Esthetic Evolution #6- Twin Springs, ID

Ever wanted to party with a 1000 of your closest friends? Ok ok... maybe not all of them are your best friends, but there's likely only a couple of degrees of separation between them. That's how it works out here in the Northwest and that applies to Seattle, Portland, Boise and beyond. That closeness and cohesive network is one of the reasons our corner of the country has been gaining such a positive reputation for having an incredibly rich and creative music community. The folks at Esthetic Evolution in beautiful Twin Springs, ID have done a wonderful job building up their annual music and arts festival. So much so that they've almost sold ALL 1000 of their available tickets! As of this blog post there are less than 50 tickets available and they're only located at record stores in Boise.

But fret not. Shameless has one ticket available as a giveaway for some lucky reader. Email Shamelessinseattle2@gmail.com with "EE Loves Me" in the subject heading and the first person to write gets the ticket. (EDITED TO ADD... Congratulations to AshleyZ who was quick to respond and won the EE ticket giveaway!)

By the way, we've written about Esthetic Evolution before. Click the links below to check out past pictures.

2007
2008
2009

Also, check out the video from last year...


Lots of great content and more information about Esthetic Evolution here.

Hope to see you on the Potato Playa!

May Day Taurus B-day Bash - Pictures

The Shameless crew represents the Taurus sign strong with multiple crew mates having their birthdays in May. The celebration this year took place house party style! It all started at 4pm with Luvshack deep frying a couple of turkeys in the backyard. From there Menami cooked up some fierce spiked lemonade and a bunch of people showed up with food, drinks, bubble machines, a giant blow up bunny rabbit (?!) and good cheer to share. Music kept going until 5:30 am! Thanks to all of the DJs, friends and family that helped make such a fun filled, warm and festive party at the YES! house go off so well.

(Click any of the pictures below to see more)

Do you know-o our friend Rolo???

I love music. I'd like to think that everyone else does too. Life itself has a beat; around the 22nd day of gestation, the human fetal heartbeat starts and an individual's own personal metronome begins it's lifelong and rhythmic pacing. When I am DJ'ing I often love to imagine that if I can connect well enough with the dancers on the floor before me, I may be lucky enough to beat match someone's heart to the music I'm playing. (It's totally possible - it's a game I play with myself with the heart rate monitor on the elliptical at the gym and the dance tracks on my MP3 player).

Speaking of heartbeats and music, I just finished listening to Rolo Tamasi's latest track, Automata. This song is the source of my heartbeat analogies today. There is something about this ethereal and grounded track that makes me think that if I could somehow go inside, Innerspace-style, and cruise around listening in on all of the sounds of my body, my blood moving, my organs working, my breath circulating it might sound something like this track. But maybe I'm wrong. The name of this track refers to self-operating machines, which sounds decidedly non-organic. Am I incorrect? Does this track sound mechanical? Is it devoid of the life-sounds I was imaging? Or am I just a romantic living in a digital world? Whatever the findings I really love this track, as just like some of his other compositions, such as Puget Sound and Fuckabees Dub. Check his stuff out. We love it around here.

Video from Menami's Music Madness

Happy birthday Menami!

My Bloody Valentine is Shameless #7 - Video & Pictures

Thanks to everyone that came out to celebrate Shameless' 7+ year anniversary. So much love!

Video!

Pictures!

Dave Matthew's once again captured some amazing pictures

from our party.

Click here to see them all...

How KEXP Failed the Wighnomy Brothers

How KEXP Failed the Wighnomy Brothers

By Rolo Tamasi

Recently, I volunteered for the Decibel Festival in Seattle. This was my first year as a volunteer and for me it was a bass blowing four day extravaganza that was literally mental. My responsibility was to pick up artists from the airport and get them to their hotel or whatever pit stops they needed. I shared so many amazing experiences with so many inspiring people it was almost too much to compute. From sharing cigarettes with N-Type to getting Tycho to sign a little airport sign for my roommate. There is just one story that stands out among the rest. That is how KEXP failed the Wighnomy Brothers… In all fairness I do enjoy KEXP from time to time. It's hit or miss mostly. Let me build up the story a tad.

After several trips to SeaTac, I was on my last run of the day to pick up Caspa and MC Rod Azlan. Now I'm not a big fan of dubstep. So I thought it was especially funny that I had to pick up most of the big dubstep artists. To be honest, I had never heard of either of them before this day. At SeaTac, I found them both in the baggage claim and before we even exchanged names Caspa needed a favor, "I need to hit up like a Walmart or Kmart for some cheap clothes." Really? Out of all the great clothing stores America has to offer you, you need Walmart? Is that what we're known for? I was like, "Listen man, we don't really have Walmarts' here in Seattle. I mean there's Target (same evil), but its pretty far away. SeaTac Mall is like right..." Cutting me off he says, "I'm not looking to spend a lot of cash. Target will work great if you don't mind…" I got the vibe I was just a "driver" to him. Rod on the other hand was a great fellow. We had a great conversation while waiting outside of Target about where drum and bass went. Rod then informs me that he is in need of the finer smoke. Being the gentlemen I am, I offered to help. It was that act of kindness that would later put me back in front of the hotel to meet the Wighnomy Brothers. Sometimes being a stoner has its perks.

After getting them to their hotel, I got a call from the boss saying they needed someone to pick up Holger Zilske aka Smash TV. How could I refuse, right? (I have to add that Holger was the most inspiring person I met during the Festival. Amazing musician and producer. It was an awesome detour). A second act of kindness that put me in front of the hotel to meet the Wighnomy Brothers. After getting Holger to the hotel, I raced to score that bag of fun for the MC.

Mission accomplished, the package was acquired and I even scored a parking spot right next to the hotel. After the back alley deal was made. I was walking back to my car when there in front of the hotel was Holger sitting with the Wighnomy Brothers. As I walked by I told Holger how nice it was to meet him. He then invited me to have a cigarette with him. Earlier in the day when I had dropped Holger at the hotel, I overheard the hotel clerk informing him of his sound check at 9:30pm. My acute attention to detail came in handy after I then noticed that it was close to 10:00pm. Both Holger and the Wighnomy Brothers had 9:30pm sound checks. I made a quick call to check on their driver's status and said, "I don't know where your ride is but I can get you guys to the venue." I pretty much had my car in front of the hotel before they could answer. It was unbelievable, the seriously huge vinyl crates of the Wighnomy Brothers were in my trunk. The bros themselves in my car. My only regret was that I had no music in my car, just the radio. So I flicked the dial to 90.3 and was bumping "Shake the Shack". They were into it.

The radio DJ came in and started listing off all the shows that were going down in the greater Seattle area for the night. I noticed right away that it was not Leon Berman but someone filling in for him. After 5 minutes or so the guest DJ finally gets to Neumos, where the Brothers were playing that night and proceeds to mention off the lineup for the night. "...Lowrez...Noah Pred...Rob Hood...Alex Under... and ah," then stops for a moment and says, "You're listening to 90.3 KEXP. Where the music matters..." Laughter ensues. I can only imagine what this guy would think if he knew the very DJ duo he failed to mention, practically headlining Decibel Festival, was tuning in. He probably would have thought, "Wow, I totally failed…"

Minutes later I delivered The Brothers to Neumos. There they killed the dance floor proper.