Thursday night on Capitol Hill class was in session and the bumpin’ crowd at Neumos got schooled proper-like by two professors of pimpin’, ?uestlove and Black Thought of The Roots. Hot off the opening stage for Erykah Badu at Marymoor Park, the two hip-hop superstars laid down the lessons of life for an eclectic crowd. The show drew people from all different scenes in Seattle- the electronic music kids, hipsters, hip-hopsters, dance freaks, nerds, curious skateboarders, innocent bystanders, and Blake Lewis, who is everywhere. They all came to enroll in Hip-Hop High; you might want to take notes because there will be a test. And get out your history textbooks because what went down last night was Old School, straight up and down like six o’clock.

Lesson 1: Give the ladies Biggie. During the opening DJ’s set, a gorgeous woman who could have been mistaken for Ms. Badu herself came up and asked me if there was any way to get the DJ to spin some Biggie; she was hungry for some East Coast flavor in her Thursday night soup. “Aks him,” I replied, and helped her out doing the deed myself (I have no fear of DJs; they only rarely bite). “Can you play some Biggie? This beautiful woman wants to hear him.” The DJ seemed to acquiesce to my request only to fail to drop said Biggie beats. DENIED! The hot chick was quite disappointed until the real show started and ?uestlove proceeded to show quite a bit of love to the East Coast and Mr. Smalls himself. And we didn’t even have to aks.

Lesson 2: Session Lager comes in really big bottles. Forty ounces for eight dollars. Drink it fast or you will find yourself in warm beer city.

Lesson 3. Black Thought is the quintessential MC; he brings meaning back to the two letters. This man had the crowd going nuts, reaching out over the front of the dance floor and dusting the fingertips of his fans with magical MC power.

Lesson 4: ?uestlove CAN SPIN, even when he is really, really, stoned.

Lesson 5: You cannot bring bottles of wine into Neumos.

Lesson 6: Everybody still really loves that Biz Markie song; just sing it to yourself to get the full effect: “OH BABY YOU, YOU GOT WHAT I NE-ED…” (and now it will be stuck in your head all day).

Lesson 7: The front of the dance floor is where it is at. This holds true at every show but in particular at this one; the sing-along effect was in full force, championed by the ladies with big smiles on their faces and arms waving in the air. Only happy people put their arms above their head; this is a well-documented cross-cultural human trait. Also only happy people sing along to Old School anthems by Eazy-E, the Beastie Boys, and even a classic anthem from E.U. (Google it; this is a family website). You can take the kids out of the 80’s but you can’t take the 80’s out of the kids.

Lesson 8: The source of all of ?uestlove’s power is THE PICK.

Lesson 9: Neumos’ capacity has recently been drastically lowered, thank you Mayor I-Hate-Rock-and-Roll Nichols. Although it was nice to be able to leave the front of the dance floor and find a little space in the back of the room to cool off (impossible at many previous shows), I worry about the implication of this recent development and what it means for the future of not only Neumos but other venues and dance floors (my home) around Seattle.

Lesson 10: CultureMob.com freakin’ rocks, and not just because we got to hang out with ?uestlove and Black Thought. CultureMob is now open in the San Diego, Phoenix, and Boston markets in addition to our existing sites in Portland, Denver, and Seattle. CultureMob.com is the next generation of online social networking. We take it one much better step further than Myspace or Facebook by giving you information that gets your network OUT, a place that is far spicier, louder, more colorful, more fun, and most importantly more real than the internet; it is a place where you can touch and smell and hear and actually engage the people you have been stalking online. Welcome back to reality.

CultureMob.com thanks ?uestlove and Black Thought for the killer mixes and raps, and we thank you, the people out there enjoying life last night.

Did I say there was going to be a test? Here it is: Get out there this weekend, Seattle. Get out there, and get down.

(AND YES, I DID MEAN TO SPELL ‘ASK’ LIKE ‘AKS’ . For more information please refer to the album “Doggystyle” by Snoop Doggy Dogg. Thank you.

Most guys out there probably think that Sex in the City is all about sex.

Most guys are wrong. (I know, it’s a shocking revelation).

Sex and the City is about relationships.

