josh
About josh:
Neighborhood: |
Capitol Hill |
Last Login: |
Online |
Joined: |
May 31, 2008 |
Profile viewed: |
410 times |
Total Audience: |
16746 views |
| oh, hello. | |
It wasn't just Seattle's human population that was delighted by the grand opening of Lake Union Park last summer. Like just about any park, dock, lawn, or available square yard of lakeside real estate, the new park on the south shores of Lake Union quickly became a favorite haunt (and public toilet) for gaggles of geese. Rather than culling the flock by more brutal measures, Seattle Parks is trying to scare them away ("make them less comfortable") by deploying a small band of coyotes.
In a move that will probably make neighborhood cats "more comfortable," the coyotes are of the subspecies "lifelike rubber decoy." What do you think--are geese dumb enough to fall for this ploy or too stupid to even notice these legless faux canines?
(Thanks to SLU-commuting tipster Carolyn for the photos!)
Previous
For the last few weeks IFC has been posting teasers from Portlandia, a new comedy series set in Seattle's Shelbyville. Each glimpse of the show incited regular waves of shared LOLing via Twitter and Facebook among knowing Northwesterners. Today, the series starring Carrie Brownstein and Fred Armisen playing a bunch of stereotypical Portlanders enters the next phase in hypebuilding with a full episode preview.
It's casual Friday; so why not fire up your internet and watch them lovingly skewer the city where "young people go to retire"?
So accurate, it's really almost more documentary than comedy.
As 2010 recedes into the fog of memory, some of your friends at The SunBreak gathered 'round the virtual table to remember the past year's musical experiences. Watch it above, or read the transcript below.
Josh: So, standouts from 2010?
MvB: I should be upset with Sufjan Stevens for giving a live performance at the Paramount that so energetically trumped his album.
Josh: YES, YES, YES to that Sufjan show. I can't remember any other performance that so changed my mind about an album. My resistance to the bloopy, squelchy, synthetic assault on his usual whispery beauty on the Age of Adz was high, and I didn't know what to make of it. But somehow, seeing him perform it at the the Paramount with a halloween-decked band, behind a light-painted scrim, and with the full-on shuttershades freak-out of "Impossible Soul" left me finding excuses, train rides, or long walks to spend with the record in my earphones. That he closed the set with "the hits" helped me to leave the show with a sigh of delight.
MvB: Maybe it's just the Paramount: Rufus Wainwright's show there was also a stand-out, with the normally insouciant Wainwright struggling through tears, and making the latter half of the evening into a heart-wrenching valediction for his mother.
Audrey: Cosign on the magical music powers of Sufjan and Rufus. I cried at both shows.
Josh: For a stereotypically rain-soaked wonderland, we certainly didn't hurt for chances to see music outside.
Tony: Last summer's Doe Bay Fest proved a perfect tonic for the accompanying warm climes. Fest programmers offered another strong lineup, with an emphasis on the rootsy and the gorgeously pastoral. Highlights included a lush set by Seattle's premier chamber-pop ensemble Grand Hallway, rip-roaring alt-country from the Maldives, and the most welcome discovery (from this cramped perspective, at least), the sublime pop sounds of upstarts Curtains for You.
Josh: For moments of pure musical joy, it's hard for me to think of anything better than LCD Soundsystem's mainstage performance at Sasquatch. Nevermind your hillside couple so bored with the Decemberists that they resorted to public intercourse, I'll see your 2009 Dancing Man and raise it a hillside of spontaneous conga lines and synchronized dance moves that swept through the crowd during "All My Friends." I can only attribute the difficulty of finding a decent video of the crowd filmed from the floor to the fact that almost everyone near the stage was too swept up in the moment to turn their cameras on the hill.
Don B: The Cave Singers packed a lot of magic into the the Jansport Secret Show that transported a bus load of Seattleites into the woods for a campfire show.
Tony: Bumbershoot hit my live-music pleasure nodes big-time. Old-school funk and soul brilliance from Seattle's own mighty Wheedle's Groove collective, Booker T, and Solomon Burke (just weeks before his passing) freed the minds (and asses) of hundreds of Bumbershooters; The Clientele brought Brit-pop luminescence; The Dandy Warhols and The Raveonettes held the batcave contingent with sexy sets; Visqueen offered power pop fizzier than a vigorously-shaken bottle of Korbel; and alt-country chanteuse Neko Case filled the arena stage with gorgeous sadness.
