Greg Stonebraker/Courtesy of KEXP

The situation On a recent Tuesday evening, I'm at the Ballard Smoke Shop drinking beer with one of my favorite new discoveries, the local garage-pop quartet Detective Agency: drummer Ulrika Larsson, guitarist/vocalist Nate Kruz, bassist Gwen Stubbs, and guitarist/vocalist Amy Tisdale. They all have really good hair--I'll go ahead and call them Seattle's Best Coiffed Band--and they all live around here except for Larsson, a Stockholm native who moved to Seattle eight years ago and now lives in a house on Queen Anne with a Boston Terrier named Ingmar.

How They Got Here The ladies of Detective Agency are all career women. Tisdale is the coolest second-grade teacher at Mukilteo's Challenger Elementary School. Larsson works at hip downtown Scandinavian fashion boutique Pirkko. Stubbs has her own clothing line, Lekkerlife, and plans to open a showroom this summer. Kruz is the only one currently enjoying a period of unemployment; he's also several years younger than his bandmates. I ask him if they ever boss him around. "Not all of them," he says, shifting his eyes around the table. The girls laugh at him.

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Ron Meriales

The situation I'm at Moe Bar on a recent Monday night, sitting across from local hip-hop artist Jarv Dee, 27, and his glass of Hennessy. He wears a flat-bill cap and, on his left hand, an enormous ring of two gold Egyptian pyramids that encases his pinky and ring fingers. They look like artistic and sharp brass knuckles. "I was kind of ducking away when I walked across from the police a couple days ago, because they do look kind of scary," Jarv says, laughing. "I don't know if I can get in trouble for these!"

How He Got Here Jarv, who was born in Seattle and lives in Renton, says he started writing raps and recording them on a tape player in third grade; he strayed from rapping for a few years for a different art form: tap dancing. "If you're a fan of music, you gotta try everything, test the waters," he says. The pinnacle of his dance career came in 2002, when he was 17 and danced onstage with Gregory Hines at the Paramount, a year before Hines died. Jarv says he'd like to do a reunion with his old tapping group. I ask if he has tap shoes. He rolls his eyes at me. "Of course. Of course I have tap shoes."

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The situation I'm spending a recent late night at Jabu's Pub in Queen Anne with Seattle's babeliest band, Sweet Pups--bassist Rachel Barrett, guitarist Erica Brunner, singer and keytarist Prisilla Ray, and the band's sole male, drummer Roman Herb. Originally hailing from Stuttgart, Germany, Herb is a cook at Jabu's; he just finished a long shift making tacos for Taco Tuesday. I ask him if he ever feels aesthetically overshadowed by his lovely bandmates. "No, I'm a confident guy," he says. "Prisilla always tells me what to wear anyway."

How They Got Here Ray and Brunner both work at Rudy's, which is where they met, and originally wanted to start an all-girl band. But after one practice with Herb, they decided to keep him. "I don't just have a guy in my girl band, I have an awesome German guy," says Ray, who'd played with local punk outfit Cute Lepers for years before forming Sweet Pups last summer. For her new project, she thought about playing the keyboard, but wanted something more portable and manageable--so she bought a keytar on eBay from Japan. "They sent it in bubble wrap only, no box, and it was kind of broken. I don't think I knew what I was getting into when I first got it," she says of teaching herself to play it, "but really it's all muscle memory, and once you get it, you get it."

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Kayley Kirmse

The situation I'm at Moe Bar having fries and beers with Eli Anderson, who's spent the past two months prepping for the opening of Barboza, the new 200-capacity basement venue underneath Neumos, which opens for business this week. Anderson is the venue's new talent buyer. We're joined by Kerri Harrop, who's been handling Barboza's publicity, and Scout, a fry-hungry dog belonging to Neumos/Barboza co-owner Mike Meckling.

How He Got Here Anderson had spent the previous four or so years as the Crocodile's booking agent, and when Neumos co-owner Steven Severin first offered him the Barboza booking job, he turned it down. Then Jason Lajeunesse, another co-owner, told Anderson he'd also have the opportunity to book at Neumos and for the Capitol Hill Block Party. "He gave me the big pitch," says Anderson. " 'It's that, but it's also this,' like an eye for the bigger things."

