Dan Digs

Year after year, Decibel Festival provides unprecedented sounds and stories. It’s quarter to 2:00 on a Thursday morning in September and 300 or so revelers are sardined into Re-Bar, dancing to uncompromising beats and bass. The sweaty, jubilant...

It’s the end of a long, gray and drizzly Tuesday afternoon in March. Jonathan Raban and I are sitting at the kitchen table in the finished attic of his Queen Anne home, drinking red wine. We’ve briefly paused our conversation to stare out the...

Robert Glasper is one of the world's most talented jazz pianists. Last night at Neumos, Glasper balanced a gigantic repository of accumulated technical skill with a wealth of classic and modern jazz, soul, rock, and hip-hop knowledge. His mastery of...

“Something wicked this way comes!” The last thing I expected MC Sgt Pokes to do in introducing UK dubstep pioneers Skream & Benga to the stage at Neumos last night was quote Macbeth. With dreadlocks half his body length flailing about his head,...

A few seconds after the lights went down, Allen Stone's instantly-recognizable hatted, long-haired, bespectacled, and cardigan'd silhouette lurched across the Neptune Theatre stage in the darkness to enormous welcoming cheers. It could only have been...

Portlandia is the comedy creation of SNL's Fred Armisen and Sleater-Kinney's Carrie Brownstein that is normally a sketch-based television show broadcast on the Independent Film Channel, but more people know about it from watching YouTubed segments...

The entire audience stood up in unison Wednesday night as West London four-piece Mumford & Sons quietly assembled themselves on the Key Arena's unlit stage. Lead singer (complete with decidedly Dickensian moniker) Marcus Mumford began to sing and play...

“We're SBTRKT and we're from London!” Aaron Jerome aka SBTRKT (pronounced “subtract”) hollered excitedly as violet light glowed from the Neptune Theatre's stage. He slipped behind his drum-kit while his right-hand man and vocalist Sampha shone...

Photo by Nate Watters Such was the fervor generated by the arrival of Portishead's haunting music in the mid-'90s that the city council of the band's home of Portishead—eight miles west of Bristol in England—had to publicly ask fans to stop...

USF are the artists formerly known as Universal Studios Florida. (Turns out the name was already taken by Universal Studios in Florida.) The t-shirted Seattle duo of Jason Baxter and Kyle Hargus began their Friday night set at Chop Suey with a...

Photo by Nate Watters “My between-song banter is like Bill Cosby B-sides.” The Long Winters' front-man John Roderick is known to amuse with his musings, and even when he's playing this fact down he's funny. Walking onstage and greeting the...

Morbid curiosity drove me to check out Mad Professor and the dB in Dub Finale on Sunday, the last night of this year's Decibel Festival. The thought of a whole night watching someone plod through a DJ set muddied in delay and reverb with a single kick...