In Seattle, the best bands seem to come about based on local friendships, and Mal de Mer is no exception. It's a newly revived indie rock band on the scene and full of faces you've likely seen before. Mal de Mer is a musical collaboration of talent from several well-received local bands including Slender Means, The Divorce, and the Redwood Plan. Since their debut early last year, they've gone through a lineup change, naming Lesli Wood of the Redwood Plan their new vocalist/keyboardist. The new lineup consists of Wood, Michael Lee, James Curran, and Eric Wennberg. Mal de Mer has recorded their first 7" release, produced by Martin Feveyear and Don Farwell, and it's set to hit the shelves this month. Check out their fun, peppy new single "Bubble Bobble" below, with a music video hot off the presses and coming out soon. more ›

Dust off your library cards! For users like myself who rarely ever use their public library cards, Seattle Public Library is providing some incentive to do so. Earlier this week, the library announced that it now offers free mp3 downloads courtesy of Freegal, an online database of Sony music songs. The digital music files are DRM-free, never expire, and work on all mp3-compatible devices. more ›

Pearl Jam is touring (nowhere near Seattle) this month—they’re kicking off a 13-stop trip tonight in West Palm Beach, actually—and that means more official bootlegs of Pearl Jam shows. more ›

Think nightlife is getting the short end of the stick in Seattle? Filled with righteous indignation over the way hiphop gets portrayed as Capitol Hill's downfall? We do, and we are, so it was a healthy shock to the system (and yet oddly familiar) to read about this Saudi hiphop group which, to the great chagrin and social shame of the guys' fathers and wives, made it onto MTV Arabia. From the MSNBC story about Dark2Men:

"There are a lot of Saudi rappers, but they're underground because of the wrong impression people have of them," Farhan told MTV's "Hip HopNa" co-host Qusai Khidr, a Saudi rapper who has lived in Florida. "We would like people to hear our words and listen to our message before they judge us."

We're trying to test Amazon's new MP3 download service because we hate CDs and iTunes and we love DRM-free music files and compensating artists for their work. Hang out with us a minute here while we try this... more ›

There was a time when every urban iPod listener had a choice to make regarding personal speakers. Do you use some pair of headphones from the 80s with the orange foam on them that you found in the spare electronics box in the garage to disguise your identity as an iPod owner? Or do you fly the snowy whites your iPod came with and announce your Apple Cool to everyone on the bus, and damn the mugging risks, this being Seattle after all. Or do you sport the giant cans because you absolutely need to squeeze as much sound performance as you can from a 128 kb-encoded MP3? The question has fallen moot as time, incessant television advertising and the near-ubiquity of iPods themselves have wrung the last vestiges of cachet out of the white cables. Just go with what ya got--Seattlest has a pair of these Sony earbuds that sound ok, but have this terrible cord configuration that was dreamed up by either a moron or a marketing guy hoping to horn in on Apple's headphone branding successes. more ›

With Jesca Hoop opening. more ›

There's been a lot of hype about this disc--Clarkson fired her management and pissed off Clive Davis in the process of making it--and you can bet pretty much every reviewer will mention that somewhere in their assessment. We're sheep, so we thought we'd open with that and get it out of the way. We'll be honest. Nobody's going to be giving Kelly Clarkson an award for being a great lyricist, so just get it out... more ›

Amazon says it's going to launch an online music store sometime this year and we say it's about time. We've been putting up with iTunes forever now while secretly hoping that someone in town would come up with a competitor. Microsoft has something, but, c'mon, a Microsoft music store? Obviously no. If they'd ever done a thing online we'd have been on the lookout for Starbucks launching a store, but their inexperience in online retail seems to have prevented the coffee maker from inflicting an easy listening media hub upon the world so far. And, oh yeah, Real has something already as well, but we've never tried it. That leaves Amazon, but for no reason at all we kinda figured they'd do it wrong. From what we've read so far they're doing it right. more ›

We came across two examples of Microsoft's less-successful marketing attempts yesterday. One from the '80s via YouTube: more ›

Marty, who's journeying through Egypt, Greece, and Rome, found this out the hard way when his wallet was stolen in Athens. He called WaMu to report the loss, close the accounts, and move on -- when he ran into trouble:

Anyway, I then spent the better part of the morning trying to confirm that the cards were indeed closed. No one at Washington Mutual (WaMu) would help me. They kept shuffling me from department to department until I was cut off two different times. It was then that I realized that I was running out of minutes on my cell phone (The only way to recharge the minutes is to have a credit card). I tried making the overseas collect call they suggest, but it did not work on a cell phone, pay phone or even the home phone of a kind Greek family that has befriended us.

