Hey all you crazy, fevered, music-obsessed Seattleites out there! There’s a new forum for enthusiasts to get a good dose of first-hand Seattle music news from people in the know: SeattleSubsonic, otherwise known as “The Sound From Under the Clouds.” Pretty good, huh?

Local music freak, uh, I mean local music fan Kevin LeDoux, formerly of the Northwest Music Blog, has started a new website with a stellar lineup of writers and featuring all the best in Seattle sound, including recommended shows, venues, and blogs; they also have a calendar of upcoming events and articles about the freshest local acts bubbling up as well as the big tours making the rounds.

So why are we promoting another blog on the CultureMob blog? Shouldn’t we be snarkily trashing SeattleSubsonic with a hipster sneer, straight out of our tight pants and from behind messy purple hair? NAH. We’re not like that. Seattle’s a big little town and the more local music support and artist promotion circulating around, the better. This city is known for music (just ask my generation) and no mayor, no closed venues, no decibel meters can stop that. Seattle’s music enthusiasts can and must work together to foster the creative arena, support the artists out there every day doing their thing, and build the Seattle music scene up from a buzz to a barbaric yawp.

Seattle has heaps of interesting music blogs out there reporting back on various aspects of the local music scene, such as NWTekno, Nada Mucho, LineOut, Three Imaginary Girls, Sound on the Sound, Reverb, Seattle Live Music, and many more, all with the same goal: to get you out there and involved in the amazing music scene, whether you like electronic music, punk rock, jazz, or all of the above.

And besides, CultureMob.com is the only website where you can find events concerning all your entertainment interests; not just music but movies, comedy, theatre, dance, sports, festivals, lectures, and community gatherings. Only on CultureMob can you track your favorite performers and get alerted when they come to Seattle, add a MySpace or Facebook calendar to your profile, email your friends about upcoming events, and post previews, reviews, and comments of artists, events, and venues.

So check out SeattleSubsonic and in the immortal words of one of my good friends and local artist: GET INTO IT! It’s your town, your life, your evening: make it one for the blogs.

Want to win a pair of tickets for the June 5th performance: CultureMob.com presents THE ROOTS New Album “Rising Down” Listening Party hosted by BLACK THOUGHT and featuring DJ ?UESTLOVE with special guests at Neumos?

SURE YOU DO! CultureMob.com is giving away 70 tickets, and all you have to do to win is come back here on Thursday May 15th and enter to win. Winners will be selected randomly.

?uestlove is a gifted producer and an incredibly skilled jazz drummer, best known for his work behind the drum kit for The Roots. He has worked with a myriad of very talented musicians and artists including D’Angelo, Al Green, Zack De La Rocha, Fiona Apple, Erykah Badu, Joss Stone, John Mayer, Common, Eminem, Justin Timberlake, Dave Chapelle, Christina Aguilera and Jay-Z. June 5th he will be laying down fat tracks in his DJ shoes and you can expect a mix of classic hip-hop, funk, soul, and rock; the dance friendly beats will have Neumos poppin’ hot all evening long. 

If you don’t win, tickets will be on sale soon through Ticketswest for $15 in advance; doors will open at 8PM and sorry toddlers, this one is 21+ only. The Culture Mobsters will be out in force, promoting our awesome website, spreading the good word about the Seattle arts scene, and most of all: enjoying life. Hey, we practice what we preach!

See you back here on May 15th!

So I am all about new music, often claiming that there are not enough hours in the day to take in all the innovative sounds I crave. So here’s a new one for you: Blake/e/e/e (pronounced ‘Blakey’) plays tonight at the Comet Tavern on Capitol Hill.

Their sound is described as “experimental gospel dub“. Now I do like dub, that’s for sure, but music labeled “experimental” usually keeps me away. It is too wandering, too spacey, it goes too far and seldom comes back. Experimental music seems to be more about the artist(s) and less about the audience; an ego-stroke on brilliance that disregards the ears and minds of the crowd. Most people feel the same ways as me: they know what they like in music and especially what they don’t like. But then there’s that open mind we all aspire to possess.

Ah, keeping an open mind: refreshing to say, a hell of a lot harder to commit to action. But I am going to check out Blake/e/e/e; who knows? It was less than a year ago that I had never heard of glitch and now I practically have “I LOVE GLITCH” tattooed across my forehead. I urge you to check out some unheard, weird new music every week, or at least once a month; maybe you will end up with ‘I LOVE EXPERIMENTAL GOSPEL DUB’ on your chest. With art, anything is possible.

You know Produkt. You might not know that you know Produkt, but you do. You have no doubt seen these cats on dance floors, behind decks, taking pictures, painting, drawing, and promoting the Seattle electronic music scene all over the city, night after night, club after club.

