Stay tuned tomorrow for an awesome contest during tomorrow evening's Seahawks-Bears game. Prior to tomorrow's game, we'll have another post with more details. There will be prizes and stuff, y'all, including a super-secret prize option that is so super-secret we can't even tell you about it yet. But trust us, it's a righteous bit o' swag. For your chance to win, you'll need to check back manana.......

Perhaps you bit on the Bite or uncorked at Uncorked last weekend, but this coming weekend brings a cooking contest for amateur chefs—and your chance to sample the food for a good cause. INCREDELICIOUS 2008 is a fundraiser for EKAL Seattle, which works to improve literacy and to educate tribal children in India. The cooking part of the competition is already sold out, but the sampling part is open; expect about 60 dishes—appetizers and......

Who doesn't love West Side Story? Communists? Nihilists? Secret Muslims? With Stephen Sondheim's lyrics, Leonard Bernstein's score, and Jerome Robbins' fabulous choreography, the end result is one of the greatest musicals ever brought to big screen. A new 35mm print of West Side Story is showing this Saturday at SIFF Cinema as part of their United Artists 90th Anniversary film series. There's a matinee screening of the film Saturday at 2pm, but Saturday evening's......

The following is a contest from our sponsor, Joe Jackson's Rain. Recorded with the rhythm section that accompanied him on the classics Look Sharp and I’m the Man, Joe Jackson returns with Rain. In classic Jackson style, Rain is full of humor, swing, sophistication, barbed social commentary...and those perfect songs. Rain is already seeing acclaim from everyone from Paste to Stereogum to USA Today. Catch Joe Jackson’s tour as it lands in Seattle on Sunday,......

There's just a little bit of time left before SIFF 2008's opening night, and in between now and then, SIFF Cinema is hosting the United Artists 90th Anniversary film series. To celebrate the studio's 90th birthday next year, the touring tribute covers films from the mid-'50s to 1980, the decades when UA was at the height of its powers. Not like right now, when the relaunched studio's attempt at a comeback (Tom Cruise's Hitler-killing......

Poor Jones Soda. It's been a tough year. Whereas they were once the stand-out local kids who were every bit as nutty and obsessed with soda as Northwest microbrewers are with their beer, nowadays it seems like every newly hyped win is a loss. Yeah, in the last year they busted out nationally and became the official soda at Qwest Field. But just a couple weeks ago, it was announced that in Q4 '07, Jones......

Brand new year, same familiar venue: Seattlest Trivia returns to the Old Pequliar tonight, with Seattlest James hosting. If you're reading this, you probably know the drill: 5 players per team at most, $5 per team to play, the OP doubles the pot and first place wins a bunch of cash. Signup starts at 7:45, but the real mystery is when tables run out -- claim your spot early! We think this month's quiz is......

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......

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. Fate intervened in......

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......

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......

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 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......

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......

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." And then? Nothing. Till this year, when their cover of "Ignoreland" was included in Stereogum’s fifteenth anniversary tribute to R.E.M.’s Automatic For The People,......

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. There's a helluva lot more sound and fury where that came from, specifically when they open for used-to-be-local Band of Horses on their two-night stand at the Showbox next week......

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......

It was a terrifying night for former Garfield and UW basketballer Tre Simmons, who's playing in Israel this year. Israeli basketball fans are notoriously crazy, but the fans--or at least one fan--got a little too crazy yesterday at a contest between Holon (Simmons' team) and Jerusalem. A Jerusalem fan (presumably) threw a firecracker at the Holon bench. An alert security guard who tried to pick the explosive up and toss it away got his hand......

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. People Talking and Singing has become the must-see annual......

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......

So that paper Clay Bennett mask didn't score you the costume-contest office pool? Your Lewinsky dress was irredeemably soiled? It's not too early to think Haloween '08. And we've got the coolest outfit idea for you: Jerry Cantrell. The Alice in Chains guitarist/singer will even trade you his threads for a charity donation. Starting November 5 (and going through 11/26), Cantrell's auctioning off some of "his favorite clothes from key moments in his career" to......

Audrey pretty much summed it up yesterday, but to paraphrase: Rocky Votolato and Jesse Sykes are a miraculous match made in Americana heaven. It was over two months ago that we spotted this double-feature and -- no exaggeration -- we actually gasped. Having seen Sykes and Votolato on separate occasions and having been blown away by both, the prospect of seeing them perform on the same night (and hopefully together -- fingers crossed), well, we're......

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......

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......

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......