She washed your little toes before you knew what they even were, she made you eat broccoli and let you eat ice cream, she listened to you cry and laugh, and she is your biggest fan. Or maybe all she did was give birth to you- but that’s kind of enough, don’t ya think? May 11 is Mother’s Day and you better not forget it or in the doghouse you will be. In fact, start making plans NOW, because a whole lot of people in Seattle have mothers.

What to do to please Mom? Well, it’s easy really, mothers are women, and women are easy to figure out, contrary to popular belief: we like good food, we like being entertained, we like sparkley things, and we like chocolate. But don’t just go out and buy some junk carnations from QFC along with a bottle of sauvignon blanc- no doubt she would love these things, but they are only things, which makes them lame. Why not take your mother out to enjoy life and give her a Mother’s Day to remember? Here are some great places to take your mom, and unlike a bouquet, the memories will live inside of her forever:

FOR ANIMAL LOVING MOMS: Mother’s Day Brunch at the Woodland Park Zoo: Moms love animals, otherwise they never would have had them in the first place, right? Hee hee hee. Really though; brunch and mothers go together like monkeys and inappropriate behavior, and there’s a dessert buffet! Win-win!

FOR ARTSY MOMS: If your mom is artsy, there’s a good chance you are an artist too, so the fact that Moms and Museums at the Bellevue Art Museum is letting in mothers for free on Mother’s Day (as long as she’s with you) should suit you just fine. Enjoy the paintings, and don’t worry honey- she recognizes your talent, whether the world does or not.

FOR OUTDOORSY MOMS: Have a Catered Breakfast at the Northwest Trek Wildlife Park then take a tram ride around the park and see if you can spot any bighorn sheep, deer, elk, or caribou out roaming free just like their mothers would have wanted.

FOR DRAMATIC MOMS: Well okay ALL moms are all a little dramatic but if yours loves the theatre, head to Intiman for the Mother’s Day Brunch followed by an afternoon matinee of The Diary of Anne Frank

FOR SPORTY MOMS: The Seattle Storm takes on the Indiana Fever at Key Arena Saturday night; root for the hard-core chicks with your hard-core mom.

FOR GAMBLING MOMS: The Emerald Queen Casino is giving away flowers, cash money money!, and matching handbags, along with hosting special games to see who knows their mother the best during the Mother’s Day “Two-Lips” Celebration. No comment on that name.

FOR FUNNY MOMS: Two hilarious female comedians are in town Mother’s Day weekend; Margaret Cho splits sides at The Paramount and Janeane Garofalo hams it up at the Showbox at the Market.

FOR FEMINIST MOMS: Buy tix to the NARAL Pro-Choice Luncheon at the Sheraton Hotel, and listen to the Sarah Weddington speak; she’s the attorney who successfully argued Roe vs. Wade in front of the Supreme Court.

FOR GARDENING MOMS: Flowers smell nice and are colorful and pretty, just like your mother. Take her to the Bellevue Botanical Garden for the Mother’s Day Social and follow it up with a tour of the extensive garden grounds.

FOR HIPPIE MOMS: Does your mom braid her long hair and smell like sweet patchouli? Remind her of her tripped-out days of psychedelia at the Cirque du Soleil’s CORTEO over in Marymoor Park. You’ll score major points- there’s not a mother alive who wouldn’t love this show.

FOR BAD MOMS: Did your mom drop you on your head repeatedly? Leave you with strangers for most of your childhood? Refuse to feed and clothe and shelter you as a toddler? Well then bring her to the punkerslut NOFX show at the Showbox SoDo. and make sure she ties those combat boots tight! Or how about a surprise guest slot at Open Mic Night at the Comedy Underground- you’re up, mom! After her set, take your mother for a swing around the dance floor at Country and Western Line Dancing Night at The Cuff Complex, Seattle’s hotter-than-the-sun dance club for gay men. Now that will be a Mother’s Day to remember- unlike your birthday, which she always forgot.

HAPPY MOTHER’S DAY TO ALL OF YOU LIFE-GIVERS OUT THERE!

That’s right, the killer collection of Roman art from the most famous art museum EVER, the Louvre in Paris, is on display at the Seattle Art Museum until May 11- then it is gone forever, just like the Roman empire!

You have a few cool opportunities to see the Roman Art from the Louvre this side of Paris:

• Seattle Art Walk takes place every first Thursday (May 1) and the Seattle Art Museum is always free on this day. Free art for humans!
• Marathons may have originated in Greece but this weekend the Seattle Art Museum hosts a marathon art event: the SAM will be open from 10AM on Saturday, May 10 all the way to 9PM on Sunday, May 11. Art at 4AM takes on a whole new meaning- try it out.

