It's Halloween, what isn't going on? Sure, there's Monday night TV and Doogie will be saying something lewd. Or, you could get out of the house and do something. more ›

Here's something you don't see much anymore, outside of reservation smoke shops: display cases of cigars. Cohibas, Coronas, Partagas. Romeo y Julietas, Macanudos, Rocky Patels. Sure didn't expect to come upon this lineup at the Spar, a traditional lunch counter & pool room much loved in Olympia. more ›

Audrey pretty much summed it up yesterday, but to paraphrase: Rocky Votolato and Jesse Sykes are a miraculous match made in Americana heaven. more ›

Some things go together so naturally that you wonder how they ever existed apart from each other. Peanut butter and jelly, Spencer and Heidi, the gays and Halloween. And now a musical double-header that seems to be a match made in heaven: Rocky Votolato and Jesse Sykes (and the Sweet Hereafter). Thanks to Barsuk (their shared record label), the two singer-songwriters are on the road together, and their joint appearances promise to be something special. more ›

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Personally, this Seattlest is stoked to see Wilco back together, making the rounds, bringing their folk-rock/alt.country stylings to the people once again. They've certainly had their fair share of band drama, but the band can still rock. We caught Jeff Tweedy solo down in Lyons, Colo., last summer at the Rocky Mountain Folks Festival and thoroughly enjoyed his solo set. So it is with quite a bit of fanfare that we are happy to announce that his band Wilco will be performing at Marymoor Park tonight. (Fanfare, confetti, trumpets.) more ›

Not far from Niagara Falls, a single traffic light allows measured momentum through the farming township of Wainfleet, Ontario. Head a little further down the road and you're at the white sand beaches of Lake Erie. Having grown up in such winsome surroundings, it's no wonder singer/songwriter Tony Dekker's musical project Great Lake Swimmers sounds like a journey through the heart of Canada's stunning landscapes. more ›

We've seen Rocky Votolato's name splashed all over the web and heard the DJs out there mention him enough times that we finally had to stop and say, OK -- what's the deal with this guy. We streamed yesterday's live in-studio on KEXP and well, we didn't get much work done. So enthralled were we that it was all we could do to wiggle the mouse around, do a little tappy tap of the keys, make it look like we were working. more ›

Now that the opening gala has kicked off SIFF all proper-like, it's time to join the orgy of cinema for the next 25 days. For all film screenings, the general/member ticket prices are $10/$8 (and matinees $7/$5), except for gala screenings, which are $25/$23, and the closing night film event, which is $40/$35. more ›

Once upon a time you could write a book on the typewriter in your attic, bundle the pages together with some butcher paper and twine and schlep it to New York to give to your publisher and then forget about the whole thing until it was time to blow the dust off the keys for the next go round. Or so we imagine it. Then came the critics. And then the book tours. Then Amazon.com and the damned reader reviews. Then the blogs. Now you gotta respond to all that shit. Any critique that goes unanswered, regardless of how obscure the publication or how ridiculous the charge, is out there for the world to see. A criticism of an author's work, floating around out there on the internets somewhere, is indistinguishable from a hard fact until the power of Google puts it in front of the author himself and he responds. more ›

9:00 pm // Neumos // $10 adv. more ›

Our sisters in arms down the road a piece have created something from nothing; That is, they went through a bunch of press releases, MySpace sites and Purevolume profiles --all of which are "information" only in the softest, squishiest, most generous sense of the word, and extracted the concrete details of who's going to be at SXSW this year. The list, in contrast to most press releases and MySpace pages, is something that's actually useful. Holy crap, guys. The list is long and distinguished, as we've come to expect from SXSW, and contains big name bona fides like Interpol, Emmylou fucking Harris and Pete motherfucking Townsend as well as a ton of bands we're not cool enough to have ever heard of like all the ones we're not going to list here to avoid admitting to not knowing and loving them as they surely deserve. Like Go! Go! 7188, for example. more ›

Even though we are way way past school age, we still get a little melancholy at the close of summer. Fortunately, our friends across the -ist network know that the shenanigans don't need to end just because the big yellow buses are back on the roads. So, grab your sunscreen and your favorite hangover cure, as we take a tour of end of summer fun from -ist cities all over the damn place. more ›

