Last night, a group of female physical theater performers set out to prove, as the title of their TOJ show plainly suggested, that Not All Clowns are Bozos. They succeded wildkly at their mission of proving that their corner of the artistic universe could be enjoyed by adults as well as kids. While the first half of the show was a little uneven (full disclosure: we arrived 20 minutes late after a leisurely supper at Maneki), the second half crackled, with hilarious solo and duo performers relieving one another well before any one sketch had the chance to get stale.

Here's the thing, though: none of these performers fit my definition of "clown." I'm sure the artists would argue that this was part of the point, and I'd get that point were it not for the fact that their mostly silent acts veered far, far closer to the supposedly moribund art of mime. After taking in this show, I'd submit that purebred whiteface pantomime is dead only because the people who possess the skills to be keep it alive don't want to anymore. Which is a fair choice, I guess, but still a little sad.

Before I forget, one awesome thing about Theatre Off Jackson is they sell Wells Banana Bread Beer, which sounds horrible but tastes heavenly. Another awesome thing is the availability of Arrested Development lapel buttons for $1 a pop. I bought one of Tobias Funke (David Cross) in fully-body Blue Man Group paint, announcing, as he did on the show: "I just blue myself."

Saturday: Red Dress Seattle

Watch a slideshow of Seattle Red Dress. All photos by Renee McMahon.

The only rule at the First Annual Seattle Red Dress Party, Saturday at South Lake Union's Naval Reserve Center, was that everyone had to wear a red dress. And the ladies did their best to keep up with the gentlemen. The event featured DJs The Perry Twins, and with proceeds going to HIV/AIDS benefits.

Saturday in the Streets

Saturday I spent the day on the streets of Seattle, participating in the Join the Impact march to protest the passing of California's Prop 8, which repealed same-sex marriage and left 18,000 couples uncertain of their marital status. However, without the very personal sense of deep outrage and loss that drove the rally my friends back in San Francisco attended, Seattle's march felt jubilant.

When we crossed the Pine Street I-5 overpass, I jumped out of line to run up to Ladro to grab some water -- it's been so long since I've protested that I'd forgotten the essentials. The sale took five minutes. By the time I descended to the street again, I still couldn't see the end of the column of marchers. Six thousand people felt much, much bigger.

It took my friends and I quite a while to remember the last time we participated in an LGBT civil rights demonstration. For me, it was the million-'mo march on Washington, D.C. -- in 1993. Too young to join up with ACT UP and Queer Nation in their prime, relieved of a sense of mortal urgency by the invention of the anti-retroviral cocktail, we blue staters became the first gays in American history to wallow in the luxury of living a normal, hate-light life. It took a moment of simultaneous political empowerment and disenfranchisement to remind us that we had larger responsibilities.

One of the most exciting parts of the march was to watch LGBT protesters in their late teens and twenties. It may have been their first political gathering outside overly corporate, unfocused, clichéd Pride (TM) parades. I could see them discovering the heady mix of self-righteousness, universal camraderie, and cruisiness that made the LGBT rights movement so exciting back in the day.
-- Jonathan Kauffman

Friday: Jessica Simpson at Snoqualmie Casino

Watch a slideshow of Jessica Simpson's performance at Snoqualmie Casino on Friday, Nov. 7. All photos by Renee McMahon.

Saturday: White Horse and the West Edge

White Horse in 2007.

It has without question been a week for the history books. And while we'll all remember where you were when Americans elected the first African-American President, I too will remember where I was when I overheard someone make reference to the "West Edge" neighborhood without irony, as if it were Pioneer Square or Capitol Hill. I was sitting on a stool at White Horse sipping a nice mead when I heard a member of the party next to us drop the West bomb and I looked over for snickers and grins. But, they'd moved along. Someone had, in earnest, referenced something in the blocks between the Market and Pioneer Square as being in the West Edge neighborhood. I guess it had to happen sometime.
-- Chris Kornelis

Sunday: Joshua Radin & Missy Higgins at The Showbox

Joshua Radin performs his opening set at The Showbox on Sunday night.

It’s always my fear that acoustic sets will get boring; we’ve all seen in happen before, when the artist minimizes his involvement in the performance and fails to captivate anyone by doing little other than strumming a guitar.

