The Seattle-PI asks in the headline of a couple-hundred-word story a question we could answer in one word and a single photo. The P-I: Have hippie dancers become a dying breed at Bumbershoot? Answer: No. Evidence: Dancing Scarf Guy by Seattlest Flickr Photog smohundro......

According to an email we got from the Washington State Democrats today, the state's Attorney General, Rob McKenna, laid out a plan for Dino Rossi to beat Christine Gregoire in November for state delegates at the Republican National Convention in Minnesota. In short, according to McKenna, McCain-Palin needs to carry Washington by 10-12 points. "If he fails to carry it by ten or twelve points, Dino doesn't win." Maybe it's scary thoughts like that which......

Vandalized GOP booth, courtesy King County RNC. It's not like the GOP has been absent from the news lately, with the RNC in full swing and the swirls of controversy surrounding Gov. GrandMama Palin. Still, we're surprised the blogosphere hasn't gone crazy over the vandalism of the Republican Party's booth at Bumbershoot this weekend. According to a vaguely-worded press release from the King County Republican Party, their booth was closed on Sunday when "unidentified......

Seattlest Jeremy already reviewed Next Stage's Nexus Project--"A dozen original plays by some of our most talented writers is definitely worth your time, and your money"--but we caught a 3-play sampler down at Bumbershoot and had to chime in. Theater at the festival can be hit-or-miss but this year Next Stage and the Unicycle Collective nailed it (both featuring the terrific Marya Sea Kaminski) with 10-minute bits that fit the setting perfectly. The Nexus Project......

As previously mentioned, Monday at Bumbershoot was heavily skewed towards the alt-country side of things. We're not sure if that's good programming or bad programming. On the one hand, if you're way into alt-country, just attend that one day of the festival and you're all set; on the other hand, you've got some tough choices to make among Blitzen Trapper, Langhorne Slim, Two Gallants, the Maldives, and Old 97s. We managed to catch some......

On Monday Bumbershoot was a smoldering guyville. And we have the photos to prove it. Who knows why the festival was so testosterone heavy, but if boys were your thing, you had a grab bag to choose from.......

"Hammering Man Works While Seattle Sleeps" (except on Labor Day) courtesy of Seattlest Flickr photographer Looney1 Photography Apologies for the lack of a Roundup yesterday. There was this little obscure music and arts festival going on in town this weekend. Plus, it was Labor Day--so we abstained from work to show solidarity with the proletariat. Now for your regularly scheduled neighborhood news. Tigertail in Ballard was broken into this weekend and the safe was stolen.......

Blitzen Trapper had a fantastic set early this afternoon, and even though we didn't know how good the stuff from the album they're releasing later this month was going to be, we expected to have a blast at their show. We did have a blast, and apparently Blitzen Trapper is releasing a classic rock album on the 23rd that we're going to buy immediately. After Blitzen Trapper we saw a half dozen or so alt-country......

"Fountain @ Bumbershoot 08" courtesy of Seattlest Flickr pool member sonoazure Our Sunday began with deja vu from Saturday, as Shim ended their set at the Sky Church a full twenty minutes early. We don't know about you, but if we were a little band with a big captive festival crowd, we'd take advantage of our hour-long slot by any means necessary. If we didn't have enough original content, we'd fill our set with covers......

digg_url = 'http://digg.com/music/The_Many_Faces_of_The_Shackeltons_Mark_Redding'; "There's more people here than live in Chambersburg," marveled The Shackeltons' lead singer Mark Redding, who seemed to be hungry for the crown of the hardest working man in show business. He rolled on the floor, tripped over monitors, swung from speaker-support chains, waved branches, threw flowers, dumped a pot of water on his head, jumped into the Bumbershoot crowd, ran offstage to hug someone, stood on a suitcase, fell off......

Photo of Washington D.C. Mayor Adrian Fenty waving the American flag toward the end of Obama's speech by DCist's Sommer Mathis DCist reported live from the Democratic National Convention.Bostonist tasted the best heirloom tomatoes in the city.Torontoist featured some of their favorite photos of an extraordinary summer for the city's weather, with huge storm clouds, apocalyptic sunsets, double rainbows, and stunning lightning strikes the norm rather than the exception.Shanghaiist was amused by the news......

"The Main Stage" courtesy of Seattlest Flickr pool member supafly In terms of music, Saturday was definitely our biggest day at Bumbershoot. We spent most of the time running from one partial set to another. Along the way we caught Thao Nguyen and her backing band, the Get Down Stay Down. Thao's breathy voice is much bigger than the tiny girl it comes out of, and with her solid, clap-happy set, she managed to be......

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Bumbershoot ("Party like it's Day Two!") opens at 11:00 a.m., but nothing catches our performing arts eye (music picks are after the jump) until the Nexus Project (1:00 p.m.) at Theatre Puget Sound Stage (i.e., the Center House Theatre, where Seattle Shakespeare Co. usually performs). We saw some of the collected 10-minute works when they were at Hugo House and called it a "fantastic opportunity." Antologia Polski (2:00 p.m.) brings you 50 years of Polish......

Bumbershoot starts off Saturday with arguably the best all-around lineup of artists and performers at the three-day festival. For what it’s worth, the weather is supposed to be decent, but there aren’t any guarantees. The forecast isn’t totally inspiring, but we’ll take anything short of an outright downpour as a win. As an all-knowing, all-seeing hivemind, Seattlest has your Bumbershoot recommendations handled. If you're going to brave the crowds, bathroom lines, and ever-present corporate tents,......