Great as so many of the established acts were, though, Bumbershoot opened my ears to several great outfits that previously hovered just below the radar (mine, at least). The Redwood Plan's pogo-worthy brand of new-new-wave impressed me mightily; LA indie rockers HEALTH played like shoegazers possessed by restless evil demons; and Georgia's atomic-powered prog/metal/surf guitar band Baroness piledrove a packed Center Square with the Fest's finest hard rock performance. Oh, yeah, and Anvil rocked.
Don B: Billy Bragg too!
Audrey: Bumbershoot was a great spot for witnessing band-on-band interviews in eco-friendly murder vans.
Josh: And Courtney Love's rambler of a secret show plus extended monologue in an upstairs room at McCaw made the entire festival worthwile. All that I'll add about Bumbershoot is that I don't regret staying to the rain-drenched last song of the festival, if only because the Thermals rewarded the crowd's endurance with a Weezer cover during their encore. I'm pretty sure that I like Weezer covers a whole lot more than actual Weezer now. So much so that I skipped their mainstage set to dash over to the Paramount for another, less embarrassing, nostalgia act (Pavement).
Audrey: That Pavement show was definitely one of my highlights for the year. Miss you already, Malkmus!
Josh: Despite our wealth of shows booked in the great outdoors or in big beautiful theaters, there's something great about a small live show pushing capacity. For me, at Neumo's, these included Foals at the inaugural CityArts Fest and Tokyo Police Club bringing their spotlights, seizure strobes, and sweaty intensity to just the right-sized venue.
Audrey: Yes, that August mini-heat wave Tokyo Police Club show had an emphasis on the sweaty. Other sweaty shows at Neumo's: the always raucous Man Man and the one-two having-a-moment punch of Sleigh Bells and Yeasayer. Speaking of having a moment, how did it take me till 2010 to see The Low Anthem? Or, for that matter, the Morning Benders?
Tony: Hearing legendary garage-rock shaman Roky Erickson tear through several of his finest odes to thwarted desire and two-headed dogs, backed by a bunch of young guns who played like their lives hinged on it, was pure ecstasy.
MvB: At the Comet, the improv jazz of the Water Babies and the big jazz band of the Zubatto Syndicate left me feeling glad to be alive.
Don: The Song Show with Damien Jurado, Macklemore, Jesse Sykes, and Tomo Nakayama (of Grand Hallway) at The Triple Door; Screeching Weasel at The Showbox; and the Cumulus Festival at the Mars Bar and the Funhouse are among my favorite local shows of the year.
MvB: Down at the Columbia City Theatre I stumbled into the phenomenon that is Drew Grow & the Preachers Wives.
Tony: Yes, they provided some of the most stunning moments of Columbia City Theater's first month of free shows. The venue's offered varied and tasty bills, packed with everything from great garage rock (Thee Sgt Major III) to seriously kicking hip hop shows by Mash Hall and Dyme Def, among others. The CCT show that knocked off my socks with the highest velocity? The sorta-farewell set by the Whore Moans, who retired their crudely attention-getting name in favor of the more-palatable-to-bookers moniker Hounds of the Wild Hunt. Their last show as the Whore Moans was, simply put, the most shit-sharp tight, sweatily energetic, raucous, utterly joyous hour-plus I spent in a Seattle rock club in I dunno how long.
Josh: Any albums in heavy-rotation on your music playing device of choice?
Constance: My fave album of '10 was Danny Michel's Sunset Sea. Because I lurve him.
Josh: I loved Vampire Weekend's Contra so much that I didn't begrudge them for getting too sick to play Marymoor (they did give a great Sasquatch headlining set and made up for their cancellation with two awesome shows at the Paramount). I think that I was among the few people who actually liked MGMT's Congratulations better than Oracular Spectacular; so much so that I found much of their Capitol Hill Block Party set mostly enjoyable despite the festival's usual crowd management horrorshow.
