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 ›

The Frames performed Friday night for a sold out crowd at the Showbox Market. It was a personal bucket list show as you could tell from the preview post. It exceeded any expectation we might have had and then some. Not only did they play an epic 2 1/2 hour set, but the crowd seemed to be more tired than they were at the end of the night. During one of Glen's great story-telling breaks, he told us that the band had stopped by a pub the day before to have a couple pints (could listen to that man speak for days and never tire of it). A young guy was playing solo and singing at the back of the bar and despite the loud conversations threatening to overpower his music, he continued on with heart. They enjoyed his music so much, that they decided to bring him to their show the next day. One hitch, he wasn't 21 yet and it was a 21+ show. Somehow they managed to get him in and asked that he come on stage and play a song between their two encores. He was fantastic. His first name is Dylan, but we couldn't quite catch his last (comment if you got the full name, we'd love to find out!) For more shots, check out the flickr collection. more ›

The Frames have been an influential rock band for a very long time, as a matter of fact this is the 20th year that the band has been together. They're based out of Dublin, Ireland and so tend to be overshadowed by their musical big brother U2. They've made a solid name for themselves in Europe as well as North America despite that fact. However, you may not have heard The Frames so much as you've heard Glen Hansard or perhaps his side project The Swell Season. Glen was one of two main characters (but basically playing himself in personality and charm) in the movie Once. It was an independent film that found international fame due to it's heart and beauty both visually and musically; if you haven't seen it, we highly recommend you watch it over the long weekend. The other lead in the film was Marketa Irglova, a singer/songwriter from the Czech Republic (also basically playing herself in personality and charm). Out of that film came an amazing group called The Swell Season. All the music in the film was written and performed by the duo and was so successful they decided to pursue it as a band. After a couple years they decided it was time to move on, and thankfully Glen fell back to working with The Frames (though, most of them were helping out with the backing instrumentation in The Swell Season anyway). more ›

Let's be honest: November is a good month for the beginnings of shitty weather and holiday stress. We have few memories of this month yielding much in the way of excellent shows or substantial numbers of bands coming through our fair city. However, this year around, it's clear that the rock gods are on out side: November closely mirrors October in terms of a huge dose of amazing bands. Let's salute the coming dark months together with some of the month's most anticipated shows. more ›

About three lives ago, when we were living in a scientific research station in Ecuador, we watched The Postman (Il Postino) with a group of Westerners. After the movie, which is one of our favorites, we were sitting there, wondering why the room had suddenly gotten all dusty, when a privileged teenage British hipster/tourist named Aelys (pronounced like Alice, but her parents preferred the Welsh spelling) announced that she hadn't liked the movie because it was too slow. Charlie's Angels 2, she liked, but not this. more ›