"No more moons-over-my-hammy", documented by mary and filed in the Seattlest Flickr pool. We don't mean to steal Mary's thunder; however, her photograph moved us to write down some of the thoughts we've been having about the Ballard Denny's closure. We knew it was coming; however, just like the presence of vampires in Sunnydale, we didn't actually want to think about it. The light, the clouds, the darkness of the trees, and the Shell......

Remember a few years back when "Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots" came out and the Flaming Lips were suddenly everywhere? Mitsubishi started using "Do You Realize" to hawk their cars and Justin Timberlake was dressing up in a dolphin suit and jumping on stage during Lips shows? For a few glorious moments the hipsters and frat boys were humming the same tune, and no one seemed to mind. Flash forward to early 2007 and......

The past two days, contributors Jeremy "The Seattle Samurai" Barker and Katie "The Kalama Quickdraw" Tiehen debated the age-old question of whether Seattle or Portland is better. Both Jeremy and Katie raised some excellent points, but that's what rebuttals are for. Katie rebuts Jeremy: [ED: Jeremy, writing for Seattle, alleged that Portland's ascension to Green-ness and "hipster paradise"-dom was not without social and economic cost--most notably, higher housing prices in the urban core, which pushed......

Lottie's Lounge, located in Colombia City, is a coffee shop, diner and bar, rolled into one. It's an experiential panacea for those who like to center their lives around one neighborhood joint-- not that Colombia City doesn't already have a lot going on. Lottie's is smack dab in the middle of a re-gentrifying neighborhood, filled with junk stores, boutiques, dive bars and...Starbucks. We walk in and are greeted by retro tables and chairs and what......

Seattlest arrived on scene soon after the Capitol Hill Block Party had opened. We wandered, checked out the stage locations and thought about getting a beer, then spotted a booth touting free bottled water. It looked like the booth had something to do with praying to the Earth Spirits or some other new wave white hippy crap, but we decided to take our chances. We asked for a water and oddly enough their were no......

This is a big weekend due to the Esurance® Capitol Hill Block Party alone. Tickets are not sold out yet; if nothing else, just by 'em at the door. But what to do if you want to avoid the Hill and the confluence of all those hipsters? Tonight, there's Ryan Adams at the Moore. He's no longer the junkie hot mess he used to be, so this time around he probably won't go nutso if......

your track bike is not a fashion accessory spied in the window of Anchor Tattoo in Ballard, and dropped into the Seattlest Flickr Pool by pdgibson. Won't you join him?......

Seattle piano player Howard Bulson passed away on Monday after a short illness. For nearly 40 years Howard accompanied singers good and awful at a laundry list of defunct Seattle institutions. A while back Seattlest contributor Don Rauf interviewed Bulson for the site and had this to say today: In some ways, it felt like Howard was being chased out of existence. Sorry Charlies closes and then Mirabeau hired him a few nights a week......

Spring appears to have, er, sprung, at least temporarily, in most of the Ist-A-Verse, so naturally, we're all feeling pretty good. (Yes, we know that spring doesn't officially start till later this month. Just let us enjoy our weather!) And that makes us that much more eager to share all of the nifty things we're up to... Over at Sampaist, spring has more than sprung: it's sweltering! But, as everyone knows, museums are an......

As the world holds it's breath, teetering precariously on the cusp of the Super Bowl (well, at least in America), the wheels of the -ists keep on turning. Austinist was in a musical frame of mind as they listened to the new Shins album, updated the SXSW band listings and got called "punk rock" for their efforts by MTV. And an ice storm swept through the area. Bostonist said goodbye to John Kerry's plans......

We wanted to get behind the direct action against Mars Hill because we too believe that Mark Driscoll is a woman-hating weirdo and it annoys us that he has such a huge congregation that seems to consider itself so punk rock. We kind of doubt that that they're particularly ill-informed on the issue of their pastor's attitudes towards women (uh, doesn't he speak directly to them every week?), but there's a chance that there are......

If the 7,500 seat indoor rodeo arena that a group of businessmen in Centralia are proposing gets built, Seattlest will be there on opening day, ringside, or, uh, whatever you call it at a rodeo. They want public money - We'll gladly pay it (screw you Sonics). We could be way wrong on this, but in Seattlest's mind a 7,500 rodeo arena doesn't contain any luxury boxes. It's all bleachers, right? Let's not pretend that......

When we lived in Los Angeles, we would spend our Saturday evenings in a small theatre watching two shows of "Beer, Shark, Mice" with, among others, the janitor on Scrubs and Champ Kind. Yeah, that show was really funny, but nothing compared to what would follow—Asssscat. We'll say it again because we don’t even give a flying fudge, Asssscat. Made up of the four original members of Upright Citizens Brigade (and this guy), Asssscat......

By most accounts Starbucks is a great place to work. The money's ok and there's the possibility of medical benefits, which is sadly unheard of at any other service industry employer not named Dick's Drive In, so there is a strong temptation to ignore it when news of Starbucks employees unionizing comes around. "They don't know how good they have it - Try Wal-Mart." "They're hipsters playing Wobblie." "It's only two stores out of......

The fourth annual KEXP BBQ took place on a day that couldn't have been much prettier. Not a cloud in the sky, so Seattlest was diligent about applying tons o' sunblock and sticking to the shade. This year, the event was all ages, meaning that the area in front of the stage was divided into drunk and sober sections, and the audience featured a lot of cute wittle babies. We witnessed a grand total......

