That is the question. These guys can rattle on with the erudition of a college professor about a long reliever for the local baseball team or a minute change in the football’s catch rule, but dare talk about the real futbol, and sports radio guys will ruthlessly mock you. Should they be foolhardy enough to …
Georgetown Orbits and the Skablins Celebrate A New Orbits CD With A Fun Night of Ska, by Holly Homan
Georgetown Orbits On Saturday May 12 I headed to Seattle’s south end to an intimate club called the Royal Room. Here Seattle’s ska masters The Georgetown Orbits were performing to promote their brand new CD, Solar Flares. I have been a fan of the Orbits since I first saw them open for the Slackers back …
Don’t care if you love this or hate this, it is amazing. The more you watch it… absolute genius. It’s f’ing brilliant. – Harper Hull
Rock ‘n’ roll has lost touch with the black voices that birthed the genre. Rock Artist Pete Wilde just debuted his single “Lucy” with a mission to make Rock & Roll black again. Lucy by Pete Wilde on VEVO. Is Pete Wilde the savior of rock ’n’ roll? Only time will tell. But he is …
Wednesday night I ventured out to Seattle’s foremost punk club, El Corazon. Yes, I’d seen Less Than Jake only three days prior at the Back to the Beach Festival, but it’s Less Than Jake. If they decided to come back to Seattle this weekend I’d venture out to see them. And if they came back …
Pacific NW! On May 14, 15 and 16 the motherf___ing Afghan Whigs are in your general vicinity. Dates here – looks like the first Seattle show is sold out but Portland tickets are still available as is the last night of the whole tour on the 2nd night in Seattle – do not miss this …
Day 1 – Suicide Machines This past weekend I decided to celebrate turning the big 60 a bit early and hopped a plane to sunny LA. From there I would head to Huntington Beach on Saturday and Sunday for the Back to the Beach Festival. I got there on Saturday just in time for Suicide …
The Portland Trail Blazers are no strangers to early NBA playoff exits, but this one hurts more than most. Unlike the Blazers of recent years, this team had all of its stars healthy and a higher seed that allowed them not only home court in the first round but the privilege of not facing the …
This song brought me back from the brink of suicidality today while walking in Glendoveer Park. I was floating in the electronic nimbus of songs suggested for me by SoundCloud after listening to PSA’s Ghost and this one came along. I have always believed that John Coltrane’s Impulse! sessions provided the perfect soundtrack to the …
PSA, aka Archie Chandler, brings the heat with the release of “Ghost.” From start to finish this track radiates confidence and sass, aided by uncontainable horns and bass and the wisely brash delivery of lyrics. “Ghost” provides a blueprint for leaving behind an undeserving lover with no room for negative emotions. This (heads up, explicit) …
Paid a visit to the San Francisco Giants yesterday as they beat the Los Angeles Dodgers 4-2 on Sunday. The win brought the Giants record for April to 14-14, suggesting that the jury is still out on whether their off-season makeover will bear fruit. The defending National League champion Dodgers have had their own share …
Lit AF in the Atlanta underground scene, Funk Manchu is now given the spotlight to showcase his affinity for seamless productions that combine a number of genres from tech-house to bass music. Titled ‘Bounce That B / Waif Boy,’ Manchu’s club bound double header delivers a heaping dose of creative synth licks, pulsating hi-hat, and …
Living alone, widowed, with only a cat and 2 mute turtles to hear my voice… my mind occasionally goes to strange places. In times of kismet, I often think of my wife as a sort of Polynesian goddess… a goddess who, as she was in life, can be pleased or angered. Benevolent. Wrathful. More than …
I love this tune. Dig the guitar leads on the back end. Tents, a Portland band, claim to have shot this video in three days in their own backyard. I don’t know where the yard is, but by looking at the flat ground and the style of houses, my best guess is that this took …
Saturday night April 14 was the night of the 2018 Psychobilly Brawl. I’ve attended the Psychobilly Brawl many times but I think this one was the best attended in a long time. Psychobilly is not dead in Seattle. This event was headlined by Detroit’s Koffin Kats, but any of the eight bands who played could …
