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Bellingham jazz funksters, Megatron, had a few impressive solos, but for the most part, their songs were fairly simple and somewhat repetitive. But we're not here to harsh on Megatron. They did a good job warming the cold December crowd and getting everyone excited for our lady of the evening, the illustrious Ms. Sharon Jones and her acclaimed backing band, The Dap Kings. If Megatron had the crowd warmed up, The Dap Kings got them...

Running text ads on your blog never really struck us as the Get-Richest-Quickest path; we used to have Amazon ads on a book review blog and after a year or two and no checks, we decided we could better use the real estate and quit the program. A few months later we got our first and final check for...$6ish? But Seattle's Furious Seasons blog has just discovered firsthand the pain of algorithmic rejection. The email...

It's safe to assume that Sharon Jones is cooler than you. The current queen of neo-funk/soul grew up in Macon, Georgia and Brooklyn, singing in church before ending up doing session work in the '70s as the anonymous vocals on dance and disco records. Without a solo contract of her own, she left the industry and took odd jobs like corrections officer at Rikers Island and Wells Fargo armored car guard.

The last time multi-culti multi-genre singer-songwriter Manu Chao hit the Seattle area was at Sasquatch this summer (see above). Singing in French, Spanish, Arabic, Galician, Catalan, English, Portuguese, Italian, and Wolof, Chao fuses a variety of styles, including rock, reggae, punk and ska. So this ain't your grandma's drum circle's world music. There's no word as to when he's headed back to the Northwest, but if you're looking to experience the Spanish political punk in your own home, Nacional Records just released a limited quantity of the double vinyl version of his latest album La Radiolina today, available at Sonic Boom, Easy Street, and Everyday Music.

This summer Manu Chao showed his love to Seattle (and the rest of Washington) with an explosive set at Sasquatch (above). The seriously broadly multilingual and multicultural songwriter—he's French-born and -raised of Galician-Basque origins and sings in French, Spanish, Arabic, Galician, Catalan, English, Portuguese, Italian, and Wolof, often mixing languages within the same song—Chao fuses a variety of styles, including rock, reggae, punk and ska. With his hodgepodge of genres and tongues, he crosses cultural boundaries and appeals to many listeners who don't typically dive into "world" music. No doubt that's part of the reason why he just won his first Latin Grammy. If you're looking to experience the true Spanish political punk in your own home, Nacional Records is releasing a limited quantity of the double vinyl version of his latest album La Radiolina tomorrow. It'll be available at Sonic Boom, Easy Street, and Everyday Music.

Austin-based Anglophile pop quintet Voxtrot just can't help but draw comparisons to bands like Belle & Sebastian, Morrissey, the Wedding Present, and even the Cure. After a couple well-received EPs, the band put out their self-titled debut full-length earlier this year (see above single "Firecracker"), and then proceeded to tour up a storm. Now the boys are back on the West Coast: Voxtrot headlines an extremely twee-centric all-ages show (Division Day, Tullycraft, and Math and Physics Club are also on the bill) at Neumo's next Tuesday night, and Seattlest has one pair of tix to give away. Enter to win by filling out the form below. No worries: Your info is safe with us and will not be shared with advertisers and/or the government, yadda yadda yadda. We'll be drawing one winner Monday at 10am.

And we mean everybody: the New York Times, Pitchfork, the ever-fickle blogosphere. Seems that it's not hard to garner that kind of love and affection when you're a Brit-leaning pop quintet straight outta Austin. With clever arrangements, charming melodies, limber lyrics, and jangly guitars, Voxtrot just can't help but draw comparisons to bands like Belle & Sebastian, Morrissey, the Wedding Present, and even the Cure. After a string of well-received EPs, their self-titled debut full-length came out in May, and since then, they've been touring nonstop (most recently as openers for Arctic Monkeys), while also performing at the Pitchfork festival, the Siren Music Festival in Coney Island, and at CMJ.

Indie underground vets Les Savy Fav manage to be both experimental and catchy. It's a tough balancing act, but the NYC quartet pulls it off with aplomb, especially on latest (and greatest) album Let's Stay Friends. The art-leaning band with academically-inclined lyrics is equally well-known for its intense live shows, with frantic frontman Tim Harrington providing a great deal of the spastic energy and wildman antics, as well as the costumes and gratuitous nudity....

Art-punk quartet Les Savy Fav has scored the best reviews of their ten-year-plus career for their latest album Let's Be Friends. Truth be told, we never really paid attention to the band until this release, probably because the term "art-punk" is a mite too pretentious for our tastes. Whatever the case, the angular new album totally does it for us, from the heady statement of intent on opening track "Pots and Pans" to the...

Tuning the Air continues their multi-guitar soundscape at the Capitol Hill Arts Center showroom every Monday through 12/17. So you've only got four more chances to see the guitorchestra in action, playing their fusion of the old and new, the classic and the modern, live and in the round. Intrepid reporter MvB has seen them on more than one occasion and had this to say about the CHAC residency: Tuning the Air is guitar-topia,...

Tuning the Air has been performing their big guitar orchestra take on all genres, from classical to rock, pop, and ambient, for a couple years now. Think the Beatles back-to-back with Bach, and some improv thrown in for good (huh huh) measure. The show used to be in Ballard, but for the past few months, they've taken up a weekly residency at the Capitol Hill Arts Center, in the CHAC showroom on Mondays through 12/17--which means you've only got four more chances to sit in the middle of a guitar circle. Waaaay better-sounding and -smelling than a hippie-infested drum circle, believe you me.

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."

Above is a six-minute sampling of Melbourne-based noise quartet The Drones and their not-easily-classified dirty blues/swamp rock sound. Wikipedia makes a valiant effort, in describing the band as "The Birthday Party kick the shit out of Neil Young in Hendrix's garage." That's a start.

