We just wanted to drop you a little note to let you know the tickets for our Seattlest Music Presents show are now officially on sale. For your opportunity to be at our first-ever event, featuring an epic local lineup, head to Brown Paper Tickets. more ›

From Iceland, with love--Ólöf Arnalds is coming tomorrow. more ›

We know very few things about Motopony. They're based out of Tacoma. Their lead singer, Daniel Blue, used to be a fashion designer and writer. They have previously released one song, "Wait for Me", to limited markets. Yup, that just about sums up what is known about them. A little investigation led us to a couple demo songs early on in the band's work that reminded us more of sixties rock complete with guitar riffs and distorted bass. Their more recent work plays into the folk-rock scene so prevalent in Seattle lately. Heavier on the percussion and vocals and a bit less on the electric guitar. We're definitely in favor of this newer sound, it's a little more fun and little less on the heavy side with a fun feel even though the lyrics are a mixture of somber and joyful. We had a chance to see them perform live a couple weeks ago at the High Dive. You know what we discovered? We don't care what we do or don't know about the band because we really like their music. Now you can figure that out for yourselves with this exclusive Seattlest premiere of their new single "King of Diamonds". more ›

For our second installment of This or That, Radjaw from Mad Rad told us what he thinks of this fair city and its eccentricities. more ›

The Lonely Forest has been around for a while now. You may or may not have heard about them yet, but you will. They started out in Anacortes in 2005 and won the EMP SoundOFF! competition in 2006 (by the way, check out Tyson's excellent coverage of this year's battle). more ›

It's been fascinating watching the skyrocketing fame some Seattle music folk have been finding lately. Not only did Macklemore sell out three nights at the Showbox and The Head and the Heart sell out their first headlining show at the same venue in 15 minutes, but local musician and sound engineer Kory Kruckenberg won a Grammy a little over a week ago for Best Engineered Album, Classical. He's an integral part of the music community, as evidenced by the huge turnout last night at Conor Byrne. more ›

We're really excited. No, to rephrase that properly we're ecstatic about the newly revealed Sasquatch Music Festival lineup. One little gripe, if you're gonna have a huge party where you're set to show the lineup for the first time to all the excited attendees (supposedly before anyone else knows) then don't leak it to other media outlets so they accidentally(?) post it to their site before names are revealed at the show. more ›

Seattlest Music has some new features afoot. One is called Listen Up! and you are about to read its first installment below. On a fairly regular (we hope) basis we will be bringing you a small sonic tasting from bands and artists that we love by streaming their singles straight from our posts. That way you don't have to scour the 'net attempting to hear samples of the fantastic bands we've been raving about both at shows and in our album/band reviews. more ›

Our local sweethearts, The Fleet Foxes, have been hard at work on their new album for a while now. They could have given exclusive posts to the bigger-name outlets for their first new single, but they didn't. The band gave the title track to its new album, "Helplessness Blues" to all of us in the blog world for your instant listening pleasure--you can listen to it right now, in this post. more ›

State of the Artist (SOTA) headlined a great hip-hop filled evening at the filled-up Hard Rock Cafe on Friday. Just like their album, they had guest appearances by Helladope, P Smoov, Katie Kate & Lace Cadence. They entertained the mostly younger audience for more than an hour by playing all their songs from album Seattlecalifragilisticextrahelladopeness and then wrapping up their set with Striking Back, who played just before them. more ›

You can thank a bunch of idealistic folks named James Keblas, Shannon Stewart, Dave Minert and Kate Becker for today's thriving all-ages scene. These visionaries worked with the City of Seattle to eliminate many of the overbearing laws that kept kids out of 21+ music venues. Through their hard work and dedication they created their own all-ages music venue called The Vera Project where music lovers not yet old enough to buy beer can see national touring acts as well as gain valuable skills. This Saturday we celebrate The Vera Project's 10th anniversary with cake (everyone loves cake) and an excellent party. more ›

Seattlest is excited to celebrate Vera Project's 10th Anniversary with an archival photo from the venue's history every day in January. They are all leading up to the exciting Gala and Show being held at the end of the month. More details on that soon, trust me you'll want to know about this party. more ›

No other non-profit has used their time quite as effectively or with such gusto while establishing themselves as a mainstay in Seattle music and young adult enterprise as The Vera Project. Seattlest is excited to celebrate their accomplishment with an archival photo from Vera's history every single day in January. more ›

Phew! I have had so much fun going through all of the shows, photos, and memories of 2010. It's been nuts, let me tell you. But if you've been following these posts, you probably already know. more ›

One of the shining stars this year in Seattle music is the Moondoggies. They're the musical version of soul mates to the Maldives, another amazing local mainstay, and will most likely make quite a mark as their "other half" has done. more ›