What a great way to close out the summer: Beer, fried food on stick, irritatingly large crowds, great music, and a slight chance of rain (remember last year?). Seattlest loves us some Bumbershoot though, and we wouldn't let some pesky weather ruin our fun. This year looks to be a good one. A couple things we are digging right off the bat are the addition of good bands on the outdoor stages and ditching the Friday festivities before the weekend (we never went on that day anyway). more ›

Love Bumbershoot, but wish it were more elitist? You're in luck. more ›

that we want to kill anyone and everyone that makes a "something on a something" joke. But then we realized that there was no way we could ever win this fight, and, hell, if you can't beat them, we might as well join them. And with that, you have the theme of this weeks' Gothamist network post. more ›

A quick rundown on where our beloved Husky basketball types are now. more ›

Bumbershoot sent out an email this morning announcing a bunch of acts for this year's Smaller, Better Festival. There's even more hiphop on the bill with the addition of local act Blue Scholars and Common Market and Brit chick Lady Sovereign (who we're looking forward to seeing with The Streets soon). Area indie rockers Crystal Skulls and Rocky Votolato will be there and to continue the trend of one Brit band for every couple of local acts Badly Drawn Boy is now scheduled. more ›

First of all, we could describe it all, the minutiae, the ecstasy -- but streaming video is also fun. MSN Video was at Sasquatch, filming for future on-demand streaming starting Thursday, June 1. (We understand teasers and highlights are up now.) They have artist interviews and a blog from Sean Nelson (whom our friend thinks lives upstairs from him, after seeing him appear with the Decemberists -- "He's in a band?" he asked. "Man, he makes a racket stomping around up there. He's got a piano, too.") You can create your own playlist or just sit back and Sasquatch. more ›

Two weekends ago, Seattlest took a trip to one of our favorite mountain biking areas, Galbraith Mountain outside Bellingham. Galbraith is a summer staple for us, but we've also found it holds up well even during the winter. One of our favorite aspects of living in Seattle is the ability to ditch the snow for a weekend if we want to--we may not boast Rocky Mountain snow conditions as a result, but we can do almost anything we want year round. more ›

Hoping to start catching up on all the films that are likely to garner Oscar nominations, Seattlest went to see Felicity Huffman's Golden Globe-winning turn in Transamerica, playing to a surprisingly packed house (on a weeknight no less!) at Pacific Place. Huffman is indeed excellent as a pre-op transsexual named Bree whose appointment to take the final plunge into womanhood is threatened when she learns she fathered a son named Toby, played competently by Kevin Zegers, who needs bailing out in more ways than one. Turns out the lad has picked up a few bad habits in his 17 years of fatherlessness, including drug use, prostitution, and lousy hair care. The movie follows the unlikely pair on a cross-country trip where their reluctant fondness for one another begins to drag them from their respective coping mechanisms against the injustices of life. more ›

Seattlest dropped in at the Seattle Rep for the late August Wilson's final play in his ten-cycle series, Radio Golf. It's playing through February 18, and well worth making a trip to the Rep for, if only for the chance to see a Seattle theater audience that's not almost exclusively white. Tickets range from $22 - $36 ($10 if you're under 25 with ID). There are also rush prices 30 minutes before each performance. more ›

The holidays are over (except for Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, of course), so authors are starting to make their way to Seattle again, ready to read excerpts and sign autographs so that you'll be tempted to buy their latest title. Here's a cheat sheet for the week in book tours. more ›

This Thursday the Red Hook brewery kicks off its Moonlight Cinema series with Monty Python and the Holy Grail. There's so many one-liners we could throw at you right now, our brain just came out our ears. more ›

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We were pretty sure it was needed. We knew it was coming. But things looked hairy for a while yesterday when a 54-43 vote against in the state Legislature put the gas tax and its proponents on their heels. In a comeback reminiscent of Rocky Balboa, however, the measure passed later in the day to tearful jubilation on the floor. more ›

The bane of musicians and artists around the country--the lack of adequate health insurance-- has compounded Suval's bad situation, and the 'Seattle Music Cares' benefits are an attempt to help her out. Tomorrow's show at Neumos will feature Jesse Sykes and Phil Wandscher, Matt Brooke and Jen Ghetto, Faith & Disease, Rocky Votolato and Black Nite Crash. Special guests will include Suval herself, who may even attempt to sing. more ›