RECOMMENDED Pretty Girls @ Seattle Center House/TPS Theatre 4. Despite its low budget and all the attendant challenges faced by small fringe theatres, Marked Women Productions have pulled off a winning show with Pretty Girls. Inspired by the work of Naomi Wolf, the company has produced an ambitious and challenging original script that comes to life onstage on the strength of the company's innovating approach to staging. It features several strong performances, as well, particularly Opal Peachey and local teenage up-and-comer Megan Schutzer. (Fri., Sun. & Mon., 8 p.m. Seattle Center House, Fourth Floor; tix $8-$10.) more ›

Tres Tristes Tigres @ Freehold Theatre. Trinidad Martinez founded Magpai Production Group in Hamburg, Germany in 1998, but has made Seattle home for the last several years. She was one of the dancers in Pat Graney's much talked about House of Mind last December, and is now presenting three solo pieces developed with company members. (Fri. 8 p.m., through July 18. 2222 Second Ave., Suite 200; tix $15.) more ›

Considering photography is what our Seattlest Flickr Pool is all about, and pretty girls don't hurt anything, we thought this an appropriate representative for today's photo of the day. Take a hint, will you, and share your photos with the us. We'd love to see them and share them with the world. more ›

magazine claims, "You can't swing a dead cat this time of year without hitting a Top 10 List." Never one to waste a perfectly good dead cat, we decided to take a swing and create a Top Random-Number Shows Seattlest Saw This Year. And now, without any further ado, here's how your favorite bloggers broke down the year: 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 ›

In January of this year, the Weekly's Brian J. Barr described local trio the Cave Singers as "an updated version of the Anthology of American Folk Music. Not the graduate-student, learned interpretations of folk music circa 1962, but folk music approached by way of punk rock. It's sparse, melodic, and simultaneously creepy and alluring, like the widow mourning graveside in Johnny Cash's 'Long Black Veil'." That was enough to get Matador Records interested, who signed the band in May and released their debut album Invitation Songs last month. more ›

A strange sort of nervous tension sat on the shoulders of the crowd as Nick Dewitt, Andrea Zollo, Jay Clark, Leona Marrs and Derek Fudesco took the stage together for the last time. It sat there, weighing us down -- a burdensome feeling of finality. And it stayed there, unrelenting, tugging at our throat from the inside, even during the first couple of songs. We were having a great time, sure, but we were too aware of the fact that this would be the last great time we'd have with this band. We needed to shake it off, chill the fuck out. Enjoy this. By the time the third song began -- a pulsating number from 2003's The New Romance (our favorite PGMG album) -- we were dancing and sweating along with our neighbors, along with the band. more ›

We weren’t the biggest or most dedicated of PGMG fans; we didn’t know what Andrea Zollo (the only member we knew by name) was singing most of the time and couldn’t say things like, “Yeah! Speakers Push the Air!” two seconds into the song. But damn, we liked the band’s punky, catchy, jump-around syncopation. We liked that Andrea, when we’d seen PGMG live, was a wilder Liza Minnelli, a tamer Karen O. So on Saturday it was a little sad to see the band leave the stage for the second-to-last time—we caught the early Neumos show—and hear Andrea’s echoing thank-yous to “Mom” and “friends” and everyone who’d ever bought a CD or a t-shirt. more ›

If this video of The Wrens playing someone's apartment in Chicago--complete with percussion instruments pulled right off the pantry shelf--doesn't make you an insta-fan of the band, then close your browser, turn off your computer and think about how you've gotten to this cold, cold place. There is a way back, man, and it starts at the Croc on Saturday night. more ›

Sometimes you go big *and* go home. Such will be the case with Iraq (give it time) and with Pretty Girls Make Graves. After signing to Matador and releasing The New Romance and Élan Vital to better than fair reviews, PGMG announced that they were calling it quits earlier this year. But the local post-punk band isn't throwing in the towel before one last hurrah and [insert your own tired cliche here]. more ›

--Spokane loved its ice skating event and apparently the ice skating event loved Spokane back. more ›

Tuesday, December 12 more ›

So, there's that big, crowded festival-thingy going on this weekend and we could recommend a bunch of stuff to hit there, but ah, we're far too lazy to do that. Here's the schedule - make yourself happy. No one's looking. more ›

After kicking our collective asses for four consecutive days, the heat is finally backing down. So pull yourself together. Go outside again -- especially to Capitol Hill this weekend. more ›

There is a YouTube contest going on to produce the next Pretty Girls Make Graves video and we've seen a lot of the entries (so you don't have to). We've been struck by a couple of things: First the overwhelming sameness of them all, and second the general buy-ability of the majority of the entries as indy videos. There's a definite formula for making a YouTube PGMG video that nine out ten entries nail. Ergo, it must be pretty easy. Not that we're going to try our hand. more ›

Seattlest serves up musical jambalaya for the masses… Delicious! more ›

Wanna see Pretty Girls Make Graves for free? Our good friends at Filter Magazine, along with the Honda Fit, can make that happen. more ›

Pretty Girls Make Graves rock and their label Matador Records also rocks and, thirdly, new-web-order-2.0-thing You Tube rocks as well. You rock also, of course, and we don't want that to go without saying. Four great flavors --that's you, Pretty Girls, Matador and You Tube-- are coming together to make you (or more likely some freaky A/V kid from Montana, honestly, but give it a shot) the author of the new Pretty Girls Make Graves video. more ›

The Matador Records website announced a New Pornographers / Belle and Sebastian tour last week and we can't say we're ecstatic about the pairing. Sure, we went through a very brief B&S phase at one point a few years ago. We're not proud of it, but we can admit it. Finally. And we suppose that we can see what Matador is trying to do. Twin Cinema is an excellent attempt at a great album and due to our relative proximity to British Columbia we're very aware of that, as a region. Probably we're in the minority, nationally, though, and we suspect that Matador thinks it should be selling a lot better than it is. And they'd be right. So attach the Pornographers to the warhorse of their stable, the cash cow, the begging-craigslist-for-tickets, probably-playing-the-Paramount band and see what kind of exposure they can get. We're just not sure that fans of the one can necessarily be cross pollinanted into being fans of the other. more ›

Okay, okay, we know that this year’s Bumbershoot lineup will leave you wondering what year it is, since we wouldn’t really call most of the acts especially current or relevant, but there are some things worth checking out. more ›