In a letter responding to Mayor Mike McGinn’s appearance on KUOW yesterday, the city employees behind the Working Seattle web site called McGinn out for continuing to target strategic advisors and “senior-level management” for budget cuts. (Last month, McGinn announced that he was putting a proposal to slash 200 strategic advisor and management jobs “on pause” until the mid-year budget process.)

“Calling for reductions in ’senior-level management’ is not the solution, regardless of whether it’s integrated into the budget process,” the letter says. “We have been suggesting that you assign a target dollar amount to the departments, and have the departments come up with the cuts, after conducting a thorough functional review across all programs and classifications.”

The letter also says that managers and strategic advisors are the only city employees who have been asked to do an inventory of their positions; points out that the number of jobs categorized as “strategic advisors” increased because existing employees were reclassified, not because of a huge uptick in political appointments; and suggests that McGinn pick a dollar target for reductions, rather than a number of positions.

As we’ve noted previously, cutting top-level positions may, paradoxically, hit mid-level managers and recent hires the hardest, because the city’s civil service rules protect non-exempt workers based on seniority.

I have a call in to McGinn’s office to get the mayor’s reaction to the letter and to confirm that he still plans to target senior-level positions, rather than a specific dollar figure.

Josh posted about the U.S. Supreme Court decision regarding corporate expenditures and political campaigns when it came down few weeks ago.

However, I’m the LawNerd around here. And I actually read all 186 pages of the decision—my excuse for this late, but more in-depth post on the historic decision.

Citizens United v. FEC, which struck down campaign finance restrictions on corporate independent expenditures, caused much consternation including the President’s dress-down of the Supreme Court during the State of the Union and an unprecedented visible reaction from one of the majority justices (Alito). Much has been written about the potential impact of the decision on the integrity of our democratic process.  Such speculation is best left to the pundits and political nerds. But, the 186 page set of opinions makes for fascinating reading at least to law nerds and others interested in the inner workings and debates at the Supreme Court.

Here are some observations:

First, as to the merits, despite the torrent of criticism from the left, the decision is a victory for free speech.

A government restriction on speech (i.e. censorship of a political movie funded by a corporation) was struck down under the First Amendment of the United States Constitution.  For a more in-depth discussion on this point, see Ira Glasser’s (former executive director of the ACLU) article on the Huffington Post. Mr. Glasser also identifies the best solution to avoid the potential corrupting influence of corporations, unions, and special interests on elections: Public financing of elections.  A move towards public financing, rather than proposing a constitutional amendment restricting corporate speech, would both improve the fairness and quality of elections while preserving the First Amendment.

Second, the majority opinion of Justice Kennedy is analytically flawed. The dissent of Justice Stevens, which is worth reading, points out a litany of flaws. A couple of flaws stand out.  Justice Kennedy makes a big point of stating that the text of the first amendment does not include any distinctions among speakers, thus corporations cannot be singled out for speech restrictions.  Justice Kennedy is right about the text of the First Amendment: “Congress shall make no law . . . abridging the freedom of speech . . . . “  And if the Supreme Court consistently applied the First Amendment as written, Justice Kennedy’s majority opinion would not have been controversial.  But the Supreme Court’s interpretation of the First Amendment has not been faithful to its text and has often recognized exceptions resulting in restrictions on speech.  And the Supreme Court has upheld restrictions on students, prisoners, members of the armed services, and civil servants because of their identity.  Thus, the identity of the speaker argument does not go as far as the majority suggests.

More significantly, Justice Kennedy’s analysis rests on the proposition that there is no potential for corruption or the appearance of corruption of the political process from corporate spending as long as it is not explicitly coordinated with a candidate.  Protecting against corruption and the appearance of corruption has been held to justify bans and limitations on direct contributions to candidates.  The Justice Steven’s dissent vehemently disagrees with this assumption and points out that Congress is in a better position than the Supreme Court to assess the influence of money on politics and the potential for corruption.

Third, the decision reflects a continuing pro-business bent in the Court since Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Alito joined the Court.  The two Bush appointees often side with businesses on issues ranging from interpretation of the securities laws, to federal preemption of state tort claims, to rejecting large punitive damages awards.  Rather than displaying strict ideological kinship with Justices Scalia and Justice Thomas, Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Alito have tried to approach cases more pragmatically albeit with conservative instincts.

