The weekend in review

Friday night it was a trip off to the T-Birds hockey game against the Rockets of Kelona, British Columbia, Canada with my brother.  The T-Birds got an easy win.    I drove home with it starting to snow!!
Saturday morning I awoke to a couple of inches of snow which really is our first of the Winter.  As I drove South into downtown Seattle they seem to have a lot less than what we had.  I was really bummed that my the afternoon it had basically melted away.  Saturday night it was more of the same, but by myself this time as the T-Birds increased their lead in the Western Conference with a 4-2 win over the Tri-Cities.  I was happy to see one Seattle team win as the Seahawks struggled and lost in the first round of the NFL playoffs.
After the game I headed over to the Green Room which is a really small bar connected to the Showbox, one of many music concert venues in town.  If you have never been to the Green Room it’s main room in the downstairs section is about as big as a double-wide trailer.  I would guess that they could get about 100 people in their.  $5 at the door and I was listening to three bands for the evening but my intent was to see the headliner, the Lashes.  The first artist was Sameer Shukla who just played an acoustic guitar and sang.  He was all right I guess but really was not my cup of tea.  I was kind of annoyed that I was sitting next to this table of three navy guys who were off of their ship for the day.  They talked about how cool it was to visit Pike Place Market and they went to the original Starbucks.  They also would not stop talking during Shukla’s set and started to loudly make comments that was close to heckling him. They got worst through the night as they drank more and one of them even got into a fight.  They bailed before midnight however which was nice because no one there really seemed to enjoy what they were doing. Next up was Dark Sargeant who is your standard electric guitar, bass, and drummer, although the guitar player also banged (no really played but banged) on a keyboard.  They were very loud but they were courteous enough to bring earplugs to anyone who wanted them.  I like loud so I passed on the earplugs.  I like this band, having never seen them before.  They had some long jams that really rocked.  The also had very clever names for their songs.  Their downside is that they had very few songs that had lyrics associated with them.  When the singer did sign his inclination and tone actually reminded me of Kurt Cobain from the early days (and yes I hate to put labels or buckets on people or bands but that is what he sounded like).  I kind of debated in my head which was harder, composing the music or writing lyrics?  I still do not have an answer but it is an interesting debate to have.  Last up and the headliners of the evening was The Lashes.  Within the last month or so they signed a big record deal with Columbia Records and they are kind of considered the next big thing that will be coming out of the Seattle music scene (ignoring Brandi Carlile for the moment).  I saw them for about three songs at Endfest early in the summer and I wanted to check them out before they are opening for the Strokes or some band like that.  They have a fun, poppy kind of sound to them and it is always great to see a band that enjoys what they are doing.  The also have a great look.  When I say poppy I do not mean the crap like Ashley Simpson but more like a Blink-182 but they sound nothing really like that band, just the spirit of that type of band.  Outside of KNDD and KEXP I was told that they are getting a fair amount of airplay in Atlanta and also in Los Angles.  They new record is done and I guess they are just waiting for the major label to tweak it and plan the promotion before the release.  They were a great band to see and I might have to check them out again this next week as the play a benefit show for tsunami victims at the Moore.  The bummer of the evening was that I walked back to my car only to find that the garage I had parked in had closed for the evening.  It was only 12:15 am but I now know that it closes at midnight.  Fortunately in the cold I only had to wait about fifteen minutes for after-hours guard to come and let me in.  They were supposed to charge me $25 on top of paying for my time in the garage but the guard did not take cash and they had not left a payment envelope on my windshield so for as of now it was free.  We will see if they send me a bill in the mail or something based off of my car license plate.
Sunday I awoke to even more snow in the yard than Saturday.  I was late as I was taken Ernest off to a day of fun.  I paid of a promise to take him the Space Needle for a meal.  We had 12:30 brunch reservations and I was really worried that the snow would make us late.  As I headed into Seattle I notice that yet again we got more snow than they did downtown and in fact within two blocks of the house on main streets the roads were just wet and had no snow at all.  Brunch at the Space Needle was nice.  I think it has been about 10 years since I was last up there.  If you have never been you dine at the 500 foot level in a revolving restaurant.  You get to see the whole 360 degree view in I think about 40 minutes as you enjoy your meal.  The food was great and the service was solid.  After brunch we had a few hours to kill before we were off to see the Sonic play the Miami Heat so we went into the Science Fiction Museum and Hall of Fame.  While this is connected to the Experience Music Project they are very different places.  I would give yourself about two hours to get through SFM.  Most of what is there comes out of Paul Allen’s personal collection.  There is some very cool stuff.  As kind of a Star Wars freak I wanted to see more of that but it does a great job showing Science fiction over the years.  They even go into fairly modern day shows like Farscape.  I was kind of surprised I did not see anything from Stargate or the related TV shows.  Maybe I just missed it but they had a bit on the Sci-Fi cable channel so I thought they would have had something.  After the museum we walked over to the Soncis vs. Heat game.  Shaq played a great game and had 28 points against the Sonics.  It was not enough as the Sonics got the win!  We just played and beat the Heat in Miami last week so it was great to get two wins over Shaq in the only two times the Sonics will play them in the regular season.  Two cool things from the game.  The first was that John Popper of the band Blues Traveler played the national anthem on this harmonica.  The second was that in a break in the second half the Sonics mascot Squach came out and played on a drum set.  I have seen him do this before in breaks but tonight he came over and tossed a drumstick into the crowd and I caught it!!!  It was also great to see one of the guys from my favorite bands in the crowd; Jeff Ament of Pearl Jam.

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