Audrey: Albums I played the shit out of in '10 include (but are not limited to): Pomegranates' One of Us, Hurricane Bells' Tonight is the Ghost, The Postelles' self-titled debut, Wavves' King of the Beach, and Local Natives' Gorilla Manor. I also returned to Wilco's Yankee Hotel Foxtrot (2011 marks its tenth anniversary) and Cut Copy's In Ghost Colours (in anticipation of their new release next month).
MvB: I've been listening to Icelandic band Seabear's We Built a Fire to make it through our La Niña winter.
Josh: What's on the horizon to start filling your 2011 with musical memories?
Don: As a twist, here are the five shows I'm already looking forward to going to next year. Dashboard Confessional at Neumo's on 1/13, Forgetters at the Vera Project on 1/30, The Get Up Kids at Neumo's on 2/1, Social Distortion, Lucero, Chuck Ragan at the Showbox SoDo on 2/13, and The Dismemberment Plan at the Showbox SoDo on 3/12.
Josh: Aaaaah! 2010's reunion that I never dreamed to hope for was the utterly satisfying heartbreak of Carissa's Wierd at the Showbox; this year, it's the Dismemberment Plan at the Showbox. That's miraculous enough to overcome the SoDo's deficiencies. I'm also looking forward to seeing what Adam Zacks comes up with for Sasquatch's tenth anniversary lineup at the Gorge, though I wish that a few more hotel beds would show up closer to the festival to make the four-day experience a bit less rustic or highway-dependent.
What about you? Favorites of 2010? What's on your horizon for oh-leven?
Like most everyone in Seattle, I missed seeing President Obama at Hec Ed, the backyard summit, and Top Pot yesterday. Lucky for us, Mike Barthel was there as a volunteer. He documented the whole thing, from advance work to payoff for the Awl. Now you can read about it and feel like you were there:
Like the very attractive mixed-mixed-race couple in front of me, who take pictures of each other with their backs to Obama and then take pictures of themselves with their backs to Obama and then look at the pictures and comment on how attractive they look in these pictures of themselves with the President also in the frame, and everyone is doing this. They don't just want to document that Obama was here, they want to document that they were here, seeing Obama.
In addition to this, there are appearances by precious undergraduates, tourists, reporters, friendly police officers, and other meditations on politics. It almost makes you wish you'd tried to scam your way into the auditorium.
Seattle: Race and Ethnicity, by Eric Fisher
Eric Fisher continues to go crazy with informational city maps. Previously, he inferred the speed of Seattle, sorting the tourists from the residents using geotagging data. Now he's taken a look at the way that the residents of major American cities assort themselves. Inspired by Bill Rankin's map of Chicago's racial and ethnic divides, he took census data from the year 2000 to see how other cities stacked up in terms of how citizens identify themselves and where they live.
Each dot in the plot above represents 25 people. The red-green colorblind among you may see a nearly monochrome map since those two colors represent self-identified whites and Asians. The cluster of blue dots in the center of the map represent African-Americans. In and of themselves, the findings are hardly shocking, but since it's Flickr, the map has already become interactive as users chime in with notes and comments to explain the city's patterns. Even if you aren't a sucker for information graphics, there's something interesting in comparing and contrasting our city with the others in the photoset.
At the moment, the data is ten years old. I'm curious to see how (or if) it changes when the latest census numbers are tallied.
(via What I Learned Today)
Nikon is getting ready to roll out a new dSLR and Seattle-based photographer Chase Jarvis was the lucky bastard to get to play around with it before anyone else had a look. Instead of grabbing the D7000 and taking thousands of shots of cute kittens, he gathered some friends, a remote controlled helicopter (omfg!), a score performed by Joshua Roman, and a white cargo van to make a film in Seattle that pushed the camera's HD video capabilities.
Aside from being a nice little movie (to me, it reads as a clever counterpoint to the one that announced the high end Canon 5D Mark II), the clip and its associated blog entry does exactly what I'm sure the honchos at Nikon hoped: it already gearheads drooling over specs and queuing to preorder one for themselves. An unintentional side effect of the tech hype, though, might be showing off some worthy Seattle bands like Sera Cahoone, Head Like a Kite, and Victor Shade whose music appears in amazing road test video's soundtrack.
