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Imagine the clouds parted, a mother ship from planet Funkatron descended, and an alien musician slithered out to encounter ... a Les Paul electric guitar. How would said E.T. approach that unfamiliar instrument? He or she might just lay the axe down on a rock and play it horizontally, like
Guides
By some standards, Seattle is the most literate city in the United States. Its ratio of college graduates approaches three out of five adults. Its libraries get used more frequently than most cities', and South Lake Union-based Amazon is the national bookstore of choice. Portland just missed the top 10
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There are events we in the musical promotional game could never have expected to see. This is one of those events. An otherwise noteworthy jazz musician, Brian Lynch, has cemented our interest in an upcoming concert by adding ... a juggler. This juggler is Henrik Bothe. He's performed all over
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We could've easily featured Roméo et Juliette (it's OK, you can call it Romeo and Juliet, we won't tell) in our music section, because it goes without saying opera lands like a wet noodle in the absence of stirring music. If there's one thing Tacoma Opera boasts, it's capable singers.
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This isn't the first time I've received a press release that referred to an artist as "legendary." It's an adjective I've employed myself, to describe Smokey Robinson and other members of the pop music pantheon, but I can honestly say it's not a word I use lightly. A promoter who
Music
This isn't the first time I've received a press release that referred to an artist as "legendary." It's an adjective I've employed myself, to describe Smokey Robinson and other members of the pop music pantheon, but I can honestly say it's not a word I use lightly. A promoter who
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Chris Ballew, lead singer for mid-'90s Seattle alt-rock outfit The Presidents of the United States of America, has a pair of Grammy nominations under his belt. His hit singles "Lump" and "Peaches" are fixtures on rock radio. So it's amusing that Ballew reentered the public consciousness,
Music
Chris Ballew, lead singer for mid-'90s Seattle alt-rock outfit The Presidents of the United States of America, has a pair of Grammy nominations under his belt. His hit singles "Lump" and "Peaches" are fixtures on rock radio. So it's amusing that Ballew reentered the public consciousness, not as a middle-aged
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Much of the enjoyment of writing about and publicizing music comes from pleasant surprises. I admit I skimmed over Fruition's concert announcement the first time I came across it. I rolled my eyes when this trio of Portlandians described itself as "three-part-harmony-infused, melody-rich rock, country, folk and soul." That's like
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It's been 11 years since Maroon 5 smashed into the public consciousness with "This Love" and "She Will Be Loved," though "Harder to Breathe," the first single from that same album, actually reached #18 two years earlier. (Overnight success is a funny thing.) Since then, Adam Levine's distinctively high-pitched tenor
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For a hell of a lot less than the cost of a plane ticket to Las Vegas, you can see four guys who still have the same enthusiasm as, but decades more experience than, any game show wannabe. Throw in acrobatics and a fair amount of drumstick
Arts
There are times when it falls on the Weekly Volcano to shatter pop-cultural myths. This, we're sorry to say, is one of those occasions. No matter what the preternaturally effusive judges on America's Got Talent claim, they aren't always the discoverers of brand-new artistic geniuses. Last year, for example, contestants
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If I need to tell you who Amy Schumer is, you must not own a TV. Her Comedy Central series Inside Amy Schumer was nominated for an Emmy. Both Entertainment Weekly and Rolling Stone praised it as one of last year's best series, especially a firecracker of a sketch about
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Fargo, North Dakota native Jonny Lang has had five albums in the Billboard top 50. He recorded his first blues guitar album, Smokin', at the tender age of 14. Two years later came Lie to Me, an album that went multi-platinum and earned raves from major critics. After a Grammy
