They’ll sleep when they’re dead: Naked Giants play the Crocodile October 16.
The Northwest’s getting hit with its first decent-sized storm of autumn 2016 right now, and it’s supposed to pick up momentum as the weekend wears on. Far be it from me to encourage you endangering yourself, should said squalls truly metamorphose into the full-blown stormpocalypse posited by the media. But damned if there isn’t the customary embarrassment of live music riches in town–all great excuses to take refuge from the bluster in a club or theater.
Friday, October 14 (tonight!):
Tokyoidaho, Voyager One, The Knast, Fotoform @ Lo-Fi Performance Gallery. 21+. $10 day-of-show. Show at 9:00 p.m.
Seattle band Voyager One really were the best electronic shoegaze indie band that never came out of Britain–all glistening textured keyboards, coiling guitars, and sinewy hypnotic grooves intertwining with lead singer Peter Marchese’s resonant croon (think Depeche Mode singer David Gahan’s less starched-collar-stiff, more sensual cousin). The band breaks a five-year long hiatus with this live show, but it’s also purportedly their last gig ever, dammit. Tokyoidaho headlines with their more muscular (but still gorgeously heady) variant on the V1 template, a lineage that makes sense given the presence of Marchese and fellow Voyager One vets Jasun Hardaway and Elliott Nutt. Get there early for The Knast’s first-rate 60s-tinged groove rock.
Ghost, Marissa Nadler @ Moore Theatre. All-ages. $24.74-$300 at the door. Show at 9:00 p.m.
If you’ve got stormy weather, it stands that an epic hard-rock band with goth undertones would make a pretty apropos soundtrack. So it goes with this painted and papal-robed Swedish ensemble, who combine arena-ready polish, Blue Oyster Cult mystical artiness, and a cinematic flair for the dramatic way cooler than mainstream rock radio deserves. If you can name another current, commercially-embraced hard rock band able to pull off a genuinely awesome cover of Echo and the Bunnymen’s “Nocturnal Me,” fill me in, stat.
Saturday, October 15:
Donovan @ the Neptune Theatre. 21+. $33.50 advance. Show at 9:00 p.m.
For years, English folk-pop singer Donovan was frequently dismissed as an uninspired purveyor of stoned but thoroughly fluffy oldie hits. That’s a short-sighted view at best. For every yummy pop hit like “Mellow Yellow” or “Sunshine Superman” in the man’s repertoire, there are plenty of tracks like “There is an Ocean” whose undertones of melancholy rise almost imperceptibly from the sunny paisley-pop that landed him on the charts (Nick Drake and Elliott Smith owe more to him than anyone would care to admit). The slow-burn apocalyptic psychedelia of “Season of the Witch” feels eerily prescient, a spiritual reflection of hell-in-a-handbasket, tumultuous times that’s as potent today as it was 50-odd years ago.
Invisible Shivers, SGF (Sister Girlfriend), DJ Rian Souleles @ Conor Byrne Pub. 21+. $8 at the door. Show at 9:00 p.m.
Invisible Shivers lead singer/drummer Ian Shuler possesses a voice and lyrical sensibility that’s equal parts schoolboy-innocent and wonderfully eccentric, and each song on his band’s great newly-released EP is a nuanced little grower of a pop number. The tunes suggest a new wave supergroup comprised of Burt Bacharach, Belle and Sebastian, and The Church’s Steve Kilbey, with songs that hopscotch enchantingly between wide-eyed romantic playfulness, sing-song oddness, subtle danceability, and haunted jazz sophistication. Electro-pop act SGF‘s tasty old-school brand of dance pop should contrast nicely.
Sunday, October 16:
Donovan @ The Neptune Theatre. All ages (bar w/ID). $33.50 advance. Show at 8:00 p.m.
See Saturday, October 15, dude. But watch this first.
Rita Moreno @ Pantages Theater (Tacoma). All ages. $19-$69 advance. Show at 3:00 p.m.
You normally won’t find a lot of non-rock recommendations in this corner, but Broadway/film/TV legend Rita Moreno remains more than awe-inspiring enough to warrant enthusiastic huzzahs from this Broadway-allergic grouch. Moreno’s due to sing, dance, and wax eloquent about seven (!) decades in showbiz, and if her Oscar-winning turn as West Side Story‘s Anita didn’t knock your socks off and stoke the most intense of crushes, there’s no denying her long and respected history as an activist, and her versatility as an old-school performer. At 80-something, she’s still quite the spitfire dish. Plus her performance with Muppet rockers Animal and Floyd rules.
Naked Giants, Skating Polly @ The Crocodile. 21+. $12 advance. Show at 8:00 p.m.
Naked Giants are the Energizer Bunnies of Northwest garage rock, stoked with so much bouncing-off-the-walls energy onstage it almost makes you forget that some first-rate rock songs reside amidst the jumping, rolling, and overhead guitar pounding spastics. Oklahoma two-girl fuzz machine Skating Polly will surely give the human pogo-sticks in Naked Giants a run for their money with an exhilarating, uncompromising, fiercely feminist variety of guitar punk.
