Recent Stories with tag contest

If you haven't been to the refurbished Columbia City Theater yet, what the hell are you waiting for? The venue hosts great shows in a cushy club, delivers tasty libations care of the bar, and the light rail can get you there on the cheap in no time. 

If you need another reason, Columbia City Theater has a big (and diverse) Halloweekend lined up, with Mash Hall's final (ever? or at least for a while) show on Friday, the orchestral pop of Hey Marseilles and the heavily tattooed, tiny dog-loving singer-songwriter Fences on Saturday (both of whom recorded Doe Bay Sessions with Sound on the Sound earlier this year), and the Cabaret Macabre on Sunday, with Bad Things, Baby Gramps, burlesque (natch), and more. COSTUMES HIGHLY ENCOURAGED--caps not mine, but I appreciate the sentiment, plus it gets you in for $2 cheaper on Saturday and Sunday.

The SunBreak has a pair of tickets to give away to Saturday night's show with Hey Marseilles and Fences.  The show is 21+, so you be that old too. We'll be drawing a winner on Friday at noon. Enter below for your chance to win.... (more)

We're only one episode into Season 4 of Mad Men, and already I can't wait to see where things are headed. Like, how will the Surgeon General's 1964 report on the dangers of smoking (and the subsequent required warning on cigarette packs) affect the fledgling ad firm's biggest client, Lucky Strikes? Will we ever see our old pals Kinsey and Cosgrove again? And wherefore art thou, Joan's terrible husband and Roger's terrible wife?

And what better way to kick off the new season than with Natasha Vargas-Cooper's new book?  Born of her recurring series on The Awl, Mad Men Unbuttoned: A Romp Through 1960s America is a look at the show via mini-essays that make pointed, witty observations on the cultural context of the early '60s. So you can quickly read all about what Betty's suburban decor says about her and her family, how the writers of the time--John Cheever, Helen Gurley Brown, Mary McCarthy, Frank O'Hara--inform the series, and why the character of Don Draper is the careful combination of traits found in Cary Grant, Clark Gable, Humphrey Bogart, and John Wayne.  That's a near-deadly admixture of sex appeal.

To celebrate the return of Mad Men, The SunBreak has three copies of Mad Men Unbuttoned to give away. Enter below for your chance to win a copy. We'll be drawing three winners' names Friday at noon.... (more)

There was a great sigh of relief Sunday night all across the land to accompany the Season 4 premiere of Mad Men. It was so good to see all our old friends again, especially how they've all changed in the past year of television time: Peggy grew out her bangs! Don likes it rough! Betty's unhappily married! JFK is still dead.

And what better way to kick off the new season than with Natasha Vargas-Cooper's new book?  Born of her recurring series on The Awl, Mad Men Unbuttoned: A Romp Through 1960s America is a look at the show via mini-essays that make pointed, witty observations on the cultural context of the early '60s. So you can quickly read all about the great real-life ad men of the time, the Rothko painting in Bert Cooper's office, what Peggy likely did and didn't learn in secretary school, and just how easy it was to procure an illegal abortion. Fun facts for the whole family!

To celebrate the return of Mad Men, The SunBreak has three copies of Mad Men Unbuttoned to give away. Enter below for your chance to win a copy. We'll be drawing three winners' names Friday at noon.... (more)

If one thing is clear it's that the New Pornographers are just as good live as they are in recorded form.  (See their recent late-night performance on Jimmy Fallon above.) Their new album Together features not only the band's core eight members, but also Will Sheff from Okkervil River, Annie Clark from St. Vincent, The Dap Kings, and Zach Condon from Beirut, amongst others.  Not bad.

The ridiculously talented Canadian supergroup comes to Seattle for two nights--July 31 and August 1--to share their deliciously whipsmart power pop goodness with sure to be sold-out crowds at the Showbox. The SunBreak has a pair of tickets to give away (you pick the night at the Showbox), along with the new album. The grand prize winner gets the tickets as well as a copy of the album; second prize is just a copy of Together. (Transportation is not provided, so you need to be able to get to the venue in order to win the tix. You don't have to be local to win the copy of the album.) We'll be drawing the winners on Friday at noon. Enter below for your chance to win.... (more)

Once again, ridiculously talented Canadian supergroup New Pornographers has a new album out, and of course, Together is just as solid as the rest of their discography. The band has already played Sasquatch, and will play Lollapalooza as well as the Matador 21st birthday party, along with the rest of their regular tour dates. 

Locally, A.C. Newman and Neko Case and Co. will be stopping by for two nights--July 31 and August 1--to share their deliciously whipsmart power pop goodness with sure to be sold-out crowds at the Showbox. The SunBreak has a pair of tickets to give away (you pick the night at the Showbox), along with the new album. The grand prize winner gets the tickets as well as a copy of the album; second prize is just a copy of Together. (Transportation is not provided, so you need to be able to get to the venue in order to win the tix. You don't have to be local to win the copy of the album.) We'll be drawing the winners on Friday at noon. Enter below for your chance to win.... (more)

The Woodland Park Zoo writes to tell us that after counting more than 2,600 ballots, there are officially eight southern-African-inspired names for the mob of meerkats, back at the Zoo after a 10-year sabbatical:

The top vote getters and new names for the four female and four male meerkats, in order of greatest number of votes received, are: ZIMBA (Zambian town), NATA (southern African river), MOLOPO (southern African river), KIWANO (Kalahari fruit), KALAHARI (African desert), DINAWA (“beans” in Tswana), ACACIA (African tree), and NGAMI (lake in Botswana).

The photo above is by Dennis Dow. For more watermelon-and-meerkat viewing, visit the Zoo's blog.

