MONSTER MASH: Many fans of mash-up music probably have The Hood Internet's website at the top of their bookmarks list -- and for anyone who doesn't, now's as good a time as ever to start. For going on four years, the DJ duo has given away a handful of mixtapes and hundreds of well-crafted party tunes, downloadable online. There's no doubting the duo's ability to pair indie rock with hip-hop, taking classic songs and making them even better, adding melody to hip-hop and giving indie favorites much needed attitude or a dance floor beat. This TI / Liars mash-up is a good example. This ODB / White Williams combo is a good one too. Even better than enjoying the tunes through headphones? Hearing The Hood Internet working live. more ›

WOMEN DOCUMENTED: The Northwest Film Forum will be showing the film Women Without Men tonight. Based on the same-titled novel by the exiled Iranian writer Shahmush Parsipur, the film explores the lives of four women from different social classes that take refuge in a metaphorical orchard during the 1953 CIA-backed coup in Iran. Selected for the 2010 Sundance Film Festival and winner of the 2009 Venice Film Festival Silver Lion for Best Director, the film is New York-based visual artist Shirin Neshat’s feature film debut. more ›

Local non-profit 826 Seattle is celebrating its fifth birthday. What better way to commemorate the occasion than hosting its first annual Dance Your Cash Off dance marathon. Hundreds of supporters will shimmy, shake and electric slide into Nectar Lounge tonight at 7 p.m. Learn some new moves as the event kicks off with a group “Single Ladies” dance (black leotard optional) and salsa lesson. DJ Anjali with her Bollywood beats and DJ Peter Henry with his homegrown mashups will keep the music rocking for a full five hours. more ›

TRUE ORBIT: Chilled to a level of realness unfortunately too often glossed over. It’s the real B-Boy style, enunciated rhymes and steady but pressing beats with a pleasant scratch and straight hip-hip talk unconcerned with that which most are blinded by today. Two things, music and life positively, the only two things that truly matter. This is good time hip-hop, all flow sans unnecessary spit. Easy to touch and be touched by. Not ground breaking but ground holding, still perfecting the stable roots of a tree that grew so quickly. Orbitron with Continental Soldiers, Red Cloud, and DJ Young Native. more ›

Today is blustery, the kind of day best spent bundled up in your favorite sweater and gently sipping at some hot cocoa. Although we generally believe this to be the best way to enjoy autumn, tonight Nectar offers a choice alternative: Fool’s Gold. more ›

At last year's Decibel Festival, one of the big disappointments was the fact that the duo CLP (Chris de Luca of Funkstorung and electro producer Phon.o) were unable to perform due to de Luca's inability to get through customs at the Canadian border. Sure, Phon.o performed, but for those looking for the full CLP experience it was a let-down. Well, tonight's the chance to alleaviate that disappointment, and without the frenzy of the festival setting. Decibel's brought CLP back to Seattle to play Nectar tonight, and will hopefully draw out a nice mix of techno nerds, hip hop beat freaks, and those looking for nothing more than a good time on the dance floor. For the latter group the video above should help you pick up a few moves. more ›

We just received a friendly text from Meli Darby at Nectar Lounge saying that their website (nectarlounge.com) has crashed and won't be up until Monday or possibly later. For now, she says, if you're looking for information on their shows this weekend, please visit NectarFremont.com. Local hiphop forum 206Proof is also down until further notice, due to a planned relaunch of the site with some exciting improvements. more ›

ONE MAN ARMY Rap gods be praised, One Be Lo is back in town! This man's sharp mind never fails to astound and inspire us. What we've said in the past: "He is a master lyricist, an assertive, seasoned spitter of rhyme and reason." On the bill with him are Spaceman (he slays every stage we've ever seen him on), Othello outta Portland repping Lightheaded, and Helladope, the latter of which has been getting some love from The Stranger recently. more ›

THE LO DON'T STOP: Camp Lo is two emcees out of the Bronx--Geechi Suede and Sonny Cheeba--who deliver consistently fly, catchy tracks to the masses. Their latest single is called "Lumdi" (listen here), which means something approximating "sexually attractive female." Gonna be a packed show, and a perfect choice if you want to dance and kick off your weekend with some superlative hiphop. more ›

SYNTHS, BLEEPS, AND BLIPS: Naw, we're not talking about party politics. We're talking about the bright, accessible electronica of Ratatat, and about how you should have bought tickets months ago for their sold-out concert tonight. Ratatat's eponymous debut and their '06 release Classics get regular and beloved play in Seattlest's living room; we haven't heard LP3, but it's probably just as perfect to put on if you want to dance a little while you make dinner. If you have tickets already, enjoy the show; if you don't, go see Hellboy II: The Golden Army somewhere instead. You can listen to Ratatat online later. more ›

The Saturday Knights/Budos Band show at Nectar on Friday night was sold out by 9:30 p.m., as in guest lists closed, no further entrance, and crowds of people partying outside the gates. Seattlest arrived at a normally respectable hour of 10:45 p.m. to find the Budos Band's shiny brass horns blaring, congo drums thumping, and every inch of Nectar packed with happy people. more ›

It's a great weekend for hiphop, Seattle! On Saturday, Grynch is headlining a show with D.Black, XPerience, Khingz, and the hilarious Sonny Bonoho at Chop Suey. It's a well-balanced bill full of funny, talented performers who draw big crowds on their own steam, so on a line-up together--well, Chop Suey will be alive and on fire Saturday night! more ›