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Ralph Gayle Jr.

The situation It's Blues Jam night at Pioneer Square's 88 Keys, a band called Hot Damn Scandal is onstage, their standup bassist is wearing a pirate outfit, and I'm sitting down with 25-year-old guitarist Ayron Jones, who leads local rock-and-blues trio The Way. Five or six people stop by our table to greet Jones, including the bar's owner Dino Duran, whom Jones credits with giving The Way their start, hiring them to play their first gig in January 2010.

How He Got Here Talking with Jones is like talking to a personified version of The Secret--he speaks earnestly about his purpose as a musician, his confidence in becoming a success. His talk doesn't come off as arrogance; he's just someone who actually believes in the power of positive thinking. Last fall Jones (who has a bronze and a gold medal from playing in two Ultimate Frisbee world championships) got his wife's approval and quit his job as a security guard to devote himself to music full-time. Right around then, he got a phone call from Janelle Monáe's people at Wondaland Arts Society; the label's Afropunk band Deep Cotton needed a guitarist. Within weeks, Jones was on tour with Deep Cotton, opening for Monáe. "That made me realize I could do so much more in this industry than what I'm doing right now," he says. "Why am I limiting myself?"

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Ryan Furbush

The situation I'm spending the evening with the surf-rock trio Orca Team--vocalist/bassist Leif Anders, guitarist Jessica B., and drummer Dwayne Cullen--in the back room of Capitol Hill's Liberty Bar. The South Park episode in which Cartman's hand is Jennifer Lopez is playing distractingly on a large screen. Anders is wearing a dark sweater and a bowtie; his penchant for wearing tuxedos onstage (he owns several after a brief stint working at a tux shop) next to B.'s usual uniform of chic cocktail dresses attracts a lot of attention to the band's smart appearance. "Why play a show without making it a performance?" says Anders.

How They Got Here The current Orca Team lineup is less than a year old. Anders and B. went through three drummers--the first went to Argentina, the second got carpal tunnel syndrome, the third didn't want to tour--before settling with Anders' old high-school friend Cullen. All three of Cullen's predecessors were female. "Now we're a dude band," says B., looking at Anders. "You used to have to wear the skirts, and now I have to wear the pants."

Orca Team is probably the most Northwestern band name I've ever heard. "Ever since I was young I had this attraction to orca whales as being like hunters," says Anders. "They seem very majestic and cutthroat. I like that."

"They are the biggest porpoise in the porpoise family," says B.

"A lot of whales have actually been beaching themselves," says Cullen. "They say it's because they have no porpoise." Insert beery laughter here.

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Spencer Bray

The Situation It's a Thursday night, and I'm meeting Christian Wargo--Fleet Foxes bassist and frontman of Seattle band Poor Moon--at Mama's Mexican Kitchen in Belltown. "You'll see me. I'll be wearing my mother's wedding gown," Wargo texts me a few minutes beforehand. It's a false promise--he's wearing a woolly sweater with his shoulder-length hair tucked into the collar. I ask if he's the most Jesus-looking of all the Fleet Foxes. "Um, maybe. I don't really think Jesus is as cherubic as I am." He pauses. "Josh is pretty Jesusy. He's taller . . . " I remind him that Josh Tillman, the Foxes' former drummer, left the band in January. "It's true," he concedes, "I am the most Jesusy Fleet Fox."

How He Got Here Wargo's new band Poor Moon--himself, fellow Fox Casey Wescott, and their old friends, brothers Ian and Peter Murray--actually isn't very new. The songs on their delicately mournful Illusion EP, which Sub Pop will release on Tuesday, were recorded about a year ago, but the project got put on hold while Fleet Foxes toured the world. When Wargo returned from the tour about a month ago, he got right down to planning Poor Moon's upcoming tour.

"When you are gone that much and you come home, there is this sort of feeling of disconnection, like everyone who you're friends with has sort of just been moving on with their lives. I find it best to be busy," he says. "I miss home, but there's something magical about the road. Even when I'm home, I'll find myself taking a shower, putting on deodorant, and then I'll put it back in my suitcase."