The HBO series definitely had heaps of humping, scorching hot love affairs and brunch conversations about randy nights spent with multitude of men, no doubt about it. Like the Mary Tyler Moore show before it, Sex in the City stared in the face the prevailing stereotypes and conceptions about single women and what they want, although the Paris-studded finale did end up with all four of the ladies happily attached to their man of the moment. Sure, Sex in the City is about sex. But the most important theme of the movie is also the most important part of a female’s life, and that is the story of relationships, the undulating aspects of our connections with other human beings, be they children or mothers or friends or sweaty lovers.

I went to the Sunday matinee at the Guild 45th Landmark Theatre along with a crowd that was over 95% females from about their 20’s to 50’s; a few were accompanied by men hoping to earn points with the female and catch a glimpse of T & A (it’s a win-win, boys). A few cheers went down as the curtain went up, and as soon as the story began we were wrapped in attention, right back in New York City with Carrie, Samantha, Miranda, and Charlotte. Judging from the estrogen-fueled crowd’s sighs, belly laughs, chuckles, gasps, and tears, I know that women will love this movie. We may not all buy $525 shoes and have assistants and strut like peacocks down 5th avenue, but we have lived the same relationship themes as these women. We have loved wildly and unreasonably. We have been hurt tortuously. We have found good friends and have lost them. You might think that women are loud as hell in big groups (true) and can never be quiet, but you could hear a pin drop in the theatre when one of the character’s men admitted an affair with another woman.

“It didn’t mean anything,” he pleaded. “I never meant to hurt you.” Dead silence. These women in the theatre had heard it before, perhaps even the exact same words. You could taste the deep silence, broken only in several moments by sniffles. Women were crying; not because of the made-up characters but for the true stories those characters were living.

Although parts of Sex in the City are tear-provoking, it is also a very funny movie, and there was peals of high-pitched laughter to offset those sniffles. One particular scene proves that women think toilet humor is absolutely hilarious, just as we all know men do. And yes, there’s lots of sex and raunchy talk and gratuitous scenes of male anatomy.

But the main point of the movie, the reason the TV series was so popular, and the dominant theme of our female lives is that of relationships: building them, nurturing them, living them, and being rendered to absolute, flat-line silence when those relationships are destroyed. For 99% of human existence, broken human relationships could mean death for a female and her offspring. That is why we go to the bathroom in groups, chat loudly with our friends in the ticket line, obsess about minor details of our relationships and look over often to make sure we are being accepted and loved by our peers. We have Stone Age female brains, even if our feet are wearing Manolos and our head is wearing a bird. And those female brains are as different from male brains as are our bodies and our taste in movies.

Sex in the City is a total chick flick. Do you have two X chromosomes? You will love it, just as sure as you wish you could be as ballsy as Samantha, as quick-witted as Miranda, as persistently optimistic as Charlotte and as good of a friend as Carrie. Bring some girlfriends and do what you do best: nurture your relationships.

Stuck with a Y chromosome along with a male brain? You just might enjoy the movie anyway- after all, it’s all about sex.

Find theaters and show times for Sex and the City here.

What if Sex and the City was set in Seattle? It might be a little like this.

Get some buttered popcorn and a large blue Slurpee and make sure you have arrived at the theatre early for good seats and in time see the coming attractions, because Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is the ultimate movie experience. The movie is best seen at a ridiculous theatre like the AMC Loews Alderwood Mall 16 which has all the pomp of a Roman arena along with the glitz and glamour that represented La-La Land before Hollywood surrendered to the leagues of talentless poster-children for nepotism with no panties on.

First of all I will tell you I am a huge Indiana Jones fan. HUGE. I know every single line of the first three movies, a standard characteristic brought about by a childhood with an older brother. If I wanted a playmate I had my choice: Legos or Super Mario Brothers. Even as a young girl I was aware that knowing is half the battle, that the Millennium Falcon made the Kessel run in less than twelve parsecs, and that anything is possible by the power of Grayskull. But my favorite boy-toy was Indiana Jones; I wanted to be an archaeologist until I realized that they spent far more time painstakingly digging through dirt than romping the world in hot pursuit of fortune and glory.