Why would you want to see this exhibit? Because Cultures Collide at the Seattle Art Museum:

Last Thursday I showed up to Midtempo Madness at the new Pioneer Square nightclub Crimson C at 10PM, my normal time of arrival, being the total nerd of the club scene and all. I fully expected to, like usual, be the first one on the dance floor and get the party going. Pushing my way past the smokers outside to the heart of the club, I realized that this party didn’t need me to get it going- the dance floor was already packed! It had started like wildfire with NoiseMaker on the decks and this was no ease-into-it night: to my thrill, everyone was getting down. My purpose in life is to get people to get down, on the dance floor or otherwise, but this crowd, with a stellar female presence, needed no help from me at all. The sheer excitement for the lineup had everyone buzzing and smiling and dancing, club nerd one and all.

After yet a-whompwhompwhomp-nother inciting and enticing set from Seattle’s funky crunkbrother NoiseMaker, rapper Souleye and DJ team BLVD proceeded to lay it down thick; the dance floor went wild and minds were blown right out of that little club. You can always tell when the experience of new music has gotten under the skin of someone: moon eyes, mouth hanging slightly open, distinct lack of articulate vocabulary, palms upturned in a gesture of thrill and disbelief: what do you MEAN I have never heard these guys before? The combination of Souleye’s gritty and organic rap lines laid over the twisting electronic loops of BLVD is an anti-match made in deep in the human consciousness; we crave this variety. Sameness is a safe and warm feeling, but we don’t settle for contentment. We want to be on fire, and to light it we need originality, diversity, and risk. We need this music.

I can’t explain electronic music, but I can explain what it does. In this case, your mind starts drifting off to the ether-sphere of sound with the long, guitar-studded electronic mash of BLVD and then is brought back to earth by the gritty and genuine words of a poet. It’s the mix, the to-and-fro, the take-it-away and give-it-back-again that takes music from being a constant good thing to being absolutely great. The boys of BLVD and Souleye have discovered this thrilling melange of earth and ether. It speaks so well to the human audience because we too are part heaven and part earth, part spirit and part body, part electronic sound waves and part rap. The dance floor of Crimson C spread right up through the tables and bar area as no one could resist the hot gooey bass. And damn that boy can rap!

Then, holy Thursday night, came Vibesquad, a producer whose bass takes no absolutely no prisoners whatsoever. I thought the whole of Crimson C was about to shake right down to rubble, leaving only the dancers and DJ there- and no one would even have noticed, so powerful is the spell of this DJ. The twisted, mutated sounds; the crackles, beeps, growls, and thumps don’t just speak to us alive out here in the world, they insist that we open our eyes and move. In the presence of Vibesquad, you have no choice but to exist in the present. Everything else goes away and we lap up the sounds, like starving refugees from society, our bodies as our spoons.

I am an unofficial ambassador of crunk, you might say, and had been telling my friends about this show for weeks and insisting they go. All through the night people kept coming up to me saying, “Oh wow, Shilo, you were right, this is AMAZING! I can’t even believe it!” Then a little shake of the head and the aforementioned glazed look of new music discovery. That is also what I live for- to share with others the transformative power of music that I have experienced in my life. Why do I, why do we, love it so much? Why do we love the thick, dirty bass and the filthy beats so much? I may not be able to explain it but I sure as hell can understand it. I want you to as well, but be warned- once you go off the deep bass end, there is no going back. Once you put on the suit of Captain Crunk, no other electronic music will quite do it for you: not drum and bass, not dub step, and certainly not house.

So what is this blond girl going on about? Why is she so ’bout it-’bout it with this music which doesn’t really have a name but is seeping up and over the nation from the West Coast and Colorado and conquering dance floors wherever it goes? Find out for yourself at Dirty Velvet May 16 at Nectar when Noisemaker, Novatron, and Kraddy and OOah from THE GLITCH MOB start a musical riot in Fremont. Buy tickets now; the show will sell out, and it is quite possible that people will be falling from the balcony, going into spastic dance fevers, twitching their minds all the way over to new dimensions, and having so much fun their hearts explode and they wake up in their yard. It might even happen to you, so get ready for your next life-changing music experience.

Do I have to say it? See you on the dance floor.

