July 20, 2007

Syke It to Me

Jesse Sykes’s Seattle Favorites

Revolving door rehab stints, sudden baldness, Us Weekly-fueled feuds. Usually, celeb behavior is a total bore.

But while listening to folk rocker Jesse Sykes’s haunting third album for the bajillionth time, we realized there are exceptions. So we sweet-talked the seventeen-year Seattleite into telling us a few of her favorite things.

Listen Up
Better than brown paper packages, Sykes’s favorite local bands are The Stares (“beautiful, lush, sophisticated arrangements”), Whiting Tennis (“reminds me of downtown New York and Jim Carroll”), and Mike Dumovich (“not your typical guy with a guitar trying to sound like Nick Drake”).

Dress Up
Forget girls in white dresses: jeans, boots, and a cowboy shirt are Sykes’s uniform. When she’s not vintage hunting at The Pike Place Rummage Sale (in the Sanitary Market Building) or Goodwill, she splurges at Ballard boutique Olivine.

Cozy Up
She’s played around the world, but there’s no place like home. Whether she’s onstage or off, the Tractor Tavern is “like my living room.” And her fave place to drink a vodka soda (made with “anything that’s not complete rot-gut”) was a pre-smoking-ban Hattie’s Hat.

Know all about LiLo’s latest, but still haven’t heard that album? Catch Sykes and her band, The Sweet Hereafter, at The Triple Door tomorrow night.

Anything but boring.

The Triple Door, 216 Union Street (206-838-4333). Show is Saturday, 7:30 p.m. Tickets available online at tripledoor.net. Download a free song here.