Since his debut album in 2004, Shadows On The Sun, Brother Ali has represented a powerful voice in hip-hop. He’s reflective and eloquent. You can hear his heartbeat pound through his music. He’s the sort of person you’d want to ask for advice – not, say, if you wanted to buy a new car, but if you needed guidance on how to deal with a sick family member.
Read MoreRe-bar occupies a strange and lovely place in Seattle – both spatially and historically. The bar, located in the nebulous Denny Triangle, has provided a safe space for queer nightlife in the city for decades. It’s also where Nirvana staged its record release show for Nevermind (and where the band was famously kicked out of that same night). For many, Re-bar is the last remaining semblance of a Seattle quickly slipping through our collective fingertips. But the club’s owners remain hopeful they can keep the culture alive as apartment buildings are built, flanking and practically engulfing the favorite nightspot.
Read MoreEverywhere you look, there’s a tap handle ready to pour you a nice tall pint of IPA. The rise in popularity of craft beer is astounding, but also, in some ways, predictable. Beer is one of the oldest beverages in human history. It dates back to roughly 5,000 B.C. One could say it’s essentially in our DNA.
Read MoreWith a composed, sweet, and measured voice, the woman behind the spastic, exaggerated femme persona known as Cherdonna Shinatra describes her upcoming projects. The tone of the conversation is markedly different compared to the character’s at-times cartoonish physicality, but the woman behind Cherdonna, Seattle’s Jody Kuehner, has no problem with the concept of dichotomy.
Read MoreThere’s no shortage of weed-centric music. Everyone knows the funny “Because I Got High,” the cheeky “Smoke Two Joints,” the personifying “Last Dance With Mary Jane” and the anthemic “Hits From The Bong.” They’re all great, if blunt (pun intentional) chronic-friendly tunes. However, other songs—those that don’t necessarily put weed in the song title—implore you to take that first puff and spark your imagination with their musical subtleties. So in honor of today’s holiday, here are nine recordings to smoke to amidst your THC giggles, as you enjoy the celebration that is April the 20th.
Read MoreAt age 41, Sera Cahoone says she’s now more secure in herself than ever. This confidence runs throughout the Seattle-based Americana singer-songwriter’s new record, “From Where I Started,” which is set to be released at a sold-out show Saturday, April 1, at The Tractor Tavern.
But confidence is a funny thing. It can be false or it can be rooted in the accepted eccentricities of our own unique, creative selves. For Cahoone, it’s the latter. While she says she can still feel “all over the place,” she’s also less “in her head” than she used to be, both as a person and as a songwriter.
Read MoreA little yellow house sits on a patch of land about 30 minutes outside Bellingham. A few dozen feet away, the frosty Nooksack River rushes by. Thick green splotches of moss run up and down tree trunks, and the air is free from cell service. Residing in that little yellow house are Dean and Dudley Evenson, founders of the wildly successful musical business Soundings of the Planet, whose elongated, pastorally soft melodies, such as “Mending Your Own Mind” and “Gentle Season,” you’ve likely heard on a massage table or in a yoga studio without knowing their origins.
Read MoreWhen Dave Matthews walks into a room, he does so smoothly and calmly. He’s not bothered by eyeballs – and if he was, he’d just as easily leave through the front door. Matthews, when he meets you, offers to buy you a coffee. Then he sits and begins to open up as you ask questions about politics, naturopathy and his upcoming tour with guitarist, Tim Reynolds.
Read MoreAdmiral Maltings, California’s first small-batch malthouse of commercially available malted barley, is slated to begin production in May or June in the San Francisco Bay Area.
One of about 30 other micro-malthouses in the US, Admiral Maltings will offer locally sourced malted barley to California’s regional breweries which, until now, have had to source their malted grains from out of state (Montana, North Dakota) or internationally (Canada, Germany, England).
Read MoreWhich candidate would you most like to have a beer with?
Every four years, when America chooses a new president, that question gets asked. On Solo-ish, we would like to update that tradition and posit what it would be like to go on a first date with each of the 2016 candidates.
Read MoreLos Angeles-based rock group Dawes is one of the rare acts to observe and learn from musical legend Bob Dylan. The band recently toured with the Nobel Prize winner for about six weeks. And now Dawes will take the lessons learned and use them on its own 50-date tour, which includes a stop in Seattle on Friday, Feb. 24.
Read MoreAlong with being the 49th state in the American union, Alaska is known for its harsh winters, wild animals, mining and the Alaskan Brewing Co. And the brewery’s flagship beer, Alaskan Amber, was born out of all the traditional elements normal to the country’s largest state.
Sipping the brew, one notices its candy-like under- and overtones. While the malt doesn’t overpower the palate, it is certainly present. But the beer, born in Juno in 1986, also drinks softly even when chilled close to ice cold. The recipe’s original brewer, Geoff Larson, a co-founder at Alaskan Brewing, says he practically stumbled upon the recipe when his brewery was just beginning.
Read MoreSeattle-based violinist/composer Andrew Joslyn has toured the world on the strength of his playing. He is most definitely a musician. But the prolific artist could easily have been the world’s most accomplished juggler.
Sitting across a table from him in West Seattle’s cozy Uptown Espresso, plans, words, and ideas tumble out of his mouth at an amazing rate—objectives he seems to keep afloat, bouncing in midair—but they aren’t just wishes, they’re descriptions of the many actual projects he has his hands on.
Read MoreAnthony Ray — aka Sir Mix-A-Lot — still loves an intimate rap show, which is why the man who made the big butt immortal will perform at Seattle’s 475-person-capacity Nectar Lounge on Thursday and Friday, Feb. 2 and 3.
Read MoreWhen A Tribe Called Quest, inimitable elder statesmen of hip hop, released their final record We Got It from Here…Thank You 4 Your Service, they gathered a who’s who of hip hop old and new. The political and social implications of that album aside, it should be little doubt why that would include Talib Kweli.
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