Fourth, the Citizens United decision directly overturned a relatively recent (1990) Supreme Court precedent.  Directly over-turning precedent is rare. Sometimes it is necessary (i.e. Brown v. Board of Education overturning Plessy v. Ferguson). But determining to over-turn precedent on a 5-4 vote—principally because the composition of the Court has changed, establishing a new bare majority that simply disagrees with a holding—is a scary precedent itself. Interestingly, Chief Justice Roberts’ concurrence focuses on why and when it is proper to over-turn precedent.  Although Chief Justice Roberts attempts to provide a more analytic framework than the majority for when it is appropriate to over-turn precedent, it provides little comfort for those concerned about the future of such decisions as Roe v. Wade.

Finally, the decision reflects a heated internal debate within the Court about the use and misuse of “originalism” in constitutional analysis.  “Originalism” is a theory most prominently espoused by Justice Scalia that seeks to understand and apply the constitution as originally written and understood by the framers.  In his dissent, Justice Stevens argues that the framers of the constitution had expressed a significant distrust of corporations (to the extent they existed in the 1790s) and would never have conceived that corporations have unlimited free speech rights to the same extent as people.

Whether this is true or not, the thrust of Justice Stevens argument is really to chide the majority who often relies on originalism to support its position and to critique the theory itself.  Justice Scalia takes the bait and writes a concurring opinion explaining why the decision is right (and Justice Stevens is wrong) based on originalism.  But the most telling point (and criticism) is made by Justice Stevens, perhaps as a parting shot in light of his possible retirement at the end of his term:

“This case sheds a revelatory light on the assumption of some that an impartial judge’s application of an originalist methodology is likely to yield more determinate answers, or to play a more decisive role in the decisional process, than his or her views about sound policy.”

1. State Sen. Margarita Prentice’s bill to suspend I-960—the voter-approved measured that requires a two-thirds vote for tax increases—advanced to the senate floor yesterday. (Our previous coverage of the bill is here.)

Another bill we’ve been following—the environmental community’s push to triple the tax on hazardous substances to pay for storm water clean up—was formally introduced in the legislature yesterday. The bill initially earmarks the majority of the money for the general fund rather than for environmental clean up.

A lower profile bill—South Seattle Sen. Adam Kline’s (D-37)  bill that would put the breaks on the foreclosure process by giving homeowners more options for loans and mediation—moved out of committee yesterday.

2. The Seattle-Tacoma International Taxis Association (STITA) has sued the Port of Seattle.  The nonprofit cab—which has had an exclusive right to serve Sea-Tac ariport—recently lost a bidding war to competitor Yellow Taxi and with it, their two-decade long agreement with the Port of Seattle to provide the cabs leaving the airport. STITA sued the Port—they requested a restraining order to prevent the Port from signing the new contract—over the lost contract saying the bidding process was illegal.

According to the lawsuit, the Port used a “profit-driven model” with a “concession fee” instead of the previous model that based the contract on the Port’s estimated costs. STITA also says in the lawsuit that they rely on the Port contract for the bulk of their business and will go under (and put 450 employees out of a job) without it.

King County Superior Court Judge Steven Gonzalez quashed the lawsuit yesterday when he denied the requested restraining order yesterday, but the State Court of Appeals quickly issued a stay. The Port can’t sign with Yellow Cab until the legal mess is sorted out.

3. Our favorite local band, THEESatisfaction, is playing at Neumos tonight.

Today’s Morning Fizz brought to you by Vote Yes! on Seattle School Levies

Ken Kesey’s classic Sometimes a Great Notion is arguably the great novel about the Pacific Northwest; it’s also a damn good movie.  Knockout performances from Paul Newman and Henry Fonda are highlights in this chronicle of a family logging business determined to withstand the encroaching union.

“Never give a inch!” is the Stamper family motto, and this is a film full of (stubbornly) manly men with (desperately) gritted teeth.

Obviously, no movie could ever approach the scope of Kesey’s tome, but in atmosphere and characterization, this 1970 film is pretty spot-on.  It’s a time capsule of a way of life and image of masculinity that were already dying in the 1970s and have faded to distant memories in the 2010s.

Sometimes A Great Notion plays nightly at 6:30 and 8:45 at the Grand Illusion through Thursday night.

In a letter earlier this month, City Council members Sally Clark and Nick Licata asked Mayor Mike McGinn to set up a formal selection committee to choose the replacements for the outgoing directors of the city’s Office of Housing, Adrienne Quinn, and Human Services Department, Alan Painter. (Painter was shown the door in December; Quinn announced her resignation last month.)