Luckily, there was no need for that fear at last night’s show. Besides being plenty talkative between songs, watching Radin practice his art of “whisper rock” was thrilling. The dulcet tones of his voice were as good as I could have hoped, and the subtleties of his picking were beautiful to hear but entrancing to watch.
-- Read Nick Feldman's entire review on Reverb

Sunday: Ladies First at Hidmo

Invincible

My friends and I walked into Hidmo a little after 9 p.m., right at the very end of the Open Mic portion of the evening. I should mention that last night was my first Hidmo experience-- I'd been meaning to make it out there for months-- and I immediately dug the space and the atmosphere. Everyone sat down on the floor in front of a straw-roof hut, under which DJ B-Girl and the performers were set up. Meanwhile, a very cute toddler ran around the performance space and basically stole the show with his mini b-boy antics, while an older girl that looked maybe 6 or 7 (maybe his sister?) dealt with his pushing and harassment with patience that was downright saintlike. Normally, I'm not a big fan of the Open Mic night thing, mainly because the vast majority of my Open Mic night experiences have ranged from cliche to downright painful. Not here. I actually caught the end of it, which conluded with an appearance from Canary Sing, two of Seattle's most promising emcees with XX or XY chromosomes.
-- Read Sara Brickner's entire review on Reverb

Friday Afternoon: Al Gore at The Sheraton

Photo by Chris Kornelis. The audio of Vice President Gore's speech is comin' right up.

For those who haven't heard, a couple of scary climate change facts from the former vice president/Nobel laureate/Oscar winner:

*If we continue on this path of increasing CO2 emissions there will be an 11-degree increase in temperature in this century.

*The polar ice cap, which used to be about the size of the continental U.S., is now 43 percent gone and could melt entirely in five years.
-- Read Aimee Curl's full review of the vice president's visit on the Daily Weekly

Friday Night: Hayes Carll at The Sunset

Carll and his band adroitely plowed through most of their fine LP, Trouble In Mind, and sprinkled in some rootsy scorchers for good measure, this being an appropriately rowdy crowd for a Friday at the Sunset, where drinking anything other than Rainier just feels unnatural.

Carll, who's from South Texas, has a Wooderson-like charm onstage, where he eschewed standard cowpoke garb for a knit Mexican poncho, a look favored by collegiate stoners throughout North America. He's also a total ringer for Ben Best, one of the stars of the hilarious tae kwon do comedy, The Foot Fist Way, which he also co-wrote (Best also had a cameo in Superbad, as the guy who recognizes the blood on Jonah Hill's pants to be from a young woman's period). Anytime an entertainer reminds you of Wooderson and Ben Best, well, that's about perfect for a Friday. This 'ol boy's got a bright future in front of him.
-- Mike Seely

Saturday: Zombie Walk in West Seattle

The Fourth Annual Seattle Zombie Walk too place in West Seattle on World Zombie Day, Saturday, October 26. Watch a slideshow of World Zombie Day by Marcella D. Volpintesta.

Friday: Bayside, Valencia and the Status at El Corazón

Shane Henderson sings during Valencia's opening set on Friday night.

Showing up at eight, I wasn't expecting the crowd I found. Even knowing how great first opener The Status is, the fact that a venue was packed at the beginning of the first set says something in itself. Read the full review here.
— Nick Feldman

Saturday: Celine Dion (and white wine shortage) at Tacoma Dome

Alfre's Cafe takes advantage of the concert rush with its Celine "Dijon" (har har) sandwich.

Thousands of worshippers journeyed to see God (aka Celine Dion) perform at the Tacoma Dome Saturday. It was the Canadian diva's first time back in the Seattle area in eight years. Her Taking Chances World Tour has been a whopping success so far—in Montreal she played 11 shows in because tickets sold out so fast. Canadians love them some Celine.

Apparently, so do white wine drinkers. The Tacoma Dome actually ran out of it. Only at a Celine Dion concert would you run out of white wine before red. Even more of a suprise, nobody had any qualms about letting concert goers enter the venue vwith drinks in tow. Read the full review here.
— Erika Hobart

Saturday: Fremont's Burlesque Tacos

A taco sampler plate, whipped up by Angel himself.

When I was first tipped off to a "burlesque taco truck," I wasn't quite sure how to respond. Having grown up in Eastern Washington, I'm no stranger to the taco wagon — but figuring out how to factor burlesque into the equation was a challenge. Bad jokes were in abundance.

