When Seattlest worked closer to Pike Place Market, the obvious lunchtime choice was between crumbly, delectable tamales or hearty gyros. Now that we find ourselves in Sodo 40 hours a week, we've had to venture out and blaze a new lunch hour trail. Our heart, mind, and friend's recommendations led us to Smarty Pants, only five minutes away (plus a few, due to an inconveniently placed train)... more ›

When Seattlest was a young dancer, we dreamed of creating choreography worthy of this Spanish company. Not that we knew La Compañía Nacional de Danza back then, but the first time we saw them perform it was like watching the dancers from our imagination writ large on stage--we never succeeded as a choreographer, but Artistic Director Nacho Duato (that's right, you read correctly) has The Gift. Intense, vivid and poignant without ever being self-important or overly hand-wringy about injecting meaning into motion, this company sells out wherever they go. more ›

A sign inside Fremont's High Dive states that the little bar's maximum occupancy is 98. Saturday night, with Bellingham's The Trucks in the house, it felt more like 398. Good for the band's young ladies, not so good for the claustrophobic. more ›

Seattlest has found a reason for everyone to welcome bicycles on the city's streets. The origins lie in Virgin Vacations' (has anyone asked The Name Inspector to do a write up on Richard Branson's desire to cater to virgins?) naming of the world's 11 most bike-friendly cities. Unfortunately, Seattle didn't make the list (Portland came in at number 2), which uses five criteria created by The Bicycle Friendly Communities Campaign to judge a community's bike... more ›

Biodiesel drivers rejoice! There's a new place to fill your French-fry-smelling tanks thanks to Dr. Dan's Alternative Fuelwerks grand opening of a new, and may we say much more accessible, location, in the Ravenna neighborhood on Friday. more ›

When Seattlest received that fateful email from a friend, our immediate reaction was a roll of the eyes and an audible, drawn out, "Bull shit." No way would the one and only Beastie Boys play the legendary but very wee Crocodile Cafe. No way. Then came the Ticketmaster link all but confirming it. The Croc's website kept mum, not listing the show at all. Supposedly The End had been talking it up, but we wouldn't know since we haven't listened to that station since discovering KEXP years ago. A click of the mouse fractions of a second after tickets went on sale and we were in. Many of our friends and most of the Seattle area weren't as lucky. A quick check on Craig's List and Ebay showed that scalpers had done some of the immediate damage. Venting ensued. more ›

When Seattlest made it to the Paramount last year for what would be an amazing performance from Sufjan Stevens, we were running a little late and needed a drink. Straight to the little bar we went, causing us to miss most of the opening act. We did settle, finally, in our seat for the last couple songs by said act and when it was done, we said to our company, "Wow. We should have gotten here sooner." Then Sufjan came out, handsome devil that he is, and we forgot about everything until we realized that the "cheerleading captain" for Sufjan's band was none other than the woman who'd just finished warming the crowd. more ›

C'mon, Seattle Times. You get a press release related to the McMenamins affair in Kenmore from some mysterious source claiming that the whole deal is off and you turn around and announce it to the world without so much as a phone call to McMenamins? When Seattlest gets a release in the mail detailing the city's plan to dye the sky green we immediately start ranting about how blue skies were good enough for us back in the day, but we expect a little more snooping around from the pros. more ›

Is Seattlest the only person left that hates seeing the last of the city's beer-only drinking venues launch themselves into the new cocktail era and start serving hard alcohol? The Comet--that was a blow. We loved the fact that you could only get beer and wine there up until a year or so ago. You could buy everyone who was bellied-up a "shot" for like $20. The shot was actually some weird glug or something that walked the line of alcohol content they were allowed to serve, but it was cheap as hell. Now the Blue Moon has apparently made nice with the Control Board and is updating their liquor license to enable the sales of hard alcohol. Great, great bar, as it is. Great residents, great transients. One of the funnest bars in Seattle and the patrons seem to get plenty drunk on the current offerings. When Seattlest Dan and Seattlest MVB were in there recently we hadn't been sitting for ten minutes before some woman from Alaska dumped the contents of her purse on our table and sprayed us with cheap perfume. She got 86'd about 20 times and every time she returned she'd show up at the table looking for her phone and her coat. The last thing she needed was a shot, but if it were available at the bar we have no doubt someone would have slipped her one. Now, we understand that bars make a crap-load of money from the sales of hard alcohol and that dives have been getting killed lately by the smoking thing and the sprinkler thing, but we still love us a pub. Are there any left? And if we're going to continue to phase out these Draconian, Victorian-age drinking laws where are we going to address the ridiculous state-run liquor stores? 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 ›

