It isn’t every day one of the world’s most famous and powerful rock ‘n’ roll bands takes a stand publically and loudly on an important social and political issue. But that’s exactly what Seattle’s Pearl Jam is doing. On Aug. 8th and 10th, the Hall of Fame grunge band will perform two sold out shows to benefit the Emerald City’s homeless community. Partnering with many prominent local businesses and celebrities - like Alaska Airlines and Seahawks QB, Russell Wilson, respectively - the band has raised over $10 million dollars along with a great deal of awareness for those living in and around the city without housing. I got a chance to talk with Pearl Jam co-founder, guitarist Stone Gossard, about the shows, why the band decided to get involved and what the group’s mission is with these two giant performances for a piece in Alaska Beyond magazine. Below is the transcript of our conversation.
Read MoreIf you’re like me, you’ve imagined Seattle’s future as one giant homogeneous apartment complex. The Showbox is long gone. All those quirky little neighborhood homes—they’re gone too, as is that rickety old powder-blue rooming house dubbed the Monarch, where I used to live in a subterranean room underneath the building’s stoop. Inside my place, the floor was one part blue wood, one part chipped checkered tile. It gave off a moldy odor in the summer and every time someone in the building flushed, I heard it. I lived there for five years, from about 2010 to 2015. The rent was low (about $450 a month; it’s much more than that now), and many of the Monarch’s spaces were filled with artists, writers and musicians looking for a cheap place to stay in the city; we’d often drink on the stoop until 3 am and smoke cigarettes in the same spot when we woke up in the morning.
Read MoreFor the man who made the phrase “millions of peaches” internationally known, he certainly came around to the idea of eating homegrown and healthy later in life.
Read MoreThere are many ways front people try to connect with their audience. For some, it could be a sunny song about tequila and the beach. For others, maybe a short skirt lures listeners. But for Shaina Shepherd, lead singer of the Seattle-based band BEARAXE, the connection is rooted in stories of resilience.
Read MoreIn tiny Marfa, Texas, the buildings across the skyline don’t get too tall. The comfortable little town is about as far away from glitzy New York City or Los Angeles as you can get in most respects. But, in one way, the hamlet shares a little bit of history with those international metropolises. In 1955, maybe the most famous trio in Hollywood history graced the dusty streets of Marfa to make a movie.
Read MoreJack Endino is a living musical legend. From the Soundhouse Studios where he works today, Endino offers his expert attention and lends his historic ears to songs from both up-and-coming bands and Grammy-winning ones. Often wearing a neat black cap over a nest of long hair, Endino also regularly graces the stage of many local venues, playing guitar for bands still close to his heart. Known perhaps most famously for his work recording Nirvana’s debut album, Bleach, Endino was integral in the early Sub Pop days, recording a seemingly never-ending list of songs for the burgeoning label – including ones from Soundgarden and Mudhoney. As the SPF30 celebration approaches, we wanted to catch up with the thoughtful engineer to ask him how he honed his craft and what he remembers from those early years.
Read MoreIf you ask Louisville, Ky.’s Melissa Gray about the burgeoning relationship between haircuts and beer from craft breweries, the third-generation barber who opened her own shop in 2016 will list nearly a dozen reasons why she thinks the two were made for one another. At the top of that list is the hyper-local aspect of beer, the fact that it allows people (specifically, men) to feel more comfortable being groomed, and that it eases potential wait time. But Gray is also quick to say she never wanted Beards and Beers to become a bar with a barbershop in it.
Read MoreTalking about the Holocaust is difficult, especially if you’ve lived through it. Yet, that’s precisely what 92-year-old survivor Sonia Warshawski does every day. She talks with people about the details of her time in concentration camps and being freed. It’s one of the many remarkable aspects of her vibrant daily life, which includes running a small tailor shop in Kansas City, Kansas, and, more recently, advocating her message of “love over hate” to the U.S. Congress.
Read MoreThunderpussy guitarist, Whitney Petty, can go from knee-smacking laugh to face-melting solo in less than a second. The range of her creative and emotional output astounds and the joy she exudes in conversation — whether discussing the hunt for crop circles or text exchanges with Pearl Jam’s Mike McCready — is massive.