That said, I LOVED Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. You know who is in it, you know who directed it, you know it will start off with the fade from the Paramount Logo to a real “mountain” of some sort. And you will love this movie too. Of course there are always the whiners who complain that it is no fun to watch an old guy romp around in a fedora and that the movie is cheesy and unrealistic; however I don’t subscribe to the Church of Worshipped Youth and I also realize that OF COURSE it’s unrealistic- it’s a movie! We don’t want to watch the admirable Dr. Jones sorting his laundry, we want to watch him crawling around in haunted tombs, searching for hidden treasure while avoiding snakes, curses, booby traps and Commies- all of which he does in the latest epic adventure. Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is non-stop action.

Do you want quicksand and motorcycle chases and jungle ruins and ancient secrets? Do you like fast-paced stories which combine coming-of-age themes with world travel and a romantic edge? How about waterfalls, dark paths through thick trees, dangerous car chases, secret codes, kidnapped professors, crazy monkeys, bad guys who are so evil they look it, carnivorous ants and a hero who can take punch after punch and ends up getting the girl in a happy ending? Of course you do. These archetypal stories have been told as long as humans could tell them. 

Just like our ancestors we live in a world where there are no pure heroes or totally bad guys, where you don’t always get what you want and there is seldom a happy, sunset-drenched ending. Modern Americans wouldn’t know an adventure if it hit them in the face like a giant rolling boulder, and if they did they would certainly run back to their couches and frozen pizza. Hollywood knows us. You can try to insist that you like deep dramas with twisted characters and sordid finales, and I might believe you there, but everybody likes stories about booby-trapped tombs and quicksand.

And carnivorous ants go so well with popcorn.

For theaters near you and showtimes for Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, click here.

CultureMob.com likes to cover unusual events like pillow fights and power tool races, so how about a fashion show that promises to plunge into the world of Seattle fashion, oxymoron which that might be?

The Fashion Group International and Seattle Pacific University’s Fashion Group have joined together for Gas Masks, Stilettos, and Designer Jeans: A Story of Fashion and Our Lives. This fundraising event, taking place Saturday May 31 at 6PM, will take a look at the role that fashion plays in each of our lives along with music, food, shopping, and raffle prizes. Culturally determined and identity confirming, the clothes we wear are much more than the sum of their threads. 

Gas Masks, Stilettos, and Designer Jeans will illuminate the role that fashion plays in our lives through four themes: fashion as military power and oppression, fashion as environment, fashion as religion, and fashion as social justice. Put on by a zealous group of student fashionistas, this event will surely raise more questions than it answers- but questions are more fun anyway, right?

I have never owned a pair of designer jeans and the only gas mask experience I’ve had was certainly not of the chemical warfare variety, but I am guilty (as my feet attest) of subjecting myself to the torture device that are stilettos. I am not sure how exactly fashion can be social justice- but this is exactly why I should hit up this event, held at Seattle Pacific University.

Find out all the information about Gas Masks, Stilettos, and Designer Jeans here.

Carrie, Miranda, Charlotte, and Samantha strut onto big screens this Friday not just in New York City but in metropoli all over the country. All of you Sex and the City fans know that the fifth character in the HBO series was not Aidan or Stanford or Steve or even Mr. Big- no, that most important player was the Big Apple itself. There is no sex without The City.

Or is there? What if you took away the character of Manhattan and replaced it with, say, Seattle? Would the show have been so different? Pour yourself a cosmopolitan (or better yet, have your man-toy do it) and relax into the world of Sex and the City: Seattle Style:

