Ben Gibbard of Death Cab For Cutie tells SPIN.com that the next album will be a lot "softer" than Narrow Stairs, which he says was a dark and exhausting album to create. In return, SPIN calls him a 'broken-hearted bard,' which sounds like an exhausting way to live--even before taking on an ambitiously epic musical project. Maybe it's time to make another electronic indie pop record. (Note to Gibbard: Please reconsider your hesitancy and give......

BEST LOCAL SHOW EVER: Okay, maybe that's too strong a statement. There are people who would argue otherwise, but Seattlest is pretty thrilled with all the bands on the bill tonight at the Tractor. It's a big ol' acousti-pop night in Ballard with Grand Hallway, Kate Tucker, Odessa Chen, and Husbands Love Your Wives. Yeah, we know. Hot action. Maybe it's not as killer as a Pearl Jam-Dave Matthews-Death Cab-Heart show would be, but it's......

If you haven't listened to Chicago Public Radio's Sound Opinions before, it's a show hosted by two well-respected music critics/dorks (Jim DeRogatis and Greg Kot). Each week they have intelligent, candid discussions on popular music. Often, they have guests and these guests perform songs and get chatty with Jim and Greg. This week's guests on Sound Opinions are none other than our local heroes, Death Cab for Cutie. We listened and we loved it. It's......

Not that we need to feed his ego or anything, but John Roderick (of The Long Winters) is a funny dude. Whilst heating up our chicken pot pie from Trader Joe's, we perused a copy of the Weekly someone had left out. Starting from the back, it wasn't long before we saw a goofy cartoon Roderick giving us a great big toothy smile. With his column, entitled, "Exposing the Poker Skills of the Sasquatch! Class......

It's Thursday night, and we're getting pretty psyched up for Sasquatch. We've spent the better part of our day online, listening to but a small sample of the bands we'll see this weekend. And tonight, we finally got around to watching this "Open Windows" Death Cab documentary video for Current. If you're a fan, you'll love this one. Lots of great footage from their current tour. While we're at it, congratulations to the band for......

That is, if you've got an extra eight and a half minutes in your pocket. That's how long it takes to get through Death Cab's sprawling new single from their forthcoming new album, Narrow Stairs (out May 13th). We're not sure how we feel about this one yet. We heart Ben Gibbard & company, but this song feels unnecessarily long, such that it borders a little on pretentious. We're not against a lengthy, "epic" song......

Right on the heels of the announcement that the Mars Volta was added to the Sasquatch lineup, and right before tickets go on sale this Saturday, the three-day music festival has seen fit to delineate who will be playing on which day: Saturday, May 24th R.E.M. / Modest Mouse / M.I.A. / The New Pornographers / The National / Ozomatli / Beirut / Dengue Fever / Fleet Foxes / The Breeders / Okkervil River......

After months of wild speculation, the official 2008 Sasquatch lineup has finally been announced: R.E.M. / The Cure / The Flaming Lips U.F.O. Show / Death Cab For Cutie / Modest Mouse / M.I.A. / Flight Of The Conchords / Rodrigo Y Gabriela / Michael Franti & Spearhead / The Breeders / Built To Spill / The Hives / Tegan & Sara / The Presidents / Ghostland Observatory / Ozomatli / The New Pornographers......

Chris Walla is best known for being the guitarist in Death Cab for Cutie. Or he's known as a producer for Tegan & Sara and the Decemberists. Or maybe you heard about the little incident he had with Homeland Security confiscating his computer last fall. Now Walla's got another reason for notability: his first solo album, Field Manual, out today on Barsuk Records. Singer-songwriter stuff ain't exactly our bag, but Walla's smooth delivery ensures......

If you haven't yet heard through the grapevine, Death Cab will release their 8th studio album in May of this year. Teaser video HERE. (After watching the trailer, go on and check out the new look of their site. Sexy!)......

We've been hitting shows on the Seattle music scene for about four years now, and if there's one thing we can say with certainty, it's that Seattle doesn't need more musicians, it needs better ones. Such may be the consolation of learning that next week, the Seattle chapter of Paul Green's School of Rock opens. If Green's now famous "school" can help create a new generation of musicians whose influences go deeper than Green Day,......

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......

We spotted Jim from The Office--real name: John Krasinski--having drinks at the Crocodile Friday night with Ben Gibbard of Death Cab for Cutie (who Seattlest Jack chatted with last week). Messrs Krasinski and Gibbard commandeered a booth in the back along with a retinue of dudes and girls. Outside, we saw Krasinski very patiently and very politely agreeing to appear in photos with various Croc patrons. One mid-30s skater dude announced that his was "goin'......

