Pitchfork:
On January 30, Starbucks Entertainment will release Sweetheart: Our Favorite Artists Sing Their Favorite Love Songs. Starbucks already pulled this trick in 2005, and apparently the world demanded a sequel. The tracklist includes Seattle musicians Death Cab for Cutie, Ben Bridwell, and Kate Tucker covering songs by The Cure, George Harrison, and Bruce Springsteen.
Puget Sound Business Journal:
Big Fish Games said it’s signed a deal to create interactive games based on romance novels from Harlequin Enterprises Ltd., with the first game coming out this summer.
Seattle-based Big Fish Games said as part of the deal, Toronto, Canada-based Harlequin will begin publishing a series of books based on the game company’s “Mystery Case Files” franchise, written by Harlequin’s authors.
The Stranger:
On Thursday at 5th Avenue and Marion Street, audiences enjoyed the christening event for Daniels Recital Hall. The event featured Mark Andersen, performing “classic and sacred music.” In addition, Kelle Brown sung a repertoire written by Andersen, Lynn Andersen played an arrangement by Mark Andersen on handbells, and Genevieve Picard performed Andersen’s work on a harp. The undertones, however, are about the 98-year-old building’s future. Formerly the First United Methodist Church, it was preserved as part of a deal that allows developer Kevin Daniels to build a 41-story tower on Fifth Avenue and Columbia Street. He’s trying to figure out how to use the space and wants to recognize it’s roots as a church. “It’s the acoustics of that place and the organ that drives it to be a performance-type hall,” he says. “I want to try something that can sustain into the future. I want to see if there’s a niche here.”
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LLRoq3WN0ec]
Watch as the cast and crew of Humpday head to their premiere!
Rolling Stone:
The country’s best inauguration party Tuesday night turned out to be in the other Washington: At Seattle’s tiny Tractor Tavern club, the Knitters (the rootsy side band led by X’s John Doe and Exene Cervenka) played a Americana-soaked barnstormer of a show — complete with a guest appearance by Eddie Vedder. Doe invited Vedder onstage to duet with Cervenka on a gleefully frenzied version of X’s 1983 tune “The New World,” with its sardonic lyrics about another election: “It was better before they voted for what’s his name.”
The Stranger:
It’s 2009, and many people still can’t deal with the sort of wide-screen, instrumental music that has come to be known as post-rock. The three unassuming guys in Seattle group the Luna Moth would like to gently coax you to check out some adventurous, sans-singer rock over the three-day, 15-band Cumulus Festival, which is happening January 23 to 25 at Chop Suey, King Cobra, and Vera Project (all ages), respectively. If you’ve enjoyed a Mogwai or Sigur Rós concert or collected Explosions in the Sky and Godspeed You! Black Emperor vinyl, consider yourself a convert to the (mostly) zip-lipped cause. Unlike the founders of Kranky Records, a font of post-rock for about as long as the term has existed (about 15 years), Cumulus’s organizers don’t shy from the term.
New York Times:
For Sandy Cioffi, 46, a tenured professor of film and video at Seattle Central Community College, film has been more about politics than about making a living (although she’d like that to change). Her experience in Nigeria became a personal journey reflected on film. Originally intending to make a movie about the building of a library in the Niger Delta, she became involved in the political struggle there, making efforts to get the message of the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta into the global conversation. In the process, she was arrested by the Nigerian military. “I’ve always been a believer in the idea that if you simply put a light on in a corner it changes the situation,” said Ms. Cioffi, who in 1998 was part of team recording the aftermath of the Good Friday peace accord and became firmly convinced that the presence of cameras affected the course of Northern Irish history.
Sound on the Sound:
SXSW released the complete official list of bands headed to this year’s music conference. Held annually in the streets and bars of Austin, Texas, SXSW brings the entire industry together into one place for five plus packed days of drinking, socializing and networking. A few of Seattle’s local brothers and sisters will be in attendance, among them J. Tillman, Grand Archives, and the newly signed Telekinesis! A close look also finds that Seattle rock legends the Sonics will also be taking the stage once again for this year’s conference.
The Stranger:
Kevin Erickson recently moved to Seattle from Anacortes, where he was the resident do-it-all for the Department of Safety, to take a job as coordinator and interim co-director of the All-Ages Movement Project, an organization founded by all-ages super-advocate Shannon Stewart of the Vera Project. In his new role, Erickson will help AMP continue to execute its vision of providing an all-inclusive organization for open communication and interaction between successful and fledgling all-ages spaces across the country. AMP’s first phase has resulted in The All-Ages Movement Project, a forthcoming publication compiling years of research on successful all-ages spaces across the nation. Next up for the organization will be to distribute that information, to set up an online support forum for all-ages advocates and spaces, and to let organizations know that these resources are available, according to Erickson.
The Seattle Times:
Seattle filmmaker Lynn Shelton’s third feature, “Humpday,” was one of the first movies to ink a distribution deal at the Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah, over the weekend. Magnolia Pictures bought worldwide rights to the film, for a dollar amount described by Variety as “mid-six figures,” and plans to release it theatrically in August following a video-on-demand campaign. At the festival, Shelton said, “This is beyond my wildest dreams.”