Humans don’t fit into one category, as easy as that might be for us, and this is why the diverse artistry which Produkt provides and CultureMob.com are such a beautiful match. We all have many interests. I love electronic music, which is why I check NWTekno about a thousand times a day. However, I also really like horror movies, sketch comedy, reggae, festivals, sculpture exhibits, and swing dancing- and this is where CultureMob comes in. We cover the whole spectrum of entertainment and recognize that everyone has multiple interests in the arts and wants to discover local events without going to twenty different websites.

Produkt realizes this too, which is why at an event like the upcoming Gruvsessionz at Heavens Nightclub you will find not only skilled DJs spinning a variety of beats from house to techno to drum and bass to glitch, but also local visual artists doing their thing live, go-go dancers who truly love to dance (and just happen to be total hotties), and photographers documenting the good times (just in case anyone’s memory is a little fuzzy).

I support Produkt for one reason which is really two: PRODUKT GETS DOWN. Known as the “dopest crew in town,” the Produkt peeps are all about having fun and living it up; however they also take care of their business, heavily promoting each other as well as local artists from outside the group. Produkt stays engaged with the Seattle scene, organizing new events and injecting electricity into the nightlife of the city, which all too often suffers from a hipster-ethos, an I’m-too-cool-to-care vibe. I always hear people whining about how hard it is to make friends in Seattle, and that no one dances in this town. Those people obviously have never been to a Produkt show.

Even the group’s name connotes this passionate response to artistic expression. Just as Produkt provides new experiences for Seattle, they too are a Produkt of the music they deliver. With all of the art happening all around, how could you NOT become excited and go out and dance and have fun? As much as humans create art, it creates us too. Come to a Produkt event and you will find a dance floor full of smiling faces rocking out. And did I mention the hotties?

Produkt has already proved successful with the ongoing series of Analog nights which occur the last Friday of every month at Rebar; next up is the May 30th Analog IX: I Like Orange and Techno. Their newest conquest is Gruvsessionz which will take place the second Friday of every month from here on out at Heavens Nightclub. This Friday is the debut of the new monthly which showcases not only resident and guest DJs Lee Jonas, Awggie, Richie Spoons, Pressha, and Goner but also the holographic art of Lazer Guided Visions artist Raja, fire performances by the Womanipuria Fire Troop, and experimental bellydance theatre by the Hands of Kali. All this action will be documented by professional photographers and journalists and of course, the Produkt dancers will be out in force, as smart and sassy as they are beautiful. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

Gruvsessionz is free before 10PM, $5 until 11PM, and $7 until 2AM, and if you haven’t been to Heavens Nightclub in Pioneer Square, then you are missing out on one of the biggest and best dance floors in Seattle. Come and experience the encompassing experience that Produkt creates; immerse yourself in music, dance, art, fire, and best of all- a group of positive partyers who bring it on and hold it down. See you on the dance floor.

Now this rumor is completely true:

All of you who went to One Family Gathering last weekend already know about the cops’ “questionable” behavior, but now the major press is getting in on it too. Festival founder and Seattle resident Bud Weather was interviewed by Rolling Stone Magazine for almost an hour yesterday about the illegal police action(s) that went down last weekend around and at the unity-themed One Family Gathering music festival in eastern Oregon.

Stay tuned for more details.

We fought the law, and… (ah that’s a stupid song anyway)

How about a fun, completely unsubstantiated rumor for Thursday to keep you going until the weekend?

It’s going around the streets of Seattle like wildfire that Johnny Depp is going to buy the old Crocodile Cafe and make it much, much cooler (and hotter) than it ever was before. This is from several unreliable sources, some of whom were at least partially inebriated at the time of bean-spillage. It’s a juicy one though, and Seattle would LOVE it to be true, am I right? Enjoy.

While you’re here, why not take a look at the great events happening in the area tonight? A few of my suggestions:

Urban Art Festival Benefit: Music, art, and live body painting in Tacoma (Thursday)

Seattle Fashion Group International Spring Fling: Cocktails, hors-d’oeuvres, and fashion

Minus the Bear: Smart compositions with flowing guitar over electronica from loved locals at the Showbox at the Market

Booty Call: It’s not what you’re thinking, or want to be thinking, anyway. Join Awggie, the Mendicants, Ben Shelton, and Lloyd Tatum as they tear up the dance floor at Contour, and then just keep on dancin’ for afterhours with the Lovevirus and Von Dewey.

Get busy, Seattle! The weekend is upon us! And you might just bump into Johnny wandering around Belltown.

In the last three weeks, we’ve rolled out a bunch of new features and a major redesign, all of which I’d like to draw attention to.

PORTLAND & DENVER!

We’re finally branching out and covering more cities, starting with Portland and Denver. Seattleites, tell your Portlander and Denverite friends to go nuts! We’re looking to improve our coverage in those areas, so let us know what you’d like to see on our site for Denver and Portland.

ADD AN EVENT

This is a big one and we think that we’ve got a damn good first iteration. Plug your event into our system and not only will your fans be able to track your event with our RSS and iCal feeds, but we’ll make sure that your event is also covered by the following:

• KEXP
• NadaMucho
• Seattle PI
• Seattle Times
• Seattle Weekly
• The Stranger
• Three Imaginary Girls

If you got an event you’d like to promote, give it a try and let us know what you think. We want to be your one-stop-shop to promote your event.