• Miranda is a lawyer for Boeing who lives in Belltown and regularly bitches to the city about the crackheads and prostitutes on her street. Luckily for Miss Smarty-Pants there are plenty of well-read men with frayed library cards in this town to keep up with her in conversation- though no one on earth can match her knifelike wit, propelled by the fine forces of cynicism and sarcasm. Miranda’s favorite club? The see-and-be-seen venue of conspicuous consumption Club Venom, of course.
• Charlotte arranges exhibits at the Seattle Art Museum and does charity work for singles’ group Space City Mixer, a group who she considers in need of charity indeed. This unapologetic yuppie lives on uppity Mercer Island and spends her evenings online ordering designer clothes and hanging out with metrosexuals at The Last Supper Club in Pioneer Square.
• Samantha handles PR for Microsoft, giving her plenty of opportunities to play with rich men. Though she works in Redmond, she would never live in a place as sterile and un-hip as the Eastside and instead has purchased a new and fancy condo in the grittiest, most interesting neighborhood in Seattle: Capitol Hill. Samantha fits in well with the flavor and color of the quarter and gives as good as she gets with the street kids, buskers, and bums. She relaxes with her favorite bunch of people at The Cuff Complex.
• Carrie writes a sex column for the Seattle Weekly which is giving Savage Love a run for its money for the naughtiest, dirtiest, and best love and sex column in the country; ‘Date Girl” now writes for a more appropriate publication, Teen Magazine. Carrie lives in Fremont and shops at all the annoying chi-chi boutiques, somehow buying $200 teeshirts and $500 purses on a writer’s salary. She hangs out where all the hot guys in Fremont are: the Nectar Lounge, of course.

The four women meet for Sunday brunch at Julia’s in Wallingford, wearing not Manolo Blahniks but Tevas with rolled-up jeans (acceptable fashion in the rainy city- admit it, you’ve done it); drinking double espressos and diving into plates of Eggs Benedict (they don’t have to starve themselves quite so much outside of NYC).

For a long weekend the girls vacation not in the Hamptons but in Hawaii, which is the closest and most accessible beach to Seattle (and by most accessible I mean you can actually swim in the water, not that our four heroines would dream of doing so). There is no strolling with beaus in Central Park for Carrie, only walking around Green Lake- and she’d better walk, not meander, or the rollerbladers/runners/multi-tasking women jogging with a double stroller and two large dogs while talking on the phone will run her ass over.

So who do these alpha-women date? It’s a little harder in the Emerald City where most men hale from the Land of Passive-Aggressiva; there are no eager stockbrokers here, no modelizers, no models, and no tycoons of any sort, save the software brains and Boeing boys. Our girls are left with:

Mr. Bike-to-Work Guy: With skin-tight duds and shaved legs, he often gets asked the question, “Do you really need an all-spandex outfit to ride from Wallingford to Queen Anne?” The answer is always NO, people, and Miranda lets him know it, before rolling her eyes and moving on.
The Outdoorsman: Bad news for Carrie and her hatred of squirrels which are “just rats in cuter outfits,” because all over Seattle you find this R.E.I. gear-wearing, head-to-Tiger-Mountain-after-work, long weekend on the Peninsula, boat-loving guy who rarely brushes his hair, and despite herself, Carrie can’t get enough. Hope she has waterproof gear for the spring nights spent in the Cascades.
The Rocker: Found all over the streets of Seattle, the musician is passionate, a little dirty, preoccupied with his band but prone to grand romantic gestures. Charlotte is a goner for this type, until she realizes he has gestured romantically for half the females in the city.
Mr. No-Balls: He epitomizes the saying, “He’s just not that into you,” because he’s just not into anything- living is a bit risky, after all. He is eaten alive by Samantha before he opens his mouth. One lost, 200,000 to go. Good thing she is hungry.
The DJ: A species almost as numerous as The Rocker in Seattle, the spin-master lives the conundrum which Carrie must use all of her journalistic training and wicked flirting skills to figure out: all the DJs are man-whores, yet all the DJs have girlfriends. Carrie susses the mystery out, and the answer is not pretty.
The Hipster: Recognizable by his tight black jeans, chunky silver jewelry, perfectly beaten-up skate shoes and hair mussed just so over the right eye, the hipster is too cool to care about anything really, except himself. Is it possible that the hipster is just an emo who is too old to be an emo anymore? Discuss amongst yourselves, at brunch.

So there you have it; Sex in the City Seattle Style is a little bit the same, and a whole lot different. To really understand the women we must walk a block in their Choos; don’t miss the movie Sex and the City, opening all over the area on Friday, and on Thursday at midnight at select venues like the Regal Meridian 16 in downtown Seattle, Lincoln Square Cinema in Bellevue, and AMC Loews Alderwood Mall 16 up north.

Will the movie be any good? Abso-F*cking-Lutely.

Read my review of Sex and the City the Movie here.

