When Seattlest tells people we are going to see Journey, Heart, and Cheap Trick tonight (and we have mentioned it as often as possible, which may or may not have been obnoxious), the response is typically one of two options: the enthused "OMG I love Heart!" or a groaning "Well, that takes me back a ways..." In honor of tonight's 70s and 80s explosion at the White River Amphitheatre, we have just one very important......

As ChrisB of Three Imaginary Girls points out, losing your job sucks. Losing a job that meant a lot to you sucks more. And losing all that during the holidays? Well that just blows a goat. So what do you do to help out these fellas who so unexpectedly got canned on Sunday afternoon? If you're former Croc booker Pete Greenberg (now at Chop Suey), you organize a benefit show to help these guys pay......

Last night, Seattlest hit up the Red Bull Big Tune 2007 Championship at Neumos just like we said we would. The idea of the competition was to showcase U.S. hip-hop producers in the form of a beat battle, tournament-style; in between rounds we were treated to the skills of DV-One and Just Blaze, and also to a mini-concert from giants De La Soul. We were not expecting this last, and it was kinda fun. Our......

Maybe it was the woods in Into the Woods at 5th Avenue Theatre that made us think of it as the "Schoolhouse Rock" of musicals -- they're cardboardy, blocky swirls of of branch and leaf painted a not-found-in-nature green. But the 5th Ave's show itself -- inspired by Bruno "I was wrong about everything" Bettelheim's Uses of Enchantment -- brims with '70s-childhood nostalgia, rhythmic energy, and a love of lyrical ping-pong that recalls the gleeful......

Seattle Rep's The Murderers is three monologues, one after the other, that thankfully get more entertaining as the show goes along. Each monologue deals with a murder (or murders) committed at the Florida retirement community, and sends up a different view of senior citizens -- as old moneybags who keep their heirs on tenterhooks, as randy old goats, as cash cows for the unscrupulous. It's a mildly dark series of "I-dun-its" for Matlock's urban audiences......

Our sophomore year boyfriend was mid-grope when we heard our first Spoon song and stopped paying attention to him entirely. While the relationship proved futile (shocking!) our love for "Change My Life" remains as solid as ever. Is it hormone-fueled nostalgia that keeps our Spoon flame burning? Or is it just Britt Daniel? It's Britt Daniel. And eight incredible albums. It's like a 49/51 split, really. We're not even going to try and write about......

We’ve all heard it. Many of us have even said it. A “religious experience.” As in, “Seeing Tool at the Paramount was just amazing – like a religious experience.” It’s different for everyone. For some, it’s all about the environment of the show – the venue, the crowd, maybe the mushrooms you ate about an hour before the lights went down. For others, it’s all about the band. Maybe it’s Tool at the Paramount.......

From the North, the resurrected form of grunge godfather Malfunkshun, played the High Dive Tuesday, their first show anywhere. For those of us obsessed with a certain era of local music history, the 60 minute blast of heavy rock was a beautiful thing. Original axe man Kevin Wood (brother of the late Andy) and drummer Regan Hagar got back together late last year. They brought in bassist Cory Kane (Satchel) and chameleonic singer Shawn......

One of Seattlest's favorite Christmas presents this year: Clark Humphrey's Vanishing Seattle, a new entry in Arcadia Publishing's Images of America series by retro-Seattle authority Clark Humphrey. We're a Seattle transplant, ourselves, but we've been interested in Seattle history since we decided we wanted to stay here (about a week after we arrived, as we recall), and we quickly noticed that Humphrey was a consistent, articulate voice advocating for that history. We wondered if......

At the risk of beating the pulp of the dead horse, Seattlest knows that many are still without power at home. We feel a little remiss in that all that we can do is sit around and post lame things about it when, instead, we should be going out there and doing something about it. Well, the problem is that we have a barbarian's understanding of electric fundamentals. Sure, sure. We can wire up 12......