EDIT AN EVENT/VENUE/ARTIST

The nature of events is very fluid. Lineups might change, the start-time will be pushed back, the location might move. Because of this, we’ve added the ability for any user to be able to edit an event, artist, or venue. If something is wrong, make it right.

TELL A FRIEND

We wanted a quick way for folks to be able to tell their friends the details of an event that they’re interested in. We’ve added the ability to use your address book from AOL, Outlook, Yahoo, GMail, Plaxo, and more.

WIDGET

We’ve added the ability to build and place a widget of your events on pretty much any type of page: MySpace, Facebook, Blogger, TypePad, Wordpress, just using straight up html, and many more. Speaking of which…

FACEBOOK APP

Now you can grab your My Events RSS feed and plug it into your Facebook page. You can tell your friends what events you’re interested in attending. Bands, grab your artist RSS feed and your Facebook page will be populated with a list of your events.

USER COMMENTS PAGE

We’ve got a vibrant base of users posting comments on artists, events, and venues. Now if you click on their user name, you can see all their comments. If you see a comment with some good taste, you can see what else that user recommends (or tells you to stay away from). Also, you now can post your beautiful mug for your avatar in your account page.

SITE REFINEMENT

I can’t quite call it a redesign, but we’ve made some major refinements to the design. For those interested in the reasoning behind the changes, Designer Chris Brummel has written more about that here.

So there you go. And we’ve got lots more coming down the pipe. Make sure to let us know what you think of these features and what you’d like to see added.

IRON MAN is here people, brace yourself for the wave of comic book characters. Robert Downey Jr. Gets it.

Have you been by the AMC Cinerama the past few days? You may have noticed the IRON MAN sign on the marquee. No? Well maybe you noticed the line of people waiting to see the blockbuster over an hour prior to the movie start time. My guess is this took place in many theaters this weekend.

Tonight, I too went to the movies to see IRON MAN. I went in with very little expectations and what I got was a pretty good movie. IRON MAN was one of my favorite Marvel characters growing up. I had him right behind DAREDEVIL which in my opinion got totally screwed in the box office. Yeah, DD as a movie sucked. I’m happy to say the IRON MAN did fairly well in action and plot. My only problem was the bad guys were too one dimensional. Yeah, I know it’s a comic book character but people need to realize that character development is…aw…I was about to break the movie down and all I really wanted to do is give you my list of my top ten comic book movies.

From Best to Worst:
1. Batman Begins

2. Spider-Man

3. Hell Boy

4. Iron Man

5. Blade

6. V for Vendetta

7. Superman the Movie

8. X-Men

9. Batman

10. Spider-Man 2

Being new to this blog business, I have and will continue to make Rookie mistakes along the way. I’m sure I’m making one right now in fact. So it was a big relief for me when a blogger from another site extended to me the courtesy of his critical feedback. This blogger is of course Kevin LeDoux. I’m sad to find out that he will be leaving his post as editor of nwmb. See http://www.nwmusicblog.com/2008/04/30/editor-kevin-leaving-nwmb/

Kevin would send me a few emails to show me the ropes. Dude even had a beer with me. Let me tell you that some of the conversations we’ve had were hilarious. I won’t say I know him very well but I will say that I know Kevin is a class act.

Salut Kevin!

Cedric

you can check out one back n forth commentary i had with kevin here at blogs.culturemob.com.

Wow, save the date on this one! Thursday June 5th it is going DOWN at Neumos as CultureMob.com presents THE ROOTS New Album “Rising Down” Listening Party hosted by BLACK THOUGHT and featuring DJ ?UESTLOVE with special guests.

?uestlove is a gifted producer and an incredibly skilled jazz drummer, best known for his work behind the drum kit for The Roots. He has worked with a myriad of very talented musicians and artists including D’Angelo, Al Green, Zack De La Rocha, Fiona Apple, Erykah Badu, Joss Stone, John Mayer, Common, Eminem, Justin Timberlake, Dave Chapelle, Christina Aguilera and Jay-Z. June 5th he will be laying down fat tracks in his DJ shoes and you can expect a mix of classic hip-hop, funk, soul, and rock; the dance friendly beats will have Neumos poppin’ hot all evening long. I absolutely cannot wait for this party and I hope to see you all there on the dance floor gettin’ down beside me.

The Culture Mobsters will be out in force, promoting our awesome website, spreading the good word about the Seattle arts scene, and most of all: enjoying life. Hey, we practice what we preach!

Tickets will be on sale soon through Ticketswest for $15 in advance; doors will open at 8PM and sorry toddlers, this one is 21+ only. CultureMob.com will be giving away a whole bunch of free tickets: stay tuned at CultureMob.com to find out how you can land some of those and for more information about ?uestlove, Blackthought, and The Roots.