Christopher Lydon's Open Source did a show last night, "One Nation, Under Surveillance," partially inspired by Jonathan Raban's new book Surveillance and his article in the Guardian, "We have mutated into a surveillance society -- and must share the blame." more ›

Joanna Newsom---child-voiced chanteuse/classically trained harpist/hyperliterate woodland nymph---took the stage at the Showbox last night looking just as we expected: with long, flowing hair and donning a red garment more nightgown than dress. Climbing behind her harp, she was totally Holly Hobbie at the renaissance faire. She kicked off her set solo by launching into "Bridges and Balloons" and "The Book of Right-On," both off her first album, before playing a traditional Scottish tune. Cradling the harp against her body, she delicately caressed, plucked, palmed, and stroked the strings, each technique creating a distinctly different tone. more ›

Tuesday 7th more ›

Bumbershoot sent out an email this morning announcing a bunch of acts for this year's Smaller, Better Festival. There's even more hiphop on the bill with the addition of local act Blue Scholars and Common Market and Brit chick Lady Sovereign (who we're looking forward to seeing with The Streets soon). Area indie rockers Crystal Skulls and Rocky Votolato will be there and to continue the trend of one Brit band for every couple of local acts Badly Drawn Boy is now scheduled. more ›

DCist is screwed in the event of an oil crisis. Not that we're not all screwed in the event of an oil crisis, just D.C. is more screwed. Don't sell your car yet, District resident, a cabbie can kick you to the curb if he doesn't like your address. Not even Metro can save you now. more ›

These guys are in haz-mat suits outside of a Bill Gates speech to protest the Digital Rights Management (DRM) capabilities that Microsoft's building into their software. "Defective by Design" is their catchphrase, meaning if you try to play an MP3 file, for example, and MS's software doesn't recognize it as belonging to you it won't play. Defective by design. They're trying to call attention to the fact that while DRM might be functionality that benefits Insert Evil Record Company Here you're the one buying the software. Is that something you'd like to pay money for? more ›

The middle of the year is approaching, so we think it's fair to give you an update on the folks we listed as creating some of the best tracks to come out of the area last year. For those of you who missed out the first time, here's a second chance to hear what the Pac NW is putting out into the world. more ›

As far as we can tell the second installment of the city's super cool OnHold program went into rotation over the weekend. No, we haven't spent the last two days on hold with city hall, but it appeared in our RSS sometime over the weekend so we're assuming it's new. You remember OnHold, right? It's a playlist composed of various Seattle-based musicians that you hear if you're on hold with the city or if you're a big geek and you download the thing and put it on your ipod like Seattlest. Then if you buy music from the playlist a portion of the proceeds goes to the city Office of Arts & Cultural Affairs. more ›

Seattlest sat down with a BBC reporter a few weeks ago and said a bunch of incredibly profound (but apparently also unintelligable) things into his minidisk player on the subject of Seattle's threatened two-newspaper town status. That BBC reporter was Matt Wells and he filed his story over the weekend, but it's only got a little taste of Seattlest at the very end where we talk about how in the future you'll pilot your hovercar over to Seattlest branded media-kiosk-bots to get your news. Brilliant. more ›

Once upon a time about a hundred blog years ago Seattlest tried doing an 'MP3 of the Week' post, um, weekly. Possibly it lasted two or three weeks. Those were glorious weeks, sure, and the mp3's were flying for those few posts, but, of course, the well of decent tracks dried up and the feature died. One of those posts was around the holidays and featured a holiday song by Jay Cox of the Sea Navy that was super fun. We just listened to it again: still fun lo these many months from the holidays. more ›