High-energy garage rockers Tokyo Police Club could easily have been victims of their own hype, but last night at Chop Suey the kids were more than alright. Their music can best be described as "Strokes nostalgia," as much of it contains the same kinds of nimble guitar licks, arching keyboard lines, and overprocessed megaphoney vocals as everybody's favorite 2001 NYC culture icons (see TPC's call to arms "Cheer It On" [mp3]). While a couple......

If it's not a great Gatsby, we can blame F. Scott Fitzgerald's preference for establishing mood at the expense of story arc. The good news is that this production revels in atmosphere: Tom Lynch's pitch-perfect set design and Jane Greenwood's gorgeous '20s costumes -- combined with Scott Zielinski's dreamily radiant lighting -- conjure up exactly the right nostalgia for a time that never was. We could have done without the itinerant saxophonist, whose bluesy......

A few days ago, we said that MOMIX is "the thinking person's Cirque Du Soleil" and we'd like to take that back now. That's not to say that their new work "Opus Cactus" wasn't beautiful, color-drenched, packed with impressive technique, and expertly executed, because it was all those things. It just wasn't anything more. "Opus Cactus" was like ordering an iPod and opening the perfect, sleek packaging only to discover someone screwed up at the......

For those of us compulsive channel-changers whose dials aren't permanently affixed to KEXP or NPR, finding good stuff on the radio can be maddening. Consider KBSG, the moldy oldies station at 97.3 FM. Upon its 1988 inception, "oldies" seemed to mean Top-40 hits from the mid-'50s to late '60s, emphasizing seminal artists (Chuck Berry, Little Richard, Elvis) as well as Motown and the British Invasion. Then, sometime in the '90s, KBSG introduced '70s rock (the......

In 1996, Kirsten Anderson opened an issue of Juxtapoz and fell for an art movement. Two years later, she founded Roq La Rue, Seattle’s first art gallery devoted to Lowbrow and Pop Surrealism. Last year Anderson literally wrote (and edited) the book on Pop Surrealism, sensically titled Pop Surrealism. And last month Roq La Rue moved into its fourth space -- the largest yet -- just in time for its annual Halloween group exhibit and......

Comic book fans from around the world woke up today to breaking news of an imminent re-match between award-winning Canadian cartoonist Seth (aka Gregory Gallant) and local comic book publisher and Comics Journal executive editor Gary Groth. Their previous battle from the late '90s left many spectators wondering if another round of their incendiary exchanges would incite Groth's well-documented flair for explosives and firearms, provoking Mr. '30s Fetish to respond in kind. To many, Seth......

This week Seattlest was craving Greek and maybe a little childhood nostalgia. This combo usually means Yanni's Greek Cuisine on Greenwood, where Seattlest has fond memories of dining when we were young. When Seattlest arrived at Yanni's we were happy to see the same wonderfully over-the-top decor we remembered: gaudy frescoes painted on the walls, thick lace curtains and shelves laden with dangling bunches of fake grapes. The smell of garlic and oregano permeated the......

Last year before moving off of Capitol Hill, Seattlest can remember coming out of our house and smelling the distinct smell of donuts. Yum. Where or where did that smell come from? We assumed it was coming from the Wonder Bread plant in the Central District, a mere half mile away. We had seen the Wonder Bread sign from across the city, a beacon of nostalgia from when folks thought that bleaching food made it......

’80s nostalgia fetishists from around the globe will descend on Astoria, OR this coming weekend, June 3-5, for the Goonies 20th Anniversary Celebration, honoring the epic Cold War classic that according to many film critics encapsulated an era with its subtle yet strained references to the Iran/Contra scandal. Advance registration for the Celebration comes highly recommended, as the Goonies “dinner” event has evidently sold out. Sixty bucks gets you a “weekend pass” (ostensibly an $80......

Man, oh man there is some good live music this weekend. We don't know anything about them, but the band with perhaps the least internet-friendly name in history, Porn is playing at El Corazon this evening. After buying your 'concert outfit' at the Hot Topic you could head over tomorrow night to the Everett Events Center and check out the Used and My Chemical Romance. The Used are, perhaps, the most famous for their......