U-N-I, the L.A. headliners at last night's show at Chop Suey, is the profoundly West Coast hiphop equivalent of human superficial fascia: loosely, intricately webbed, sticky, and pliable. Tricky, surprising beats backed Thurzday and Y-O's tight rap in a dizzying but relaxed kind of way. The night was solid for such an unsung show, with performances from some of 2008's most promising local acts: J. Pinder (his ballsy, impeccable timing meshing perfectly with high-power......

If you've been monitoring the lives of "Awesome" lately as we have, you know these things: 1. They've been spending time in the studio with Jon Auer, recording a song called "I'm on T.V." for Puppet Entertainment Television (Strangercrombie auction winners). 2. Evan's nose has a furry new friend. 3. Evan (and his nose) and melodica player (amongst other things) John Ackermann had birthdays recently! Which brings us to tonight's show. It's a birthday party!......

Seattlest rarely ventures into Bellevue because really, who needs it? But the last two nights found us cruising Bellevue Way, looking for dinner while the fiancée’s car got its crevices inspected. On Wednesday night we chose a place called Orexi because a) we had an Entertainment Book coupon and b) we hadn’t eaten Greek in probably over a year. (This Seattlest is no foodie.) First red flag: The place was deserted. The waitress/hostess lady......

The Seattle Times' Jim Brunner points out a head-exploding irony in the Sonics' legal case to escape their Key Arena lease. For a lifetime, we've heard professional sports owners trot out the argument that we ought to pay for their arenas because they provide an economic benefit to the community. Think of the waiters, the parking attendants, the ushers and all the people that make money when the team plays. Or don't--they'd be getting their......

The best part about The Big Picture was not eating popcorn from a Veuve Clicquot bucket, or the bar. The best part was listening to the two older couples behind us, who couldn't have been happier with having wine in their seats: "I can't wait to tell everyone that I saw a movie at El Gaucho and drank wine!" The only real negative: the sound system isn't as good as the rest of the......

The only thing more sad and lame than a cover band is a tribute band. (Usually.) Well, even worse is a tribute band that plays the music of an another band that still exists. No, wait—a tribute band that plays songs from a one-off band’s one-off album … whose members live on. That’s truly scraping the musical barrel-bottom. Okay, okay. Worser yet is a national tour of three tribute bands that run this lamentable......

The past few months have seen Mr. “Wes C. Addle”—Eddie Vedder—looking more like Mr. Tinseltown than just another (incredibly talented) Easy Street customer. Times don’t look like they’ll be a-changin’ in 2008. Vedder recorded a song for the Cate Blanchett Bob Dylan study I’m Not There, penned two for the documentary Body of War, then a whole soundtrack for Sean Penn’s Into the Wild. He’ll appear in the upcoming singer-biopic spoof Walk Hard. He’s just......

What it is ain't exactly clear, however. Back on December 2, PopMatters published "So Long, Something Weird," which made it sound like locally based exploitation/sexploitation distributor Something Weird Video was going out of business. It’s time to call out the carnal color guard and get the bugler to blow a rather trashy and tawdry Taps. After nearly seven years celebrating the best of exploitation, Something Weird Video has parted ways with chief home theater......

The Program (Dec. 18-22) will be way cooler than we initially thought, folks. Not only will some of the biggest names in NW hip-hop be on stage for your entertainment five nights in a row, but the latest news is that there are all kinds of technological tie-ins that will make this event very, very 21st-century. For instance: if you bring your cell phone to the show (haha! Who doesn’t bring their cell phone to......

Retailers have been slopping their Christmas come-ons into the weeks before Thanksgiving since at least 1986--that's the earliest citation Word Spy has for "Christmas creep," the retailers' own term for the phenomenon. The exception: local customer-service nirvana Nordstrom. As reported on Consumerist and elsewhere, Nordstrom hasn't put up their Christmas decorations yet. But they have posted signs explaining why: "We just like the idea of celebrating one holiday at a time." Reaction is mostly positive.......