Seattlest will be counting down to 2011 with a series of posts on our highlights of this year and what we're looking forward to in the next. Got a list to suggest? Send it our way. See the entire series here. more ›

Seattlest will be counting down to 2011 with a series of posts on our highlights of this year and what we're looking forward to in the next. Got a list to suggest? Send it our way. See the entire series here. more ›

Seattlest will be counting down to 2011 with a series of posts on our highlights of this year and what we're looking forward to in the next. Got a list to suggest? Send it our way. See the entire series here. more ›

Seattlest will be counting down to 2011 with a series of posts on our highlights of this year and what we're looking forward to in the next. Got a list to suggest? Send it our way. See the entire series here. more ›

We first heard of Tu Fawning in a somewhat unusual place. To keep up with musical news we like following several local bands' blogs. One of those we find most interesting comes from the brain of Colin Meloy. A few months ago, he happened to share a link for a video that was posted to Vimeo.com about their lovely merchandise fairy, Corinna. She showed us around their merch warehouse and then talked about how she was in a band and having this job made it easy to leave on tours whilst still having a paying gig when she got back. The name of her band is Tu Fawning. We checked them out after watching the video and really enjoyed it. Unfortunately they'd already made their way up to Seattle a few months earlier opening for another Seattlest Music favorite, the Fruit Bats, at Vera and didn't seem to have plans to visit again soon. more ›

Granted, I've only been shooting concerts and live music for about a year now. However, I have been a fan of local Seattle music for ages (which I choose not to specify as it will date me, and no one wants that). The first band that I had any kind of kinship or following for was We Wrote the Book on Connectors (WE). I took shots with my crappy point and shoot, recorded live renditions of Captain of the Future on an even crappier cell phone and shared these unfortunate moments in time with the band. They were nice enough to talk to me even after all that and even on occasion offering tickets to shows. This floored me, the fact that a band would care at all about a random fan. more ›

Seattlest will be counting down to 2011 with a series of posts on our highlights of this year and what we're looking forward to in the next. Got a list to suggest? Send it our way. See the entire series here. more ›

Editor's note: Since Morgen was busy shooting, she turns the narrative over to Seattlest lit writer and avowed Dave fan Kim Banti. more ›

We had no clue what to expect when it came to the Les Savy Fav show, we were newbs you could say. The opener, local hardcore band Absolute Monarchs, were as good as ever bathed in red light to add a little blood-lust feel. Then Steel Tigers of Death floated (seemingly) on stage in angel costumes which they later stripped (to our delight!) down to gold undies a la Rocky Horror. Even if they weren't killing it musically, the show would have sold us anyway. Then the main event, and holy cow was it an event. Frontman Tim Harrington made at least three different wardrobe changes, each time stripping down to nearly nothing. He repeatedly jumped down into the already mosh-tastic crowd creating even more of a crush. Truly amazing show that is not to be missed next time they come to town. We'll be there for sure. Check out the flickr collection for the full range of photos.
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Seattlest will be counting down to 2011 with a series of posts on our highlights of this year and what we're looking forward to in the next. Got a list to suggest? Send it our way. See the entire series here. more ›

Seattlest will be counting down to 2011 with a series of posts on our highlights of this year and what we're looking forward to in the next. Got a list to suggest? Send it our way. See the entire series here. more ›

Seattlest will be counting down to 2011 with a series of posts on our highlights of this year and what we're looking forward to in the next. Got a list to suggest? Send it our way. See the entire series here. more ›

Today NPR posted a story called "5 Artists You Should Have Known In 2010". Guess who's on there? I bet you're not surprised, but two Seattle groups made it on the list. Granted, Kevin Cole of our very own KEXP is the one to produce this list. Though, no favoritism is needed to choose both Macklemore and Head and the Heart for the top 5. more ›

Here at Seattlest we aren’t afraid to venture out of Seattle proper, which is exactly what we’re doing this weekend. Saturday night we’re heading to Everett, our white-collar sibling city to the north, to witness local heavy metal group Midnight Idöls. We first saw these local rockers at the West Seattle Summer Fest earlier this year where they opened for Hell’s Belles. Not only did they leave us deaf for three days, they also drew noise complaints from the nearby nursing home. So basically, it was fantastic. They had kids and their own parents throwing around their hair and devil horns by the second song. more ›

Andy Kotowicz, a dear friend of many in the Seattle music scene and longtime member of the Sub Pop family, was tragically taken from us a little over a month ago in a car accident. We'd rather not recount the details (if you're interested you can find them here), but he was taken suddenly and entirely too soon. Being such an established member of the music community in Seattle and nationwide, there's been an enormous amount of support and kindness toward Andy and his family. First, a foundation has been established, The Andy Kotowicz Family Foundation, and you can contribute by writing a check payable to the Andy Kotowicz Family Foundation can be mailed to: more ›