• At last Friday’s edition of the free Concerts at the Mural series—where Mudhoney, the Grizzled Mighty, and Dude York thoroughly entertained a packed all-ages lawn—a man with a tiny dog poking out of his backpack was denied entrance into the beer garden due to the “no dogs” rule. He protested that the animal was a service pet, citing the “service” to be the cuteness of his little friend. His entrance was still denied due to a lack of official cuteness paperwork.
• On Sunday, August 11, hiphop officially turned 40 years of age—the anniversary of the very first party Clive “Kool Herc” Campbell threw in the South Bronx. Can every genre pinpoint the exact moment it was born?
• Seattle’s premier Blink-182 cover band, Silly Goose (Jenn Ghetto of Carissa’s Wierd and S, members of Grand Archives), have announced the upcoming release of a debut self-titled 7-inch on End of Time Records, out on August 27. I know what you’re wondering, and yes, “All the Small Things” will be on it!
• Seattle has a new underground-rock supergroup: WOTT. The band—Dean Whitmore (Unnatural Helpers), Tom Ojendyk (co-owner of Dirty Knobby Records), Jeffery Taylor (Climax Golden Twins, Wall of Sound), Nick Turner (Walls, Society Nurse)—is gearing up for its first gig, opening for French drone-psych magus High Wolf at Electric Tea Garden on September 9.
• Is that Selena Gomez song “Come & Get It” the best junk-food pop song this side of Tay Swiff?
• One year after appearing on the cover of The Stranger, Macklemore appears on this week’s cover of Rolling Stone. Two years after appearing on the cover of The Stranger, Lisa Dank was a headliner at last weekend’s Hempfest and has remained dog-theft-free. Congratulations to both.
• Whole Foods Market has started to carry vinyl records and LSTN headphones at select stores in California—but none so far in Seattle. Good luck with that, Whole Foods; at least try to go deeper with your stock than Starbucks does.
• Grammy winner Coolio is selling the royalty rights to his entire music catalog in order to expand his cooking career (a series of follow-up cookbooks to his 2009 best seller Cookin’ with Coolio and a web series of the same name). For those impossible-to-shop-for friends, “Gangsta’s Paradise” would make a really great gift. 