Results tagged “newmusic”

Seattlest has always felt odd using the listening stations in music stores. We love 'em and--the purchased and downloaded ringtones of strangers on the bus not withstanding--still feel that they're the best way to check out new music. It's just kind of weird rocking out in a store with the cans on while other people around you browse the shelves, blissfully unaware of the epiphany you're having, or that in some small but significant way your life is changing. Good weird, but still weird.

in the summertime

The Program (Dec. 18-22) will be way cooler than we initially thought, folks. Not only will some of the biggest names in NW hip-hop be on stage for your entertainment five nights in a row, but the latest news is that there are all kinds of technological tie-ins that will make this event very, very 21st-century.

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.

In Slate today, Taylor Clark declared our -Ist-less neighbor to the south "America's indie rock Mecca," then spent several paragraphs dropping names and figuring out why. His conclusion?

It's easy to live here. In the words of a friend of mine who used to be the music editor at the local alt-weekly, Portland is like a resort community for indie rockers who spend half the year working themselves ragged on tour. You can venture into public dressed like a convicted sex offender or a homeless person, and no one looks at you askew. It's lush and green. Housing is affordable, especially compared with Seattle or San Francisco. The people are nice. The food is good. Creativity is the highest law. For young, hip Portlanders, financial success is a barista job that subsidizes your Romanian-space-folk band or your collages of cartoon unicorns.

THEATER: Hey, don't tell anyone, because this could really upset the natural order of things in town, but SPF:1 - No Protection is dangerously close to a fringe theater festival. Performing tonight are Keith Hitchcock, Mary Purdy, Jonah Von Spreecken all of Seattle.

There' a constant ebb and flow when it comes to the music we love. Sometimes it seems like there's just nothing interesting out there. Nothing to light us up when we listen at home, in our car or on the bus, eyes closed. And then sometimes we find ourselves hauling fist-fulls of new music to the counter of our favorite record store.

Currently enjoying premium real estate in the coveted "Best New Music" space on Pitchfork, Danielson (aka Daniel Smith) allegedly rocks - in italics - "with blaring trumpets signaling snares to exact their force beneath sweeping multitracked vocal choruses that simply won't stop crescendoing." The same article also claims that Sufjan Stevens serves as Danielson's "acolyte," which conjures up all kinds of unrelated and unfortunate images.

Seattlest is not a big fan of bees. Sure, those hard-working sons-a-bitches get the flowers pollinated and make delicious honey, but besides that, bees haven't done much for us lately. We hate being stung, and we could seriously do without all that infernal buzzing. But throw our favoritest local music collective into the mix, and we'll gladly sit through a hundred minutes of bees as a thematic element and still consider it awesome.

There's nothing that excites Seattlest quite like the firing of a local DJ and the subsequent online airing of the laundry that inevitably occurs. While we apologize for getting this to you at this late date, we enthusiastically invite you to take a peek behind the faceplate and inside the reeking mess that is corporate radio.

Seattle is known for grunge and always will be, no matter how much we might want the world to know we've moved on. Detroit is a bit less pigeon-holed, but they've earned that distinction through extraordinary musical breadth, impacting rock, R&B, industrial, techno, electro, and ghettotech along with other genres too numerous to mention. Over the next few days Seattle gets to benefit from Detroit's electronic legacy, with two shows guaranteed to move a crowd.