Gabriel Teodros

On Saturday night, the Maldives, Hey Marseille, Gabriel Teodros, and Wheedle's Groove all played at Mike McGinn's inauguration party at the Showbox in SoDo.  Teodros, a sharp-tongued and left-leaning MC who tends to be skeptical of the political process, had considered declining McGinn's invitation, and said as much publicly in a PubliCola story that ran on Saturday afternoon. Apparently, someone in McGinn's campaign was offended that Teodros publicly questioned his invitation to the event. But when I asked McGinn about it, he said he's glad that Teodros spoke his mind and didn't have a problem with it.

Other highlights included an eight-minute trailer for the upcoming documentary on Wheedle's Groove, followed by an hourlong set from some of the stars of the film. The members of the Wheedle's Groove collective, most of them in their 60s, kicked out some serious soul and funk riffs, showing why soul music and Seattle belong in the same sentence. Pastor Pat Wright's and the Total Experience Gospel Choir's cover of "Jesus Christ Pose" by Soundgarden was interesting to watch in person. The song doesn't hit with the same roaring thump when set to gospel musicm but it was still powerful.

Hey Marseille's upbeat baroque pop kept a lot of the younger music lovers in the crowd happy. Unfortunately, the Maldives sort of got the shaft since the crowd had thinned considerably by the time they took the stage near 11 p.m., but they played loud and heavy as usual for those that stuck around to see them. McGinn was among those people. Seattle's new mayor is a legitimate local music fan. How rare is that?