- Jarvis exhibits his Seattle 100: Portrait of a City book project next month as part of CityArtsFest.
As previously mentioned, this year's Bumbershoot arts program includes an appearance by Shimon, the Jazz-Improvising Marimba Robot that gave Stephen Colbert such a fright earlier this year. Lele Barnett, who's curating the Sounds Human exhibit, just confirmed that at tonight's free arts preview the celebrity robot will be jamming with the famous Trey Gunn (from King Crimson) and Chris Brokaw (from Come & Codeine) for a one-night-only performance. Shimon will be on the marimba all weekend, but tonight is your only chance to see this particularly exciting musical collaboration.
The Human-Robot musical summit beings at 6 p.m. in the Lopez Room. Be there on time. Just because the robot loves to improvise, it still has its brethren's hard-coded fondness for maintaining a tight schedule.
It's Bumbershoot this Labor Day weekend, and before we get to the acts, let's recap on strategy.
- Daily tickets are $22 (no mainstage) or $40 (mainstage). Buy in advance, 'cause at the gate it'll go up to $30 and $50, respectively. All adult-accompanied kids 10 and under get free festival admission (doesn't include mainstage).
- Driving anywhere near the Seattle Center will be a pain, slightly less if you get there very early. Any number of buses will drop you there, including special festival shuttles. From Capitol Hill, it's the mighty #8. From downtown, you take the Monorail and arrive in style.
- You can meticulously plan an electronic schedule ahead of time using this online whirlygig or keep your options open by stocking your pocket with a printed PDF version
- Check the weather before you go and dress appropriately (or not, what the hell, it's your life). For the pack: water bottle, something blanket-y to sit on, sunscreen, sweater. Maybe an umbrella? The forecast looks like the festival might (again) live up to its namesake climate protection device.
More than the other two festival days, Sunday is the one with a mainstage lineup as likely to draw former fans looking for a trainwreck as current fans in seeking magical musical moments. In their heyday (aka "the nineties") the headliners released near-flawless and now-iconic albums and then became different kinds of unglued. As far as I'm concerned, Hole's Live Through This is an unassailable classic. Despite all of the tabloid drama, ditching the rest of the band, and the absurdly ungrammatical twitter breakdowns, that record and her rogue 1995 post-VMA appearance will have me on Team Courtney and hoping that her performance falls into the category of "unexpected brilliance" instead of unmitigated disaster.
courtney love (photo by & courtesy of whitney pastorek)
Then there's Weezer. Weezer of that self-titled (aka "Blue") album that wore out many an early model Discman. Weezer that took seemingly forever to come back with still-beloved masterpiece (Pinkerton, aka "the misogynistic one," or in more charitable moments, the self-lambasting one) because their frontman was hiding out in a tinfoiled room at Harvard while suffering to stretch a malformed leg. Weezer that decided that if playing a song with the Muppets was cool (it kind of was!), then why not release a single about being the worst human in California, or make an album of internet memes, or do something called "Raditude," or put the dude from LOST on the cover in ultra close-up. They're headlining.
The last time I saw them was when they were touring behind their second self-titled ("Green") album. It was fun. There was a lot of confetti. I have no idea what to expect because I haven't been able to bring myself to listen to a whole Weezer song since "Beverly Hills." Their mainstage show will break that drought and may extinguish any lingering warm sentiments toward the band. All the joys and sorrows of being old enough to have important bands from your childhood stick around long enough to throw gasoline on your memories. Or it could be amazing! That's why I'll be there, instead of bolting across town to the Paramount for Pavement, a band whose window of opportunity opened and closed before I was paying attention, I guess.
What if you didn't buy the Standard ticket and don't even care about all of this mainstage psychological drama? There's more than enough to keep you occupied. In particular, locals shine on Sunday with Unnatural Helpers opening the day (12:30), an early "knife moment" between hipster hop Fresh Espresso (2:15) and orchestral wanderlusting from Hey Marseilles (2:15), odd pop from Slender Means (5:00), quiet singer-songwriting from Fences (6:45), and more hip hop from the Physics (8:15).
