And what’s a couture event without some hippie jams? Capping off a tremendous show, the band formerly known Flowmotion (now dead to us), The True Spokes stop by to preview their brand new CD which will be officially unveiled tomorrow, February 4th at The Showbox at the Market.

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Unrelated to intern Mike Neill, Casey Neill of the Norway Rats drives up from Portland to play his intense brand of Americana on the podcast. Marty has a new favorite – Casey’s voice will blow your mind. See him live tonight, January 27th, at the High Dive in Fremont, or tomorrow night, the 28th, at Bremerton’s High Fidelity. Ahoy seaman!

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And finally huge credit to Brian and Tekla from the band Blvd Park for sledding through the ice and snow to share songs from their forthcoming CD “The Sound.” See them at their CD Release Party, February 9th at the Tractor Tavern. Or find Brian peddling brewskis and Skittles at Century Link.

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Tommy Johnagin

On the other end of the relationship timeline, Michael Stusser and Marty discover a new dating website called www.seekingarrangement.com that makes no bones about what's expected from a Sugar Daddy.

And for the kids - there's always something for the kids - one of Seattle's most popular "kindependent" bands, Recess Monkey (Teatro Zinzanni Spiegeltent, February 18) perform a little sing-a-long in the Moldy Basement. Marty misses his cue on the sing-a-long. As usual.

Recess Monkeys, Marty and Michael

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Marty, Jeff Dye, and Michael

In addition, violin empresario Susan Voelz, formerly with John Mellencamp and Poi Dog Pondering, reminisces about the intimidating size of cameras on Saturday Night Live while bringing her new Thai Yoga performance to Fremont’s West of Lenin this weekend

Susan Voelz

Michael Jordan Hitler Stache

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Kooky Tom Watson, King County’s energetic champion of everything green, squeezes in a few 2011 environmental highlights – bye bye plastic bags. And finally, the magnificent multi-instrumentalist Kimo Muraki (Tiny Messengers and Surrealized), caps a fabulous year of basement originated live music.

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We play a quick round of Blatant Stereotyping with a former Choir Boy and wrestler from Havre, Montana.

This is our last show before Christmas, so Happy Holidays to everyone. We’ll see you back in the basement on December 30.

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And welcome the return of our new house band, Cody Beebe & The Crooks. Making their third appearance, this genre bending jam band is as tight as ever and harkens back to the 1970’s Allman Brothers. Cody – and his fabulous hair – rock in the New Year, December 31st at Seattle’s Hard Rock Cafe

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The video above unfortunately cuts out mid-show, so make sure to listen to the full podcast to hear The Local Strangers play (Columbia City Theater, Saturday, December 3, 2011) and information on how to pay Ticketmaster for your court-ordered class action settlement.

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Making his second appearance on the podcast, but this time with his full power trio in tow, Andrew Vait’s Eternal Fair plays some fantastic, big chunky tunes to wrap up our Thanksgiving weekend spectacular. You can see Eternal Fair this Sunday night, November 27 at Seattle’s Columbia City Theater.

Oh, and HAPPY BIRTDHAY YAZ!! (now get back to work!!)

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Meanwhile singer-songwriter Kris Orlowski bellows a great tune off his forthcoming CD, Warsaw. (CD Release Party, Wednesday, November 23, 2011, at the Tracor Tavern).

Finally, we get the lowdown on the showdown between the Feds and Seattle’s pot dispensaries from MSNBC Business Editor, and card-carrying medical marijuana patient, Al Olson. Let’s legalize this bitch already.

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We follow that up with a live performance from the Gig Harbor-based band Perry Acker (which one’s Perry? Don’t ask) who, by the way, forgot to bring their instruments. Luckily, the Moldy Basement is full of children’s toys, plastic recorders and triangle-bangers that Perry Acker turns into acoustic GOLD! The band plays the Tractor Tavern on November 18th – they may even bring instruments!

Now go hug a Veteran, people….

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Also, Michael Jackson lives!! No, not really. He’s dead. But his music lives on in the new Cirque du Soleil show “The Immortal World Tour” coming to Key Arena, November 9th and 10th. Today we Skype with one of the show’s fabulous dancers, a graduate of the University of Washington Business School. Where Cirque gets most of its dancers, the ones that they don’t get from Forestry Resources.

Finally, our crew celebrates the successful landing of the first 15-month, $15-million Moscow-to-Moscow non-Mars mission. Six dudes – three named Alexi – all spent the last 15-months in a Moscow warehouse pretending to fly to Mars. Big deal. After 2 years and 315 episodes sealed in the Moldy Basement we’re halfway to Uranus. Hee hee, we said Uranus.

