PRO: Over the last ten years Los Angeles label ANTI-Records has been home to some of pop music’s rawest singers. Tom Waits, Nick Cave, Joe Strummer, Man Man, and Spoon have all released albums on Epitaph’s more-mature-sister label. Bettye LaVette and Marianne Faithful also call ANTI home, and so it makes perfect sense that rhythm and blues legend Mavis Staples has released her last two albums for the label. Staples has been identified by her soulful wails and low, smoky voice since the early 60s when The Staple Singers released album after album of remarkable early r&b and gospel music. Mavis Staples had it then, that gruffness and rawness often emulated but rarely matched, even by ANTI’s younger crooners, and she still has it in 2010. Enjoy this video of a live performance in 1971 of “When Will We Be Paid.” more ›

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Tonight SIFF Cinema begins its run of the SXSW Film Festival Audience Award-winning film Skills Like This. After watching a preview screener, it's easy to see why the film won. It accomplishes the storytelling basics in unique fashion, telling a universally appealing story through an interesting plot and quirky characters. more ›

Vivian Girls: We managed to catch VG's third show of SXSW, so they weren't as exhausted as we're sure they will be after playing their eighteenth(!). Lovely girl-guitar pop as always. more ›

Seattlest is in Austinist territory for the next few days, experiencing the glorious clusterfuck known as South by Southwest. After debating coming down for the techier Interactive segment, we narrowed our itinerary to just the music portion of this huge annual media-centric event. There's no Seattle parallel to this, so we'll be sharing our thoughts on the music, the scene, and of course the food we're experiencing. Not to worry, we'll try to keep things on the brief side. more ›

Seattlest is quaking in their boots (bought especially for the occasion) with excitement for this years SXSW in Austin, Tex. We're making our initial sojourn to the festival and are so pleased to see there will be a strong Seattle contingent joining us in Austin this year. more ›

Seattle locals The Hands released a CD unto the world on Friday and a mere four fifths of Neumos could not contain the crowd that turned out to witness the event. No! Midway through the first opening band's set the velvet curtain was lifted to allow the accumulated dirty rocking masses full access to the Neumos floor. more ›

http://seattlest.com/2008/02/28/foo_fighters_da.php">announced his presidential bid.

In case it doesn't snow too much tonight, or in case you're not too much of a pussy to venture outdoors, head to Queen Anne to network with the organizers of South by Southwest and other like-minded music geek individuals. more ›

It's been a while since we've heard from The Forms. The Brooklyn four-piece put out their debut album Icarus in 2003 to widespread acclaim, with the Steve Albini-produced work earning an 8.5 from Pitchfork for its "wiry, punchy, indie pop with refreshingly un-hackneyed time-signature games and judiciously placed dissonant chords." 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 ›

Yes, British indie rock quartet Editors are headlining at Chop Suey tonight, but we're more excited for super-catchy opening-opening band Ra Ra Riot. The Syracuse-based six-piece has guitars and cello and violin (oh my), and they've got one certifiably awesome song ("Dying is Fine") that's based on an ee cummings poem and reminds us of "Come on Eileen"--in a good way. Earlier this year, they wowed the critics at SXSW, ending up on NME's list of top 10 bands at the 2007 conference, before tragedy struck and their drummer died a few months ago. But the band has soldiered on, putting out a self-titled EP and touring non-stop with such acts as Tokyo Police Club, Art Brut, and The Cribs. Tonight they bring their big sound and bigger heart to Chop Suey. Catch them now, because they aren't going to be under the radar for much longer. more ›

