white with foam

If it’s true that every generation throws a hero up the pop charts, there must be something in the Thames that dramatically shortens the human gestation cycle. Either that, or the English system for creating and selling celebrity, distilled perfectly in the late Malcolm McLaren, still works like gangbusters in a musical post-industrial age. There’s [...]

Show of hands: how many people know the oeuvre of Mister Jonathan Coulton? Seriously? Wow, that’s more than I thought. I was going to use his show on Friday night to observe how fandom must become fiercer in our Balkanized, web-driven culture. But all you code monkeys may provide counterpoint with your mere numbers. My [...]

Such a fun show at the Tractor last night! John Wesley Harding’s Flying Circus Cabinet of Wonders brought a collection of local and I guess international talent, each one a consummate performer in their own right. John Roderick read a rollicking and well-crafted story of a strange night in a strange land. Sherman Alexie read [...]

Everything was shipshape at the Comcast Arena in Everett on Sunday night. Barry wouldn’t have wanted it any other way. But rather than taking the hipster’s (or newspaper writer’s) aery high road, I will instead work with a few popular conceptions about the songwriting institution of Manilow, Inc. To wit: he writes the songs. Karyn [...]

Photo: Laura Musselman shot for Seattle Weekly Until last night, I was kinda meh on Everything that Happens. It seemed like, in order to avoid making the Other Bush of Ghosts, they chose to make a radio-ready folk album instead. But after Byrne’s show at Benaroya, I’m a believer. The new songs opened up like [...]