The weekend (plus a few days before and after) was awesome. It included Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure, Shaun of the Dead, and Hot Fuzz on the big screen at Central Cinema, an awesome wedding at the Woodland Park Zoo, and amazing house show with 11 bands and tons of friends, and the annual "best 4th of July party ever (until the next one)" at the ( Read more... )

I realized this morning that last night was the The Mountain Goats show that I had wanted to go to, and I completely forgot about it. Of course, that would have meant missing preciousjade's game, so it's a mixed disappointment.

In other very sad music news, Pretty Girls Make Graves have broken up. I count myself extremely fortunate to have gotten to see ( Read more... )

Jason and I saw Erin McKeown last night at the Tractor Tavern. She's touring in support of her new album Sing You Sinners, a collection of covers of (mostly) jazz songs from the 30's, 40's, and 50's. It rocked.

Fearless was fantastic. The wire-work and special effects were highly restrained, but Jet Li's performance was (as always) very well-done. It's a very straight-forward story with no twists or turns, well-choreographed fight scenes, and a basis in Chinese history that ignores almost all actual historical facts. What more could you want?

* * *I ( Read more... )

Jason and I are going to see Band of Horses and Pretty Girls Make Graves at the Capitol Hill Block Party tonight. I don't remember if I ever wrote about my feelings regarding the new PGMG cd; suffice to say, I was rather disappointed, as they seem to have lost most of their energy in favor of a pseudo-experimental emoish indie rock sort of sound ( Read more... )

I have mixed feelings about the show last night. On one hand, it was good; definitely worth my $12. However, it didn't quite blow me away as I had expected it to. Perhaps that's my fault for having too high expectations. Still, the breakdown:

Schoolyard Heroes: I'd never seen SH live before. They were good, but the performance wasn't quite up ( Read more... )

Some demented genius dwells on the University of Washington campus and has somehow arranged the following line-up for Friday night:

Schoolyard Heroes

Pretty Girls Make Graves

Andrew W.K.

Oh yeah.

Every now and then I get to experience the mixed displeasure and pride that comes when a band whose music I've been listening to for years starts to really make it big. It's not the bigness itself that brings displeasure but the many annoying complications it brings with it. Tonight, Against Me! had to be placed on the list in my brain for "Bands ( Read more... )

I'm going to see Against Me! at Neumos tonight. Oh yeah.

Betrayal at House on the Hill is up for best board game in the Origins Gamers' Choice Awards. That is awesome, regardless of what Mike might say.

Also, I just discovered on Sunday that The Mountain Goats are playing at Neumos on June 19th. The Mountain Goats, for all practical purposes, is John Darnielle, singer and songwriter. On some albums, he ( Read more... )