Revenge of the Top 5

1. Summer in Seattle

Also known as “the best weekend of the year”.

2. Emerald City Supporters

Seattle has definitely welcomed it’s newest sporting institution, the Seattle Sounders MLS team, with open arms and sold-out games, but no one has welcomed them with more cheering, singing, drinking, and tifo-making than the ECS. If you’re planning on checking out a home game, or a viewing party for an away game, you should think about joining up. The t-shirt and scarf alone are worth the $30 membership, and the camaraderie and spirit are nothing to laugh at either.

3. Oddfellows Cafe & Bar (1525 10th Ave.)

Located in the Oddfellows building across from Cal Anderson park, this wide-open, high ceilingedroom is meticulously decorated with a relentless eye for detail. From the aged photographs, the vintage fixtures, and even the retro-styled Boylans’ sodas and old-timey candy and gum at the counter, everything feels straight out of a turn-of-the-century general shop. Plus, the massive slices of paninibread toast (served with jam and butter for only $2.50) look mouth-watering.

4. Star Trek (J. J. Abrams, 2009)

 I don’t remember which Star Trek movie was the last one I saw, but I remember it sucked. Hard. It was a Next Generation spinoff that looked and felt like an overly long TV episode, with a slightly upgraded budget and a poorly thought out plot. I remember mocking it loudly in the mostly empty theater with my friends, and we were high school nerds, firmly in the target market for this type of movie. This new reboot takes everything that was wrong with the tired franchise and chucks it out entirely, starting from the very beginning of the original crew’s story, but with a more accessible, less fanboy-centric aesthetic. The people who had managed this property had run it into the ground, and it took an outsider to take it over, revamp it, and make it into something that new audiences could be excited about again. All this, and they managed to keep the hardcore fans (mostly) happy as well. As someone who was never more than a casual fan, and one who had lost interest years ago, this is a welcome return to form.

5. Turning 30 at the Cha Cha Lounge

A low key affair that somehow combined good friends, giant crabs, margaritas, pitchers of Stella Artois, broken glass, frightened hipsters, helium voices, and a trip to IHOP that felt like a scene from Twin Peaks. And that’s about all I have to say about that…

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Posted by Dylan
On May 26, 2009
In Category: Debauchery, Film, General, Lists, Seattle, The Top 5
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Son of the Top 5

1. Iron & Wine at Sonic Boom on 15th

I’ve never seen Iron & Wine before, and I’m not really sure if I can say that I’ve seen them now. The crowd that showed up for this free in-store performance at Sonic Boom’s tiny little shop on 15th Street in capitol Hill quickly filled up the available space, and proceeded to spill out onto the sidewalk for the duration of the 30 minute set. The thirty or forty people who couldn’t fit inside (myself included) stood on the street, craning our necks and hoping to catch a glimpse of Sam Beam through the windows, and over the heads of the rest of the crowd, as wisps of music drifted out of the front door, audible only when traffic had stopped. At one point, a man climbed up on his friend’s shoulders and yelled “I can see him! He’s got a beard!” drawing a chuckle from the rest of us. A little girl sitting on her Dad’s shoulders turned to him and yelled back “You’re weird!” All in all, it was worth it, just for the sheer random adventure of it all.

2. The Field: Yesterday & Today(Kompakt/Anti- 2009)

 Axel Willner’s second album as the Field is richer, deeper record built on an expanded palette. Where From Here We Go Sublime pushed the building blocks of pop micro-samples to it’s limit, Yesterday & Todayopens the horizons, incorporating processed vocals and live drumming on some tracks. This set of songs is just as rich and hypnotic as the acclaimed debut album, with John Stanier (of Battles) contributing some extra rhythmic heft in a couple places.

3. SkipScreen (Firefox extension)

For those of you who frequent the many anonymous file-sharing services available online today, such as RapidShare, MegaUpload, zShare, etc., this plugin is a real time saver. you know that annoying little clock that pops up before you’re allowed to actually click on the download link? the one that begs you to buy a membership tot he site? This extension skips it, or at the very least bypasses the additional confirmation that’s needed in order to begin the actual download. Now, why anyone would want to visit anonymous file-sharing sites I can’t begin to imagine….