God, we're so sick of Snakes on a Plane that we want to kill anyone and everyone that makes a "something on a something" joke. But then we realized that there was no way we could ever win this fight, and, hell, if you can't beat them, we might as well join them. And with that, you have the theme of this weeks' Gothamist network post. Austinist makes it easy for us, with Candidate......

Not cool, Willamette Week. Not cool. This week one of Portland's alt-weeklies published a story about what an environmental nightmare scooters are. We know two-strokes are bad, WW. We don't need to be clobbered over the head with this kind of article. There was some kind of scooter gathering in Seattle this weekend. We saw it twice - Once when we were recreating along Eastlake Saturday afternoon and once later in the evening in Ballard......

As avid folk music connoisseurs, we’ve done our time in various Unitarian churches listening to obscure out-of-towners mouth off about Bush in the nicest possible (read: no cursing) sort of way. But for the past couple of years, a small venue on Capitol Hill has been integrating The Lord with great music and free coffee on a whole different level. You’ve probably stumbled past On The House on your way home from the Wildrose or......

LAist is flashing a sad peace out to their editor Carolyn Kellogg with one hand and bumping knuckles with their new head typist L.A. blogger king Tony Pierce with the other. Where do ist editors go when they hang up the 'editorial we'? They take on MySpace, apparently. At least Ben Brown does. Austinist reminds of the just rewards of less savory careers this week and then they witness the Arctic Monkeys and We Are......

LAist has so much fun this week! They go to E3, where they overhear the timeless remark "Man, this is where nerdy girls get laid." Is that a promise? They also give us this week's best CDs and make us realize that LA is the best place to use Zillow. Ah, Houstonist. They're biking to work, that is, if they can figure out how to get there. That's right, Mapquest says "Houston had the......

We're back in Seattle proper for our final installment, a look at two very different facilities... We've bowled more at the UW's HUB Games Area than anywhere else, mainly because it was a cheap and convenient place to roll during our college days. Besides its campus setting, we dig the plaques honoring Husky bowling champs dating back to 1961. The spartan basement room holds just 12 lanes, and not much else -- no coffee......

There was *a lot* going on last weekend, what with the game itself and all other Superbowl-related activities. This weekend, not so much. So if you don't have anything planned for tonight (besides four episodes of Arrested Development), you could always drop by Chop Suey for a free show featuring The Divorce and Wolfmother. Expect a lotta hipsters, as both DJ Franki Chan and The Cobra Snake will be on hand. OMG, I can't wait......

Rather than start with some treatise on the importance of pop music, we'll just say that this post is about a show that should be a very good time. You should go. Many others will be doing so, and while the hipster quotient will be high, the fun to be had should outweigh that (partly from the enjoyment of making fun of said hipsters). OK, now on to the treatise. There aren't too many DJs......

Despite the warnings that the smoking ban would ensure anarchy and despair on the nightlife front, instead smoking has strengthened its role as a social lubricant. A new brand of comradery is being forged nightly as smokers go outside for their nicotine fix. This isn't all that surprising, since people are social creatures, not unlike the uber-cute momonga. Not to be too Fremont-hippie about this, but we crave company and need one another, knowing we......

Do you remember the nineties, when electronic music was hailed as the "next big thing?" MTV had its show Amp, which showed nothing but videos from electronic artists (some of them absolutely amazing). The rave scene was in full swing, and glowstick shares were trading up. Of course it couldn't last, and it didn't. There are plenty of reasons why it didn't work out they way some executives thought it would, but the lack......

Okay, okay, you have empathy fatigue or some bullshit like that and you don't want to even hear it anymore. You gave! We know! Don't even mention the word "benefit" in your presence or you're likely to go off on some compassionate conservative rant right here. So, we won't. We won't say that Guilty Pleasures at the Sunset tonight is a benefit. We will say that last year's audience heard ELO's Telephone Line, Michael Jackson's......

Besides raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens, these were a few of our favorite things, at least in terms of live music during the past year. Audrey: Arcade Fire---May 28th @ the Gorge, September 21st @ the Paramount Though I am still kicking myself for missing their KEXP show at Neumo's last December (I chalk that up to "having my head up my ass"), I managed to see this powerfully emotive band twice......

Tonight at El Corazon, ten lousy bucks gets you forty kickass years of Northwest rock 'n' roll. That's, like, two bits per year. Headliners Dead Moon are the rockingest power trio ever to creep out of Clackamas, Oregon. Most know 'em as the elderly farts in the 1996 NW rockumentary Hype!, though their roots run much deeper. Long before singer/guitarist Fred Cole, his bassist wife Toody Cole and drummer Andrew Loomis joined forces in 1987,......

For the second time in a week, Seattlest found ourselves enjoying some live music, even though we didn't have a clue as to what the songs meant. Last Wednesday it was Sigur Ros, and yesterday it was Dungen (pronounced "doon-yun"), a Swedish band that plays what everybody's terming "folkrockpsych" due to its decidedly '70s throwback feel. Hipsters and hippies alike have been drooling over this album for a while now, which the diverse crowd at......

Were you at Bumbershoot on Friday? We were. Here is what we saw… 1) The Perfect Sized Crowd - enough people to make people watching interesting, but not so crowded that we were fighting tides of people around the corners. There were hippy folks, beer bellied guys with big beards and short, teens and 20ish-30ish hipsters of every subculture, families with fancy strollers or middle school kids just psyched to be able to get $10......