With this year's Bumbershoot nearly upon us, let's continue to hope that the weekend weather keeps looking good. If you don't have tickets yet, stop by your local Starbucks to avoid the lines and fees at the gates. Check out a few more tips (bring water and a jacket! take the bus! wear sunscreen! call your mother!) at the Bumbershoot site. While there's plenty of music acts to see (and to harass by requesting......

The Shins at last year's Bumbershoot, courtesy of Seattlest Flickr user Andrew G. Davis MSN has listed 15 of the best cities and festivals for music lovers, citing Bumbershoot as the reason they clocked Seattle in at the number two spot. We come in behind only Memphis, ahead of Chicago, Tokyo, London, Vienna, and Los Angeles. New York City was number 9, Nashville made the cut at number 12, and New Orleans—arguably the best place......

Late summer festival/extravaganza Bumbershoot announced another hiphop headliner today. Ludacris, the one and only, has been added to the line-up! The other three rap-alicious big names thus far are Brother Ali, whose recent show at Neumos was nigh unto a spiritual experience for Seattlest, Del Tha Funkee Homosapien, and Kid Sister out of Chicago. Unless, of course, you count Beck as a rapper. (We don't.) Says Seattle hiphop artist Grynch to Seattlest on the line-up:......

Last night, Bumbershoot announced the first set of acts slated for this year's festival. So far, there's a name or two that could draw us to Seattle Center this Labor Day weekend. Beck? Hell yes! A reunited Stone Temple Pilots? Not so much. Beck / Stone Temple Pilots / Lucinda Williams / Neko Case / Ingrid Michaelson / Jakob Dylan / Del Tha Funky Homosapien / !!! / Lee "Scratch" Perry / Saul Williams......

Time magazine claims, "You can't swing a dead cat this time of year without hitting a Top 10 List." Never one to waste a perfectly good dead cat, we decided to take a swing and create a Top Random-Number Shows Seattlest Saw This Year. And now, without any further ado, here's how your favorite bloggers broke down the year: According to Dante, everything else pared in comparison to Daft Punk at WaMu Theater 7/29/07. OMFG!!!!!!!!!!!!!......

In some early canvassing for "show/concert of the year", we've gotten two votes for The Avett Brothers at Bumbershoot, from which we reported live (ish). So we suspect that tickets to a two-show visit in April will sell out fast. Reports our friend Monica, "I don't think I have ever put anything in my calendar that far ahead as this show." You'd better get on the good foot. Tickets are $22.50, plus service fees, at......

This Seattlest started his carpet-bagging campaign here about ten years ago, so maybe we have an imperfect understanding of the Fun Forest and it's cultural baggage. When we heard that the City Council had elected to raze the Fun Forest in 2009 our first reaction was "What?! They're clear-cutting the Wenatchee National Forest?!" But then we caught on, as we occasionally do, and realized they were talking about the little carnivalette that lives in Seattle......

Ravens & Chimes [myspace] have been artist of the day on Spin, and you've heard them on John in the Morning. Their new album, Reichenbach Falls, "dropped" last month. They are hot. Two Ravens, Abe Pollack and Brittany Anjou, are Seattle types. Pollack went to U Prep, Anjou's a Roosevelt grad. Word! We emailed Pollack some questions, he emailed back answers. 1) How did you end up in Brooklyn? I moved to New York six......

Just when you thought that college campuses would be unable to handle any more scourges to their populations, with meningitis and date-rape rampant, a new scourge has reared its ugly head: severe, humorless sobriety. Last night we found ourselves in the midst of a sedate and calm crowd of clean-cut, upstanding young college students at a co-ed mixer held in the HUB Ballroom, featuring the touring acts of the NME Rock 'n' Roll Riot......

For a guy who's nearly tone deaf, Eddie Argos has done pretty well for himself in the world of rock music. When his band Art Brut broke a couple years ago, their sound--spoken-word lyrics over choppy punk rhythms and AC/DC-inspired riffs--stood out in the London indie scene, amongst Britpop redux bands like Babyshambles and Bloc Party. Their debut album, Bang, Bang, Rock & Roll was a Pitchfork and KEXP fave, and the first time......

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......

Above is a clip of local band-made-good Schoolyard Heroes, from their video shoot for new single "Plastic Surgery Hall of Fame," the final product of which can be seen here. The song's off their new album Abominations, out this Tuesday. In order to celebrate the release of their third full-length, the horror-punk four-piece is playing two shows in two nights for all their Seattle-area fans. Monday night at Sonic Boom Ballard is the band's......

Fountain Run with Friend, uniquely capturing a non-crowded, sans-elephant-ear moment of bliss at Bumbershoot this year courtesy of Crickontour. Share your own Seattle slivers in the Seattlest Flickr pool, won't you?......

Not so sure, by Belltown. We saw Paul Revere at Bumbershoot, too, and he was amazing. From our Flickr pool, of course.......

There were, however, 3:10 to Yuma t-shirts, which we gave away in addition to the regular pile of swag. (That was Jack Daniels-themed this week. Congrats, Greendoggs.) Scores ranged from a respectable low of 41 to an impressive high of 74, out of 81 possible points. Gag Me With a Smurf won for the second week in a row, inspiring a couple of other teams to ask me, on the QT, "Who are those guys?"......