Actually, I should say Seattle film festivals, Seattle film series and Seattle filmmakers are here. “They’ve been here for a long time Mulder”…um…never mind.

Were you at the Rawstock Short Film Festival last night (March 14th) at ACT Theatre (Kreielsheimer Place)? It was exactly as advertised. An eye popping animation, thrill-ride grindhouse action and irreverent comedy. My favorite film was “GIMME MUSIC, GIMME SHELTER”(directed by Shawn Telford). Justin Freet directed and starred in “New Beginnings” and it was really funny.

In January, The University of Washington Rome Center held it’s annual film series which celebrated the work of Italian Director Alex Infascelli. According to a blurb from the UW Rome Center, Infascelli…”cut his director’s teeth on pop videos for the likes of Nirvana, Prince and the Cocteau Twins and the slick-looking Almost Blue”. I’ll be there next year!

There’s still time to get to the Seattle International Film Festival (SIFF). This festival runs from May 22 through June 15. One new addition to SIFF is the Student Short Film entry. Grooming aspiring young filmmakers is cool.

Only the tip of the iceberg you say? Okay smarty pants, what did I forget to mention? Huh?

Sunday. 2:22 pm. ’nuff said.

Ballard Pillow Fight

Each year March 17 rolls around and Americans all brandish proudly/discover/play up/make up an Irish heritage, proudly donning over-sized green clover sunglasses and plastic hats to avoid being pinched. The holiday dates back to the 5th century when one not-yet-a-Saint Patrick converted the Emerald Isle from a pagan to a Christian nation AND drove all of the islands’ snakes right into the sea! As smart as he was persuasive, the zealous preacher used the sign of the Celtic triple goddess Brigit, the shamrock, and converted it into a cheap and handy way to explain the Christian idea of the Trinity, one god in three.

As interesting as religious history is, however, most people use the luckiest day of the year not to wax poetic about a snake’s perspective on Saint Patrick or to research their red-headed grandma’s grandma, but to go out and drink some Guinness: that thick, heady, cold-espresso-tasting stout. Saint Patrick’s Day in America isn’t about rainbows or leprechauns or snakes or shamrocks; it’s about going out with your friends, having fun, and pretending for one day that you can drink like you were on the Emerald Isle.

What would Saint Patrick do? He’d go out in the Emerald City and tie one on. Pretty much every bar in town is having some sort of Irish bash; here are a few safe bets for those of you ready to rock on your Seattle Saint Patty’s Day:

The Tractor Tavern hosts it’s annual Ceili (that’s Irish for PARTY TIME) with traditional Irish dancing and lots of Guinness; check out the photos from last year. $7 cover

High Dive in Fremont is having a Patty’s Day Blowout with local bands Sunday Night Blackout and The Goondocks; DJ Taco Supreme will be spinning (with sour cream and salsa). No cover.

Kell’s Irish Restaurant and Pub has the biggest Saint Patrick’s Day party in Seattle and has been celebrating the holiday for the last week with a whole festival! Monday they cap it off with a bang with music from noon until 2AM; nine different music acts perform including a few from Ireland. There will be lots of Guinness. $20 cover includes a free tee-shirt.

The Last Supper Club hosts Liquify with DJ Brett Michaels from 8PM with lots of Guinness and the tag line “Party with all the cool people on the luckiest day of the year.” No cover.

The Blarney Stone Pub between Downtown and Belltown will have live music, bagpipers, and lots of Guinness! $10 cover.

Fado Irish Pub in Pioneer Square will be rockin’ and jam-packed; band lineup includes foot-stompin’ Handful of Lovin’, Boys of Greenwood Glen and Justin and Ronin; also there will be lots of Guinness. $15 cover but you will receive a $10 Fado gift certificate to spend on another visit.

The Irish Emigrant on The Ave in the U District promises live acts from The Kennedy Brothers and Sole Proprietors as well as plenty of drunk Irishmen and lots of Guinness. $10 cover before 9PM, $20 after 9PM.

Conor Byrne Pub in Ballard serves beer in PINTS and will have live music acts and lots of Guinness. $5 cover.

The Funhouse in Seattle Center is having a punk rock Saint Pat’s Party with bands Dragstrip Riot, All American Playboys, and Seven Crown. $5 cover.

The Owl ‘N Thistle Irish Pub in Post Alley has food and drink specials, corned beef, cabbage and lots of Guinness. The Seattle Fire Department Pipe and Drum Band will be entertaining the masses as well as several other live music acts. $10 cover.

Men in uniform with pipes and drums AND lots of Guinness? Owl ‘N Thistle gets my vote!