4. King City 2by Brandon Graham (Image comics/Tokyopop)

As announced by the artist himself, King City 2 will finally be seeing release! The first King Citybook, a sci-fi spy epic that wraps a sweet and sad story into a world filled with aliens, cats used as weapons, zombie wars, and drugs that turn a users body into more drugs, was published by Tokyopop a couple years back, to mountains of critical acclaim and molehills of sales. The second book lingered in limbo for ages, with an uncertain future as Tokyopop slashed its roster and dropped titles left and right. But now Image will be reprinting the first book as a series of 6 monthly installments including new material, followed up by the debut of King City 2, in the same monthly format. This probably the most exciting comic book since Paul Pope’s THB, and that’s no small praise.

5. Bonkers! in 3-D at ReBar

So, honestly, the 3-D didn’t work all that well. The first 100 people in the door at Re-Bar this night were handed a pair of old-school red-and-blue foil 3-D glasses, to be worn during Looptid’s live visual presentation at 11pm. The red lens was a bit too dark, or maybe the projections weren’t bright enough, but somehow, the projected images of geometric abstractions and vintage softcore (censored by giant “Bonk!” text blocks) failed to leap off the screen. That’s OK, because the music leapt off the speakers in its place. Erictronic’s set combined techno, shuffle, 12-bar blues, and numerous other incongruous genres; Nerd Revolt’s live debut went without a hitch, rocking the dance floor with waves of slick sub-bass. Travis Baron and Dietrich Shoenemann kept the wheels of steel in effect the rest of the night.

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Posted by Dylan
On May 11, 2009
In Category: Comics, General, Lists, Live Music, Recorded Music, Seattle, The Top 5
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We Gonna Party Like It’s the Top 5

1. Celebrating a welcome layoff

Did you ever have one of those days when your significant other carpools into work with you at 7:30am, only to get summarily laid off by a borderline insane employer at 9:00am? And you come home at 6:00pm to find that she, her sister, and their friend have already worked their way through two bottles of wine and a bottle of vodka? And within about an hour, there are several more people at her apartment and every drop of alcohol has been consumed and it sounds like a fantastic idea to walk up to Deluxe for their $5 burger special? And somewhere along the way some wine is thrown up on the sidewalk and $5 worth of bottled water is purchased from a corner market in order to meet their debit card minimum? Because I have no idea what that’s like.

2. Celebrating a new home and a birthday

Then there are those other days, when you get invited to a rooftop housewarming party on a 6-story condo in the center of Capitol Hill, and there’s a nearly 360° view of the Seattle area, including the Olympics, the Cascades, Mount Rainier, Cal Anderson park, the Space Needle, and any other notable landmark you could care to mention. Funny hats are worn, assorted meats are grilled, and multiple parties end up cross-contaminating each other and poaching each others beverages. And this is before the underage partiers start showing up and acting like jackasses, so you go inside and eat Guinness birthday cake.

3. Free Comic Book Day (Saturday, May 2nd)

I probably should have posted this last week, since anyone who doesn’t know about it has now missed it. But this yearly event is a great way to get non-comics readers into comics shops, out of curiosity if nothing else. It’s also a good way to check out some new comics that you might not take a chance on otherwise. Let’s face it, with comic book pamphlets clocking in at upwards of $3 a pop these days, free sounds awfully tempting.

4. Molly Moon’s on Capitol Hill (917 East Pine)

Ever since I moved from Canada twenty some-odd years ago, I’ve been missing one thing above all else, and that’s black licorice ice cream. I found it, once, at an ice cream shop at a mall in Eugene several years ago, but that one encounter was not enough to quench a two-decade urge. fortunately, Molly Moon’s has answered my prayers at last, with a salted black licorice ice cream. It’s not exactly what I was looking for, but it is a new take on my long-lost childhood favorite. Maybe I can convince them to make a tiger tail ice cream (orange and black licorice swirled), and really make my day.

5. Phonogram 2.2 (Kieron Gillen and Jamie McKelvie)

Phonogram

Speaking of comic books, the second issue in Gillen & McKelvie’s seven part series, offering seven different music- and magic- infused takes on a single night in a London club, finally hits shelves. For those who missed the first series, Rue Britannia, Phonogram is essentially an extended metaphor that disguises musings on the cultural and personal significance of popular music as self-aware urban drama spiced with magic. I mean, really, why would you write a dry essay on the rise and fall of Britpop, when you could instead make it a keenly drawn comic book filled with sorcerous intrigue? The second series expands this conceit, exploring the subjective aspects of pop culture through the eyes of seven very different characters.

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Posted by Dylan
On May 3, 2009
In Category: Comics, Debauchery, General, Lists, Seattle, The Top 5
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