For their new album, “I’ll Be Your Girl,” released in March, the members of Portland-based rock band The Decemberists set out to challenge themselves. The group hit No. 1 on the Billboard 200 with its 2011 LP “The King Is Dead” and has built a following for creative sounds and lyrics. But fresh tactics, says frontman Colin Meloy, had to be taken to keep making invigorating music.
Read MoreThirty years ago, while Matt Vaughan was attending Seattle University, he established the monument to local music that is West Seattle’s Easy Street Records. In the interim decades since, Vaughan has watched the neighborhood around him change dramatically and watched friends, like members of Alice in Chains, rocket to stardom and then tragically fall. Vaughan was there when Sir Mix-A-Lot first began hustling his debut, Swass; there when Macklemore sold his first CD; and he’ll be there when the next sensations—Thunderpussy, Car Seat Headrest—rise to the top of the charts. No one has followed Emerald City music quite like Vaughan; in a way he is the eye of the local scene’s storm.
Read MoreMs. Briq House—a burlesque performer, sex work advocate, professional cuddler, stripper, educator, and entertainer—wants you to see the light. Raised by her grandparents as a Southern Baptist Christian, House was an active member of the church as a youth. She worshiped. She spread the word. But, at twenty-five, she sought a divorce from her then-husband (with whom she remains in amicable contact), and that is when, “We saw people’s true colors,” she says.
Read MoreWhile visiting nashville, Tennessee, singer-songwriter Aloe Blacc found something he did not expect. Inside the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum, Blacc stood before a large mural depicting the origins of the museum’s central genre. The painting showed a cultural mashup of players with West African banjos, as well as fiddles and other harmonic and melodic elements that originated in Europe.
Read MoreMac DeMarco, the Canadian-born, laid-back minstrel of mellow rock ’n’ roll, says he is “addicted” to the excitement of creation. For the chain-smoking, whiskey drinking musician his main professional ambition is to keep making music — in large part, he says, so that he doesn’t have to experience any “withdrawals.”
Read MoreKrist Novoselic has begun the grind again. The 52-year-old former Nirvana bassist, who has since formed a couple of short-lived groups between joining the Foo Fighters and Paul McCartney on national stages, has launched a new Northwest-based band, Giants in the Trees, a mix of rock, pop, and folk music.
Read MoreAfter more than 30 years in the music business, singer-songwriter Mark Lanegan has learned a few things about himself as a creative individual. For someone who at times begrudgingly took on the role of lead singer for the bands he's fronted—most notably the Screaming Trees—Lanegan has grown leaps and bounds as a songwriter and, particularly, as a frontman. So much so that he still finds surprises in his line of work.
Read MoreDespite finding himself in the midst of writing a new record, slated for release early-to-mid 2018, Seattle-area soul singer, Allen Stone, can’t help but continue to tour. “I kind of live on the road,” says Stone, while on brief hiatus in Los Angeles. His highway ramblin’ will continue in the Seattle-area when the buttery-voiced singer performs Friday at Woodinville’s Chateau Ste. Michelle.
Read MoreIn an age when brief pops like retweets and viral videos reign supreme, Seattle rapper Raz Simone has chosen a more maintainable route—one where numbers aren't the driving force but the viability of making art is. Simone's is a trek that susses out the complete character and depth of his work in music, and his mission is one of personal and creative sustainability. "My career," he explains, "is going to be a longer battle. But it's going to be very worth it."
Read MoreSeattle’s Jason Koenig, who has carved out a tremendously successful career as a music video director — which includes the video for the new Macklemore single, “Glorious,” released this week — can hardly believe his good fortune.
Read MoreSeattle-based crooner Vince Mira’s new 12-song LP, “El Radio,” often feels more like an intersectional collage than a modern pop release.
Read MoreYoung, hopeful musicians often enter the music scene with lofty goals of stardom and success. Rarely, however, do these dreams pan out. Seldom does the shift occur when, one day, an artist is playing a small bar and the next she’s on the biggest stage. But for Seattle rapper Taylar Elizza Beth (aka Taylar White) — who will celebrate the release of her new record, “Fresh Cut Flowers,” on Tuesday, June 13, at the Timbre Room — that shift may indeed be happening.
Read MoreIf you’ve ever seen the Seattle-based singer-songwriter Celene Ramadan (aka Prom Queen) perform, you know the aesthetic pizzazz she showcases through the magic of color and cloth, in addition to her jangly retro rock ‘n roll. As Prom Queen, Ramadan dons a dark bouffant, dazzling dream-pop dresses and plays a pink guitar. She’s the mastermind behind Midnight Veil, an LP-length music video opus featuring genie lamps, doo-wop singers and milk shakes. Now Ramadan has a new creative persona: a big, white, joke-telling rabbit who she’s named Snax The Bunny.
Read MoreGalen Disston, lead singer for the soulful Seattle rock band Pickwick, trades in two creative escapes: his music, a lifelong ambition and an art form with infinite possibilities; and the intricate craft of watch building, an endeavor Disston–whose band’s new record, LoveJoys, is out June 10—began only recently.
Read MoreThe genesis of Naomi Wachira’s newest album, Song of Lament, was a spiritual one— perhaps even divine. For the soulful, Kenyan-born singer, the songs for the new 11-track record, out now, came to her during a stint in Germany while she was at one of the lowest emotional points in her life.
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