Adrian Tomine started making comics in his teens when he created Optic Nerve. In it, he tells stories about people who tend to be searching for answers to questions they seem to think everyone else already knows. After a few years putting out Optic Nerve on his own, it was picked up by publisher Drawn and Quarterly. Tomine is coming to Seattle to promote his first full-length graphic novel Shortcomings. Seattlest used it as......

Tonight, the nation's hardcore gamblers' eyes will be on Seattle as our fair burgh hosts Monday Night Football. The Hawks' opponent is the San Francisco 49ers, the team that was everyone's trendy pick to be a darkhorse contender in the NFC, with the eminently predictable result that they've started 2-6. Here's how ESPN's The Sports Guy saw it in his season preview:Call it the Winston Wolf "Let's Not Start Sucking Each Other's Popsicles Yet"......

Well! Seattlest lives for weekends like the upcoming one. On Saturday night, we've got Seatown representing rather well at Chop Suey. Assisting North Carolina all-star Little Brother in making the night oh-so-memorable are 206's tough-spitting Dyme Def, rhyme maestro Grynch, The Physics (thank you, God!), and DJ Top Spin. That's right, mutha-flippin Grynch will be there. Seattlest is going because we missed The Physics a couple weeks ago and truly regret that. We are also......

Even that movie voice-over guy will be unemployed. You have heard of this impending strike, have you not? It may seem unrelated to you, the sad inner workings of Hollywood, but in truth, if you are someone who ever turns on their TV, if 8pm every day marks your celebration in the church of Stewart-Colbert, you best care. Without writers, the only thing left standing is Reality TV. We have known this for a long......

Yo La Tengo's current "Freewheeling Tour" is billed as one where "anything can and will happen." Reports from earlier stops informed us to expect the unexpected in a setting that is more "mass hangout than veritable rock show," that we could ask questions and should look for the band to play songs based on those questions. Even so, we weren't sure what to expect. We weren't sure if we'd like the format or if it......

Wait--choke back that vomit. We're making shit up. Speculating doom, if you will. Only half of that title is true. Charles Cross' 2001 biography of Kurt Cobain actually is being adapted for the big screen. By highly-anticipated The Kite Runner and Wolverine screenwriter David Benioff, no less. (Aside: Seattlest once met Benioff at an Austin bar, while unsuccessfully schmoozing with Hollywood types. Before we knew better, we asked him, "Are you a writer, too?" Ha.)......

We got an Amtrak phone survey call over the weekend and they wanted to know if having a snack bar in business class would make us more/less likely to travel by rail. How much would that be worth? In-station hotspots? Now how much would we pay? Private lounge with butler? On the other hand, what if they put leather seats in coach and added more legroom? How did we feel about that? Bit of a......

Prince Howard of Schultz, the man who would be our entertainment king, also wants to feed us frozen yogurt. Yes, the man who brought you Frappuccino wants you to start licking his Pinkberry. The instrument is Maveron, a private investment firm Schultz and Wall Street banker Dan Levitan started ten years ago. (Levitan, then with Schroder Wertheim, had handled the Starbucks IPO.) Maveron, duh, is a mashup of maverick and vision. They've put money into......

Initially, we were a little surprised to hear that ACT--A Contemporary Theatre--was putting on Clare Booth Luce's The Women. Although having debuted in 1936 placed the play in the Modern canon, its view of women is about as un-p.c. as they come: in short, the play presents women as gossipy and back-stabbing, assumes marital infidelity is a function of the Y chromosome, and ends with a note suggesting that for the sake of a healthy......

It's not often that a play comes along that unites both senior citizens and the people who want to kill them. If your parents are elderly, this may strike you as "fair and balanced" theatre. Seattle Rep's The Murderers also unites the talents of "highly respectable playwright" Jeffrey Hatcher and respectability's opposite in many ways, actress Sarah Rudinoff. Her character Minka says about killing: "You do it once, it just gets easier and easier --......