My favorite bar in Seattle is closing down, and I am heartbroken. I think I need a drink.

For months now I have heard rumor after rumor of the Seamonster Lounge’s inevitable demise; I knew it was only a matter of time as the location has been for sale since last year. I followed each declaration of the bar’s closure that I heard with a slow roll down 45th in Wallingford to ascertain that the bar was indeed still open. Alas, it is now confirmed: the best bar in Seattle is closing. When the Seamonster ends its run at the end of May to be converted into a restaurant, the neighborhood will have lost something special. Where will we go now? The belongs-in-Belltown overt fake chi-chiness that is Babalu? Goldies, frat-boy heaven of a sports bar complete with trivia night and video gambling? Murphy’s Irish Pub, a lame hangout which I’ve been in three times but for some reason can only remember the screaming? The Pelican, wicker palace of fried food whose decor was inspired by your crazy grandmother’s back porch?

No, nothing can replace the Seamonster. We loved it. 

I will miss the Seamonster terribly, and not for the elongated, fair-skinned mermaid swimming along the wall or her bright red hair swirling around next to her. Not because of the cushy make-out swing in the back of the bar or the strands of blue and green Christmas lights that provided all the atmosphere the small spot needed or wanted. I am not crying in my beer because of the tiny dance floor where I smacked more than one bass guitarist with my flailing arms, or because of tassle-tinged Tuesday burlesque nights where the best part was not the T & A but the look of pleasant surprise on the faces of strangers who had just walked in to see a girl wearing a gold fan and high heels. It isn’t because of the smell of Dick’s hamburgers wafting up the street as you bummed a smoke outside, the benches on either side of the front door, or the proximity of the Seamonster to my home, a.k.a: stumbling distance. It isn’t because of the little fake fireplace with orange and red tinsel inside the door which somehow always felt warm, or the strong drinks I rarely paid for, or Purple Friday and the strains of Strawberry Beret filling the whole dark space. I am not distressed because my girl gang, The Crimson Rose, no longer has a home base for our shady activities which include dressing up in pink vinyl pants and dancing like maniacs; I am not distraught because I will miss the intimate live music performance space where I got to jam to the Boogielistics, the Drunken Masters, the Nepotistas, Haiku-Chi, and so many more skillful local musicians.

No, the reason that the Seamonster was so special and that many will will mourn it’s passage is simple and singular: Andrew.

Andrew is the owner, the manager, the bartender, the late-night talker, a funny guy and party boy, hat-wearer and giver of many-a free tequila shot, damn good-looking and the talented funkadelic singer who is leaving behind the glamorous life of the Seamonster Lounge to pursue his musical future with his band, Haiku-Chi. Andrew is the spirit of the Seamonster, the creator and purveyor of the good vibes that brought wanderers in off the street and had them coming back again and again.

Energy cannot be destroyed, however, and the party will follow Andrew and Haiku-Chi as they continue funking up the Seattle soul scene and spreading the love. Visit CultureMob.com for information on Haiku-Chi’s upcoming performances, and stop by the Seamonster before the end of May to pay your respects to Andrew and the best bar in Seattle and have a drink. And as Andrew would say, “Cheers, bitches.”

Cheers, indeed, and R.I.P. Seamonster. This is what it sounds like when doves cry.

Free tickets! Free tickets! Free tickets!

DJ ?UESTLOVE! DJ ?UESTLOVE! DJ ?UESTLOVE!

CultureMob.com is giving away 70 tickets to the party: CultureMob.com presents THE ROOTS New Album “Rising Down” Listening Party hosted by BLACK THOUGHT and featuring DJ ?UESTLOVE with special guests. It all goes down at Neumos on Capitol Hill Thursday June 5.

CLICK HERE to go to contest entry page.

?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.

Winners will be selected at random and notified by email on May 30; non-winners can buy tickets at the door or in advance through Ticketswest for $15 (available soon). Doors 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!

Don’t miss the party! ENTER TO WIN today.

I wish I could write a review of Atmosphere’s performance at the Showbox SoDo last night, but I can’t. I never saw the show, because I was thrown out due to a case of mistaken identity. For real.

