To those of you clamoring for more posts here at ye olde semi-dormant SunBreak, you’re the greatest. Both of you.
Most weekends in this ‘burg are pretty stacked musically, but this one’s especially resplendent with sonic riches, some suffused with significant bittersweetness. Read on.
Friday, January 16 (tonight!)
Garageland Fest with The Paul Collins Beat, Rich Hands, Acapulco Lips, The Gods Themselves, The Knast, and heaps more @ LoFi Performance Gallery. 21+. $12 advance/$15 at the door. Doors open at 5 p.m.
Power pop elder statesman Paul Collins never quite made the impact of late ’70s peers like The Knack and Cheap Trick, but that wasn’t for want of insidious sugary hooks goosed with new wave jumpiness. Collins is onto something pretty awesome of late with Garageland Fest, a touring mini-festival headlined by Collins and his band The Beat that showcases bands native to each tour stop. That means you’ll hear a bunch of great Seattle outfits before Collins takes the stage tonight, including the walloping-great hard-pop stylings of Acapulco Lips, guaranteed post-punk-gone-garage-funk nirvana with SunBreak faves The Gods Themselves, and the tasty fuzztone-seasoned sixties revivalism of The Knast, among others. Expect indie vinyl retailers, an unplugged happy hour, and DJs to give you even more reasons to skip work early, and to stay late.
Katie Kate, Tangerine, Thunderpussy, Peeping Tomboys @ The Vera Project. All ages. $10 advance/$15 at the door. Show at 7 p.m.
Four strong local acts populate this fundraiser for Seattle-based non-profit Skate Like a Girl. Katie Kate‘s dance pop dips into hip-hop and electronica with equal grace, and sunny pop ensemble Tangerine took me by very pleasant surprise at Bumbershoot last Labor Day. Local all-femme supergroup Thunderpussy stomp out throbbing groove rock with balls as big as any all-dude band, and Peeping Tomboys sound like a bunch of riot grrrls weaned on tribal post-punk.
Chuck Prophet, The Tripwires @ The Tractor Tavern. 21+. $15 at the door. Show at 9 p.m.
Californian Chuck Prophet played in the underrated but pretty awesome Green on Red back in the 80s. His solo work for the last three decades has seen him de-emphasize his former band’s psychedelic touches in favor of a sturdy roots-rock sound–songs that’d sound ideal in a last-chance bar where Bruce Springsteen and Lou Reed share drinks. Get there early to hear The Tripwires, a terrific local power-pop band that includes alumnus from Screaming Trees, The Minus 5, The Young Fresh Fellows, and the Model Rockets.
Saturday, January 17
The Young Evils, Blood Drugs, Hounds of the Wild Hunt @ The Sunset Tavern. 21+. $8 advance/$10 at the door. Show at 9 p.m.
The Young Evils nearly hit the major label big-time last year, until complications with said major label jerked them around to a pretty lame degree. It’s a long story with a happy ending: The Evils got to keep their recordings from those ill-fated sessions. The initial fruit of those labors, last year’s False Starts EP, made for an addictive and awesome companion piece to their equally awesome 2012 Foreign Spells EP. As is frequently the case, early arrival is a must: Blood Drugs‘ scraping art-metal should translate impressively live, and Hounds of the Wild Hunt remain one of Seattle’s flat-out best live rock ensembles.
Hellbat, Silty Loam, The Heels, Bugs @ Blue Moon Tavern. 21+. $6 at the door. Show at 9 p.m.
Hellbat combines rolling psych organs, a driving punk rhythm section, gleefully unhinged call-and-response vocals, and willfully silly lyrics to happiness-inducing effect. The end result sounds like an art-punk band like X Ray Spex providing the soundtrack as Yoko Ono, Kate Pierson, and Jello Biafra beat the shit out of each other, and if the resulting anarchy isn’t fun as hell onstage, I’ll eat one of the two hats I own.
Grayskul, The Nightcappers, Imaginary Friends, guests @ The High Dive. 21+. $8 advance/$10 at the door. Show at 9 p.m.
The E-40 show at the Showbox Sunday night will surely draw a bigger crowd (and it’s got Nacho Picasso providing what’ll be a hell of a warmup), but local boys Grayskul sport imagination and smarts that deserve an equally sizable turnout. They couple their rhymes with a production style that swaddles addictive beats in a wonderfully glitchy and constantly changing framework. And if they’re not as abundant with the party jams as E-40, Grayskul give your brain a little more to chew on, in a good way.
Sunday, January 18
Another One Bites the Dust with Tacocat, Pony Time, Wimps, Kithkin, Chastity Belt, Universe People, Childbirth, and more @ Chop Suey. 21+. $10 day of show. Show at 4 p.m.
Don’t you love how Seattle squashes its smaller live venues by lunging at development dollars like a mentally-defective toddler stepping on ducklings to get to a gooey candy bar? If by some stretch of the imagination you answered no, then get thee the hell over to Capitol Hill dive Chop Suey for one of its last gasps as a proper music space. It’s impossible to fault the lineup here–picks to click include Tacocat’s sunny yet snarky pop, Kithkin’s always-unbelievable ocean of rhythm, and Childbirth’s hilariously nasty female-centric punk–and the first 250 discounted admissions sold rapidly. Get ready for a long line–and a probable sell-out well before the nights’ end.