With all the brou-haha over the South By Southwest Music Festival going on right now around the country, our thoughts here in Seattle naturally turn to Austin, our sister city down south. Like siblings, the two cities might pull each other’s pigtails now and again, but ultimately we have a shared ethos. I have lived in both placed for over four years each and can empirically say that the two blazin’ metropoli have the same liberal, progressive, music-lovin’, life-is-good-let’s-party-vibe. Seattle just adds ‘please’ on the end, where Austin yells ‘yee-haw’!

Seattle is full of transplants from Austin and vice versa; many people are like me and love both cities. But which city is the best? Obviously since I live in Seattle my opinion on the Austin vs. Seattle debate is clear, I’m not the type of person to live in a place that I don’t absolutely love. When I took this question to the streets of Seattle however, I found passionate responses on both sides, which of course makes me wonder: if you are screaming about how much you love the Texas capital, why the hell do you live in Seattle? Either way, here’s what I found out:

• MUSIC FESTIVAL: SXSW vs. Bumbershoot? At Austin’s (and the South’s, and the Southwest’s) premier music festival there are more performers and artists from more countries around the world than at Bumbershoot. Plus the venues and environment of Sixth Street is much more genuine rock and roll and better and suited for musicthon than the corporatey-feeling Seattle Center. Austin wins, hands down.

• WEATHER: Insanely hot, sunny weather for month after month in the summer, or drizzly, overcast, sun-deprived skies for month after month in the winter? When you step out of the shower and are covered in sweat as you are toweling off, that is too hot. When swimming pools become bathwater-warm and you can no longer swim in them, that is too hot. When the temperature drops below 100 degrees and folks talk of a cold front, that is too hot. A little rain in Seattle? I’ll take it, a fair trade for those glorious spring/summer/fall days that we know will arrive. Seattle wins, with props to Texas for those amazing thunder and lightening storms.

• UNIVERSITY BLOODLINE: The Drag or The Ave? In Austin, Guadalupe Street runs between the University of Texas campus and the Greek houses; it is chock full of coffee shops, cheap ethnic restaurants, funky clothing stores, and bookstores. In Seattle, University Way NE runs north and south right next to the University of Washington campus, it is chock full of coffee shops, cheap ethnic restaurants, funky clothing stores, and bookstores. However The Ave has no Drag Rats, kids from mostly middle-class families having fun at playing homeless and busking for bones when they have hundreds of dollars of piercings in their face alone. Seattle wins.

• SWIMMING HOLE: Barton Springs Park or Green Lake Park? Bubbling up from the earth a clear and constant 68 degrees year round, Barton Springs keeps Austinites sane during the hot-as-hell summer days. Green Lake Park is Seattle’s working park where people are serious about getting their exercise and having fun. Kids and dogs are always swimming in the glacial lake, despite past years’ warnings against toxicity. Hmmm. Austin wins.

• POLITICS: Liberal and progressive or liberal and progressive? Both cities are home to a forward-thinking, Obama (no! Hillary!)-loving, book-reading, gay-friendly, dog-owning, lecture-attending, politically involved populace. Seattle has the rest of the West Coast for support in this stance, but Austin stands alone in Texas, a tiny liberal island set afloat in a vast, conservative sea of pickups, churches, and XXX stores. This is probably why in general, Austinites have bigger kahunas than Seattleites. Because of this additional hardship, Austin wins.

• TRAFFIC: Horrible or terrible? In Seattle the traffic during rush hour is slow, like the drivers, and I hear if you live on the Eastside for some strange reason, those bridges get really backed up. In Austin however, you schedule your life around rush hour, and never plan to go anywhere between the hours of 4-7PM. It’s really that bad. Seattle wins.

• HIP MOVIE FILMED AT ALL THE RIGHT PLACES: Dazed and Confused or Singles? Richard Linklater filmed the former all over Austin with local actor Wiley Wiggins; you can climb the Moontower (and get arrested) at Zilker Park and eat at In-an-Out Burger (Top Notch Burger on Burnet Road). Singles showcases Gasworks Park and a billion other Seattle locales AND stars our favorite non-celebrity, Eddie Vedder. One movie is about cool people trying to hook up in the 70’s, the other is about cool people trying to hook up in the 90’s. It’s a tie.

• GEOGRAPHY: Hill Country or The Olympic Peninsula and the Cascades? If you drive out of Austin at the right time of year you will encounter firey swaths of wildflowers on rolling hills, wide open spaces, and Bush supporters frothing wildly at the mouth. If you drive out of Seattle any time of year you will find incredible snow-capped mountains, rain forests, turquoise-colored glacial lakes, rock-strewn beaches and Bush supporters frothing mildly at the mouth. Seattle wins, hands down.

