoone and Daniel Martin Moore play Neumo's, while The Architects bring the crazy to El Corazon.......

Tonight's the final night of the final film in the Northwest Film Forum's Hal Ashby series, and it's a good 'un. Being There is the story of Chance the Gardener, a simple man whose straight-forward innocence charms everyone he encounters in upper crust Washington D.C. As played by Peter Sellers, television-loving Chance hews closely to Kirk Lazarus' sage advice that an actor should never go "full retard." Shirley MacLaine and Melvyn Douglas also turn......

Tonight, everybody's favorite local chanteuse Jesse Sykes plays a free KEXP show at Seattle Center's Mural Ampitheater, featuring music from her new EP Gentleness of Nothing. (Tomorrow night, Rocky Votolato plays the Mural.) Tomorrow, the Mountain's Music Festival at Marymoor with Brandi Carlile, Jackie Greene, and Train's Pat Monahan. The less said about the latter, the better. Here's our gal Brandi performing "The Story," her Grey's Anatomy Soundtrack hit: And Seattlest's old friend Steve Winwood......

SOPPING WET OPERA: Byron Au Yong has composed 64 mini-operas meant to be performed in water--fountains, pools, and streams--throughout the Pacific Northwest. In this weekend's installments of Kidnapping Water: Bottled Operas, musicians and vocalists will perform unique mini-operas at parks and beaches in Des Moines/Burien (Saturday) and South Seattle (Sunday). "Who publishes the sheet-music of the winds or the music of water written in river-lines?" wrote 19th century poet John Muir; maybe that someone......

There's a whole cavalcade of delicately dear boys in town tonight. Head to the Triple Door for pretentious Juilliard grad/Philip Glass collaborator Nico Muhly who composes and plays experimental classical works. He's part of the 802 Tour, along with Sam Amidon and Doveman, who recently covered the Footloose soundtrack non-ironically and in its entirety. It's actually his touching and bittersweet tribute to a childhood friend's half-sister. For reals. Stream the whole thing at Doveman's website.......

We first heard of Nellie McKay as a folkie singer-songwriter/piano player, but her latest effort sees her doing some more ambitious big band work. It makes us think of James Bond film scores or maybe musical theater from the '70s. It's fun, that's what matters. It's also thoughtful and lyrically driven stuff that occasionally breaks into raps and chants, kind of spoken word stuff that's equal parts ranty and politically sound. Just check it for......

Who will triumph as the West Coast champion of the DMC turntablist competition tonight? And--perhaps even more interesting--what interesting tricks of the turntablist trade will he or she bring to the tables? 206 Zulu somehow finagled to host the left coast heat of the international championships here in Seattle, at the Vera Project. The only kind of scratching Seattlest does personally is of the "where it itches" variety, and DJs from all over the West......

GEORGETOWN SMELLS LIKE ART When the creativity faucet is on full blast, it can get tricky to turn it off--so these 25 local artists aren't even going to try. Instead, they have signed up to participate in a 24-hour art marathon in a beautiful old building in Georgetown, presented to the general public by CoCA for the 16th year in a row. By the time you read this, the marathon will have commenced; there are......

GOOD MUSICALS, FINALLY: Contemporary Classics presents its fifth annual "New Voices" festival tonight at Seattle Rep's PONCHO Forum. Bringing together songs from leading musical theatre composers and Seattle's top performers, local musical guru Brandon Ivie seeks to dispel the notion that musical theatre is dead, whatever the mediocre fare on Broadway. As composers incorporate modern forms like rock and hiphop into the repertoire, and writers see the campy theatricality of musical as a means to......

Tonight, head to the Sunset for the shoegaze stylings of Film School. There's also L.A. pop mainstay Adam Marsland at the Skylark and local troubadour Rocky Votolato at Neumo's.......

If you've still yet to hear about the Everybodyfields, the only thing you should worry about at this point is getting a ticket to see them at the Tractor on Thursday. We love them for their tight knit harmonies and their nanananas, but also for everything else, really. They're part of that Ramseur Records Carolina/Tennessee new folk scene going on (think of label mates the Avett Brothers, Carolina Chocolate Drops, and Bombadil). They'll be appearing......

Yes, there's other shows this weekend besides the Capitol Hill Block Party. Tonight, there's The Watson Twins, who will bring their lovely harmonies and creepy identical-ness to the Tractor. And if you're lucky, they'll cover The Cure: For something completely different, there's Kill Hannah, along with The Medic Droid and Innerpartysystem at El Corazon. Or head to the Sunset for the island-smooth pedal steel guitar stylings of Neko Case sideman Jon Rauhouse, with Visqueen's own......

Boy, we wish we'd heard about this one sooner, before we tied ourselves to the Block Party. Nicole Atkins writes lovely, singer-songwritery tunes backed exquisitely by the busy-but-purposeful accompaniment of her backup band, aptly named the Sea. She's also gorgeous and has a voice the size of Manhattan, and the smarts to know how to control it, when to back off, when to let it rip. Check it: 10 p.m. // Triple Door // $20......

Yes, you read that correctly. Donut! Eating! Competition! Are your artery walls closing in yet? Don't worry, because all calories from the donut consumption on Saturday will be null-and-voided by the blast of hiphoppy surfer punk rock played live by The Saturday Knights while you cram your mouth full of cakey, frosted goodness at the downtown Top Pot on (appropriately) Saturday. Last year, Bob of The Blakes won; this year, our money's on a......