1. THEESatisfaction can do no wrong right now. Not one local blog missed the “THEESatisfaction Loves The Sa-Ra Creative Partners” EP they put out this week, and they’re getting critical exposure right now from national tastemakers like Spin and MTV. But the first thing they did perfectly, in my book, was their collab with Champagne Champagne, Magnetic Blackness. It was the song of 2009, hands down, all pulse beats and buzzing nerves, electric with the sound of a scene coming fully to life.
Now it’s poised to go two-for-two in 2010, because, as Jonathan already reported, the two groups are putting out the song on a 7-inch, with the help of party promoters Members Only. It’s a whole party just for one song.
THEESatisfaction and Champagne Champagne, with State of the Artist and Swerveone. Tonight at 8pm, at the Can Can (94 Pike Street). $5.
Do this tomorrow:
1. It’s actually surprising to me that Joseph Stiglitz is speaking at Town Hall. For a student of economics, hearing Joe Stiglitz is scheduled to speak at Town Hall is like hearing that the Rolling Stones are booked at Neumos.
That’s no diss on Town Hall, of course. It’s just that Stiglitz is as close to an agitator as we get in the arcane world of macroeconomics. He says there is no such thing as the invisible hand. He thinks that markets can only function optimally with government intervention. He got a Nobel Prize for his work on “information economics”—basically, the idea that people can never really have enough of the right information to fulfill the fundamental economic assumption that economic actors always “act rationally”. He got fired from the World Bank back during the WTO riots for being too outspoken about badly-managed government interventions in the Asian crises of the late ’90s.
And he has no problem picking a fight with Barack Obama for being soft on the financial sector. His new book, Freefall: America, Free Markets, and the Sinking of the World Economy, is his I-told-ya-so moment, eviscerating free-market advocates while laying blame for the crisis on the Chicago School and calling for a change of the economic guard in Washington.
Tomorrow night at 7:30 pm, Town Hall (1119 8th Ave). Admission is $5.
2. SAM is opening up the museum tomorrow night for “SAM Remix,” a late-night party featuring DJs and special tours of the galleries.
The Remix party SAM put on at the Olympic Sculpture Park over the summer was really fun—tours of the park by flashlight, breakdancing crews and slam poetry, and an intense comics-drawing competition. This Remix is billed as an indoor version of the same.
Featuring ambient electronica from Vancouver act Loscil, techno-shoegaze from Seattle’s The Sight Below, and the psychedelic techno of Seattle’s Gel-Sol.
Tomorrow at 8 pm at the Seattle Art Museum (1300 First Ave). Admission is $10.
Also of interest:
The all-ages Seattle Ska Fest, which sounds awful but I swear it’s not going to be. Chris Murray is great dancehall ska in the vein of late ’60s greats like Dennis Brown and Johnny Nash. Also, raucous ska punkers Warsaw Poland Bros are playing a set. It’s obviously not groundbreaking stuff—really, they’re just miming great music made by other people a long time ago, weirdly out of context. But it’s fun to listen to and great to dance to.
With Keyser Soze, the Get Backs, Get Down Moses, and the Valuables. Tomorrow night at 6 pm, at Club Motor (1950 First Ave S).