During the past few months, Thunderpussy released its self-titled LP to rave reviews and undertook a national tour. And soon the band will head out on a European excursion traveling from Hungary to Germany, Ireland, and Finland. But before Thunderpussy leaves the States, we wanted to catch up the band’s stellar guitarist to find out how the summer has treated the quartet, what’s coming up next, and how the band molded its aesthetic.
Read MoreMatt Sullivan founded his company, Light In The Attic Records, in 2002 in Seattle. Since then, he’s rereleased unknown, under-appreciated, and utterly fantastic music — like that of The Last Poets, Digable Planets, and countless others. Light in the Attic, which started in Fremont but now has offices in L.A., was also responsible for reissuing the music of famed rock ‘n’ roll artist, Sixto Rodriguez, the star in the now infamous film, Searching for Sugar Man. And this year, Light in the Attic has another great catalog of music they’re releasing into the world. As a result, we wanted to catch up with Sullivan to get a sense of what it takes to reissue an album, how his experiences have shaped his appreciation of music, and why he likes to bring sounds back to life.
Read MoreThe Philadelphia-based rock band Dr. Dog has a new album out. The record, Critical Equation, walks the line between herky-jerky rock ‘n’ roll and sweet, smooth harmonies. And, in some ways, the through line of the album seems to indicate a new chapter with the band, both musically and in the way the band members examine how they orient themselves in the new world. To celebrate the release of the album, we wanted to talk with one of the founding members of the group, Scott McMicken, about how Dr. Dog — which is set to play Saturday, June 9th in Seattle — got together, when Scott first started writing lyrics and how the group feels now that the album is out in the world.
Read MoreIt’s not often you meet someone who is both poet and podcast host, but that’s exactly what you get when you encounter the loquacious writer and Portland, Oregon resident, Ed Skoog. Thoughtful and meticulous with his words, Skoog—who grew up in Kansas and has spent time in Montana and the Northwest—muses on friendship, conversation, death and rebuilding without much prompting. His most recent books of poetry, Rough Day and Run The Red Lights, showcase strength and facility with language while differing drastically from one another in tone, presentation, and form. Skoog is currently at work on his next book, Travelers Leaving for the City, which he describes as “a book-length poem about arrivals and departures, centered around my grandfather’s murder in 1955.” Skoog, who continues to co-host his podcast with John Robert Lennon, Lunch Box with Ed and John, chatted with us about his inspirations, his thoughts of home, and how Hurricane Katrina showed him poetry is essential for rebuilding a city.
Read MoreIn 2011, amidst unsuccessful and recession-induced job hunts, longtime friends Chris Caldwell and Zeek Earl decided to form their own production company, Shep Films. At first, their Fremont-based company focused on making commercials, but the two decided they wanted to grow in more creative directions. Soon, Shep became a place where Caldwell and Earl could create short films—like In The Pines, which debuted at SXSW in 2012. Now, though, the duo have continued their development and are set to release their first feature film, Prospect (based on a short film of the same name) for this year’s SXSW. The feature—which follows a young girl (Sophie Thatcher) on an alien planet as she fends off harm coming at her from all sides—is tense, dramatic, and includes some standout cameos that I won't mention; it also stars Pedro Pascal and Jay Duplass, the latter of whom is involved with another Seattle-produced film that is also showing at SXSW, Lynn Shelton's Outside In.
Read MoreSeattle’s Northwest Folklife Festival is all about discovery. The Memorial Day weekend celebration at Seattle Center focuses on diversity of programming and letting attendees enjoy things they’ve never seen, heard, or even thought about before. This year’s 47th edition of Folklife (May 25–28) features local music standouts like Whitney Monge and Tres Leches, dance classes, introductions to art from all around the world, and amazing cuisine options.
Read MoreIf you put on music by The Sonics, chances are you almost immediately wonder if your speakers are going to blow out. The famed northwest band, credited by many for starting – or at least dramatically popularizing – the garage rock sound in the 60s, rose to prominence after their hit song, “The Witch,” and hit record, Here Are The Sonics, hit stands in 1964. With it came the booming instrumentation and distorted vocals of soon-to-be icons. An influence for countless groups, including Nirvana, The Sonics have remained an important touchstone when considering the Seattle-area music scene ever since. And now, nearly 55 years since the album dropped, we thought we should catch up with one of the band’s original main members, bassist Andy Parypa, brother of guitarist Larry, who founded the group in the early 60s, to talk with him about those early years creating the music, who the band’s contemporaries were and what bonded the group as they cut their first single.
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