The opening night of Cirque du Soleil’s Corteo found me in the twelfth row of Le Grand Chapiteau, a frozen monkey with mouth agape, sitting in a stilled silence except for occasional bursts of laughter and sighs of amazement. Now I am not the silent and still type, AT ALL, and it takes a big experience like the Big Top to render me so. My heart however was pounding like a giant psychedelic clown was attacking a tympani with a rubber chicken, only stopping it’s mad march for moments of absolute antici……….pation as I waited in a trance-like state to see what the superhumans on stage might do next. Would they spin in a hoop like a living metallic-blue Vitruvian man simultaneously with five friends? Grab onto a chandelier and swing up into the sky in their skiivies? Slowly walk a mile-high tightrope, upside down? Float out over the audience for the most graceful crowd-surfing experience Seattle has ever seen? Join a languid parade of playful angels, Tuba players, and ballet dancers from the most bizarre dream EVER?

Physical and dramatic performing artists who are the very best in the world create the incredible spectacle that is the Cirque du Soleil; it is an acrobatic, gymnastic, dancing, theatrical, musical, comedic, sparkling, magical, childlike parade of sensory enlightenment, an epic French feast of ‘Wow!”, a near out-of-body celebration of the absurd and the beautiful. The amazingly talented and no doubt insanely hard-working athletes make every tumble and turn seem effortless and just an extension of their humanity, like you and I might tomorrow flip backwards from bed to bed in a pillow fight out of childhood fantasy.

Corteo is the show now playing at Marymoor Park in Redmond under a fat yellow and blue striped Grand Chapiteau or Big Top that has seemingly sprung from the colorful mind of a five year-old, a mind that we all once had. The character Corteo is a ghost-clown reliving his better years, and while he revisits his childhood antics and purity of perception, you follow along with him, just as entranced as he is by the once-lived escapades.

I absolutely cannot believe I that had never been to the Cirque du Soleil before. Why didn’t anyone ever shake me and give me a swift kick to the rear and say GET THEE TO THE CIRQUE DU SOLEIL? In a land where the likes of Avril Lavigne and Britney Spears qualify as ‘performing artists,’ the insatiable American consumers of entertainment dismiss terms like ‘eye-popping’ and ‘jaw-dropping’ because we have heard them describe everything from new flavors of yogurt to random celebutante #9’s fashion choice for the afternoon.

So let me shake you and light a fire under you, because at the Cirque du Soleil your eyes WILL pop, your jaw WILL drop, and your heart WILL pound, certain that either your senses are deceiving you OR that someone’s about to bite it, bigtime. The Cirque du Soleil is a thrilling and unique entertainment experience that can never truly be described, only lived.

So live it! Here are a few tips for making the trip to Redmond’s lovely Marymoor Park a bit easier:

• Allow PLENTY of time to get to your seat; traffic gets backed up and you will want a few extra minutes for buying balloons and cotton candy and running around the big top screaming and jumping…well, for hitting the gift shop, anyway.
• Parking is $15 payable in cash and cannot be avoided unless you hike in like a creature from Lake Washington lagoon.
• Take your mom! She will just LOVE it, you know she will, and Mother’s Day IS coming up, you know.
• Get a sneak peek of the action right here, and read Cedric’s take on the Cirque du Soleil.

CONSIDER YOUR FIRE LIT.

Local drummer Jeremy Jones will be hitting it hard with his quintet at a CD release party at the Triple Door this Thursday, May 1st. I’m a huge fan of Jeremy, who’s become one of the hottest jazz drummers in Seattle in his five years since he moved to the area. Jeremy has quickly become one of the first-call players for many local jazz groups.

In full disclosure, Jeremy holds down the drum seat in my own quintet more often than not, but that has little bearing on my reasons behind writing this post. Ever since Jeremy gave me his first demo of his original music I was sucked in by the sheer passion of his playing.

This Thursday, Jeremy brings a powerhouse line-up of many of Seattle’s best musicians to the stage of what is arguably the best music venue in town. Joining him are Thomas Marriott on trumpet, Steve Treseler on sax, John Hansen on piano and the venerable Phil Sparks on bass.

So get off the couch and get your butt out to the Triple Door on May 1st to catch Jeremy Jones’ CD release party. Seriously, it’s great music and it’s the Triple Door. That means good sight lines, excellent sound, tight as hell rhythms, espresso martinis and Wild Ginger fragrant duck. I’m sorry, but if you’re a local jazz fan and not there you’re just plain stupid.

Why I’m taking time out of my day to respond to Regina Hackett’s drive-by smear job of Randy Jackson in the Seattle-PI is beyond me. But although I’m just a casual American Idol fan, I have a soft spot for Randy because it’s so obvious how hard he must have worked during his career as a session musician, record producer and executive to even have an opportunity to be part of one of the most popular television shows about music ever.