Post-punk noise trio Liars are but the latest band to appear on Dirty Laundry, the new web series (we dare not say vlog) to feature musicians in unlikely places--in this case, what is assuredly the coolest laundromat in L.A. In the above interview, Angus Andrew and Co. discuss love songs, opening for Radiohead, System Of A Down, lunch meat, and reality TV.

The experimental art-rock band's playing a 21+ show at Neumo's Saturday night, with openers Fol Chen and Flexions. To celebrate, The SunBreak has a Liars prize pack to give away, which includes a poster and a selection from the band's catalogue: They Threw Us All in a Trench and Stuck a Monument on Top, Drum's Not Dead, Liars, and a Sisterworld two-disc deluxe edition. We'll be drawing the winner of the prize pack from all entries received this Friday at noon. Enter below for your chance to win.

Post-punk trio Liars have become wily veterans of the noise scene, considering last month they just released their fifth (!) album, the dark, brooding Sisterworld (see track "Scarecrows on a Killer Slant," performed at SXSW above). Since their first full-length, They Threw Us All in a Trench and Stuck a Monument on Top, was released in 2001, as Americans we've experienced two wars and six Brangelina children, while Liars have experienced one poorly received witch-themed concept album, a few band lineup changes, and one breakup with Karen O.

The experimental art-rock band's playing a 21+ show at Neumo's Saturday night, with openers Fol Chen and Flexions. To celebrate, The SunBreak has a Liars prize pack to give away, which includes a poster and a selection from the band's catalogue: They Threw Us All in a Trench and Stuck a Monument on Top, Drum's Not Dead, Liars, and a Sisterworld two-disc deluxe edition. We'll be drawing the winner of the prize pack from all entries received this Friday at noon. Enter below for your chance to win.

The Runaways, the big-screen biopic about the famed chick band, opens this Friday.  Locally, it'll be playing at the Meridian and the Guild 45th.  If somehow you don't know, the film stars Kristen Stewart as Joan Jett and Dakota Fanning as Cherie Currie (not to mention Michael Shannon as the band's svengali/manager Kim Fowley) and brags an R rating, which warns of "language, drug use, and sexual content--all involving teens."  Mothers, hide your children.  (Mothers, also please note that Joan Jett will be performing at Little Creek Casino on March 27th.)

To celebrate The Runaways' release, The SunBreak has a couple prizes to give away to lucky readers. We already gave away a pass to a preview screening of the film, taking place at 7 p.m. this Thursday night at Pacific Place--congrats Angela!  But we've still got a super bad-ass prize pack, which includes a t-shirt, a poster from the film, a copy of Neon Angel: A Memoir of a Runaway by Cherie Currie and Tony O'Neill (the book that the film is based on), a copy of Joan Jett and the Blackhearts' Greatest Hits CD, The Runaways' soundtrack, and Joan Jett's upcoming photobook with Todd Oldham.

We'll be drawing the winner of the prize pack from all entries received this Friday at noon.  Enter below for your chance to win.... (more)

The Runaways, the big-screen biopic about the famed chick band, has had major buzz around it ever since it was announced that Kristen Stewart would be playing Joan Jett.  (OMG, BELLA, I LOVE YOOOOUUUUU!) At the world premiere of the film at Sundance, the venue was oversold and the teenage girls who had their tickets turned away were crying in the lobby at withdrawal from KStew.

Cry no more, angsty girls (and the boys who are tough enough to be in touch with their emotions), because The Runaways opens this Friday. To celebrate its release, The SunBreak has a couple prizes to give away to lucky readers. We've got a pass to a preview screening of the film, taking place at 7 p.m. this Thursday night at Pacific Place.  We've also got a super bad-ass prize pack, which includes a t-shirt, a poster from the film, a copy of Neon Angel: A Memoir of a Runaway by Cherie Currie and Tony O'Neill (the book that the film is based on), a copy of Joan Jett and the Blackhearts' Greatest Hits CD, The Runaways' soundtrack, and Joan Jett's upcoming photobook with Todd Oldham. 

We'll be drawing the winner of the preview pass on Tuesday night.  This is a local screening, so you've got to be here in Seattle to win it (no doy).  We'll be drawing the winner of the prize pack from all entries received on Friday at noon.  You don't have to be local to win the prize pack, though you do need to live in the US.  Enter below for your chance to win.... (more)

On Thursday night, Mew, Copenhagen's angelic-voiced earnest dream rock trio will pay a visit to Seattle in support of this summer's lengthily-titled No More Stories Are Told Today . . . [I'm Sorry They Washed Away No More Stories The World Is Grey I'm Tired Let's Wash Away]. Despite the dour and long--but still-tweetable--title, the album finds the band a member short, borderline happy, occasionally danceable, and occasionally dabbling in singsong autotune. That said, it's more of a modest detour from on the spaced out guitar fog, glittery falsettos, and stormy prog rumbling counterpoints that you came to know and love with And the Glass Handed Kites.

At shows, the band provides projected visual accompaniments to help transport the audience into their intergalactic dreams and cosmic mental voyages. Attack dogs chase through the rain, tiny stuffed animals float through woodlands while playing tiny instruments, creepy dolls, or just swirling color saturated screensavers. While I've probably done a fine job of making this all sound unsufferably pretentious, it's actually all that you'd want from an indie rock show with a few bells, a couple whistles, and three affable Danes who are bound to be swarmed with admirers after the encore. 

Want them to warm you up on Thursday night on Neumo's dime? We have a pair of tickets to give to one of you loyal Sunbreak readers. Tweet a hypnotic and Mew-inspired alternate album title to @thesunbreak. We'll pick a winner on Wednesday night.

• Mew plays Thursday, December 10, at Neumo's. Doors open at 8 p.m. and tickets are $14 (ticketswest).