--Ben Gibbard of Death Cab For Cutie is reported to be set for his big screen debut in the adaptation of David Foster Wallace's Brief Interviews With Hideous Men. Gibbard himself is not a hideous man, though. --There is what they're calling a "serial peeping Tom" on the loose in the University District. --Yesterday Mrs. Seattlest opened the commemorative Spirit of Washington chardonnay for cooking and today there's word that the dinner train may not......

Sunday 12/10 @ Neumo's Juno Ted Leo + the Pharmacists Junior Boys Cold War Kids SOLD OUT! Sunday was the much ballyhooed Part Two of the sold-out KEXP Yule Benefit. These are always great shows because the crowd is diverse and the mood is chill. The bands know they are playing for KEXP music afficionados like ourselves so they also tend to put on a slightly better show. Sunday was no exception. This odd......

Tuesday, December 5 >>> Peter Walker at El Corazon. Not to be confused with Paul Walker or Peter Weller, Peter Walker's in town to support Young Gravity, his second album. We have read, though, that Walker evokes another Pete--Yorn. With maybe a bit more bite. 7pm doors; $10. All ages. With Division Day. Wednesday, December 6 >>> Victrola's own folk chanteuse Molly Rose headlines a singer/songwriter parade of not-yet stars at the Sunset Tavern.......

Seattlest attended the Danielson show Tuesday at Chop Suey and we would have written about it sooner, but our newest contributor, Chris Hanger, came down with some "mysterious illness," so we are only getting around to posting it now. Quoth the Hanger: Danielson took the stage around 11:30. The crowd steadily filed in from their twenty-minute smoke breaks. Ben Gibbard of Postal Service and Death Cab for Cutie fame showed up following the opening......

So much is in the delivery. The unsteady, sunburned drinker who wearily slurred his estimate of the time he'd spent drinking Sunday somehow packed cosmic distances into his phrasing. Or there were the two young men, fleeing the rain shower, bleating: "What's gone wrong? Where are the naked hippies? Where are the naked hippies!" People certainly do drink up at the Gorge. Maybe it's that country air. Saturday night we were down on the......

We can continue giving Death Cab hometown welcomes when they breeze through town, but we should keep in mind that it only takes one certain television appearance to give them a new home in the eyes of the outside world. Gibbard and co are taking their show across the pond in February and when people report on this there's no mention of "trading the soggy streets of Seattle for the soggy streets of London." Instead......

Our mysteriously long commute this morning (the rain? aurora borealis centralized on 99?), in concert with an even more mysterious mp3 player outage (battery power? the gods telling us we need an iPod? technical ineptitude?) forced us to catch Harvey Danger on KEXP. KEXP is broadcasting out of the Museum of Television and Radio in NYC currently, which has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that Harvey Danger (we think it was Sean?)......

Seems like everybody and their mama has been raising money for the Red Cross or other agencies helping in hurricane relief efforts. Even Seattlest's local karaoke dive bar was taking cash for the cause last Sunday night. What follows is by no means a comprehensive list, but just a smattering of upcoming events by local businesses where your money can make a difference: · Restaurants: If you dine at any Chow Foods eatery (5 Spot,......

1) Mercir (EMP Sky Church) - We started the day with some electro indie rock. With moody vocals, usually more atmospheric than lyrical, this three piece uses guitars, keyboards and a latop computer to create a rich wall of sound. 2) Citizen Cope (Main Stage) - We keep hearing about how great Citizen Cope is. That “Bullet in a Target” song is everywhere. Prior to Saturday, the other songs we heard by him (aka Clarence......

Since we are wearing our official 'O.C.' fan club t-shirt and matching socks, we feel honor bound to let you know Death Cab for Cutie's MySpace page has their new song 'Soul Meets Body' available for your streaming pleasure. From what I can tell from the comments left by the bands MySpace friends, the new song is 'awesome,' 'steller,' 'f*cking awesome,' and good for 'mellowing out' and as we all know you should believe everything......

In case you haven't quite had your fill of Death Cab for Cutie cameos (the O.C.) or interviews (we talked to British Sea Power yesterday) recently, guitarist Christopher Walla interviews writer and NPR great Sarah Vowell at Salon.com today. Vowell's book "The Partly Cloudy Patriot" apparently had quite an effect on Walla and led him to purchase multiple copies for friends and family and, eventually, brought about this interview. They mostly discuss Vowell's new book......