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Cozell Wilson

The situation I'm on Capitol Hill at Cafe Presse with 24-year-old Alexandra Niedzialkowski, founder and frontwoman of the pop-rock band Cumulus. We're sharing a baguette and, at her recommendation, Okocim beers, a Polish brew with a label that reads "O.K. Beer Okocim." "You're more than OK, beer," says Niedzialkowski, addressing her bottle. "You're really good!" She lives about five blocks away in a house she shares with an actress, a woodworker, a gardener, her guitarist, and a female cat named Floyd.

How She Got Here Niedzialkowski, born and raised on Whidbey Island, recounts her musical evolution as follows: first, printing out Christina Aguilera lyrics so she could sing the songs out loud in her room, then the Lilith Fair folk phase when she wanted to be Jewel ("I remember this one time my dad took me to the EMP right after it opened up, and he showed me a Sleater-Kinney record, 'cause he was like, 'Alexandra, I think you'd like this band! It's, like, all girls and they make rock music!' And I was like, 'It's too loud!' "), then on to the high-school "Hot Topic emo phase," then her discovery of the K Records roster after a friend gave her a Mirah CD.

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Jake Clifford

The situation I'm at Capitol Hill's Moe Bar with local blues-rock duo The Grizzled Mighty--guitarist/vocalist Ryan Granger and drummer Whitney Petty, both 26, both draining hot toddies to fight off a shared cold (they're also roommates). The pair's headed to see the Atlas Sound at Neumos tonight. Petty, who wears a skull ring, speaks in a slow Southern drawl, and uses the phrase "balls to the wall" a lot, grew up in the same Atlanta suburb as Atlas frontman Bradford Cox, and used to play guitar with Cox's day job, Deerhunter.

How They Got Here Granger and Petty have both lived lives of peculiar adventures. Petty dropped out of college in Georgia to work as a trail-builder in Oregon--she tosses around words like "pulaski," "hazel hoe," and "chainsaw" like she's listing members of her family. She moved to Seattle to work for a cruise line as a deckhand, and offers to teach me some sailor's knots.

Granger thought about moving to L.A., but changed his mind after getting mugged and held hostage at gunpoint by a raving lunatic/faux pot dealer down there. Now he makes his living with flowers as an orchid importer for Ballard's Emerald City Orchids. The pair met two years ago, when Petty answered Granger's Craigslist ad. "I think the title was 'You gotta rock it before you roll it,' " she says.

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Kenta Murakami

The situation I'm at King's Hardware in Ballard with singer/songwriter Whitney Ballen, who is tiny and blonde and has a parenthetical dimple on her right cheek whenever she smiles, which is often. As of midnight tonight, Ballen will be 21; she's celebrating with a group of friends, her big sister, and her mom. "She doesn't drink. She weighs, like, 90 pounds; she's extremely healthy," Ballen says of her mother. "I don't think she's been to a bar since 1986." Dad Ballen can't be here to round out the family affair, as he is out making deliveries for his bagel shop, but he baked and sent along a tray of cupcakes frosted with pink roses.

How She Got Here Contrary to your typical sloppy 21 run, Ballen does not want to get crunk tonight. She's sipping 7-Up through a straw. One of her friends pushes a birthday-cake shot at her--"Do you want this article to say that you're really prissy?"

"Yes, because I am!" laughs Ballen. She sticks her tongue into the drink. "I can't do this!" She refuses to taste my Strongbow, even after I tell her it's basically apple juice. "I understand that some drinks can taste really good, and I'm down for tasting things, but not whole things," she says. "I'll taste a beer. The other night I tasted Champagne. I've had half a glass of mimosa. But I can't finish anything." Once she saw beer in her sister's refrigerator and decided to try it for breakfast. "I opened it and had a sip, and was, like, 'God, this is sick!' "

Ballen goes to the UW, where she's studying communications. I ask her if she's ever had a wild college-party night. "I've been involved in them, but I haven't been the wild party, ever," she says. Her ideal Friday night is "my fat cat, my really nice down comforter, a Netflix account, and some Talking Rain water."

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