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Despite Bank of America’s decision today to repeal it’s planned $5/mos charge for debit card users, Louis CK argues that the banks still hold all the cards. And the money.

Louis CK Bank Charges by martyriemer

Thanks to some amazing piloting the plane screeched to a halt without an enormous fireball, nor a single injury. First watch this amazing raw footage of the jet coming in, again, WITHOUT wheels.

And then watch it from a different angle to see what happens. Amazing.

Zooey Deschanel and Death Cab for Cutie frontman Ben Gibbard have separated after two years of marriage. The couple says it was mutual and amicable. Says a source, “There was no third party involved.”

Gibbard, 35, and Deschanel, 31, married near Seattle in September 2009.

Jerry Seinfeld reminisces about his pre-packaged childhood Halloween costumes, and the never-ending hunt for candy!

The rest of the country – and certainly the X Factor judges – are finding out what we in Seattle have known for a long time – LeRoy Bell is the real deal.

His adventure on the X Factor enters its next phase this Wednesday when audience voting begins. Finally you can lend your voice to help push LeRoy to the top! Here’s how:

The options to vote are different than other shows; X Factor uses, Phone, Facebook, Twitter and Text messages.

HOW TO VOTE FOR LeRoy Bell…

PHONE:
You can vote via calling a toll-free phone number.
Each act will be assigned their own toll-free number, which will appear on screen after their performance.

TEXT:
You can vote via Verizon SMS/text voting.
Each act will be assigned their own four-digit short code, which will appear on screen after their performance.

ONLINE:
If you have a Facebook account, you can vote online at www.TheXFactorUSA.com and follow the instructions there.

TWITTER:
You can vote by sending a Direct Message containing the number of the act for whom you wish to vote via Twitter if you follow @TheXFactorUSA. (Note: We don’t need to follow you back.) Tweets do NOT count. The number assigned to each act is based on order in the performance show each week, much like the toll-free and SMS voting methods. So, if you wish to vote for act number 1, send a Twitter Direct Message containing the number 1 to @TheXFactorUSA. Or, visit www.twitter.thexfactorusa.com and follow the instructions for how to Direct Message your Twitter vote(s).

MOBILE APP:
If you are a Verizon subscriber with an Android device, you can vote via The Xtra Factor App. Download the app now! For Verizon Android tablets, you will need to log into a Facebook account. For Verizon Android handheld devices, you vote via SMS/text message. Beware: for the Verizon Android handheld device voting the short codes and keywords for the acts will be different to those shown on air, but that’s the only thing different.

A few more things to keep in mind here before you pick up the tellie or get your texting fingers warmed up — voting opens five minutes before the end of every performance show and is open for two hours after the show ends in each time zone. Voting is available to people from within the Continental US, Hawaii, Alaska, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands.

If you want to go crazy voting, direct SMS, SMS in-app, and telephone votes are unlimited. But online and Twitter votes are maxed out at 50 votes. Got that?

If you’d like to see how LeRoy got to where he is today watch this:

Some people still think “golf cart” when they hear all-electric vehicle.

What can I do to convince them (or you) that my Nissan Leaf from Eastside Nissan in Bellevue is no toy. Perhaps a demonstration is in order?

Behold my Nissan Leaf, with it’s whiplash-inducing acceleration, as it goes head-to-head against a 5.7L, 370hp Dodge Charger. One of Detroit’s most powerful gas vehicles. It took me awhile to find one on the road, but when I did .. the race was on! Although, in fairness to the other driver, without an engine to rev it was hard for me to communicate my intent.

Any rock star who’s been called on to promote a new record knows it’s all about answering the same five questions over and over and over again. And if you get playful with your answers, you’ll spend the next few weeks explaining what the hell you meant.

The Black Keys, who were in Seattle last week for the opening of the city’s first Microsoft Store, were apparently tired of those five questions and brazenly asked John Fisher for something better, maybe a question about hats?

So, it’s pretty obvious that Pat Carney (left, in the video, with glasses) and Dan Auerbach (right) would just prefer to let the music speak for itself. But a grizzled interviewer like John Fisher isn’t going to let them off easy. Go ahead, John, ask them to talk about their new song. (Woah, he’s actually going to do it):

OK, not that insightful. Let’s get back to talking about random stuff, like cars. Just don’t mention that the vehicle in their promo video for the new CD El Camino is not an El Camino. (Whoa, he’s actually going to do it):