Hip-hop artists looking for extras for music video

Want to be a face in the hip-hop crowd?

Aspiring hip-hop artists Coo Breeze (Omari Christopher Baines) and M-Pyre (Mitch Pfeifer) are shooting a music video this weekend in Ellensburg and are looking for extras.

Baines, who went to Eisenhower High School, and Pfeifer, who went to Ellensburg High School, are hoping old friends will want to help them out making the video. They’ll be shooting Saturday night after the CWU basketball game in Nicholson Pavillion around 10 p.m.

Hit them up on their MySpace sites for more info.

UPDATED: Taylor Swift NOT coming to Yakima

Well, the new 3-D Jonas Brothers movie is now the only way we’ll get to see Taylor Swift around here.

I just found out this morning that the popular country singer won’t be coming to Yakima as previously announced on her Web site. The May 17 date that did list Yakima now has Nampa, Idaho, as where she’ll be playing that day.

Dang.

While never officially confirmed to be playing the Yakima Valley SunDome, that’s most likely where she was going to be.

“We were working on it but we weren’t done yet,” Greg Lybeck, assistant general manager for State Fair Park and the SunDome, said this morning.

“You can’t loose something you never had,” he added. “But I was working very hard on getting her here.”

However, Swift’s Web site still lists several other Northwest dates for her Fearless tour with Kellie Pickler and Gloriana: the Spokane Arena (May 14), Seattle’s Key Arena (May 15) and the Portland Rose Garden (May 16).

And, country music fans can still pick up tickets for this Sunday’s Paisley Party concert at the SunDome featuring Brad Paisley, Dierks Bentley and Crystal Shawanda.

Tickets cost $39.75 and $49.75 and are available through TicketsWest, 800-325-7328, www.ticketswest.com, or the State Fair ticket office, 248-7160.

Murder City Devils added to Sasquatch!

The Murder City Devils have been added to the Sasquatch! Music Festival; they play Sunday, May 24, on the main stage.

Remember, tickets to Sasquatch! — May 23-25 at the Gorge Amphitheatre — go on sale at 10 a.m. this Saturday through Ticketmaster.

Rogue Ales offers a bailout for the beer drinkers

The next time you’re bellied up to the bar at one of the Rogue alehouses (the closest are in Issaquah and Portland), you just might get your Dead Guy debt paid for.

According to the “Rogue Wire Service:”

Rogue Nation has put together a bailout plan to aid Rogue Nation citizens during these difficult financial times, appropriately named the Rogue Nation Bailout Program (RNBOP). Twice-a-day, at each of our embassies, the Rogue Nation Bailout Program pays 100% of a customer(s) tab. Each unsuspecting person or group is randomly chosen, inducted into the Rogue Nation (if not already a citizen) and relieved of their debt to Rogue. Since the program was put into effect, Rogue has bailed out over 350 tabs.

Now that’s stimulus plan worth drinking to.

It’s time to get your snow sculpture on at the White Pass Winter Carnival

Every year, the folks behind the main attractions at the White Pas Winter Carnival — the castle (the 2006 one is pictured), snow sculptures, fireworks display — always have to do something a little bigger and better, says White Pass marketing director Kathleen Goyette.

After raising the bar last year by building a tunnel through the famed ice palace, the castle construction crew got so inspired they decided to build a scale model of this year’s design — which will have the tunnel again plus some new surprises — and sent photographs of it to the snow sculpture teams so they could tie in their designs. (You can watch the castle being built right now by clicking HERE; the shot updates every five minutes.)

Read more

Dave Matthews Band to play the Gorge Labor Day weekend (Duh)

Of course, it wouldn’t be Labor Day Weekend without the Dave Matthews Band swinging into the Gorge Amphitheatre.

DMB, along with G. Love & Special Sauce and the Yonder Mountain String Band, will play the Gorge Sept. 4 through Sept. 6.

Tickets are on sale now for members of the Warehouse, the official Dave Matthews Band fan club.

Public ticket sales begin at 10 a.m. March 13 through Ticketmaster.

SkringleFest is rock for a good cause … and school credit

As senior projects go, East Valley High School’s Jesse Hamlin has done a heck of a job disguising his as a fun indie-pop/metal/rap concert.

Called SkringleFest, the show runs from 4 to 8:30 p.m. today (Feb. 21) at the Harman Center in Gailleon Park, 101 N. 65th Ave. Admission is $5 and proceeds benefit Children’s Miracle Network. (Ahhh, that’s where the school credit must come in.)

Here’s the schedule:

4:00 acoustic set
4:20 Harsh Cows
4:45 Fireteam Bravo Bravo
5:10 Pause4Effect
5:35 47th Parallel
6:05 Chokeout
6:40 Feverclub
7:20 Super Happy Storytime Land
8:00 Bobby Bobby

Sasquatch! Music Festival: Who’s playing which day

The official Sasquatch! Music Festival Web site is up. Here’s who’s playing which day:

Total Fest accepting submissions

Total Fest, the DIY music festival founded by Yakima native Josh Vanek, is now accepting submissions for this year’s festival which runs Aug. 20-22 in Missoula, Mont.

Brimming with all brands of punk, metal, garage and stoner-rock, plus some insurgent alt-country, last year’s bill included a number of regionally well-known bands such as Black Elk, the sneering, spitting, super loud group out of Portland; Seattle’s PBR-fueled Akimbo; and Bellingham’s Black Eyes and Neckties. It also landed the only live show of 2008 by Federation X, the Bellingham-Brooklyn band featuring local boy Bill Badgley.

