I had a chance to poke around the Seattle Auto Show earlier this week at the CenturyLink Field Event Center, and I was looking forward to getting up close with some of the cool new cars at the show. Craig Chastain, the media guy for the show, was kind enough to personally escort me around to show me some of the highlights — probably because he didn’t trust me on my own. Anyway, here he illustrates a hot new trend — small cars that are well equipped and fun to drive, like the new Fiat 500. Let’s have a look:

You can get all the details about the Seattle Auto Show here — the show runs through Sunday. Tomorrow, I’ll take a look at another Italian car, but this one’s a little pricier — $390,000. (That’s dollars, not lire!)

Tacoma’s own musical hero and contender on The Voice Vicci Martinez dropped by the Mountain studios to fill me in on a benefit for Children’s Hospital that she’s a part of on Friday night.

It’s called The Last Wonder of the World, and here’s how the Seattle Symphony describes it:

The Last Wonder of the World, the Symphony Guild’s 14th annual benefit concert, explores the complexities of the unbreakable human spirit in all its beautiful abundance. This year’s concert celebrates the enduring hope and unbreakable spirit of Seattle Children’s Hospital patients and of all of us.

Or, here’s how Vicci describes it:

Sounds cool! Click here for the details and to buy tickets.

Next week, Vicci fills me in on her musical adventures since leaving The Voice.

Months after the death of Amy Winehouse. the first posthumous album has been announced. It’s Lioness: Hidden Treasures, containing unheard and unreleased material from Winehouse and is slated for a December 5th release. There’s also material that was intended for her third album. Here’s a track that leaked today, featuring the rapper Nas:

Remember when Ricky Gervais hosted the Golden Globes and caused such a ruckus when he poked fun at “Hollywood royalty?” One of his targets (well deserved if you ask me) was that year’s Johnny Depp/Angelina Jolie movie The Tourist. In this funny little video, Johnny (wearing his full Hunter S. Thompson uniform) proves that he carries a grudge for a long time, as he pays a little visit to a startled Mr. Gervais:

Now rumors are flying that Ricky will indeed return to host the Globes. Here’s the scoop.

Here’s what I saw when I was roaming around before the show opened, including an encounter with a Seattle TV celeb:

And here’s my quick tour of a bunch of the important cars at the show this year:

I’m going to get a close-up look at some of the notable cars at the show, like the Fisker Karma and the Lamborghini Aventador. Check back tomorrow and through the weekend. And for details about the Seattle Auto Show, which runs through Sunday, go here.

Isaac Slade, the Fray front man, wanted to play me a couple of top secret tracks from the new CD, so he got out his iPod . . .

. . . and crawled under the desk of our promotion director, Kelly, so he could play the iPod through her speakers:

We listened to the new stuff, which is quite epic-sounding. Big. And Isaac sings with reckless abandon. He attributes that to the guy who produced the record, Brendan O’Brien, who’s worked with Pearl Jam, Springsteen and others. He encouraged Isaac not to strive for perfection, but to be more spontaneous and raw with his vocals — and you can hear the difference.

They did a great session in the Lounge:

and then — bust out the fake smiles! — we posed for pix afterwards:

The new Fray album Scars & Stories will be here on February 7, and then comes the tour in the spring.

Here they are singing “Heartbeat,” a song from the new album, in the Carter Subaru Mountain Music Lounge:

Okay, maybe I get a little carried away when it’s time for the Seattle Auto Show.. What can I tell you? I geek out on the cars just a little bit. Which is why it was pretty cool that they gave me the brand new VW Beetle to drive for a week, because it’s one of the new cars you can check out at the Auto Show. Tomorrow, I’m actually going inside the CenturyLink Field Event Center to get up close and personal with the new cars, concepts, green cars, trucks and everything else they’ve got this year. Until then, here’s Part Three of my Beetle adventure:

Here’s that link I was talking about: www.seattleautoshow.com for show hours, prices, parking info, etc. See you there!

Florence + The Machine are headlining our Winter Warmth concert on December 8 at the WaMu Theater (along with The Head and the Heart and Mat Kearney. Details and tickets here.) And — perfect timing — Florence is on the current cover of NME, the British music magazine, and they did a little chat with her about her new album while they did the photo shoot for the cover. She’s very soft-spoken!

