Arts & Events

On Sept. 26 through Sept. 30 a new community will be fostered. Not a community of solely musicians, disc jockeys, or recording technicians, but a community of artists. This community will develop under the umbrella of the Decibel Festival. Decibel is much more than a music festival, it is a growth opportunity for consumers and creators of any media. Along with an impressive line-up of over 100 musical artists, Decibel provides showcases, workshops, conferences, and visual media installations. “What’s cool is that it takes over the city,” KUPS general manager...

What are you up to this month? Or maybe next month? Not sure, huh? Well, want to do something fun and exciting out in the Seattle-Tacoma area? That’s what I thought. Here are a few music-inspired ideas for the wonderful, musical place in which we live. When was the last time you got all dressed up, had some hors d’oeuvres and enjoyed a sultry and classy evening of jazz? Probably not recently enough. If you want to correct this, look into seeing the wonderful Mr. Kurt Elling at Dimitrou’s Jazz...

The coming of autumn brings a host of delights: colorful leaves, cocoa-drinking weather and, most importantly, new seasons of our favorite TV shows. For many of us, that means the highly anticipated seventh season of British sci-fi masterpiece Doctor Who. Debuted in 1963, Doctor Who is the longest-running sci-fi show in history. The show follows the adventures of the Doctor, a 900-odd-year-old Time Lord from the planet Gallifrey. With the help of his blue police-box-shaped spaceship and time machine, the TARDIS, he travels the universe with a succession of companions,...

Safety Not Guaranteed Is Safety Not Guaranteed indie? Science fiction meets romantic comedy? Off-beat? I can’t say, but, what I do know about this movie is that I am surprised that more people are not talking about it. Starring Aubrey Plaza—April from “Parks and Recreation”—and Jake Johnson—Nick from “The New Girl”—Safety Not Guaranteed takes a scenic tour of our Washington backyard, stopping along the way to be endearing and entertaining. Both actors deliver believable performances, to the point where I wonder if some of the movie came from their own...

Bloom - Beach House (May 15) Beach House’s aptly-titled fourth studio album progresses like an algae bloom over deep water, one that washes over you and gets in your eyes and ears and mouth. Bloom takes it slow, allowing the dreamy synth, electro-drones and deliberately plodding guitar to sink in, accentuated by vocalist Victoria Legrand’s breathy, commanding alto. Individual tracks on this album are less like linear stories than they are like portraits of emotions, most commonly bittersweet wistfulness grounded in the sighs of jaded youth. This is a sentiment...

The evening of Sept. 9, Kristian Mattson of Dalarna, Sweden visited the stage of The Moore theatre in Seattle and assumed his persona as The Tallest Man on Earth. The Tallest Man on Earth is a one-man blues and folk performer independently writing and producing his own music. His concern for the preservation of the connection between the vocal and guitar lines in his music come through in the intimacy and honesty of his work. His recent performance in Seattle began with a beautiful opening from a Philadelphia-rooted folk artist,...

Sept. 12, in Puget Sound’s Collins Memorial Library, Associate Anthropology Professor Andrew Gardner and his wife, photographer Kristin Giordano, gave a presentation titled “Skyscrapers and Shadows: Labor and Migration in Doha, Qatar.” In the presentation the couple told a story of economic disparities in the Qatar capital of Doha through photographs—specifically photographs of migrant laborers, many of which hold up signs proclaiming their monthly salaries. The first worker stoically held a sign with the salary “$164.” Few others went over that number. Giordano began by showing two pictures: the one...