If you wanted to see the show, you had to stand. If you wanted to see the band play the final song, “Rebirth of Slick (Cool Like Dat),” then you had to practically jump over audience members in front of you.
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Time travelers live among us.
Take, for example, Ishmael Butler, frontman for the classic ’90s rap group Digable Planets and the current avant-garde duo Shabazz Places. Both are playing Seattle this week — the former at the Moore Theatre on Wednesday (Dec. 30), marking the first reunion for Digable Planets since 2011.
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“Seasons change, mad things rearrange,” sang Lauryn Hill on The Fugees’ “How Many Mics.”
That message is appropriate for another trio born out of hip-hop, Seattle’s The Flavr Blue — Hollis Wong-Wear (lately with Macklemore), Lace Cadence and Parker Joe — who celebrate the release of their romantic EP, “Love Notes,” Thursday (Dec. 17) at Chop Suey.
Though the three musicians came from hip-hop, on the new album they are rebelling from the four-on-the-floor, boom-bap of rap and embracing a more spacious sound, with reverb guitars and big synthesizer swells.
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The chance to interview Seahawks’ star cornerback Richard Sherman is an exciting proposition. With it, though, brings its share of questions, especially for a writer who has been at least a little critical of the man this season. Nevertheless, I was set to interview Sherman during the American Express Blue Friday event at the brand new Starbucks Reserve Roastery and Tasting Room on Capitol Hill.
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Chad Nicefield is not ashamed to admit that he got into the whole music thing for the free beer. But as the sound of his band, Wilson, matured, so did its goals. Its focus has widened, turned into something more than the members themselves. The group has taken on the role of repping and bolstering its hometown of Detroit, a city that's seen its fair share of turmoil over the past decade.
"We're not ashamed to say we're products of our environment," Nicefield says during a phone interview while on tour with his band, supporting its latest full-length, Right to Rise. "Given all the hardships our city and families have gone through, we wanted to honor the stories of Detroit. It's not just about the rubble."
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On January 30, Pearl Jam’s Mike McCready teamed up with the Seattle Symphony and an all-star cast of rock musicians – from bassist Duff McKagan to singers Chris Cornell and Kim Virant – at Benaroya Hall to perform original compositions as well as songs from the band, Mad Season. The night of music, part of SSO’s fifth annual Sonic Evolution Series, where well-known musicians write original works tailored specifically for the symphony, was laid to tape and will be released August 28 on vinyl. And there is only one man McCready would trust to master this project: Seattle’s Ed Brooks.
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If you’ve ever seen the HBO comedy Silicon Valley–specifically the episode featuring the Tech Crunch Disrupt competition where start-up company Pied Piper wins for its data compression software–you might have an idea of what Microsoft’s Imagine Cup is like. Last Friday, thousands of bright developers and future Microsoft hopefuls came together to examine what’s next on the software horizon.
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Our biweekly City Superheroes column highlights the powerful figures walking among us — with the help of a (usually local) illustrator. This week’s pairing: musician Julia Massey (with special guests Dom and Jared Cortese) and visual artist David Feaman.
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Seattle resident Chris Darrell, also known as DJ absoluteMadman at area nightclubs, finds a certain Zen quality to the process of playing a vinyl record. There is taking the album out of the sleeve, cleaning it, placing it on the turntable and gently dropping the needle. He maintains that the mechanics of the operation put him at ease.
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No one knows the story for sure, but let’s proceed with this version: In the spring of 1898, a procession of musicians strode down a New Orleans city street swaying their trumpets to a tune. Blocks away, a young cornet player tapped his horn against the curb, put it to his lips and began to blow so loud and so powerfully that the parade stopped. Spellbound, it detoured toward his sound.
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We met at the Station, a coffee house on 16th Ave. South in Beacon Hill. The small, unassuming shop feels like the epicenter of a neighborhood at a crossroads. We sat together around a small table by the door: the rapper Gabriel Teodros, 206 Zulu founder King Khazm, rapper and Cleveland High School teacher Chevas Gary and me. Our two-hour-long talk about Beacon Hill’s changing face gave me a glimpse of the neighborhood through the eyes of these artists, who’ve lived here most, if not all, their lives.
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If you find yourself approaching the Washington State Convention Center later this month and Thor, Wonder Woman or Geordi La Forge hold the door open for you, just smile, nod a “thank you” and step right in like you belong. You’ve arrived at Emerald City Comicon (ECCC)—ground zero for Seattle’s superhero fandom.
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Prolific and world-famous, Pearl Jam lead guitarist Mike McCready has flipped his fair amount of amplifier switches: from Fenders to Dr. Z’s. But Wednesday he flipped the switch on an amp that may mean as much to Seattle music fans as any he’s touched. Wednesday, McCready turned on the amp from which the inaugural power chord and guitar lick were played, commemorating the groundbreaking of KEXP 90.3’s new Seattle Center home.
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With his gentle voice and expressive blue eyes leveled over a cup of coffee, Marc Kenison radiates loving warmth. The man best known as burlesque star Waxie Moon expresses a sincere desire to help people feel more comfortable with who and where they are. Kenison—who’s also a teacher, Obamacare spokesperson and Seattle landmark—talked about his return to the stage as an actor for the first time in seven years, his recent burlesque accolades and exciting upcoming theatre projects, and why he thinks Seattle is such a supportive city to queer arts.
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I thought Interstellar was one of the worst movies I’ve ever seen – in fact about an hour in, I’d taken my wrist watch off, started smelling it, and playing with it as if it was a bird. To me – and I read, write and edit work every day – it felt like the Nolans threw millions of dollars at a half-baked short story they wrote over the weekend. But Michael Park, lecturer at Stanford University and holder of a Ph.D in theoretical particle physics from Rutgers University, saw the movie’s merits – and then some. Park, whose research has focused mostly on developing strategies for searching for new laws of physics at the Large Hadron Collider but who now is studying cosmology, is, um, really smart. He and I talked about the gravity, Einstein and the blight.
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