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You like cars? Me too. That’s why this is an exciting week around here — the Seattle Auto Show starts on Wednesday. Just to get me even more revved up than I already was, the Auto Show people thought I might like to spend a week behind the wheel of the new Volkswagen Beetle. Not the New Beetle that came out in the late 1990s after a long hiatus, but the NEW New Beetle that’s longer, lower, wider, and quite a bit sportier. It’s just one of the dozens of new cars you can see at the show, which runs Wednesday through Sunday at the CenturyLink Field Event Center. Here’s Part Two of my Beetle adventure:

Only one more day till the show opens! Find out more about the show by going here. See you there! (And more about the Beetle on my blog tomorrow.)

Okay, granted, this guy’s a NASA engineer, so you expect him to come up with something brilliant, but really . . . this is the perfect costume for right now.

You can read more about Mark Rober and his giant brain here

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I’m a bit of a car guy. Hey, when you grow up in Detroit, it’s hard not to be a car guy. So every November, when the Seattle Auto Show comes around, I get pretty excited and start geeking out on cars as only a . . . well, as only car geek can.

My friends at the Auto Show thought they’d rev up my anticipation just a little bit more by tossing me the keys to the brand new redesigned 2012 Volkswagen Beetle, which is just one of the many new rides you can check out at the show, which runs this Wednesday through Sunday at the CenturyLink Field Event Center.

Here’s Part One of my adventures with the 21st Century update of an automotive icon:

You want to join me at the Seattle Auto Show? The Beetle’s just one of the new cars you can check out, sit in, and fantasize about. For more on the show, go here. See you there!

Just to whet your appetite for The Mountain’s Winter Warmth concert on December 8 (for details and tickets go here) check out this live performance by The Head and The Heart on the Letterman show. It’s a real hootenanny!

Davis Guggenheim directed one of the all-time great movies about rock & roll, It Might Get Loud. (If you haven’t seen it, rent it. It’s brilliant.) He also directed An Inconvenient Truth, but let’s leave politics out of this for now.

His new film is another documentary, called From The Sky Down. It’s about the making of U2’s milestone album Achtung Baby (which came out 20 years ago this November.) It’s airing Saturday night (10/29) on Showtime, and then it’ll come out on Blu-Ray, Netflix, iTunes, etc.

I talked to the director about the movie and about the album:

davis guggenheim

They may be winding down their 30-year career, but they’re not getting lazy right at the end. Check out these TWO videos for the song “We All Go Back To Where We Belong,” one of the new songs that’s on the 40-song retrospective Part Lies, Part Heart, Part Truth, Part Garbage 1982-2011, and the final R.E.M. single.

I love the song — it’s R.E.M. in a sort of wistful mood, and even though there’s really nothing happening in either of these videos, you can’t take your eyes off these two people. Check them out:

First, a version featuring the actress Kirsten Dunst:

And then there’s this version with poet/performance artist John Giorno:

BTW, the best-of album drops on November 15.

Over at Seattle Met magazine, they asked our city’s chefs and restaurateurs to share their pet peeves about us — the diners who visit their establishments.

Kathryn Robinson stopped by to give me a preview:

1027 what chefs say

Yes, that’s what Steven Tyler looked like after falling in the shower before a concert in Paraguay. Tyler talked to Matt Lauer on the Today Show this morning about why it happened and whether or not he’s still sober:

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

I’ve been told I have a size XL head, but this is ridiculous . . . .

There’s probably not enough time for this year, but I think these guys are on to something. How about a giant hand-made 3D head mask that looks almost exactly like . . . you!

That’s what they’re doing over at You3DMe. You upload a front shot and a side shot of your face (very similar to a mug shot, if you’ve ever been in that situation.) They send you back a giant 3D version of your head. Like the ones in this video:

Big Paper Heads from Shanon Xperian on Vimeo.

Or, if you’re crafty, and you own lots of glue and stuff, they can just send you PDF files of the components and you can assemble them yourself.

To tell you the truth, their website is kind of a mess right now, and I can’t even figure out how much it actually costs. But it’s a great idea, so I hope they work out the bugs in time for next Halloween. Or maybe shoot for Fat Tuesday?

Dan Auerbach and Patrick Carney, aka The Black Keys, dropped by The Mountain for a quick chat in advance of the release of their new song “Lonely Boy,” which you can listen to below, but first . . .here’s how they described the song, sort of:

black keys describe the song


The Black Keys – Lonely Boy by The Black Keys

I asked them about the teaser video that featured a sleazy used car salesman trying to unload a crappy El Camino (that’s the title of the album — El Camino)

and that led to a little bit of car talk:

black keys cars and gigs

And then we got into the world of Black Keys fashion. Dan and Pat are definitely not hat guys:

black keys hats and sombreros

The full-length El Camino arrives on December 6; you can watch the “Lonely Boy” video a little farther down on my blog.