Why we called it The Set Times

Set times drop a few days before the show. Who’s on first, who closes, which room to be in at midnight. For anyone who actually goes out, that grid is the most-read document of the whole weekend. It’s also the first thing to vanish afterward, buried three stories deep on a promoter’s Instagram or gone with a deleted festival app.

So we named the paper after it. The name is doing two jobs. It’s a masthead, and it’s a literal thing we hand you: who played when, what you missed, who’s worth showing up early for next time.

From the floor

We write firsthand, out of the Pacific Northwest. Seattle, Portland, Vancouver, and the smaller rooms in between. Shows happen here whether or not the weather cooperates, and so does our coverage. If you read a recap on this site, someone was standing in that room, or down in the photo pit at 1AM, and came home with their own photos and their own notebook.

We don’t rewrite lineup announcements, and we don’t cover events nobody from here went to. You should be able to tell you’re reading a person who was actually there. You are.

The rules we hold ourselves to

• Every claim is witnessed or attributed to a named source.
• We name the openers. Undercard acts get spelled-out names and links.
• We don’t take payment for coverage.
• No stock media. Every photo and every frame of video is ours, or credited with permission.
• We honor no-photo policies at underground events.
• If we were hired to shoot an event we’re also writing about, the piece says so in the first lines.

Local, and biased

We’re biased toward the scene and never toward an advertiser. Local acts come first. Touring acts get covered when they play a PNW date. We also care about the stuff around the music: which venues are opening or getting sold off, which collectives are throwing their first warehouse show, whichever city ordinance just moved last call.

The paper is run by the videographer behind HAZE&GLASS MEDIA. That’s why the visuals carry the coverage, and it’s why the disclosure rule up top isn’t optional: if we were paid to shoot a show, the piece says so before anything else.

Playing a PNW date, or booking a night we should see? Get in touch. We read everything and cover what we can get to.