McGinn has announced several high-level appointments without doing any formal public process, including his transportation director,  budget director, chief of staff, and Office of Intergovernmental Relations director.

McGinn spokesman Mark Matassa wouldn’t say whether the mayor planned to convene a formal search committee, saying only that McGinn would be “meeting with housing advocates and providers and council members to talk about the larger question of how we provide housing.”

Nor would Matassa confirm or deny a persistent story among housing advocates that the mayor planned to consolidate the Office of Housing into another city department, such as Human Services, saying only that the upcoming meetings would provide a “10,000-foot flyover [view] of how we provide housing in the city.” Anna Markee, Seattle outreach director for the Housing Development Consortium, says McGinn’s office hasn’t talked to her organization about the future of OH, adding, “obviously, it’s a perennial concern.”

Jim Lazar, an economist and open-government advocate in Olympia, has asked the state Public Disclosure Commission (PDC) to revamp state campaign disclosure rules so that telephone campaign polls would be considered political advertising, among other changes.

Robert Shirley, Lazar’s attorney, says Lazar filed the request (technically, a “rulemaking petition”) in response to a poll by Olympia City Council member Jeff Kingsbury in 2009. That poll, which opponents characterized as a “push poll,” gave voters positive information about Kingsbury and negative information about Buxbaum, and asked whether that information made them more or less likely to vote for each candidate.

However, the changes —which would also require pollsters to identify to callers who paid for a poll, and that political committees that sponsor polls reveal their top five donors—would impact political campaigns and pollsters across the state, including local races in Seattle. For example, Mayor Mike McGinn relied heavily on issue polling during his campaign (he also created voter contact files by compiling lists of people who said they planned to vote for him, which mayoral spokesman Aaron Pickus says does not technically constitute “polling.”) That’s one reason, as Shirley notes, that “people in the polling business don’t like this proposal.”

John Wyble, the consultant whose firm, WinPower Strategies, conducted the poll, says the additional disclosure Lazar is proposing could “invalidate the results of the poll, and make research really hard to do.” Moreover, he says, polls are typically aimed at getting a sense of public opinion from a representative sample of voters, not influencing the outcome of an election. “If there are 30,000 voters and I’m asking 300 people a question, I’m not going to influence that election,” Wyble says.

Staffers at the PDC advised the commission against adopting the rules, arguing that they could discourage people from running for office and that they were redundant with existing laws. However, the commission voted unanimously last month to move forward with the rulemaking process, and will take up the proposed changes at its meeting later this month. Shirley says the commission is waiting until the end of the legislative session before moving forward with the new rules, because the legislature is considering a bill that would expand disclosure requirements for political committees.

* Technically, a push poll is one in which pollsters attempt to “push” a large number of voters toward or against a particular candidate or perspective by providing distorted or false information; push pollsters don’t typically collect or analyze the responses. True push polls are very rare.

Today’s pick:

1. Mayor Mike McGinn is giving a guest lecture tonight at the UW College of Built Environments, the university’s urban planning, architecture and design program (which the college’s site says aims to “integrate poetic and practical responsibilities in our search for more appropriate forms.” That’s beautiful.)

McGinn is going to give a lecture on his vision of the Seattle’s future, particularly with regard to things like open space, transportation, and sustainability.

It’s like a high-brow, urban wonkery-filled town hall—after McGinn’s presentation, attendees can ask McGinn questions, share ideas, and give advice.

At the UW’s Architecture Hall, Room 147, at 6:30 pm. Free.

On tomorrow’s calendar:

1. Since Garry Wills rose to prominence in the ’60s as a conservative Catholic disciple of William F. Buckley, he’s written more than 40 books. You can pretty much divide Wills’ output into two categories—his theological studies, in which he displays an unceasingly critical attitude toward the Catholic Church, and his awesome obsession with presidents of the United States (he’s written books about Richard Nixon, John F. Kennedy, Thomas Jefferson, Ronald Reagan, George Washington, James Madison, and Abraham Lincoln, winning a Pulitzer for that last one). He’s also written books about G.K. Chesterton and Jack Ruby.

His new book, Bomb Power: The Modern Presidency and the National Security State, furthers Wills’ study of the executive office, advancing his theory that the president, as the one with sole access to the nuclear “button,” has lead to an unparalleled increase in power.