Non-gamers tended to scoff when the release of Halo 3 for the Xbox was labeled as "the most important entertainment event of the year" or whatever, but perhaps this will make them reconsider. The game has already inspired music!......

We really hesitate to head out for curry, as it’s a staple in our cooking repertoire – sort of our emergency food. But when we found ourselves at Racha recently, we decided to give the exotic sounding Jungle Curry a try. It’s not that it was bad… we just don’t get it. A small sampling of vegetables along with some slices of pork (our choice of meat) cooked in a curry paste for $12.50. (Prawns......

Somehow, in between day jobs, practices, live shows, and recording their second album Beehive Sessions (produced by the Posies' Jon Auer), everybody's favorite performance group/art collective/pop band "Awesome" has found the time to put together a new theater extravaganza for all ages. And though it's kid-tested mother-approved, there's still scads of local talent involved: Here's What Happened is directed by WET's Jennifer Zeyl and has a different guest narrator each night--actor Charles Leggett, Almost......

After enjoying last weekend's Washington Brewer's Oktoberfest, we are now preparing ourselves for this weekend's Fremont Oktoberfest. The festivities start at 5pm tonight and continue through Sunday. So, you should have plenty of time to make it to the festival (Without missing any important football games…). There will be a pumpkin carving contest using chainsaws, a 5k Run/Walk on Sunday morning, musical entertainment and a "Dog Day" on Sunday afternoon. But, as is the......

This afternoon at two o'clock the city council will vote on proposed new nightclub regulations, bitterly opposed by Seattle's entertainment industry. Yet even as the council prepares for the vote, controversy continues to swirl over SPD's nightclub sting op from Saturday, Sept. 8. This morning, The Seattle Times reported on inaccuracies in its article from a week age today on elements of the sting operation, including the disputed claim that a gun made it......

ROSEBURG, Ore. – 80’s glam-rock band Poison is in hot water over allegedly showing a woman’s bare breasts in a video projected behind the band during their performance at the Douglas County Fair. Fair organizers are demanding an apology. “I just think it’s wrong,” said entertainment booker Pete Mancloth. “I mean, I’m no queer. Women’s breasts are luscious things but they’re dirty too and should stay put away, in most cases.” Some concert goers felt......

With unseasonable weather descending upon much of North America, schools getting ready to reconvene, and sports seasons getting exciting, it's a busy time of year for us here in the Ist-A-Verse. Luckily, even with all the things we have to do, we still managed to get together to let you know what we've all been up to. After cooling down from a hot weekend of many badass Sunset Junction Street Fair photo dispatches, LAist asked......

This past Friday, Steinbrueck Park was the site of a free, four-hour concert that punctuated Pike Place Market’s Centennial Celebration. It was a great time to be a proud, passionate Seattleite. A wonderful time to be a frugal tourist. And, despite a tiny bit of Pearl Jam-overpromising by Party promoters, a perfect time to be Seattlest. As people started to pour into the area, claiming spots in what little grass was left by the freshly-erected......

There are two kinds of people in this world: People intrigued by the phrase "hobo cabaret," and people repelled by it. On the fence? Consider that the Yard Dogs Road Show describes their audience as "modern hobohemians." If you're comfortable with that, you'll love the show. They embrace their gimmick, and their enthusiasm makes it work. We went to the Sunday night performance, and the show grabs you by the lapels and shakes the......

Pearl Jam capped off this year’s three-day Lollapalooza blowout on August 5, and as anyone who knows much about the band might expect, singer Eddie Vedder badmouthed Big Government (Mr. Bush) and Big Business (BP Amoco) on stage. If you weren’t lucky enough to be there (as we weren’t), but caught AT&T’s “live” Blue Room webcast of the band’s performance, you missed some of Eddie’s poli-sci jabs because they were strategically removed. What did......