Three shows have claims on our affections for Friday night: Onry Ozzborn’s solo set at Nectar, We Wrote The Book On Connectors at the Blue Moon, and the hippest hiphop night to grace Belltown in awhile, “The Corner” at the Rendezvous Room. more ›

We're excited about three hiphop(ish) shows this weekend: RJD2 at Chop Suey, Lucky I Am at Nectar, and Willie Will's album release party at Chop Suey. more ›

Tonight: Style Out in SoDo or Neema/Cool Nutz/Cancer Rising in Fremont? The choice is difficult for local hiphop fans. On the one hand, we've got Alpha P (classic and skilled pros), The Physics (hilarious and enthused), and a host of talented performers working the social movement angle of hiphop. On the other hand, we've got Neema (he's promised a bunch of new material tonight), Cool Nutz (from NE Portland, repping the deliciously dope ), and Cancer Rising (the rumor mill says: new dance moves). more ›

Friday's show at Nectar Lounge was a great showcase for both classic and fresh, emerging talents in local hiphop. Alpha P, a gratifyingly professional, unflaggingly high-spirited crew of twelve headlining the show, were working NW underground hiphop in the 90s; the other acts on the bill included Tacoma-based Jay Barz (a raucus party act, himself), pissed-off Neema of Unexpected Arrival, fast-talking Premonition and the bulging vein on his neck, and charismatic story-teller Kublakai--interviewed by Seattlest here. Though the show started late, DJ Hanibal won us over when he played Snoop and Dre's "Nuthin But A G-Thang," which we'd coincidentally just finished reminiscing about with our show-going companion. more ›

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Saturday // Macklemore // Nectar // $7 //21+ more ›

George Porter (of The Meters) and his band, Porter Batiste Stoltz, are descending upon Fremont's Nectar Lounge tonight, providing you with the opportunity to experience legendary New Orleans dirty funk right here in Seattle. Porter was the bass player for the original Meters back in the '60s and '70s. Russell Batiste, Jr., and Brian Stoltz jumped on the funk train with Porter in The Meters' late '80s reincarnation--the Funky Meters. George Porter, Jr.'s, bass is sexy as hell; have you "Cissy Strut"? more ›

We usually stay pretty hog-tied to the folk and roots music world, but a year or so ago, we found ourselves volunteering to cover a show at Neumo's featuring Common Market and The Coup. Hot damn! That was a good show. more ›

The crowd, startlingly young for a Sunday show, was treated to a decently long set from Grayskul to start things off. JFK's hyperactive hand twisted and grasped and fluttered its way through at least half a dozen tracks from , plus a few from previous records; we'd forgotten how much we like the title track from that release, and this show's live version was light and quick on its feet. There was the cutest introductory sample for "Scarecrow" we've heard yet, inspiring JFK to play a little air guitar, and "Missing" (the track featuring Andrea Zollo from Pretty Girls Make Graves) never fails to give us goosebumps. The snag in the whole concept: our ears can't actually hear and comprehend as fast as JFK and Onry Ozzborn can rap, so we end up just appreciating Grayskul's two-toned morbid aura without catching more than a few phrases here and there. more ›

Okay, friends and neighbors. December is a huge month for local hip-hop, and not just because of Blue Scholars' The Program. This week, Chop Suey's got you covered for Monday and Tuesday with the Parker Brothaz tonight (GMK will be there! We love that guy!) and freestyle master Eyedea & DJ Abilities tomorrow night. Over in Fremont, Nectar's offering Waves of the Mind and Gabriel Teodros/Abyssinian Creole on the 13th (there are nine acts on the bill, as a heads up) and an apparently two-night-long extravaganza featuring One Be Lo and Grayskul (along with some big name producers and djs) on the 15th and 16th. more ›

When Semisonic's Feeling Strangely Fine came out in 1998, Seattlest was 18 years old and leaving the crushing open spaces of Wyoming for good. We liked the album then, but it wasn't until a year later -- this time leaving Phoenix, Arizona for good -- that we really fell in love with it. We were by ourselves, pulling a U-Haul trailer behind our '76 El Camino, and we were on our way to Washington state to start a new life. more ›

After kittens yawning and cross-species friendship, dear sweet Jens Lekman may be the most precious thing found in all of nature. The Gothenberg Swede makes orchestral pop songs in the vein of Morrissey or the Magnetic Fields without even being gay (just European). To promote Night Falls Over Kortedala, one of the best reviewed albums of the year, Jens has been touring around the States with his almost-all-girl backing band: more ›

Get this while you can, local hip-hop fans: GMK's anticipated new mixtape, Perfect 10, finally dropped and it's available online for free download, thanks to the largesse of host DJ B-Mello. more ›

Though Seattlest would love nothing more than to give you a proper review of the KEXP barbecue, we've come to the stinging conclusion that it's simply not in the cards. We just got a work deadline thrown at us like a ton of cliches and this is the best we can do for you right now. more ›

It's sad that when you alert people to a restaurant closing, the pool of people who care is likely small. However, the buzz of 15th Avenue is that Kozak's has closed, sold to the folks who bring Fremont the Nectar Lounge. (Thanks to Liberty for the tip.) more ›

Today is National High Five Day. No, really. Sure, it's a silly observation, but Seattle needs more occasions to not take itself so seriously. more ›