At 7:30 pm, at Town Hall (1119 Eighth Ave). $5.

2. The Citizens Technology and Telecommunications Advisory Board is meeting tomorrow at 6 pm. It sounds wonky, and it is. But if you’re like me and you’ve been using Glenn Fleishman’s PubliCola posts as primers on the direction the city is headed, tech-wise, you can go to the meeting (which includes a public comment session) ready to see what Chief Technology Officer Bill Schrier (he of the super-high-speed fiber optic triple play) is planning for 2010.

The meeting also includes presentations to the advisory board by those more directly responsible for bringing broadband and other tech stuff on McGinn’s agenda to Seattle’s neighborhoods. The advisory board (a ten-member, city council and mayor-appointed committee) will then report back to McGinn and the City Council.

Tomorrow at 6 pm, at Seattle Municipal Tower, 27th floor (700 5th Ave).

3. THEESatisfaction is headlining Ladies’ Night at Neumos tomorrow night. Every THEESatisfaction show I’ve seen has been twice as good as the one I saw before. Their live set on KEXP’s Street Sounds last night was fantastic and, of course, too short.

Also playing is Lisa Dank, a local Lady Gaga disciple whose live show sounds fun (MusicNerd Anand Balasubrahmanyan gives Lisa Dank two thumbs up here) and great up-and-comers Canary Sing.

With Queerbait, Katie Kate, Sap’n, DJ Colby B. Tomorrow night at 8 pm. Tickets are $8.

[ 1960s subdivision in Medfield, a Boston suburb; click image to enlarge ]

Sticking up for a presumed silent, oppressed majority—real or imaginary—is an unbeatable marketing strategy. Just ask Fox News. And so it goes with noted sprawl apologist Joel Kotkin, who writes:

“A year into the Obama administration, America’s dominant geography, suburbia, is now in open revolt against an urban-centric regime that many perceive threatens their way of life, values, and economic future.”

Joel Connelly exemplified the local version of this pseudo-drama, writing in a column entitled “520 bridge debate shows Seattle at its worst,” that “Seattle politicians should briefly depart from their insular world of interest groups and come [to Medina, the wealthy Eastside suburb] to get a broad view of State Route 520 and how to bridge the problem of cars occupied by just one person. ”

The tired meme goes like this: Those who are critical of the suburbs are an urban elitist minority who don’t understand the suburban way of life, and who hope to use “social engineering” to force suburbanites to swallow a more urban lifestyle. Case in point: State Rep. Ross Hunter, D-Medina, fretting, in Connelly’s paraphrase, that the 520 bridge project “has become a playground for social engineering.”

The first flaw in that argument is that it’s pretty much impossible to be an American and not have had significant direct experience with the suburbs. Our landscape is thick with them, and our culture is drenched in the suburban American dream.

It’s not that critics of the suburbs don’t get the suburbs.

For example, I myself had a wonderful time growing up in a suburb, and have spent the majority of my life in relatively car-dependent environments. Most critics understand the suburbs very well. It’s just that when they combine that understanding with a balanced assessment of people and the planet and the future, the inescapable conclusion is that the suburbs no longer cut it.

The mounting evidence on everything from energy use to land consumption to obesity rates is already familiar, and even the free market has begun to chime in. For example, a new report from the Natural Resources Defense Council found that foreclosure rates were lower in compact, walkable, transit-rich neighborhoods than they were in typical car-dependent suburban neighborhoods.

Meanwhile, demand for housing in walkable urban neighborhoods has risen to the point where real estate analysts like Christopher Leinberger expect that the shortage of supply will likely last for decades. If you want to see social engineering in action, look no further than the mountains of policy, regulations, and public investment that were put in place over decades to promote the suburban model of growth, but that now are impeding the market from meeting the growing demand for a more urban alternative.

Yet to the diehard sprawl apologists, none of that matters. If free people have chosen to live in sprawling suburbs, they posit, then sprawling suburbs are good—end of story. And it follows that anyone who criticizes the suburbs is an elitist who wants to tell others how to live their lives.

The underlying source of that attitude is a toxic combination of American individualism and the invisible hand of the free market writ large. And it’s a sorry state, because there are all kinds of reasons free people make bad choices, and we all lose when individual choice is sacred.

What is truly “Seattle at its worst” is when people are so quick to attack those who question the sanity of spending billions on new freeways, when both history and current trends clearly indicate that doing so will propagate bad choices for decades to come. The truly ”insular” people are those who can’t conceive of any solution to congestion other than building roads.