It is this last bit of information, the gorgeous natural setting, that pushes our city to the top every time in my mind, and in yours: Seattle wins. Out on the streets of our city most people were pro-Seattle, but the few Austin-lovers I did find would give me all the reasons in the world why Austin was the winner until I pulled out the trump card: the mountains, Puget Sound, and this beautiful emerald world we have around us. Sorry, but Austin just can’t compete in the natural beauty category. Now we just have to get our music scene up to par. Who’s with me?

The High Dive and The Crocodile Cafe do and um, did a lot for the Seattle music scene. Yeah, I’ll be at the High Dive Thursday March 20th for the Japan Nite US Tour 2008. Scandal will be there and they’re cool! Out of town bands as well as local bands love the vibe that the High Dive manages to pull off. The music lovers dig it too! It’s good to have you around.

A lot has been said about the Crocodile Cafe’s closing. All I want to say is that when I’m in my senior years kicking my feet up on some sunny lawn chair, I will always remember these three things about the Croc: 1). The killer bands 2). The great sound when you’re standing stage right (am I right?) 3). The super squishy seats at the bar. I’m sorry to see you go!

For other High Dive events, go to CultureMob.com.

On Sunday March 9th, The JewelBox Theater at the Rendezvous hosted it’s 3rd annual Belltown Pageant to crown Mr. Belltown and Belltown Betty!

If there ever was a “you had to be there” moment in Belltown, the Belltown Pageant 2008 was it! The Rendezvous own Ariel Basom was the producer of this great event. From Prince Billy Blanchard’s dancing autobiography to Misty Baggins with the most interesting White Russian I’ve ever seen, it was pure mayhem! Not sure what I’m talking about? Check out Mr. DBG’s “The ABC’s of Belltown” on Youtube.com.

Anita Goodmann (the host) mentioned that there was a lot of ad libbing she had to do for this event.The Winners were Mr. DBG and Ms. Science McGee known now as Mr. Belltown and Belltown Betty (respectively).

Search for more events in Belltown or the JewelBox Theater at CultureMob.com

It was a strange weekend this time around in the city, I think the sunshine last week and warm weather confused us just a bit. How can we think about nightlife when that big hot bright round thing in the sky is teasing us? Add to this the missing daylight savings hour and the overnight appearance of pink trees, and it could be possible, nay, probable, that Spring is just a few more rainy, cold, dreary weeks away.

This is your report from the front lines, from the streets of your city: what goes on, who is jamming, where the party is and what kind of craziness and fun is going down in Seattle:

Wednesday brought musician Ari Joshua back to the SeaMonster in Wallingford with friends Joe Doria, Rois Shorter, and Mesa Taylor for a small going-away party; he had a 26 hour flight to Africa the next day. The SeaMonster is THE BEST BAR IN SEATTLE hands down; with blue-green Christmas light ambiance and a topless mermaid on the wall, could you ever go wrong? Danny Godinez and Pura Fe held a CD release party at The Tractor in Ballard; if you missed it you can catch him at least at TosT in Fremont on Monday. He will rock, for sure. Next up I found myself at the Seattle punk institution The Funhouse where The Misplacements played their best show yet to a very small crowd of fans; something about being in The Funhouse makes me want to scream and spit when I talk. The punk gets in you, as does the free beer for the band from the VIP room. It rocks. My last stop of the night was the SeeSound Lounge for a stranger’s birthday party (don’t you love that?); of course by the end of the night no one was a stranger. Local photographer Ev was in the crowd and deejay Jason Marble laid it down sick-like for the cupcake-eating crowd: if you’ve never heard “Sweet Child of Mine” mixed with fatty bass beats, you should: it just might blow your mind.

Thursday I chilled at the Harvey Danger show at The Triple Door (read my review here) then headed to Pioneer Square; Trinity is doing a Free Bass night every week now showcasing local breaks and drum and bass talent like DJ Ryle whom I just met this week; let me say the boy can straight lay it down! Free Bass nights at Trinity should be on the list of anyone who is addicted to the bass; you know who you are. Thursday nights for me are almost always capped off at Club Contour, where a sick group of deejays and dancers and friends never ever fail to have a good time and then some. Jisaan, Miguel, Lovevirus, Pressha and others kept the floor bumpin’ until 4AM, as usual.

