After nearly a month of doing nothin’ but eating, breathing, and dreaming movies, it’s high damned time for me to take care of a serious live music itch. To belabor the metaphor, this weekend’s a Supermall-sized drugstore, and below you’ll find just a few of the dozens of brands of sonic itch-reliever at your disposal. Yeah, I’m reaching for metaphors, but I (and you) won’t have to reach far for a great music show. Or two. Or more.
Friday, June 19 (tonight!):
Kairos, Maiah Manser, Blush Cut @ Chop Suey. 21+. $10 at the door. Doors at 9:00 p.m.
You can hardly throw an empty coffee cup over your shoulder in Seattle without hitting multi-instrumentalist/singer Lena Simon, who plays with garage-surf goddess collective La Luz, groove-rock dynamos Thunderpussy, and dance band Pollens. In Kairos, her solo project, Simon wraps her coolly alluring croon in gauzy synths, textured guitars, and a percolating bed of electronic and live percussion. Some of it’s insidiously danceable, some of it’s as dreamily pretty as anything you’ll hear, and all of it’s, well, amazing (see Chris Burlingame’s great, in-depth interview with Simon on this here website for more).
Tomten, Rare Diagram, Boat Race Weekend, Hellbat @ The Blue Moon Tavern. 21+. $5 at the door. Doors at 8:00 p.m., show at 9:00 p.m.
This bill at the U district’s venerable Blue Moon runs roughshod all over the map. Hellbat‘s unusual configuration (bass, keyboard, drums, and wonderfully alien-chirp vocals) and joyously trashy art-punk sound never neglects the fun factor, while Boat Race Weekend plays chunky and careening indie rock that borders on nu-metal. Portland’s Rare Diagram and local boys Tomten both round out the evening on a lush pop note: The former updates Pet Sounds-era Beach Boys and Harry Nilsson with 21st century oddness, and the latter put out one of my favorite local releases last year—The Farewell Party, an unerringly gorgeous and lilting collection of baroque pop tunes that translate faultlessly in a live setting.
Cockney Rejects, Angry Samoans, 13 Scars, guests @ El Corazon. 21+. $15 at the door. Show at 8:30 p.m.
Looking for a fix of old-school punk from both sides of the pond? Look no further than El Corazon this evening. Cockney Rejects sprouted from English punk’s restless late1970s loins, bashing out a blue-collar variety of punk that owed as much to traditional pub-rock as it did to the spiky-haired three-chord bursts of their peers. California’s Angry Samoans, meanwhile, represented the funnier, less-angry flipside: Their two-minute epics sport a snarky sense of humor and a streak of garage-rock seasoning to go with the ripsaw energy–it’s genetically impossible for me not to appreciate a band sporting song titles like “They Saved Hitler’s Cock” and “You Stupid Asshole.”
Saturday, June 20:
De La Soul, Brothers from Another @ EMP Museum. 21+. $25 members/$30 non-members advance. Show at 9:00 p.m.
For a couple of months last winter, De La Soul’s 3 Feet High and Rising maintained virtually exclusive residence on my iPhone. Its psychedelic playfulness, densely intricate samples, and wonderfully out-there sense of humor informed an entire New York contingent of outside-the-box hip hop (A Tribe Called Qwest, Queen Latifah, The Jungle Brothers), Outkast, local acts like THEESatisfaction and Shabazz Palaces, and current hip-hop It Boy Joey Bada$$ (who, coincidentally, plays across town at the Showbox tomorrow night). 3 Feet showed hip hop to be as infinitely expansive as any other sub-genre of popular music, and damned if the record doesn’t still sound daisy-fresh today (their two Prince Paul-produced follow-ups, De La Soul is Dead and Buhloone Mindstate, kinda rule, too). Show up to pay some respects, and congratulate ’em for successfully funding their first new record in over a decade. Make sure you get there early, too: Seattle three-man crew Brothers from Another share De La’s propensity for bluster-free, fun rhymes–albeit with a less-trippy backdrop of minimal funk beats–and a reputedly-jumping onstage presence.
The Draft Punk Festival with Girl Trouble, The Fucking Eagles, The DT’s, The Tom Price Desert Classic, and loads more @ The Swiss Restaurant and Pub (Tacoma). All ages. Free until 8:00 p.m/$10 after 8:00 p.m. Show begins at noon.
Great, no-bull garage rock crawls from the soil of Tacoma like some undying monster, so it’s worth considering a trip to T-Town for this free-for-most-of-the-day music festival. You’ll get local craft brews, a lovable 1913-vintage venue for the paid evening portion of the fest, and a dozen local rock outfits. There doesn’t appear to be a weak act in the batch, but make it a point to catch two of The City of Destiny’s most durable bands. Girl Trouble are Tacoma’s Garage Rock of Gibraltar (they’ve been carrying the torch for over thirty years now), and The Fucking Eagles thrust some roadhouse soul muscle into their muscular garage rock. Both acts belong on anyone’s local-rock bucket list of live bands.
Eldridge Gravy and the Court Supreme, Trolls Cottage, guests @ Nectar Lounge. 21+. Free. Show begins at 10:00 a.m.
Eldridge Gravy and his band of funky misfits the Court Supreme remain one of this ‘burg’s most reliable purveyors of deeply booty-shaking soul, so they’ll fit right in amidst the parades and naked hippie cyclists that’ll be overtaking Fremont during the Solstice Festival this weekend. Expect the likely-warm temperatures to increase by at least ten degrees once these guys get down to business. For reals, cousin.
Sunday, June 21:
Charms, Eight Bells, X Suns, Panther Attack @ Narwhal. 21+. Free (I think). Show at 9:00 p.m.
I haven’t been to Narwhal (AKA the basement of Capitol Hill’s Unicorn bar) for live music yet, but this bill could change that, largely on the strength of Seattle band Charms‘ reputation as a potent onstage act. Their frantic music throws rapidly-strummed guitars and perpetually rolling drums into indie rock tunes that sound sort of like a super-caffeinated Modest Mouse gone new wave. It’s quite the contrast to the other three bands on the bill (Eight Bells from Portland and Seattle ensembles X Suns and Panther Attack), all of whom proffer largely/fully instrumental, complex-yet-heavy space-rock sonics in the spirit of Earth and early Kinski.