Melbourne-based quartet The Drones are a little bit country, a little bit blues, and a lotta bit rock 'n' roll. And check it out, they've got one of the most eclectic list of influences we've ever seen: Van Morrison or Dylan or Suicide or Bad Brains or Nina Simone or Black Flag or the Scientists or Ornette Coleman or Thelonius Monk or (australian)X or Townes Van Zandt or John Lee Hooker or Karen Dalton...

Ben Harper released his eighth studio album, Lifeline earlier this year to rave reviews. In his first ever seated theatre tour, Ben, along with his Innocent Criminals, will perform songs from the new album, as well as dig deep into the back catalog. He'll be in Seattle at the Paramount next Wednesday and Thursday. Seattlest has a pair of tickets to give away to Wednesday's all-ages show. Enter to win by filling out the...

Earlier this fall, Laura Dern's baby-daddy Ben Harper released his eighth album, Lifeline, the product of a week-long marathon recording session in Paris. The record's been heralded as Harper's best work in years, due to its casual simplicity and laid-back vintage sound, drawing comparisons to Bill Withers, Otis Redding, and Van Morrison. That's almost enough to get us to ignore the fact that he discovered surfer/"musician" Jack Johnson. In his first ever seated theatre...

The third annual 826 Seattle benefit People Talking and Singing will fill the seats at Town Hall next Thursday. Comedian Patton Oswalt had to cancel, but the event still features host John Roderick of the Long Winters, Dave Eggers, comedians Todd Barry and Eugene Mirman, New Yorker music critic (and current blogosphere gadfly) Sasha Frere-Jones, local songstress Rosie Thomas, and Geologic of the Blue Scholars.

Bumbershoot 2005 hosted the inaugural People Talking and Singing show, where 2,800 festival attendees packed McCaw Hall to see Dave Eggers, Daniel Handler (Lemony Snicket), Mike Doughty, Sarah Vowell, and Death Cab for Cutie, all the while raising $18K for 826 Seattle, the youth writing center in Greenwood. Last year's event, also at Bumbershoot, was hosted by Daily Show Resident Expert™ John Hodgman and singer Jonathan Coulton. Eggers, Handler, Gibbard, and Vowell were back for more, along with Decemberist Colin Meloy, Smoosh, and Stephin Merritt. All together, the benefit raised another $10K.

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

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.

Do they sing into caves, about caves, or from within a cave? Whatevs. Hauntingly, charmingly neurotic local folk trio the Cave Singers open for Black Mountain at the Crocodile Cafe this Saturday night. Seattlest has a pair of tickets to give away to the 21+ show. Enter to win by filling out the form below. No worries: Your info is safe with us and will not be shared with advertisers and/or the government, yadda yadda yadda. We'll be drawing one winner Friday at 10am.

In January of this year, the Weekly's Brian J. Barr described local trio the Cave Singers as "an updated version of the Anthology of American Folk Music. Not the graduate-student, learned interpretations of folk music circa 1962, but folk music approached by way of punk rock. It's sparse, melodic, and simultaneously creepy and alluring, like the widow mourning graveside in Johnny Cash's 'Long Black Veil'." That was enough to get Matador Records interested, who signed the band in May and released their debut album Invitation Songs last month.

Quirky experimental electro seven-piece Múm just got done playing Reykjavik's biggest music event, the Iceland Airwaves Festival. Check out some pics of the band via Pitchfork's coverage (scroll down; they're right between Bonde do Rolê and Ra Ra Riot). In honor of their latest album Go Go Smear the Poison Ivy, tomorrow night they kick off their world tour in L.A. and they'll go nonstop for the next month and a half, finally bringing things to completion in Scotland on December 14th. That's a whole lotta fiddlin'.

Oh Iceland. As we've previously noted, its chilly climes makes for a hot music scene. Though you may not be able to pronounce them correctly, you know the names: Björk, Sigur Rós, Benni Hemm Hemm, Amiina. There are various accent marks and umlauts up the yin-yang, but in terms of music, Icelandic spells quality.

We've got some cool Liars swag to give away and then Seattlest has for you our highly anticipated report on the venue unfortunately known as WaMu "Theater", as well as some notes on last night's Liars/Interpol show.

Poor John Vanderslice.

It's hard to think of Ozzy Osbourne as scary anymore, after seeing him unable to work his remote controls and shuffling around in a haze from all the meds he's on, but rest assured, at one point in time, he was a freaky, bat-beheading maniac. Perhaps he can borrow some freakiness from Rob Zombie, who lately is known more for his gory movies than for his music. The two are embarking on a forty-show North American tour in support of Black Rain, Ozzy's first album of new material in six years.

We'd like to take a brief moment to thank this week's advertisers on Seattlest

Brooklyn duo Project Jenny, Project Jan heat up the dancefloor through frenetic vocalist Jeremy Haines' lyrical kung-fu and Sammy Rubin's full-flavored, bass-heavy beats chockablock with samples galore. The boys are touring the country, bringing the party to promote their debut full-length XOXOXOXOXO. Expect ridiculous rhymes, the occasional cowbell, and some monster dance moves.

We're not quite sure why Project Jenny, Project Jan goes by that particular moniker, considering the band consists of two dudes: a vocalist named Jeremy and a programmer/keyboardist named Sammy. But we're not complaining. The band describes themselves as "an unexpected journey through genres: at times, pop-infused rock is pummeled with homespun dance beats; while quieter moments reveal the band's thoughtful, artful, and tender tendencies." We're pretty sure that means the laptop rock duo has a sensitive side, even though they make music for happy fun party time (see the instantly mind-worming track "320" above, off their debut full-length XOXOXOXOXO).