Friday brought the absolute best party of the week at Fado where the Produkt deejays slayed the weekend night Pioneer Square crowd with the fat beats and hot dancers. I realize that not everyone can go out every night like me, and it makes me smile to see the variety in the crowd which show up downtown on weekend nights. I meet students and parents, too-cool emo kids to not-cool-at-all emo adults, tourists who are always told to go to Pioneer Square for a good time and locals who rarely go there for a bad time, girls in tiny silver skirts and boys in shiny shirts: I meet them all, and they all come for a good time. Yes. The night finished at Studio Seven where some San Fran deejays and locals were spinning to a small birthday crowd; it was too small really for the big venue, and the party never really got started at the all-ages club.

Saturday found me at Pioneer Square doing the usual nightly tour, but this time I discovered a new attraction, a killer sushi place just a couple blocks west of the Square. Nijo is a sushi bar tucked into Post Alley which serves a ridiculous happy hour Thursday through Saturday from 10PM to midnight: $4 Lychee Martinis and Wasabi Bloody Marys and $3 fried calamari, baked mussels, and mmm mmm mmm: sushi. The happy hour dishes are delicious and the music is even better; Saturday night local superstar deejays Danger and Noisemaker dropped beats more head clearing than the wasabi. I will be back. The night wrapped up with The Pirates of Puget Sound, a big all-ages raver party down at Motor in SoDo. It was, by all measurements, a wicked insane party, great visuals, plenty of people dressed as pirates or at least in stripes; crunk beats (especially out of Sonny Chiba and Nyx on the decks), and a great space for the venue. Well, it is until you let way too many partiers in- the place was absolutely, positively, jam-freaking packed. Which is the way a rave is supposed to be, but you also need to be able to get out for fresh air that isn’t 100+ degrees, and at the Motor you had to wait in a massive mob of pushers just to get outside, get out of the crowd, and breathe. It seems too often that this is the experience at underage parties in Seattle, I think someone needs to get these kids to a big, open field under the stars and let them do their thing. Good thing Spring is right around the corner.

In preface to this review I will say that I am a HUGE Harvey Danger fan. I know all the words to all the songs and never miss a show unless I am out of the country. Sean Nelson is one of my top friends on MySpace, I offer to buy friends tickets to their shows and I routinely listen to their albums the whole way through.

Which made last night the Triple Door just perfect. The band kicked off their two-day celebration of the ten-year anniversary of the release of “Where Have All the Merrymakers Gone?” by playing the album the whole way through, and then they kicked down some rare B-sides, a real treat for the real fans in the crowd. Never one to plan too far in advance, I showed up at the box office of the Triple Door at 6:30 PM and bought a standing-room only ticket, then was pleasantly surprised to be led down to the seat as close to stage right as possible when I returned for Harvey Danger at 8:45. True, I could not see the drummer at all, but for a last-minute ticket, I was stoked to be so close to the band. I always enjoy watching band members interact with each other, plus all the disorganized, spur-of-the-moment fans go into the standing-room only section at the Triple Door which makes it the bounciest, most lively section of the venue.

That isn’t saying much. The Triple Door is an awesome space with great sound, but you can’t really call it rock and roll. This venue does not wear black leather or get drunk and break lamps. It sips wine like a classy French woman and takes little bites of egg pastries. I love the combo of food and music that the Triple Door provides, but I do prefer to see Harvey Danger jam at venues like the South Lake Union Block Party, the Redhook Brewery, or Neumo’s so that I can dance. Last night’s show at the dinner theater was the most intimate and solemn of any of their shows I have seen. It was serious. The fans were serious, and emotions were running high.

If you have never listened to a Harvey Danger album while you are going through a breakup, you need to. Did you just get dumped by a jerk? Go to Harvey Danger’s website and download their latest album, Little By Little, for free. Press play on your Ipod and don’t look back; blast it and cry and scream along with Sean. It was obvious last night that much of the audience had done just that; perhaps it was the combination of rich food and alcohol and a set list of slower, really emotive songs that don’t usually get played, but there was a palpable feeling of heartbreak in the air. The negative space of the Triple Door was filled up with feelings of forever lost and thoughts of pissed-off lovers. Harvey Danger fans have broken hearts. I know I wasn’t the only one in the crowd who had tears come to her eyes during the show; now that is ART, people.

Harvey Danger, you say? That band with that song? Yes, and they are so much more. Harvey Danger is so Seattle; Just like our city, you meet them and they are polite, nice, smart, and geeky. The official ladies room banter included the comment “Sean’s so cute when he smiles, I just want to hug his head.” Harvey Danger are loveable nerds in suits and slacks with carnation boutonnieres and floppy hair; they have been rocking dork-chique long before Napoleon ever caught anyone a delicious bass. They read books. They play multiple instruments. They sing of shitty studio apartments and a single strand of Christmas lights held up in the drywall with a thumbtack (best Christmas-sucks imagery ever).