Alternatively, divert from the locals-only path mid-afternoon for strings-enhanced heartwarming boisterousness from Ra Ra Riot (5:45), Barcelona electro-indie Delorean (7:30), and a psych-outro by the Dandy Warhols (9:15). There's also something called LMFAO (9:15), which I'm not really willing to Google.
I've always found it too hard to bounce between music and indoor things during Bumbershoot, but if you like the LOLs more than the rock and don't mind the lines, there are three stages of comedy: Famous Mysterous Actor (1:15), Garfunkel & Oates (4:30), Chelsea Peretti (5:30), and Patton Oswalt (8:00) might be worth the wait.
Culturephiles might also enjoy a panel addressing the very important questions of "Why Vampires? Why Lincoln? Why Now?" (2:00), some SIFF-audience-favorite short films (4:30), and a program by your friends at McSweeney's (5:30). Funny TV writers from 30 Rock, SNL, and Arrested Development who also write funny books gather for a panel hosted by the Stranger's Paul Constant (7:15), and all day there's the Fantagraphics' sponsored survey of Seattle alt.comics in the NW Rooms.
If it's really pouring, I'm sure that we'll bemoan the closure of Exhibition Hall and its sub-gymnasium acoustics as a festival venue. Otherwise, we'll probably celebrate the bold decision to turn the Fun Forest graveyard (from which a glass museum is likely to rise) into a new outdoor stage called the Center Square.
This is all that Marymoor saw of Vampire Weekend
Vampire Weekend were scheduled to play a show on Sunday night at Marymoor Park. Then a trip to the ER for severely inflammed vocal cords kept lead singer Ezra Koenig from the stage and resulted in a last-minute cancellation, wails of dispair, conspiracy theories, and a water bottle or two flung in the general direction of the poor guy who brought the bad news.
They've since found time in their merciless tour schedule to return to the area to make up for their unfortunate (and poorly handled) cancellation. This time they'll be within Seattle city limits for two nights at the Paramount on the 22nd and 23rd of September with the Head and the Heart. Ticketholders from the weekend will be able to trade their tickets for their choice of make up shows at no charge; those who opted to skip the outdoor non-performance will have two new chances to see the band. Tickets will cost $48 after all of the fees and handling and can be purchased online now.
If a weekday show doesn't work for your schedule or if the disappointment of waiting around for an hour after Beach House finished soured you on the Vampire Weekend Experience, refunds are available. The details for getting your money back, a regular choose-your-own-adventure based on the how and where of initial purchases, are included after the jump.
ALL TICKETS HELD FOR THE MARYMOOR SHOW CAN BE EXCHANGED at NO COST for the new shows, and current ticketholders will have their choice of days.
Patrons that purchased tickets for the original show through Ticketmaster either online or by phone must call 1-800-745-3000 to arrange an exchange for tickets to one of the new dates.
Patrons that purchased tickets for the original show through a Ticketmaster outlet should return to the outlet to perform the exchange.
Patrons who purchased directly at The Marymoor Park Box Office can exchange their tickets at The Paramount Theatre Box Office during regular business hours.
If you purchased your ticket the night of the show, in cash, at the gate, you can exchange the ticket for the rescheduled show at the Paramount box office during regular business hours. If you prefer a refund, you can obtain one by sending your ticket to: Ticketmaster c/o emm0829 refund216 1st Ave S, Suite 400 Seattle, Wa. 98104
Tickets should be accompanied by name and return address. If you purchased your ticket at the Marymoor Park box office before the show, you can exchange your tickets before September 19th at the Paramount box office. If you need a refund, you must obtain one from the Marymoor Park office.
Kazuki Tomokawa - A Take Away Show #98 - Part 1
Today brings a close to the (almost) daily postings of Vincent Moon short films on the SunBreak, only because tonight is the last night of the Vincent Moon Retrospective at the Northwest Film Forum. The series closes with La Faute des Fleurs, a documentary about Kazuki Tomokawa, Japanese folk singer, gambler, heavy drinker, and philosopher.
According to his twitter postings, Moon will also be showing a selection of Take Away Shows in Olympia at the Loft on Cherry. If you've missed these presentations (despite our regular reminders), tonight's the last chance to see these exceptional little films on a big screen while the globe-trotting director is in town.