Just look at his resume and you’ll know what a journey he’s been through. And then look at some of the people he’s worked with: Aretha Franklin, Bruce Springsteen, Journey, George Michael, Clarence “Gatemouth” Brown, Billy Cobham, Blue Öyster Cult, Herbie Hancock, Richard Marx, Michel Camilo, Madonna, Billy Joel, Bon Jovi, Michael Bolton, and Bob Dylan. What a list! He’s a classic American success story, in a society that often underrates how damn hard it can be to get to the top.

So when Regina Hackett, the art critic for the Seattle P-I, says Randy is playing a role as the “harmless black hipster” who is “none too bright” with “shallow” coolness, I get a little irritated. Even worse, after watching the show for exactly part of one season, she is apparently such a pop culture and American Idol expert that she can declare him and his fellow judges, Paula Abdul and Simon Cowell, part of some “performance piece about race and sex in America.”

Regina, Regina, Regina. If only you knew what you were talking about. Or perhaps you were going to leave the detailed analysis about your theory for later. What’s sad is that this little throwaway piece you wrote is what passes for journalism these days: a few snarky paragraphs and a YouTube clip. Worst of all is that so much great art and music in this city goes completely uncovered by our local dailies, and yet you went out of your way to make some shallow comments about a national show that simply doesn’t lack for media attention.

It’s easy to pick on a show like American Idol. It’s middle-American entertainment that often takes itself too seriously and has been known to manipulate its audience. Sometimes it’s very, even unapologetically, shallow. Just like the movie industry, and any other mass market entertainment product for that matter. Get over it.

But please, the local art critic turning her eye on a national pop culture phenomenon and trying to tell us she’s got it all figured out? As Tracy Morgan used to say: Oh, snap!

Starting last month I began volunteering for Earshot Jazz to help keep their calendar up to date and to, perhaps, make it a little more comprehensive. In doing so, I’ve pretty much become an expert on what jazz artists are playing where in the Emerald city. So in updating the calendar, I noticed that both Dr. Lonnie Smith and Kurt Elling are coming to town in June to play Jazz Alley. Both are incredible artists that are on my list to see. Whoohoo! June is going to rock, or, er… swing?

Dr. Lonnie Smith is an authentic master of the Hammond B3 organ. For over five decades he has furthered the sound of Jazz, created a worldwide fan-base, and revealed his musical talents on over seventy albums. I have several of his CD’s and they are fabulously funky. However, the real attraction for me is guitarist Peter Bernstein, who I saw play a few years ago at the Ballard Jazz Festival. Peter’s playing just floored me and I’ve been a fan ever since.

In my opinion, Kurt Elling is simply the finest male jazz vocalist since Frank Sinatra passed away. Kurt has seven Grammy nominations to his credit and won Down Beat’s Male Vocalist of the year in both Critics and Readers polls for 2007 (the fourth time he’s won the top spot in both polls). His version of “You Don’t Know What Love Is” on his “Flirting with Twilight” CD, is one of my favorite jazz vocal tracks of all time.

So for some hot beats & cool jazz, make your reservations at Jazz Alley today or you might not be able to get in the door.

RIK WRIGHT
http://www.rikwright.com

Last night I went to the preview of Cirque Du Soleil Corteo at Marymoor Park in Redmond. I was greeted by the friendly marketing staff and ushered into the blue and yellow Grand Chapiteau (Big Top). It was shortly after that moment that I forgot how old I was. That I was WAY past the age of 20 no longer seemed possible to me. In fact, I was actually convinced I was a nine year old boy (read my review under Fred Roth).

Here now are a few of MANY wonderful highlights from this event!

Yeah, Cirque Du Soleil is THAT incredible! I had so much fun! I’m going to try to maintain this child-like mentality for as long as I can. If you’ve ever been to see Cirque Du Soleil, I want to hear form you. Share your thoughts about Cirque Du Soleil with me and the millions that read my blogs (well, maybe not millions…)!

Corteo performs in Seattle through May 25th at Marymoor Park in Redmond. More details of this event at the Cirque Du Soleil page at Culturemob.com.

At Sasha and Digweed’s DJ extravaganza last night I fell back in love with dancing after a week (a whole week!) of not going out, I remembered why I never ever wear jeans to shows, and was thrilled up to my eyebrows to see so many electroheads out on a Tuesday night!