Whenever a big-time sports team gets in some serious championship contention, local radio starts playing quickie novelty songs inspired by (or exploiting) the team in question. Usually some unknown artist will give a popular song the Weird Al treatment, altering its lyrics to fit the team, and often enhancing the tracks with fake play-by-play announcers and crowd cheers. The earliest example we recall is “Husky Fever,” adapted from "Boogie Fever,” the Sylvers’ #1 disco hit from 1976. It was played incessantly on local radio as the Huskies approached their 1978 Rose Bowl victory, and it’s still a staple of the UW marching band. more ›

Last week Seattlest went to a rave at the never-mentioned Aristocrats. While not quite a resolution for the new year, we're certainly trying to experience some new things, musically and otherwise. It wasn't the most attended party in history, but it was fun to hear some gritty house and ghettotech on a club system and to see that the younguns are still out there for their beat marathons, despite the same claims that plague the rock scene. Seattlest's days of 12 hour parties are long over except for a few wonderful yet exhausting exceptions, but it's good to know that they're still happening. more ›

The past year has been a good one for Seattle. The Decibel Festival, Red Bull Music Academy, and one-off shows brought in talent to a degree that's inconsistent with the actual size of our metropolis. Seattle's producers and DJs also managed to make waves outside the region, with well-received releases and appearances at world-reknowned festivals. Most importantly, the year is closing with strong momentum, setting up next year to further propel the Seattle scene. In celebration of 2006, here are Seattlest's picks for the top 6 tracks and performances to come about this year. We recognize these lists are usually a source of controversy, so let us know in the comments if we've made any glaring omissions. more ›

This woman just can't follow directions. This Ali Marcus. "Send us the url to a freely downloadable MP3 written and performed by you," we said, and she sends in a link to an entire album's worth of Windows Media formatted files. We don't know where she thinks she's going in life with an attitude like that, but might Seattlest suggest something in the "creative field." more ›

People will email Seattlest with random crap fairly often. "Please check out my potato collection," or "Just thought you should see my new site dedicated to potato collecting." Some of it we check out (that's a lot of potatos, and they look fantastic in that cabinet in the bathroom) and some of it we ignore. This week we got an email from Jay Cox of local rock band The Sea Navy alerting us to the fact that he'd written a holiday song and that it was available for listening on his site. This is the kind of email that makes Seattlest feel like an six-year-old on Christmas morning. more ›

KEXP recently announced that they will be pulling out of the Tacoma area and ceasing to broadcast on the 91.7 KXOT FM band they were using down there. The easy thought on this is similar to the one that appeared when, say, the Bellevue Art Museum announced it was shutting its doors: That is, "Anyone that lives in the area outside of Seattle is lame and doesn't care about art or culture and if they did they would live in Seattle. Furthermore, attempting to bring anyone outside of Seattle art or culture is a lost cause because they just don't care." Seattlest doesn't subscribe to that, of course, but it's out there. Actually, we were intrigued by the whole KEXP South experiment from the start, although we wouldn't quite say we thought that investing that volume of resources in old school radio land was the best idea. We don't pretend to know enough about the inner workings of KEXP to deliver any actual facts here, but it seems apparent that a battle has been waged on the inside of KEXP pitting geographic, FM expansion vs the internets and the internets have come out on top. The Tacoma invasion has been repelled and that AP "Little Radio Station That Could" piece has been reprinted in seemingly every paper in the country. more ›

In an effort to prove they are still relevant, Real Networks has released a new version of their Rhapsody service. This service labeled Rhapsody to Go allows for a monthly fee users with compatible MP3 players to load as much music as they want onto their portable devices. If this seems similar to the rent-to-listen model of Napster To Go, you would be right, since to our discerning eye, they are exactly the same.(By the way, who works in the Real marketing department? Did they come up with the name of their new service by doing a find and replace in MS Word?) We have not tried their new service, since it works only on Windows and is not compatible with the 500lb gorilla of mp3 players, the iPod, but if the idea of Napster To Go appeals to you and if you want to support a local company, give Rhapsody to Go a try. more ›