Kurt by Steve Mohundro from the Seattlest Flickr pool. more ›

Austin, Texas, has a lot of things that Seattle doesn't. Sunshine. Lone Star. 100 degree temperatures. Great (or at least ubiquitous) BBQ. Longhorns. Willie Nelson. A Republican governor with big hair. But perhaps best of all, it has the Alamo Drafthouse. more ›

Another dog day, another 4 dogs rescued from a life of fighting. Also, some very uncool art theft (not that any art theft is cool), and the residents of Aberdeen put their foot down. more ›

Scary news, sad news and news that makes us skeptical. Here's what's cooking around Seattle on your Thursday afternoon. more ›

Updates on this morning's police chase, Microsoft paints a pretty picture for Intiman, Kurt Cobain and recognizing domestic partnerships. more ›

Remember that movie map we posted a couple weeks ago? It was kind of cool (and kind of frustrating). And now someone has made this map of the U.S. states accompanied by representative TV shows. This time Washington's pick was among the most obvious. Yes, all you Kelsey Grammer fans, the rest of the country still thinks of “Frasier” when they think of our home state. more ›

Hometown heroes and diplomats of plaid Nirvana are getting what is claimed to be the single most comprehensive examination of the bands musical and cultural legacy ever come this April at the EMP. more ›

The Seattle Art Museum laid out its exhibit plans for the next couple of years, beginning with its October blockbuster, "Picasso Masterpieces." The national Picasso museum in Paris is undergoing renovations so they're sending much of the collection--Picasso's private stash, mostly--on a worldwide tour: Madrid, Moscow, Helsinki, Seattle. Seattle? Yes, indeed. "This is what we built the museum to do," director Derrick Cartwright told a press luncheon. An extremely ambitioius undertaking, 150 pieces, that requires a couple of "Presenting Sponsors" (Microsoft and JP Moran Chase) not to mention a "major sponsor" (Sotheby's) and a hotel sponsor (the Four Seasons, duh, right across First Avenue). more ›

Last week it just so happened that we picked up a copy of Charles R. Cross' Heavier Than Heaven: A Biography of Kurt Cobain. Today Seattle Weekly reported on news posted by Billboard: Oren Moverman is in negotiations with Universal to direct and re-write the screenplay for a biopic on Cobain's life, music and suicide which will draw material, in part, from Cross' biography. Stay tuned for a review of the book and any further news coming down the pipe in regards to the movie. more ›

Like their Scandinavian brethren Sigur Ros, Mew creates exceedingly rich musical textures that have the ability to fill every corner of a room with dense emotion. In advance of the band’s show at Neumo’s this evening, we were able to catch up with Jonas to discuss the band’s complex sound, their sources for inspiration and approach to music as performance. (Mew will headline Neumos tonight. The Lonely Forest will open. Tickets $14 adv. All ages.) more ›

In other Courtney Love news, Kurt Cobain's widow has woken up from her decades-long booze and pills coma to find that somebody done gone and stole her money. According to yesterday's Page Six: "some of the people handling Kurt Cobain's estate had lost all the money the Nirvana frontman had left her and their daughter, Frances Bean, her lawyer says. A team of investigators, forensic accountants, and lawyers found that Cobain's estate had been looted of more than $30 million cash and up to $500 million in real estate." In response, they plan on tracking down as much stolen booty as possible and filing civil suits aplenty. Courtney's crazy-ass Twitter feed had no comment. more ›

• This is terrible, but when Seattlest noticed the weird new streetlights on 10th Avenue the other night, we thought, "No need to investigate just yet. Capitol Hill Seattle is probably already on it." And what do you know? They were.
• The Washington Bus has Gary Payton rapping, of course, and an ode to Senator Jeanne Kohl-Welles. The only thing better would be GP rapping about Kohl-Welles on the Washington Bus itself.
• After reading Blogazar's post about Kurt Cobain and today's Capitol Hill, we would like to weigh in: Cobain would probably still live in the neighborhood, but he'd never come out of his apartment. He'd just have Zaw and heroin delivered to him on the daily and have a Twitter account.

