My Favorite Sites
Grist - Witty, funny, & progressive this Seattle based magazine brings a great attitude to the coverage of current environmental issues.
YES! - An incredibly positive magazine about people working for cultural change, people with visions of a just & sustainable society. There is a lot of good going on in the world & YES! is committed to supporting it. Based outta Bainbridge Island, WA
Yelp - A simple idea implemented well. Yelp compiles reviews from everyday people of restaurants, bars, businesses, parks, cultural institutions, you name it. I’ve discovered some amazing places in Seattle through Yelp & have posted quite a few reviews of my own.
Wabash College - My alma matter, a small all-male college in Crawfordsville Indiana. At Wabash I got a great education, made amazing connections &, was a part of an incredibly supportive community. Nothing special about their website, but I visit it enough to consider it a favorite.
Music
Pandora - A customizable online radio station that caters itself to your tastes the more you listen. Great way to support your favorite musicians & discover some new ones.
Musicovery - Creates free form music maps based on user defined genre/mood inputs. A nice way to zone out & discover cool tunes at the same time.
Musicians
Ben Harper - One of the best musicians alive today. Ben covers a vast musical terrain, plays with incredible passion, & attempts to make the world better place through his music. He also puts on one of the most impressive live shows I’ve ever seen.
John Butler Trio - Seeing John Butler perform solo with a hundred other people on a beach in the Puget Sound with the Olympic Mountains in the background is one of the highlights of my live music history. John and the Trio play passionate, positive, pertinent music; they are a force for societal change delivered in the form of amazing music.
Ryan Adams - Ryan’s website is really weird, but his music is spot on. He is a prolific & talented songwriter backed up by an incredible band, The Cardinals. His live shows are engaging & entertaining beyond belief.
Andrew Bird - Intelligent inde violin loop pop. Bird is a talented violinists and lyricist who, in his live performances, loops his own instruments, vocals, & whistling in multiple layers to texturally evocative soundscapes. His latest album “Armchair Apochrypha” contains some interesting social critiques in regards to the unsustainable direction of society at large.
Akiva - I discovered Akiva in college & after falling in love with his music I worked up the courage to contact him. He is a great & friendly guy & was gracious enough to play a charity show at Wabash, which was a blast. Since then I’ve seen him in Indy, New York, & a couple other smaller cities. His music is well-crafted; strong songwriting combined with catchy melodies. I’m sure you’ll enjoy it.
Blu Sanders - Originally from Austin, TX Blu writes heart wrenching loves songs and is one of my favorite lyricists.
Ray Lamontagne - This man knows heartbreak, and sings about it with abandon. Pretty depressing sometimes, but an incredible musician none the less.
The Packway Handle Band - An up-and-coming bluegrass band outta Athens Georgia. I’ve seen ‘em a couple times in Montana and always had a blast. Oddly enough I’ve also cooked chocolate chip pancakes for the band - I hear the pancakes fueled them for one of their most successful tours to date.
The Bridger Creek Boys - “High Drivin’ Hard Hittin Bluegrass” The Boys are a bluegrass band outta Bozeman, MT that I befriended last summer. A great group of guys with some really good tunes to boot.
The Avett Brothers - Punkgrass at its finest. Old timey tunes tinged with metal, emo, the vocal harmonies of Alice in Chains & an explosive stage presence. These guys are a bottle of musical brandy & their live shows are unhinged.
Old Crow Medicine Show - Bluegrass, Blues, American roots these guys play a pinch of everything & make it all sounds great. Their latest CD, Big Iron World, is one of the best modern expressions of American roots & folk music I have ever heard.
The Tallboys - An old time string string band based outta Seattle. I met the fiddler at Pike Place Market & bought their CD in anticipation of seeing them perform at Wintergrass in Tacoma in a couple months.
The Yonder Mountain String Band - The best newgrass band around, nuff said.
Authors
Scott Russell Sanders - An Indiana author & one of my absolute favorites. Scott writes of hope, beauty, compassion, commitment & place in a manner that makes me believe that humanity is capable of great good. I have had the opportunity to meet Scott & he was very gracious with his time & attention, a very inspiring person.
Michael Pollan - This man is fairly brilliant. He articulates the relationship between culture, food, gardening, plants, & craft in critical and reflective manner. The biggest strength of his writing seems to be his ability to penetrate the sheen of society & reveal the some of the absurd practices we have come to live within.
Cool Companies
Theo Chocolate - Based outta Seattle this company is a company passionate about chocolate and changing the world. Not only is the chocolate delicious, but they are also the first organic fair trade chocolatier in the U.S. To top it off they make their chocolate from bean to bar to ensure they have a hand in every part of the process - pretty much unprecedented in the world of small time American chocolatiers. Support these people & your sweet tooth.
Flying Pig Rafting Co. - I worked at the Pig for three summers & loved every minute of it. The owners, Geoff and Liza, were great bosses & are now close friends; they’ve got a great thing going. If you’re ever near Yellowstone make it a point to take a raft trip, horseback ride, or wildlife safari with the wonderful folks at the Flying Pig.
Seattle Stair and Design - My current employer. A small company of committed craftsmen creating custom built stairs.
