Seattle Entertainment, Activities, Events : Seattle on the Fringe by Stacey Merrick : Music, Dancing, Burlesque, Dining, Bicycle, Comedy, Offbeat, Unusual

• Email This
• Print
• Comments (1)
• Trackbacks (1)

The Decibel Festival seems to finally be getting the publicity it deserves, although it has a different feel from previous years.  Going on its fourth year, the festival has grown to an international performer line-up in 9 venues over 4 days, starting Thursday Sep. 20 - Sunday Sep. 23.  This festival was created by the same group of friends and colleagues who host the super fun Laptop Battle annually.  Unfortunately, there will not be as many laptop performers at the festival this year as in previous years, including one of my favorites, m.0.  But, there are some great deejays to check out.


The music you will be exposed to at the Decibel Festival is not the typical electronic music you hear after-hours at cheesy dance clubs.  These musicians have taken everything annoying about electronic music (repetition of annoying sounds, excessive heavy bass, samples of bad vocals, etc.) and thrown all of that out, taken what we know about music theory and thrown that out, too, and they have created something that sounds entirely new.  And it's good.  No, it's great.


Attention World:  Seattle is way beyond grunge and, hopefully, finally shedding this outdated stereotype of the Northwest music scene.  Being a town filled with talented musicians, it makes sense to be a city on the forefront of the next music revolution.  Why is Seattle such a mecca for great musicians, consider its population is fairly small?  I'll tell you why:  the weather sucks in Seattle.   There are plenty of rainy days to sit inside a warm and dry home studio and drink coffee/beer and create awesome music.  It also makes sense that Seattle is a city gaining recognition for innovative electronic music, considering Seattle is home to many tech companies, including a company you might have heard of called Microsoft.  The Seattle-based tech companies draw a huge population of tech savvy employees who influence the culture of the city.  Third graders in this town do not beat up kids for wearing glasses and being computer geeks.


Tech Geeks + Crappy Weather = DECIBEL FESTIVAL! 


The artists I will be purposely checking out are Recess and Jerry Abstract. These two have been an integral part of the Seattle electronic music scene, and they are fantastic musicians.  In fact, the first time I heard Recess, I actually stopped talking to my friend mid-sentence, and said, "Oh my god, who is THIS?"  Sunday night I will also be checking out The Raster-Noton Showcase because I personally just can't get enough of German influenced electronic music. 


To get the line-up, check out the Decibel Festival Schedule.

Although I am disappointed to not see as many local Seattle artists on the festival schedule this year, I am happy this event continues to happen every year.