But underneath the polite exterior of the band, an anger rages, a deep, dark, gritty current of unrest and dissatisfaction. Remind you of a certain city? Behind the amiable waves of drivers, under the progressive tolerance of crackheads telling bad jokes and beneath the no-please-you-first-I-insist facade is a very angry city. Seattle yells “jump!” at people on bridges, Seattle spits on floors at clubs, Seattle wears a lot of black eyeliner. I love Seattle for this juxtaposition, and Harvey Danger is one manifestation of this beautiful incongruency. Nice and angry.

And they manifest again tonight. The show yesterday was the best one for the hard core fans; I went to hear the B-sides that rarely or never get performed. For tonight’s lineup Harvey Danger will play through their other two albums, King James Version and Little By Little; this will be a better bet for those of you newbies contemplating a Harvey Danger experience. Much of the crowd from yesterday will return tonight; but don’t let their smiles and happy faces fool you. Under the polite veneer, a seething anger rages in their hearts. Nice and angry, just like Seattle- and just the way I like it.

Now I don’t mean that in a yo-yo-yo, raise your hands in the air and holla-for-ya-fella kind of way.

What I mean is that when I look behind the stages and decks in Seattle, I wonder where the women are, literally, because they are not there. In my extremely unscientific estimate, females account for about ten to fifteen percent of performers in our city, a sad statistic when we represent over half the population. This is especially true in the electronic music scene, where female deejays are very underrepresented, and those that do spin must be twice as good and four times as hot to get the notice and props that even the lamest male deejay does.

So where are the ladies, and why aren’t they on stage? What accounts for the obvious lack of female performers in our creative scene? The easy answer is of course to blame the historical tradition: for thousands of years men were patting male artists and musicians on the back, commissioning each other and sharing ideas while the women were raising kids and making homes from households. Arts in the traditional female domain like folk stories and handicrafts don’t stand the test of time as well as those in male-dominated spheres; a nursery rhyme evaporates into the blur of historical haze while the Sistine Chapel will be around for a while. Though females have “come a long way baby” in regards to our gender roles, the tradition of male domination of the arts certainly still affects the scene.

But that isn’t the whole story. This is Seattle, this is 2008; for a generation now women have been able to pursue any career they could possibly want, from firefighter to fine artist. So why aren’t they?

Why are most of the musicians, deejays, artists, and comedians in our city all BOYS? Where the ladies at? Do males dominate the arts scene because they get into it for the female attention? As one of my friends (a deejay) said, “Why else would you get into deejaying?” Um, for the love of making music, perhaps? Don’t women love to make music too? Maybe they are pursuing careers that they feel are more worthwhile to society that a creative profession; now that women can be doctors and lawyers and policymakers, they are. We all know that artists are the most important people in our society; art is able to cure ills that no doctor could, comedy can take down a dictatorship, music can change minds and governments. It is possible that women are too busy getting college degrees and starting companies that they forget the true value of artistic expression; however this theory also easily applies to men.

I just can’t figure out where the women are. Maybe like me they just prefer dancing. Maybe they are afraid they’ll upstage their musician boyfriends. Maybe they are busy trying to land a musician boyfriend. Maybe they are working furiously to raise families with strong female role models. Maybe they are trying on yet another outfit. Maybe they are curing cancer. Maybe they are reading blogs about the Seattle entertainment scene. I don’t know where they are, but they are not on stage, and we are missing a vital element of the creative scene.

Seattle, help me solve this mystery; weigh in with your opinion and let me know your theory on the missing women. We must find them, and nurture them, and the Seattle arts scene will be better for it. Ladies, can I get your opinion? I know you have them, and I know you love to express them. March 8th is International Women’s Day; let’s start with Seattle and find the female artists, wherever they may be.

Shilo Urban

Oops, this is a little late in posting, as anyone who’s seen the site or this blog has noticed that suddenly, someone hip is talking.

Yes, Shilo Urban is now on board full time as our Queen of Content. She’s out and about, and dishing out the best reviews and preview in the city. If you’ve seen her reviews, which range from BassNectar to Moliere, you’ll agree that not only does Shilo know what’s going on, but she knows how to bring it directly to you in your home, office, or local coffee shop.

Also, she’s not just writing. She’s playing an integral role in building out our content strategy. There are a ton of enthusiasts out there who have incredible things to share and want to let the world know about the great events they care about. If this fits your description, give Shilo a shout. We’re cooking up some great tools, and want to get them out “in the wild.”

Welcome Aboard, Shilo!