Seattle Ultimate Hits

It took a lot of work not to make our third annual Seattle-centric mix three discs instead of two. Call it a tribute to the industriousness of the city's musicians, or just call it dumb luck. Either way, we're pleased with the results. And although the CDs we made were strictly for editorial purposes, we figured it would be nice to get some feedback on them from the folks we included. So we asked as many of the artists as we could reach to talk about the songs we chose. Their comments are sometimes silly, sometimes enlightening, and always interesting—just like the music itself. We hope you hear them—the songs and artists both—the same way we do. MICHAELANGELO MATOS

DISC ONE (78:27)

1. A Frames, "Eva Braun" (Black Forest, Sub Pop) 3:26. iTunes

A great punk band's most wistful, resonant moment yet.

"I guess she's a strange person to choose as the subject of a song about love and forgiving. Aside from her obvious place in history, she was pretty, but from what I know about her, she wasn't unusually bright or interesting. One of the many things she does represent—whether or not we can understand her choice of partner—is an extreme devotional love, one that you could argue takes the concept beyond its natural place. But I don't think I actually thought through any of that when I wrote this song. There had been a History Channel biography about her, and for some reason, it got me started. When I hear it or we play it now, I always think that the guitar solo makes me feel what I'm attempting to get across with the lyrics."—Erin Sullivan, guitarist/vocalist

2. Kinski, "The Wives of Artie Shaw" (Alpine Static, Sub Pop) 3:16. iTunes

Hard-charging boogie rock that explodes into a swirling, psychedelic noise solo midway through.

"The song is based on and inspired by big-band leader Artie Shaw. Artie had eight wives, including Lana Turner and Ava Gardner. The song is based on a series of eight repeating bars, with each bar growing increasingly more frantic and uncontrolled. The main motif within the verses is used to depict the day-to-day drudgery of married life. The distorted flute noise burst in the middle (eight) of the song depicts the outer turmoil that Artie inflicted on his wives, as opposed to the inner turmoil of the verses. In demo form, the song was known to the band as 'The Whores of Glenn Miller,' but that interpretation of the piece fell by the wayside. The song seems to go over pretty well live, and we're not sick of it. Yet."—Chris Martin, guitarist/vocalist

3. Sick Bees, "God Will Stop Yer Party" (The Marina Album, Up) 0:23. iTunes

A kiddie taunt scored for punky guitar and drums; over before you knew what hit you.

"One of our friends was around a week away from dying—she was really sick, and we were taking care of her. Our neighbor wanted to throw a party right outside her window. We asked her not to, but she refused. The day of the party, I walked outside and was standing on the front porch going, 'Fuck.' A building was being built next door; they hadn't put the siding on yet. It was windy, and this piece flew off the building, went up in the air, landed on the power lines across the street, and blew the power out in the building. It was absolutely crazy. My neighbor that's cool said, 'Hey, we should go down and turn the breakers off so if the power company gets the power back on, she still won't have power and won't be able to have the party.' And sure enough, she had a bunch of people over there sitting around with a bunch of candles."—Starla, guitarist/vocalist

4. Buttersprites, "Yellow Peril" (Buttersprites, Dionysus) 2:38. iTunes

A kicky cover of Public Image Ltd.'s "Public Image," with some new, racially pointed words.

"I thought it would be a fun twist at the Japanese culture fad that is coming around so pervasively through products and fashion. It's like we are on the ride with it, but it could teeter into the territory of prejudice and cultural misunderstanding. But it is all mixed up in the mosh pit of people's good will. And the Buttersprites will ride it as hard and as high as it will go, while doing our best to remain true to ourselves, and of course, poking fun at it all. We say, 'You got what you wanted,' but 'what you wanted' is more complicated than you think."—Haruko Nishimura, vocalist

5. Daylight Basement, "Godspeed Girl" (Any Kind of Pretty, Expanding Brooklyn) 3:37. Three Imaginary Girls (free MP3)

New wave lives on this irresistible pop-rocker—or at least Prince's early-'80s synth sound does.

"This was originally written four years ago about Tiffany [a former bandmate]. She was always like, 'Leave it at the door, we need to rock and roll, and that's the way it is.' That was such a good thing. It wound up being a song [about] the strong women in my life—girlfriends and family and whatnot, and just wanting to be like them. Originally, it was just a guitar song, and it morphed into these crazy mariachi trumpets and the synth horns."—Bre Loughlin, vocalist/keyboardist