Jonathan Zwickel

Senior editor Jonathan Zwickel has been writing about popular culture since 2000 for publications in San Francisco, Fort Lauderdale and Seattle. Along with his work at City Arts, he occasionally contributes to Pitchfork, Stereogum and Thrillist. His first book, Beastie Boys: A Musical Biography, was published in 2012 by Greenwood Press. He lives on Capitol Hill with his best friend and personal trainer, Edison the Wonderdog.

Recent Articles

Feature

Let It Grow

Photography by Dylan Priest It’s an Alexander McQueen pea coat, midnight blue, sleek and high collared, scored on the cheap from a vintage store in Portland. Drew Grow had worn it almost every day this winter, and he was wearing it the night in...
Feature

The Head and the Heart and the Van

Seattle’s best new band gears up for the road ahead. As you read this, the Head and the Heart is somewhere on the other side of the country, either sweating onstage or squished into a smelly van, one month into the ten they will spend on the road...
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Shabazz Satisfaction

A kinder, gentler Shabazz Palaces played Neumos last night, a year and a month after the band's live debut in the same venue. The time between served the CD-dwelling hip-hop duo well: Underground music circles buzzed as SP's 2009 EPs spread across the...
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Kory Kruckenberg Wins Grammy, Shouts out Pickwick

Last Sunday, Kory Kruckenburg won a Grammy in the category of “Best Engineered Album, Classical" for his work on Eliesha Nelson’s album Quincy Porter: Complete Viola Works. On Monday, Kruckenberg was in his Toyota station wagon, heading north on...
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New Radiohead Album “a quantum leap; in the sense that it transplants you inside the body of a West Virginia stripper in 1967 who has to solve her brother’s murder with the help of a computer called Ziggy.”

The rigorous cultural arbiters at Vice UK have heard the new Radiohead album, The King of Limbs! And they've reviewed it for your edification. Enjoy phrases such as "beastly overture," "angry rant," "the perfect take," "tender ballad," "more than...
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The Sound of Sunshine

Just in time for a sunless Seattle weekend: Willie Wright, "Nantucket Island" Chicago-based label Numero Group recently reissued Willie Wright's second and final album, 1977's Telling the Truth. According to the liners, Wright was a...
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PDX Does SEA

Seattle has no legitimate claim on strummy/clappy campfire-pop other than we do it better than everyone else. (See: the Cave Singers, Fleet Foxes, the Head and the Heart, the Duchess and the Duke, the forehead-slappingly-named Campfire OK.) Portland...
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This Is Heavy

Portland band Grails make nontraditional heavy music. Their last record, 2008's Doomsdayer's Holiday, depicted vast scorched-earth landscapes via slowly unfolding guitars and langorous drone; it fell nicely, albeit darkly, alongside Seattle doom...
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RE: That Time Das Racist Ate the Leftovers Out of My Fridge

Das Racist is the future of hip-hop. The three-man Brooklyn-based crew is obsessed with America's obsession with race; MCs Kool A.D. and Heems rap about it like the Wesleyan-graduated pop culture savants they are. Along with hypeman Dap, the...
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But Is it Art? Petty Party at the Comet

And now, on occassion of last night's Petty Party performance at the Comet, we will seriously consider the phenomenon of the cover band. A cover band requires no judgement. You attend a Petty Party show because you love the Tom Petty songs you're...
News

Tom Petty at the Comet! Tonight!

In spirit. And song. Brought to you by Petty Party, a note-for-note, irony-free, singalong-friendly tribute band starring one Kevin Large (aka Widower) as America's Underratedest Rock Star, plus a cast of Seattle notables. The "irony-free" bit is...
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Fourteen Context-Free Sentences from Crispin Glover’s Performance Last Night at Northwest Film Forum

1. Dead stillness requires perfect calm of the mind and emotions.2. Here they are leisurely shot, or killed with clubs. 3. There are two kinds of books. 4. After the reptile was hatched it got its food.5. Somewhere in the distance a dog woke with a...