Let me ’splain:

I had been trying to get a ticket to the sold-out show for about a week and a half, with no luck. Then the night before a friend texted me that he had an extra ticket to Atmosphere, and did I want to go? My reply was two words, and the second one was ‘YES’. I had never seen Atmosphere before and was excited as I had heard great things about their live shows, and I love the Showbox SoDo’s warehousey feel.

The crowd out on the warm Tuesday evening for the much-hailed hip-hop duo from Minnesota was dense and all-ages, with a bit more mad-dogging and less open smiles than I am used to in my usual electronic music crowd. If you like rap though, last night the Showbox SoDo was the place to be, and I was stoked to be swirling around in the mix.

Arriving late, of course, I had missed the first act and Abstract Rude was up on stage laying down rhymes and steadily working up the crowd in front of a big banner proclaiming, “When life gives you lemons, you paint Seattle gold.” 

I watched all this with my friends and our beers, caged off like the animals we are in the drinker’s section. When Abstract Rude finished up we all headed outside to check out one of my friend’s new pimp van, actually, the pimpest van EVER in the history of the universe and sweetest ride you ever saw, with running lights, a drink table and DOUBLE privacy shades. Straight pimp, straight up and down, like six o’clock.

After the fresh air/smoke break we headed back inside; Atmosphere was about to go on! Stamps on the wrists we walked up to the entrance, but the bouncer took one look at me, flashlight to the face, and would not let me pass. Whaaaaa? I held back, my friends went on in, then I tried again and he still wouldn’t let me in. I thought he was just being a jerk so I went around to the other entrance, which unfortunately was already closed for the night. The ladies there directed me back to the bouncer, who still wouldn’t let me inside. He said I had started a fight earlier inside the club, kicked some girl’s face in, knocked over a bunch of tables, then ran out screaming F you! F you! F you! to the bouncers.

Uh, yeah. This was not me. I am a peace lover, which is exactly what I said to the bouncers. “I’m a peace lover! I’ve been outside hanging out with my friends!” They were not having it. 

“Well, it was some girl who looked just like you,” the bouncer admitted, though still not waivering in his duty to keep the crowd safe from short, blond, table-trashing maniacs. So apparently last night a 5′4″ girl in a blue tank top, black skirt, fluorescent yellow fishnets, black and white striped legwarmers and a giant fuzzy fake fur coat beat someone up at the Showbox SoDo, knocked over several tables and did not take names. And because of that, Shilo missed the show.

It would have been funny if it didn’t suck. My friends all assumed I had gotten back in to the packed club and was dancing up at the front- after all, why wouldn’t the Showbox Sodo have let me back in? I cabbed it home and was in bed by midnight. Now I am all about new experiences, and this was a certainly a new one for me, but when said experiences interfere with new music, I get a little ticked off.

So how was Atmosphere? One of oppressive security at the Showbox SoDo, of bouncers who must not score very high on the job-satisfaction list, of people who need to CHILL OUT. The energy at hip-hop performances is palpably different from that at other shows, fomented in large part by the security forces who prove the cliche true that if you are looking for trouble, you will find it. 

But last night they made a mistake. The Showbox SoDo kicked out a peaceful dancer, someone who calms down violent drunk guys outside of clubs, marches in anti-war protests, has a peace sign tatttooed on her forehead and happens to write for a Seattle entertainment website. Oops. I’m guessing the party in the van was the best of the night, anyway.

So if you are wondering how the performance really was, here’s a message I got this morning to whet your appetite: Honestly the show was kinda mediocre, definitely very rehearsedly-adlib-like. Tried to play it off that ‘just because you’re Seattle and you’re holding it down’ but it was pretty scripted… didn’t sound mixed very well either. Kinda mixed like they’re trying to impress you with loud more than feel or good sound. Anyway, um shit stop throwing tables and getting kicked out of places alright?”

So there’s your review; now I gotta go clean this blood off my knuckles. Just kidding- I think the Showbox SoDo owes me a show ticket AND cab fare. Anyone else out there actually see Atmosphere perform and want to add their two cents in?

If you are heading to the Nas show at the Showbox SoDo this Friday night, tread lightly- and watch out for those crazy table-throwing blond girls- they’re everywhere.

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!