Well, that was weird. We like the Cat Power, don't get us wrong. But, in retrospect, we would have skipped Chan Marshall's set at the Showbox last night. We wish she had. It all started with her complaining about wearing size 26 pants when she's really a 28. "I fucked up," she said, dryly. (We thought that was banter but she kept hitching her pants up all set long, even unzipping them onstage, a......

We were expecting the first day of Bumbershoot to be absolutely hellacious, what with the warm temps and the large crowds. Surprisingly, neither weather nor crowd size was *that* bad. As to the music: Interest is building for local band The Purrs, and their solid set at the EMP Sky Church showed why. Their sound is straight-forward jangly rock, with heavy British influences and more than a hint of shoe-gaze. The band really took......

We always try to listen to Don Slack's Swingin' Doors show on KEXP. If we aren't in the car when it's live (6-9pm on Thursdays), we catch the replay on KEXP's streaming archive. On last week's show, DJ Don played a fast Western-swing song with a great melody, "Banks of the Brazos" by James Hand. (You can hear it if you set the streaming archive to start at 6:45pm, or hear a snippet here). The......