After one taste of a taco made by the skilled Angel Aguilar, who co-owns the truck with Johnny Flair, I knew it was more than a gimmick. Read the full review here.
— Nick Feldman

Sunday: Down in Tacoma for the Down-Ticket

I learned a valuable lesson at Barack Obama's February rally/revival at Key Arena—these things do not start on time, do not end on time, and do not have food or drink readily available. After nearly passing out that day, I headed to Tacoma this afternoon prepared—lots of trail mix and water. Local alt-country favorites The Maldives were playing their first orgy of hope and weren't similarly prepared. "I'm really hungry," guitarist and lead singer Jason Dodson tells me. I was happy to share the extra dried fruit, nuts and chocolate drops. Blood sugar back up, he tells me getting invited to play is "pretty awesome."

"These are the candidates," he says. "We wouldn't be here if it wasn't for them. This is history, it's like we're history." Read the rest of the story here.
— Laura Onstot

Sunday: Giant HiDef Projector Screen Found Lurking in West Seattle

As we learned last week, your local neighborhood dive can be a great place to catch our unbelievably terrible Seahawks—all you need is pitchers, odd company, and a television. But it's hard to beat watching them throw down (or more aptly, get thrown down) on something the size of a small movie theater screen. Read the rest of the story here.
— Laura Onstot

Friday: Damon Agnos Saw These in Vegas

Ouch!

Saturday: Live Music Comes to The Admiral in West Seattle

The Hands. My photos aren't uploading for some reason. So enjoy this one, taken by, as the Hands' MySpace states, Milan Chuckovich.

Like everyone else who came to the Admiral Theater's debut show Saturday night, I had pretty much no idea what to expect from the venue. Sure, I knew it would be an altered theater space, but HOW altered, and for the better, or worse? I hoped for the best; after all, the Admiral Theater is four blocks from my house. Which means I really want it to be successful and continue hosting live shows that I can walk to without moving to a studio on Capitol Hill that would cost more than splitting a house (and garden!) with one other person in West Seattle does now.

I was disappointed by the space the theater designated for music, which, in most respects, looked no different from any other movie theater. Nothing had been modified about the place except for the stage itself. Read the full review here.
-- Sara Brickner

Saturday: Weezer at KeyArena

Watch a slideshow of Weezer at KeyArena. All photos by Marcella D. Volpintesta.

Friday: Cave Singers at The Moore

Far be it from me to make grand, definitive statements like "best. band. ever.", but after last night's performance, I really think the Cave Singers are our best local band...aside from Mudhoney, that is!

The Moore was fairly empty when they took the stage last night around 8 p.m. Initially, I was interested in hearing how they would fill a fancy theater of that size, but by the time Pete Quirk barked the opening lyrics to "Seeds of Night", it was obvious that wouldn't be an issue. Quirk has this idiosyncratic voice that's somewhere between Arlo Guthrie and the buzzing of a mosquito. And, like Bob Dylan, Quirk plays with words, stretching them out and snapping them back as if they are rubberbands ("Oooooh mayBE next TIME"). In a room with acoustics like The Moore, his vocals sounded like they were leaping up to the ceiling and racing through the aisles and back down to the stage. An exciting thing for any set of ears to hear.
-- Read the full review by Brian J. Barr

Friday: The Raconteurs, WaMu Theater

Photo by Chris Kornelis.

The Raconteurs' neutralized the soulless concrete cave that is the WaMu Theater with a stunning performance, all the more impressive after a well-dressed roadie told me after the show that the band's performances are completely off-the-cuff, with no set list. The quintet transitions seamlessly between blues jams, hard rock, and delicate piano-driven hymns communicating almost exclusively through their instruments. Consummate professionals, Jack White (the obvious frontman of the group) and company impressed not with any flamboyant trickery from the glad-rock handbook, but through mastery of their instruments, improvisation, and an unquestionable love of their trade. Couple more photos here.
-- Chris Kornelis

Friday: The Trucks, Von Iva, and Partman Parthorse at the Tractor

See more of Laura Musselman's photos from Friday night's show.

I go to the Tractor A LOT, and I've never seen it look quite like this. Friday night was a DANCE PARTY.