UPDATE: Rep. Hunter responds in the comments:

I did not say I fretted about social engineering. I don’t.

I don’t agree with the positions attributed to “suburbanites” in the rest of the piece and object to the assumption that only “diehard spawl enthusiasts” support the 520 bridge project. I have a long record of supporting transit funding and improvements in how we manage our growth to produce a more compact, transit oriented King County.

I do care that we as a region can make decisions and move forward. Delay costs $100,000,000 ($100 million) per year. We have been working on this project for well over a decade and have broad agreement on both sides of the lake.

I do care that we can reduce the transit time from Redmond to Seattle in the peak afternoon commute by 40+ minutes. Delaying the bridge leaves transit and carpools in the 520 corridor as an unattractive option for people who care about time.

The 520 bridge serves more people from Seattle who work in the suburbs than people who live on the Eastside and work in Seattle. The capacity that is being added is for 3+ carpools and transit, not GP lanes.

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If suburbia is, as Joel Kotkin claims, in “open revolt,” they missed a prime target last week when the Washington State Trade and Convention Center in Seattle was crawling with the enemy during the New Partners for Smart Growth conference.

Speakers at the conference included Obama appointees U.S. EPA Administrator Lisa P. Jackson, U.S. Department of Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, and U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development Secretary Shaun Donovan. Last summer these three agencies collaborated to create the Partnership for Sustainable Communities. Last week HUD launched a new Office of Sustainable Housing and Communities, DOT established a new Office of Livable Communities, and the EPA announced expanded support for their Office of Sustainable Communities.

The urbanists are on the move.

For the past week and a half, I’ve been wondering what’s going on with the Sasquatch! lineup for 2010. May isn’t that far away and despite a few confirmations (Pavement, Miike Snow, Wale, etc.), the Sasquatch! camp had been mostly quiet.

That is, until now. This morning, Live Nation sent out a press release stating that for the first time in the festival’s history, the lineup will be announced live.

The announcement will happen at the Crocodile next Monday, 2/15, with performances by Surfer Blood, Fresh Espresso, and Atlas Sound. Check out the full press release after the jump.

Seattle, WA – Live Nation and Adam Zacks are pleased to announce The 2010 Sasquatch! Music Festival Launch Party presented by Esurance and sponsored by Jack Daniel’s happening on Monday, February 15, 2010 at 7:00 p.m. at the Crocodile.

For the first time in the festival’s history the lineup will be announced LIVE at this very special event featuring performances by Surfer Blood, Atlas Sound and Fresh Espresso and hosted by Luke Burbank. Prize packages from Esurance and Xbox will be given away all night, along with limited-edition festival posters and more.

Free tickets are available courtesy of Esurance by listening to 107.7 The End all week to win, or by stopping by either Easy Street Records locations starting Friday, February 12^th at 9:00 a.m. (limit 2 per person).

Surfer Blood calls West Palm Beach home and, while still in their early 20s, pen summery indie songs that even the most hook-laden power pop band would rightfully be jealous of. Called “irresistibly catchy” by Pitchfork, Surfer Blood’s critically acclaimed debut album, Astro Coast, was released on January 19.

Atlas Sound is the solo moniker of Deerhunter frontman Bradford Cox, so named since 1994, when a sixth-grade Bradford made recordings on a karaoke cassette machine. Now signed to 4AD, Atlas Sound is those ideas that he “can’t make work with a five piece rock band,” employing stream-of-consciousness writing alongside ambient electronics.

Fresh Espresso, named by local blog SoundOnTheSound as representatives of “the next wave of Seattle hip-hop,” is producer/composer P Smoov (of Mad Rad) and MC Rik Rude.

1. Voters have two more days to mail in their ballots in this year’s school levy election. We strongly agree with last week’s superior court ruling that the state isn’t meeting its constitutional obligation to fully fund education. However, until that matter is resolved by the courts, schools still rely heavily on levies for basic stuff like textbooks, vocational training, and safe buildings. In Seattle, for example, levies fund about 23 percent of basic school operations.

Prop. 1, the capital levy, will raise $270 million for seismic improvements, roofs, energy efficiency improvements, and playgrounds, and Prop. 2, the operations levy, will raise $433 million for teacher pay, books, and reduced class sizes. Both are renewals of existing levies, and both deserve your vote.