One of the best parts of playoffs in the NBA is that teams step up their pageantry a notch. The banners are more plentiful outside the arena, the excitement of the crowd is more palpable, and the lights out introductions are astounding. In this case, the fans were all issued, in addition to T-shirts draped …
Remember when Howard Schultz encouraged his baristas to bring up racial issues with customers in 2015? Uhhhh? Remember when Howard Schultz sold The Sonics to Oklahoma City? This is not a dig on my friends that work at Starbucks. They gave me a fat check to play their headquarters and the guy that booked us …
The video above declares that crows are as smart as a seven year old human and I’m here to tell you they are way smarter than a seven year old. I have a lot of crows in my yard and I feed them several times a week and they are very loyal to me. Once …
As of this writing, the Portland Trail Blazers have lost their last four games and play the streaking Utah Jazz tonight in their final game of the NBA regular season. A win will clinch the #3 seed for the Blazers, and a loss might put them as low as #5 and send them on the …
I saw Stuart Adamson and Big Country perform once, at Sacramento’s now-extinct Cattle Club. November 16, 1993, during their “Buffalo Skinners” tour. The Cattle Club wasn’t a huge venue, somewhere between Seattle’s Tractor Tavern and Showbox Theater in size. I was right up front in this packed room, and holey moley, ten years after their …
Because Taj Mahal & Ry Cooder used to be in the same band, when nobody outside the LA folk scene knew their name. Talent wise, that’s Lennon & McCartney, Tosh and Marley, Captain & Tennille, Elton & John. Taj Mahal is my favorite artist of all time. When Jessica Stenson told Taj I read his biography, Taj …
WELCOME TO MY LIBRARY: It’s time to go back and finish this book on The Staple Singers. This group was such a big influence on what I did with The Staquelettes, which Tracy Ferrara is translating into horn arrangements. The fact that so many everyday people aren’t really that aware nor all that hip to …
I always forget about Rufus Thomas. But he and his daughter were the one two punch that put Stax / Volt on the map. Rufus was one in one billion. He pulled off something few corny old Dad’s have ever done. He stayed stayed FRESH dressing like this. Super Fresh. He gave James Brown a …
Sandmoon is an indie-pop formation originating from Beirut, Lebanon which was initiated by singer/songwriter Sandra Arslanian. Their new mini-EP, Beirut-Berlin Session was released on March 8. “Shiny Star” is the first single from that release. Loaded with Levantine mystery and promise, Teutonic discipline, tantalizing vocals, brash guitar and the devil’s own chamber orchestra, “Shiny Star” …
Generally there are two kinds of biographies: those that skate on the surface and those that do their homework and dive deeply into the subject’s life. The biography, Tiger Woods, published this last week by investigative journalists Jeff Benedict and Armen Keteyian, just in time for the Masters, falls into the second category. In addition …
I finally got to see Black Panther. I missed the chance to watch it when it first came out with the gang. Tom Wilkinson and I got caught in a little snow storm coming back from a gig at Mission Ridge Ski & Board Resort. So tonight I did what I don’t think I have done since college. …
I have a long but wonderful list of people to still tell you about, regarding my journey last month to Jamaica. One of them is the mysterious Kingston based Selecta, Lenny Roots. The German Lennart Tacke introduced me to him and I hung with Mr Roots as he put together this educational mix tape in a peaceful …
Using original material, along with four tracks drawing from the folk and old time traditions, Lindberg and Zasloff ingeniously create a beautiful arc throughout Beneath The Open Sky which defines their own genre and world as they see it. Their message is clear from the album’s opening track and rousing call for universal equality “Bound …
Only day 2 here in Vietnam and we are already completely blown away by the amount of hospitality we’ve received! The local Hip Hop community is unbelievably talented and welcomed us right in with open arms. So much love here it’s crazy!! Big shout out to Francois Babelaere for linking us up with Cipherz Coffee Shop, Thái Bình Dương and …
Well, the next shoe has dropped in the MSU/USA gymnastics sexual molestation scandal. Dr. William Strampel, 70 y/o, the MSU supervisor of serial molester Dr. Larry Nassar, has been arrested. Strampel came under scrutiny earlier this month, as reported by the Wall Street Journal on 3.20.18. The Journal noted that Stampel, MSU’s Dean of Osteopathic …