A generation ago, Seattle's most famous person was a fictional clown who lived in the city dump. more ›

Four mentions trumps Milwaukee or Nashville, similarly sized cities with no direct mentions in Harper's Index. The Index (before we kicked the habit entirely, the only reason we subscribed to the magazine) has a fresh new search interface, which inspired us to go looking. The four mentions make an interesting snapshot of Seattle in highbrow pop culture since 1984: our high rate of CPR training, grunge-a-mania, the cult of Kurt Cobain, and the trumped-up charges against WTO protesters. Of course, our culture spreads indirectly, as well: Starbucks has hit the Index 5 times, Bill Gates 13 times, Microsoft 21 times, Amazon 4 times (though "amazon.com" only pulls up one of those mentions), and Boeing twice. more ›

LIVING LEGENDS: No, not Twiggy. We're talking about the hiphop crew out of Cali, two members of which will be performing at Neumos tonight. The Grouch and Eligh are touring for the holidays (official tour title: "How The Grouch Stole Christmas"), sharing the evening's bill with Bayliens and 206 Zulu cornerstones Alpha P. The duo will release an album called Say G&E in the spring, so attendees tonight should be getting a sneak peek at the new material; we've also heard The Grouch's solo album Show You The World, which fans of underground and indie hiphop (a la Atmosphere) are encouraged to check out. more ›

It was seventeen years ago today, Nevermind made its record store debut, and rock music would never be the same. Nirvana's second full-length album (and the first on Geffen rather than indie Sub Pop), Nevermind solidified the band's trademark loud-quiet song structure and marked a shift in their sound to something bigger than just grunge. While it took months for Nevermind's first track "Smells Like Teen Spirit" to become a surprise hit on the MTV, today's the anniversary of that seminal album being released unto the world. Take the time to give it another listen. more ›

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Musicians who remain active in the recording industry for over 20 years usually become internationally famous and aim to save the world, or quietly cultivate a devout fan base by emancipating humanity one pair of ears at a time. Mark Pickerel—drummer, vocalist, and Ellensburg native—has followed the latter career path. more ›

We think of Kurt Cobain’s short, violently-ended life like Clarence Worley does The King’s: "In Jailhouse Rock he was everything rockabilly's about. I mean, he is rockabilly. Mean, surly, nasty, rude. In that movie he couldn't give a fuck about nothing except rockin' and rollin', living fast, dying young and leaving a good-looking corpse." more ›

So the lovely and talented Britney Spears has reached that beautiful moment in a young celebrity's life when the media decides they need to draft your obituary. Yes, it seems the AP has concluded that Ms. Spears' mortality is sufficiently imminent they need to prepare for the story. Of course, drafting an obit in advance is an industry-wide practice, but for a 26-year-old? Of course, 27 is just that by kicking the stool out from under her sometime before Dec. 2, 2008. more ›

Yes, it's actually been 14 years since Unplugged in New York aired the first time, on the TV channel that once stood for Music. Fourteen years since you perched on the edge of the couch, possibly stoned, wearing intentionally crappy clothes, your bleary eyes glued to the set. Since Kurt Cobain had just a few months left of his short, tortured life. more ›

Next year’s publication of Itch, Love Stories About Heroin means that if you've been waiting for a full-length, in-depth book about Alice in Chains' Layne Staley—well, don’t get your hopes up. more ›

In central Illinois in the 1990s Seattlest was a wee little college freshman exploring the twin wonders of new music and new drugs. Nirvana, for example, was making some music we got really into, so much so that we learned of Aberdeen, WA, even though we'd never been to the West Coast, much less the Pacific Northwest, or Washington, or Seattle. At nearly the same time we encountered our first vanity steroid users. Some guys in the dorm--non-athlete guys--worked out a lot and then sat around in front of mirrors with their shirts off. "Steroids" they whispered to one another, "I'm starting a cycle." It went around the building like a bootleg tape. "So-and-so's hooking me up." And by second semester there were a lot of little, big men lurching around, popping zits and raging from time to time. more ›

Wait--choke back that vomit. We're making shit up. Speculating doom, if you will. Only half of that title is true. more ›

In December 1992, Kurt Cobain and rock journalist Michael Azerrad began a series of interviews that would eventually become the beating heart of Azerrad's band biography, Come as You Are: The Story of Nirvana. For that project, Azerrad recorded over 25 hours of the rock star's musings and reflections, but until pairing with director AJ Schnack to make Kurt Cobain About a Son, had never released the tapes' contents to the public. This film, then, playing at the Varsity for just one week, is a gift to Nirvana fans, the Kurt-curious and grunge scholars everywhere. more ›

We start things off this weekend with a simple two words from Donte: Muthafucking Justice! more ›

Musical hyphenate-extraordinaire Shawn Smith has been fronting bands and playing solo in Seattle for about 15 years. As recent, local music history goes, he’s as seminal a figure as Kurt Cobain—and more prolific—though not nearly as high-profile. He should be. more ›