For the last few years Austin’s SXSW Music festival has brought Seattle their best European (mostly U.K.) bands; many of them making their first appearance here before heading back across the pond or whisking away to the many summer music festivals around the country. Seattle seems like a good enough launch pad though, and we’ve got a few beauties lined up. On Monday, May 5th two of the biggest bands coming out of the U.K. right now just happen to be playing sold out shows on the same night – The Kooks at Crocodile Café and The Arctic Monkeys at The Showbox. On a Monday night no less? Tell us where else in the country you’ll see that! Our advice? Save your money and go check out The Klaxons tonight at The Crocodile (there should still be some tickets available here); a great British band on their final tune-up for Coachella and a ton of other huge festivals this year. We can’t get their debut release Myths of the Near Future out of our head and neither can a lot of the British mags hyping them all year (they've already sold out most all their U.K. dates). Call it indie new rave or British dance punk. It’s experimental at times, British pop at others, but definitely worth us checking out their live show. Care to take a listen? Check out a few tracks from their Myspace page here. more ›

There are a lot of reasons to like The Ponys (and consequently, to attend tonight's show at Neumos). You could go because you've got Chicago roots, as does the band. You could go because you like your rock to be on the garage end of the spectrum (but without being labelled formulaic). You could go because Pitchfork likes the new record despite spending much of their review likening the band to Sonic Youth minus the "unpredictable noise jams." For us, we'll be going because The Ponys use one of the most beautiful guitars ever made. View the video below to see what we mean. We've seen it before at Pilot Speed and again at SXSW as used by Toronto band Uncut, and we smile to think of seeing it again. An odd reaction? Perhaps, but we'll be front and center taking in the show all the same. more ›

When Seattlest first got word that we could interview Jesse Sykes we got really excited. Then we got nervous. You see, she kind of intimidates us. She's deep. She's beautiful. And that voice. Oh, that voice. But you know what? We really had nothing to worry about. What began as an interview became more of a conversation. One of the best conversations about music we've had in awhile. This is about half of that conversation. more ›

...in which we pit two bands against each other, to better determine how you should spend your Tuesday night. more ›

It seems like, all across the network, folks were up to no good. Maybe it was all the green beer from last weekend... more ›

BOOKS: Suze Orman, Seattlest's unofficial accountant from television is at the Central Library tonight. Mrs. Seattlest refuses to acknowledge that her name is pronounced "Susy." more ›

We came across two examples of Microsoft's less-successful marketing attempts yesterday. One from the '80s via YouTube: 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 ›

READINGS: Jonathan Raban continues his all-out assault on the bookstores of Seattle with a reading tonight at the University Bookstore in support of Surveillance. How many times can we say it: Go. more ›

Austinist gets arty with an interactive guide to SXSW, loved some local art galleries and a new art exhibit and lamented the possible loss of "Friday Night Lights" production to New Mexico. more ›

--The Sonics will have an NBA all-star after all; Ray Allen's an injury replacement. more ›

Valentine's Day is only a few days away, and we here across the Gothamist network wanted to express would like to tell you, in the spirit of the holiday, just how much we love you, our readers. Don't let it get to your heads, though. There are plenty of things we love, you included. Just be glad you're not amongst the things we hate. more ›

Without any pointless lead-in prattle, we're going to tell you that The Trucks killed Friday night. Killed. The music was huge, the crowd was amped and the energy throughout the evening at Jules Maes Saloon was hot to the touch. Thanks in no small part goes to No-Fi Soul Rebellion for getting things moving in a big way. NFSR brought it hard to the old saloon Friday night, with singer Mark Heimer leaving no one in the crowd untouched by his sing-scream-dance-crawl-on-the-floor assault. We hadn't seen NFSR before and didn't know what the hell was going on when the husband and wife duo set up shop on the floor with the rest of us, leaving the stage bare. Once the backing track started, though, and Missus No-Fi started in with the bass and Mister No-Fi commenced with the craziness that would get us crawling on the floor right along with him, we knew what they were all about: A good fucking time. more ›

might be the Best Best of the -ists ever. We're exhausted just thinking about it. more ›

Tuesday, January 30 more ›

As the world holds it's breath, teetering precariously on the cusp of the Super Bowl (well, at least in America), the wheels of the -ists keep on turning. 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 ›

Sunday. Usually, a quiet, contemplative day in the Blogosphere. But not here in the Ist-a-Verse. Nonono! Just look below and see all of the wild and crazy stuff our staffs are up to. more ›