2. Ted Inkley and Phil Brenneman, two controversial assistant city attorneys under Tom Carr who were asked to leave by new city attorney Pete Holmes, recently filed a massive public disclosure request with from Holmes’ office. According to Holmes’ spokeswoman Kathy Mulady, the  two attorneys have asked for copies of all communications between Holmes and members of his small transition team related to “staffing changes, reorganizations in the office, plans for increases and decreases of staff, and the salaries of proposed hires.” Holmes’ office is releasing the documents in batches, and Brennamen and Inkley are reviewing them in person at the city attorney’s office.

3. As he announced in his inauguration speech, Mayor Mike McGinn is launching a series of five group discussions focusing on youth and families. The first one will be at the Rainier Community Center, 4600 38th Ave. S., on February 22 from 7 to 8:30 pm.

4. Children’s Hospital and the Laurelhurst Community Club have “reached an agreement on some matters” related to the neighborhood group’s lawsuit challenging the hospital’s expansion plans, according to a letter from Sally Clark, chair of the council’s built environment committee. “Council does not have a copy of or know the specifics of the agreement,” Clark says in the letter.

Laurelhurst residents have spent several years fighting Children’s expansion plans, arguing that a bigger hospital will create excessive noise and traffic havoc in the neighborhood. The committee will hear oral arguments from both sides at its meeting this Wednesday at 9:30 am.

Today’s pick:

1. St. Vincent is playing at Neumos tonight. Her music (and her voice) is remarkably pretty, lulling, français, almost boring, and then, all of a sudden, it’s overwhelmed by a wave of computerized whooshes and dance beats, or it turns into fast-jazz quirkiness. It’s very hip right now.

She is also gorgeous. Her music videos are melodramatic, featuriing slow-walking and death contemplation and uncontrollable weeping. This video for “Marrow” is crazy.

GameNerd Sam Machkovech adds: “Highly recommended, especially when Clark flexes her experimental guitar muscles (which she worked up as a member of Glenn Branca’s 100-Guitar Symphonies long, long ago).” I did not know that. Awesome.

With Fences and Wildbirds & Peacedrums. Tonight at Neumos (925 E Pike Street), 8 pm. Tickets are $13.

This weekend:

1. Joshua Ferris’ first book, Then We Came to the End, was an inquiry into the minds of corporate drones (it was even written in the third person). Ferris, who worked in a Chicago ad agency while writing the book, gives center stage to the universal American paranoia about getting fired, in a work environment where practically nothing else exists. It’s funny the same way “The Office” is funny, of course, but it also has density of plot and character and an emotional depth that goes far beyond the sitcom.

Ferris’ new book The Unnamed is about a high-powered Manhattan lawyer who constantly has the compulsion to walk as far as he can. Ferris is reading from the book tomorrow at the Seattle Public Library’s University Branch.

Tomorrow at 2 pm, at SPL University Branch (5009 Roosevelt Way NE). Free.

2 Experience Music Project is opening its Graham Nash-curated exhibition of rock and roll photography tomorrow night. Graham Nash, if you care—I don’t especially—was in Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young in the ’70s. But at noon, there’s a discussion on Neil Young by one of his photographers and an archiver of his music, and it’s free. Yeah, Neil Young. That’s more like it.

Also, going to the EMP is actually really fun, and this is a good excuse. Every once in a while, I like to be reminded of how many ridiculous guitars Jimi Hendrix owned.

Tomorrow at noon at the EMP (325 5th Ave N). The Neil Young lecture is free–a Graham Nash interview with other photographers, at 2 pm, is $20.

3. Blood Red Dancers are a great Seattle hipster band. I say hipster, because if anything typifies the 2010 hipster, it’s the appropriation of things that were hip in the ’70s and ’80s and are now embarrassing. Dude: It’s ironic.

On second thought, though, there’s nothing embarrassing about the sound Blood Red Dancers emulate. Sometimes they sound like Glenn Danzig over sparse piano. Sometimes they sound like Jonathan Richman howling over dance beats. They’re the perfect retro rock mixtape.

BRD are opening for D. Black, a rising Seattle hip hopper, at KEXP’s monthly Audioasis benefit. DJ Hannah Levin broadcasts her show from the venue, and all the proceeds go to local nonprofits (tomorrow night’s go to the CD Forum).

With People Eating People. Tomorrow night at 9 pm, at The Sunset (5433 Ballard Ave NW). Tickets are $7/$8.