And word is Yakima’s With A Bullet is aiming for this year’s fest.

Digital TV walk-in help center open this week at the downtown library

Do you want your DTV, but can’t figure out how to get it?

Representatives from the Federal Communication Commission will be staffing a walk-in center at the downtown Yakima Library to help consumers learn more about the digital television transition, including information on antennas, setting up the converter box and the digital TV coupon program.

The walk-in help center will be open from:
• 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. today
• 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Wednesday
• 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Thursday

For more information about the walk-in center, call the library reference department at 575-3441, or the library manager at 575-3440.

And speaking of DTV, did you see THIS STORY about Yakima getting “Gossip Girl” back?!

Sasquatch! Music Festival acts announced

Music line-up includes Jane’s Addiction (feat. all four original members),  Kings of Leon,  Nine Inch Nails,  Ben Harper & Relentless7,  Yeah Yeah Yeahs,  Erykah Badu, The Decemberists,  Fleet Foxes,  TV On The Radio,  Animal Collective,  Silversun Pickups,  Bon Iver,  Santigold,  Of Montreal,  Explosions In The Sky,  Devotchka,  Peter Bjorn & John,  Gogol Bordello,  M. Ward,  The Avett Brothers,  Doves,  Calexico,  Grizzly Bear,  M83,  Girl Talk,  The Gaslight Anthem,  The Walkmen,  Chromeo (dj set),  Deadmau5,  Mugison,  Sun Kil Moon,  Airborne Toxic Event,  Blitzen Trapper,  Shearwater,  BLK JKS,  The Wrens,  Tobacco,  Monotonix,  King Khan & The Shrines,  St. Vincent,  Passion Pit,  John Vanderslice,  Bishop Allen,  Blind Pilot,  AA Bondy,  Black Moth Super Rainbow,  The Knux,  Ra Ra Riot,  The Dodos,  Beach House,  Arthur & Yu,  The Submarines,  Owl City,  Viva Voce,  James Pants,  Mt. St. Helens Vietnam Band,  The Builders & The Butchers,  The Dutchess & The Duke,  Natalie Portman’s Shaved Head,  Dent May & His Magnificent Ukelele,  Fences,  School of Seven Bells,  Death Vessel,  Horse Feathers,  Hockey,  Point Juncture, WA,  The Pica Beats, Loch Lomond, Vince Mira and more to be announced.

Comedy line up includes Zach Galifiankas,  Demetri Martin,  Tim & Eric Awesome Show Great Job,  Todd Barry,  Jon Benjamin,  God’s Pottery and the  People’s Republic of Komedy, among others.

This year’s Sasquatch! Music Festival runs May 23-25. Who’s playing which day isn’t up on the official Sasquatch Web site (sasquatchfestival.com), but this blog has the scoop.

Ticket Information

Tickets go on sale at 10 a.m. Feb. 28 through Ticketmaster.

Beginning February 28th (on sale weekend only):
A discounted 3 DAY FESTIVAL PASS is available for a very limited time /  $154.50
Offer ends Sunday, March 1st at midnight.
Single tickets, per day / $56.50

Beginning March 2nd:
3 day pass / $199.50
Single tickets, per day / $66.50

Beginning May 11:
3 day pass / $229.50
Single tickets, per day / $76.50

Talib Kweli appearance at CWU postponed a week

The upcoming discussion at Central Washington University by hip-hop artist Talib Kweli and hip-hop journalist Jeff Chang has been changed from this Thursday, Feb. 19, to Thursday, Feb. 26.

That’s when the two will trade perspectives on how hip-hop has influenced the discussion on race, gender, sexuality, multiculturalism, globalization, capitalism and politics. The conversation starts at 7 p.m. in CWU’s Student Union and Recreation Center Ballroom, off Chestnut Street in Ellensburg.

Tickets are free and available through the CWU Diversity Education Center; call 963-1685. Tickets that have already been picked up will be honored on the new date. Doors open at 6 p.m. and those with tickets must arrive by 6:45 p.m. or their seats will be given away.

Red, red wine weekend

Well, hopefully you haven’t waited until the last minute to pick your sweetheart up something for Valentine’s Day because I’m pretty sure a cardboard box of chocolates and bouquet of yellow roses just won’t cut it.

Luckily, it’s Red Wine & Chocolate weekend, which means all you need are a couple of wine glasses, a stocked picnic basket and winery map to turn your forgetfulness into a romantic day trip in wine country.

Here are the details:
Read more

Artist profile – The Daily Log (video inside)

Ellensburg artist Joan CawleyCrane is one of the featured artists in the Central Washington University Department of Art Faculty Exhibition at the Sarah Spurgeon Gallery on the CWU campus.

CawleyCrane’s “Daily Log” is a book several feet long and growing that she adds to daily with sketches and meditations on everything from the flowers outside her window to her cat to the activities of the previous day.

To see her work in person, visit the Sarah Spurgeon Gallery before March 8. It’s open Mondays-Fridays from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., and Saturdays-Sundays from 1-4 p.m. The gallery is closed on university holidays. Read more

Ozzy hitting the studio, not the road

Sorry metal fans, there won’t be an Ozzfest this summer, not even a one-day show like last year.

Next Page »