When Seattlest was a starving college student in Portland, we visited the Taste of Portland festival on the river during a particularly hot day. We got a cheeseburger from McCormick and Schmick's--the next day, we were so sick we went to the hospital, where we found out we had salmonella. We were sick for over a week, approaching two. It was the most miserable illness we've ever had, save for an ear infection 8 years ago that caused us to scream nonstop for almost an hour (infants of the world, we understand your plight). more ›

When Seattlest walked in the doors to Chop Suey for the Kinky show last night, we immediately wondered if we'd been transported to some other dimension where everyone at Chop Suey was smiling, talking, and happy. Really really happy. This is not our beautiful house, we thought...who the hell are all these fun, casually gorgeous people and are we really in Seattle? more ›

When Seattlest sits down at our typewriter to dash off a post things can go one of two ways. We can either fly through clickey clack and have a courier speeding the manuscript to our internets people in no time, or things can get messy. It’s likely to be the latter when the subject is so big that the stress to produce is overwhelming or the subject is such a dog that there’s not a whole lot to work with. Some topics are big and lame and when that happens we pull our hair out , shout, smash our typewriter on the desk, shred papes, throw things and knock over the furniture... more ›

Oh Walkmen. Sure, with the release of your latest album, you're not quite the critical darlings you once were, but you certainly don't deserve to play to a venue that's only a third full. When Seattlest got to the Showbox on Friday night, we were shocked (shocked!) at how empty it was: one of the bars was closed, the other bar area was far from packed, and the floor held groups of people scattered about in pockets here and there. Yes, everyone's precious Mountain Goats were playing across town, but surely the Venn diagram isn't that overlapped, right? more ›

When Seattlest arrived at the Crocodile Wednesday night, there were a bunch of people standing outside the venue, desperate for a miracle. A member of our party asked one of the hopeful how much he was willing to spend to get into the show. "I'd pay up to $30," Joe Clueless replied. Laughing, our friend informed this dumb dude that the ticket he had to sell had been purchased off of Craig's List for way more than that. So he quickly sold said ticket to a lucky lady for $60, which he then used to buy the rest of us a round of drinks. God bless generous friends, excessive hype, supply and demand, and the Arctic Monkeys. more ›

When Seattlest charged out of our door this morning with bare minutes to get to the bus stop we noticed an unfamiliar stench to the air. Seattlest being Seattlest we tried to remember the last time we'd laundered our shirt and then looked around for a hippie. Once the bus doors closed, though, we stopped being able to detect anything unusually malodorous and immersed ourself into our book/iPod/daily affirmation until we got downtown. Damn if it didn't stink down there too! more ›

When Seattlest saw that the Northwest Film Forum, in conjunction with Americans for UNFPA (United Nations Population Fund) and Planned Parenthood of Western Washington, was hosting a screening of : "This great work of art has the potential to change the world." more ›

When Seattlest was a wee one of about 5 years, our house was tucked up in the eastern foothills of Salt Lake City, and there wasn't a flat street to be found nearby. One morning when two much older boys went flying down the hill by our house at full tilt on skateboards, we turned to mom and pined for one of our own. Our young body rushed with endorphins merely at the sight of watching them go by; we felt no fear, only exhiliration. Sadly, there was no skateboard under the Xmas tree for us that year. Mom was having none of that. more ›

When Seattlest packed our hobostick and headed to Chicago's Union Station with a one way ticket for the Empire Builder in our pocket lo those many years ago we were, of course, excited about arriving in Seattle. At the same time, leaving Chicago tore a hole in us. In fact, we can still point to the scarred crater on our chest where Chicago music used to be and if you look close enough you can see right where Tortoise lived. You know how amputees sometimes still get sensations from limbs they no longer have? Seattlest still feels that from Tortoise, right in our chest. more ›

Seattlest grew up in the Fremont area and remembers the excitement Paseo caused when it first took up residence on Fremont Avenue. We lived close enough to Paseo that we could smell the food from our backyard. We loved the spicy and bold flavors of Caribbean cuisine and Paseo quickly became a Seattlest favorite. more ›

This week Seattlest was craving Greek and maybe a little childhood nostalgia. This combo usually means Yanni's Greek Cuisine on Greenwood, where Seattlest has fond memories of dining when we were young. more ›

Today Seattlest was in the mood for American food with a capital 'A'. Nothing fancy. Nothing on the menu that we couldn't pronounce. No fancy twists or "updated classics". No money spent on flash websites, kitschy décor or outrageous views. Just plain and simple burgers, salads, steaks and fries. When Seattlest craves American food we head to Wedgwood Broiler in North Seattle--as stated on their website, "the word cuisine just does not seem to fit here--this is true family fare without a hint of pretense." more ›