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 MoreShana Cleveland, lead singer, guitar player, and principal songwriter in the surf-noir band, La Luz, has a lot on her plate. Just back from a trip to New York City, Cleveland, who now lives in Los Angeles along with her bandmates, has a list of errands to catch up on. And, in May, the group -- comprised of drummer Marian Li Pino, keys player Alice Sandahl, bassist Lena Simon and Cleveland -- will head out on the road for yet another national tour, celebrating the May 11 release of their latest LP, Floating Features.
In preparation for the release, La Luz recently dropped their latest music video for the album's lead single, "Cicada." The video, inspired by the opening credit sequence from a telenovela drama, is theatrical and weird, humorous and odd. It speaks to the numinous-yet-familiar style of La Luz, which formed in Seattle about five years ago. Given all this upcoming action, we wanted to catch up with Cleveland and ask her about the new record, video and the upcoming tour.
Read MoreThere’s something classic and homey about biscuits and sausage gravy, a dish with European roots that has existed in America in one form or another for more than 300 years. It became a staple of the American South after the Revolution when resources were in short supply; the dish, which requires few ingredients, is the perfect fuel for someone facing a long day of manual labor.
Read MoreBrandi Carlile is a poet, sensitive thinker, mom, wife, and songwriter. She’s also about to go on a 30-some-odd-date tour across the country from Bellingham to New York City after the February release of her latest LP, By The Way, I Forgive You, a beautiful collection of 10 songs springing from Carlile’s many abilities and many identities.
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 MoreSinger Ann Wilson appreciates people. The powerful-voiced frontwoman for the legendary rock ‘n’ roll band, Heart, which has sold tens of millions of records over four decades, continues her career in the music industry so that she might continue to engage in honest, even primal expressions and connect with people along her journey.
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 MoreIf you talk to anyone who loves food in Seattle, you’ll hear a lot of lamenting about how the city is bereft of excellent pizza. If you consider New York the source of top-notch slices, then Seattle couldn’t be farther away in proximity. But distance shouldn’t determine everything, right? So, where are Seattle’s best slices?
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Seattle’s Caela Bailey is attracted to the colorful, the unique and the flamboyant. And, as a lifelong resident of the Emerald City, she has seen many manifestations of what she loves go extinct. Whether a favorite bar demolished or an artist friend forced out of the city, Bailey laments these losses. And, as an artist, she attempts to subvert the pain from those disappearances with bouquets of eye-popping performance. Her latest, a beautiful video for her song, “Belltown Crawl,” features a swath of local creators—from Chocolate Drizzle producer Keon Volt, to superstar burlesque producer/performer and all around advocate, Briq House, to rock ‘n’ roll singer Eva Walker. The production is a love letter to Seattle’s creative explosions.
Traditionally, professional athletes aren’t known for speaking their minds, though that’s beginning to change. Their personal opinions often remain private to protect an endorsement—or three. Of course, there’s the apocryphal story of Michael Jordan saying, “Republicans buy sneakers, too,” when asked about a political opinion he did not want to give. But there are professional athletes who speak their minds and stand up in the face of social and political injustice. And they’re often women.
Read MoreWith its latest two Grammy nominations in tow, the Seattle-based electronic duo Odesza has planted its flag firmly in mainstream-music culture. But what that means for the group — and whether or not the consequences are completely welcome — is yet to be seen.
Read MoreWalking into Redhook Ale Brewery’s new experimental brewpub facility, Brewlab, you might experience a moment of cognitive dissonance. On the one hand, you’re in the center of Seattle’s hippest neighborhood, Capitol Hill, inside a bright, shiny new watering hole, surrounded by beer lovers of all kinds—from tech nerds to indie rockers. On the other, you’re in a Redhook facility, a realm no longer associated with recipe excitement and brewing innovation. So your next thought might be, “Wait, what’s going on here?”
Read MoreFried chicken. Everybody loves it and lots of places serve it, but not every breaded bird is created equal, and finding great versions of the soul food staple in Seattle can be quite a challenge. Recently, I set out to survey some of Seattle’s most recommended and reputable places with the help of a few soul food aficionados, Evan Flory-Barnes and Eva Walker. While taste is ultimately an entirely subjective matter, we did our best to make the experiment somewhat scientific.
Read MoreWhen Gabrielle Kadushin (aka Seattle-based rapper Gifted Gab) was 15, she smoked her first blunt. “I was with my older brother,” she recalls. “He took me to a party and we were smoking in the car. And I was trippin’—I remember screaming at the top my lungs that I wanted apple juice and Funyuns!”
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