If you checked out today’s GO section, you’ve read some of my picks for touring bands you should check out at Bumbershoot. And to that I add seven more must see acts from around the Sound:

1. Seaweed (9:30 p.m. Sunday, EMP Sky Church): The Tacoma grunge stars’ comeback trail actually begins tonight at the High Dive. (Now if I can only just sort out the technical issues that have been kept me from posting audio lately. Check back later and hopefully I’ll have some clips from my interview with Wade Neal and

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Good Charlotte is Justin Timberlake’s opening act for the Sept. 8 show at the Tacoma Dome. But I also recently learned that Benji and Joel Madden will also appear at the Verizon Wireless store at 2125 South 320th St., in Federal Way, between 1:30 and 3 p.m. that day for a brief acoustic performance and autograph session.

Also, stay tuned for audio clips from my interview with GC’s Benji. Among other things, he told me a funny story about getting sucked into the tabloid frenzy that’s followed his twin brother and his last couple of girlfriends. Hint: It

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I was just writing up my interview with Chicago singer-songwriter Andrew Bird, the guy I’m more excited to see this weekend at Bumbershoot than anyone else. And since a lot of you haven’t heard of him, I thought I’d share the performance on “Late Night with David Letterman” that caught my attention. “Plasticities” is one of my favorite songs of ’07, and that whistling thing Bird does is just haunting.

He goes on at 8:30 p.m. Sunday on the Mural Amphitheatre stage. Find a full Bumbershoot lineup here.

Also,

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God, I can’t wait for Anton Corbijn’s Joy Division flick, “Control,” based on that clip. (Sorry about the titles, but the English version wouldn’t let me embed.) It stars Sam Riley, who had a bit part in “24 Hour Party People,” a flick about Joy Division’s label, Factory Records. And early reports are that he’s spot on as tortured lead singer Ian Curtis, who hung himself in 1980.

Regarding the authenticity of the forthcoming (due in October) Joy Division and New Order’s Bernard Sumner tells Rolling Stone, “I think Peter [bassist Hook]

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Remember that American Idiot contest I mentioned a while back? The one that KISW is hosting? Well, guess what? Tacoma’s own Top Heavy Crush is in the final three, going up against Siren’s Sister and the Wright Brothers.

Find details on voting and the finale concert here.

The Cure concert that was set for Oct. 8 at KeyArena has been postponed until spring 2008, promoter Live Nation announced today.

The legendary alt-rock band also released this statement:

“With all apologies for any inconvenience or disappointment it may cause, we have made a decision to move the September/October 2007 North American Cure shows to April/May 2008.



The schedule as it stands only gives us a couple of weeks to finish our new double album before we hit the road again, and we know this just isn’t enough time to

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Maybe you thought you’d heard your last from the Decemberists, at least for a while after the critically acclaimed indie pop band played the Paramount in May. But not so!

Capitol Records, the label that issued the band’s major label debut “The Crane Wife” last year, will release a new disc called “The Perfect Crime #2,” featuring remixes of that song on Sept. 25.

Capitol Records also announced the Decemberists’ winter tour, which will wind down with two dates at Seattle’s Moore Theatre on Dec. 8 and 9.

Learn more here. Or

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Just got word from the folks at Jazzbones that George Clinton, aka the Prime Minister of of Funk, is coming back. This time he and the 420 Funk Mob will be there on Nov. 16, two days short of his last appearance at the Sixth Avenue nightclub.

Click here and here to listen to the two-part interview I posted back then. And I’m still waitin’ for his tour with the Wu-Tang Clan to materialize.

Max Roach – one of the last living legends of bebop and perhaps the greatest drummer of all time – died Wednesday. He was 83.

I was fortunate enough to see him perform at Western Washington University a few years ago, and his skills were still considerable well into his late ’70s. I also got to meet him briefly afterward. And while I don’t remember exactly what we talked about, I remember Mr. Roach as being charming, humble and disarmingly nice. My condolences to his family and friends.

Check out the clips below and then

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If you tuned into this blog the past few days, you know I’ve been angst-ridden about the likelihood of Amy Winehouse’s upcoming Seattle show being called off after her recent bout of “exhaustion.” But now another British crooner – sometime rival Lily Allen – has beaten her to the punch.

Allen has called off next month’s U.S. tour dates, including a scheduled Sept. 15 stop at Seattle’s Paramount Theatre. The reason given in a press release issued by show promoter Live Nation is that it’s taken Allen longer than expected to obtain a new work visa

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