Last night at the Showbox, we were reminded of something Gino Srdjan Yevdjevic said in an interview with us last year: we don't remember the quote entirely, but it was something to the effect of characterizing "world music" as "shit." Not the music or the musicians, per se, but rather the genre, a peculiarly American way of pigeon-holing and marketing foreign music. Gino understood the process only too well: back in the 1980s, he was a glammy Duran Duran-esque pop singer in his native Yugoslavia. Only when war forced him to flee to the US in the 1990s did he become a "world musician," performing traditional Balkans music in restaurants for disinterested diners under the name Kultur Shock. While he admitted the original incarnation of Kultur Shock could have done well, it's easy to see why he rebelled against the entire world-music cachet by adding punk rock guitar to the line-up and starting to yuk it up as a sex-crazed Eastern European immigrant à la Steve Martin and Dan Ackroyd's "Wild and Crazy Guys." more ›

more ›

Spring appears to have, er, sprung, at least temporarily, in most of the Ist-A-Verse, so naturally, we're all feeling pretty good. (Yes, we know that spring doesn't start till later this month. Just let us enjoy our weather!) And that makes us that much more eager to share all of the nifty things we're up to... more ›

Friday night's Neumos show was based around eccentric frontmen. Both Pigeon John and Subtle featured leads that demanded the attention of the audience. Humor, dancing, and props all had a role to play in the night, forcing even the most tired in the audience (include Seattlest in that category) to get sucked in. more ›

Wednesday 25th more ›

Seattlest doesn't really have an opinion on the tree-cutting scheduled to take place in Occidental Square. Strange, but true. We kind of like it as is, but it can be kind of dim even when there is actual sun shining. It seems to us that the only thing the park really lacks is foot traffic that isn't hustling to or from a stadium - Actual people and their random activities tend to work wonders on public spaces. Occidental always struck us as a perfect place to sit at an outdoor cafe and people watch, except, well, minus all the people. more ›

Despite the warnings that the smoking ban would ensure anarchy and despair on the nightlife front, instead smoking has strengthened its role as a social lubricant. A new brand of comradery is being forged nightly as smokers go outside for their nicotine fix. This isn't all that surprising, since people are social creatures, not unlike the uber-cute momonga. Not to be too Fremont-hippie about this, but we crave company and need one another, knowing we can get more done together than we can alone. more ›

Seattle often gets hung up on genre conventions. Whether digital ("I spin deep, east coast, jazzy disco tech-house.") or analog ("My band plays indie, emo, post-rock, instrumental math-core."), pigeon-holing seems be forever be the name of the day. Rather than realizing that such labeling is all but useless to most people, artists and writers only help to further marginalize a public left overwhelmed by the dearth of less-than-useful tags. While that might be the M.O. for many out here, it's good to see that others are willing to be a lot more encompassing, and to just play music, genre be damned. more ›

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. more ›

When fans elected Major League Baseball's All-(20th) Century Team in 1999, they weren't very politically correct about it. Nowhere among the fifty available spots did they vote in a Latino player. Bad fans! more ›