I really like the ShowBox SoDo and was stoked to experience mythic DJs Sasha and Digweed. I thought the show was sold out only to be informed early that morning that I was wrong, so I bought the $35 ticket with a what-the-hell attitude; that’s a lot of dough for cheapskates like me who try to get on every list they can. After forgetting the ticket print-out in my car (which of course was parked practically at Castle Starbucks) I returned, ready to dance, and never even had my ticket looked at! The workers did search thoroughly through my bag and we did the frisk-dance, leaving me standing there holding my $35 piece of paper, saying, “Hey! somebody look at this!!!” They never did.

DJ Kazell was the opening act and I was really impressed with his take on the bass, so much so that I actually was pulled away from the line at the bar, losing my space so I could go dance. I didn’t want to miss a minute the fat track that the DJ was laying down, not even for a buzz- now that’s powerful music. The big bar areas of the ShowBox SoDo were stacked with people trying to down several beers before the headliners came on, lots of people bobbing heads, and my friends, gettin’ down like no one’s business and making me proud. I am never a huge fan of all-ages shows- what can I say, I like to drink and dance, but sometimes the scene has to throw a frickin’ bone to the 18-21 year-olds.

I made my way up to the front of the dance floor as Digweed was about to come on. People were starting to freak out, and the anticipative energy of the crowd was close to spontaneous combustion in the middle of the floor. Now progressive house and trance aren’t my favorite electronic music genres; for me the tracks and sets never seem to climax, leaving me in a prolonged state of liminality. But like all electronic music, these beats are damn danceable, and I can recognize when the shit is going down even when it isn’t 100% my cup of tea. Aku, local DJ and my friend told me that Sasha and Digweed were the reason he started making music- now that means a whole lot. My ears perked up and I could tell that many others in the audience also held up these two DJs to the legendary status that they should deservedly claim. The whole place was rockin’.

A shortie like me can’t see very well, even at the front of the dance floor, but I could hear the chants which turned to, “Sasha, Sasha, Sasha,” as the night progressed. Like I said I am not firmly in the camp of crazed fans for these two Brits like most of the audience but I danced my face off last night at the ShowBox SoDo for hours. And then I danced some more. Making people shake and move is just one raison d’etre that inspires DJs to exist, (getting girls is another) and Sasha and Digweed found believers last night. Hot and sweaty with my jeans rolled up to my knees, I left the front of the dance floor to find a little space and air at the back. Not possible- the whole place was packed with Seattlites shaking what their mothers gave them. A Tuesday night like this is what I’m talkin’ ’bout- hundreds of people all moving together, having fun, and devouring the energy created in the musical exchange.

Of course, there wasn’t enough sticky bass pour moi, however I try not to review music too harshly for the same reason I don’t write up reviews of Mexican food restaurants in Seattle. Let me explain: I’m from Texas and eat whole jalepenos for breakfast so every write-up would go like this: “Not enough spice, not enough heat, not enough mind-mashing fire.” The same goes for most electronic music; there’s rarely enough sticky, thick, whompy bass for me, unless it’s an event like the upcoming Glitch Mob show at Nectar. When I dance I usually go into a mini-trance and can only say one of two words: YEAH or MORE. Yesterday evening was a MORE night for me, but I still had a thrilling time dancing and a really great experience, no doubt.

And sometimes wanting more is a good thing which even a hedonist like me can recognize; crazy things happen when you’re left on the threshold. Everyone left the show a little happier than they came in and the party continued to Contour for afterhours and we all got down for a couple more hours to DJs Jason LeMaitre, Dev, and the aforementioned Aku who was absolutely on top of the world after hearing the great Sasha and Digweed lay it down. Seeing people so inspired by and passionate about music thrills me to no end and reminds me that we are all kindred spirits in the arena of music’s effects on the human psyche.

Speaking of kindred spirits, there were hundreds and hundreds of dancers out last night, and I want to know where they go the rest of the time. Last Wednesday? Next Tuesday? Where do you go, oh mysterious dancing crowd? I want to know, and I will find out, and then I will drag them out to enjoy life. SO WHAT ya gotta work in the morning? There is a sure excitement in the air that the Seattle electronic music scene breaths, and I think we should nurture it and light it on fire. Let’s blow it up. Whose with me?

Dual grinder

Originally uploaded by spacematters

Are you guys ready for the Olympia Power Tool Races ? I hope so. I’ve received word the a carpenters union will be racing a dual grinder hard hat. And besides my humble rail rider I know of at least 2 others… this summer might just turn out to be the fastest most amazing year or power tool races yet!

Oly Power Tool Races