Two things need to happen before it’s truly summer in Seattle: First, there’s gotta be, well, some real sunshine for more than a couple of days in a row; and second, the free live music festivals need to proliferate. Mother Nature will be cooperating big-time on the former, so it’s no surprise we’re faced with a major Sophie’s Choice this weekend on the sonic front.
Today marks the start of one of the best free music festivals in town, the West Seattle Summer Fest (Friday through Sunday at the West Seattle Junction). Great lineups have been a reassuring consistency at the Summer Fest for the last several years, and not surprisingly Summer Fest ’14 continues this winning streak. Two-dozen acts grace the stage at West Seattle’s Alaska/California junction, and nearly all of them are worth catching.
Friday’s Summer Fest highlights from this corner look to be: Killer Ghost, a great, growly low-fi garage rock act hitting the Junction stage at 5pm; Country Lips, the wryly-witty local Buck Owens to Brent Amaker and the Rodeo’s anime Johnny Cash (7pm); and the mighty masters of two-man epic rawk, Hobosexual (8pm).
Saturday’s top picks include Sundae and Mr. Goessl (a great retro-jazz duo with Jason Goessl’s spare, liquid jazz guitar and gorgeous vocal trills from Kate Voss, 2pm); Charms, a shoegaze outfit whose ethereal sound is grounded by a propulsive rhythm section (4pm); The Fabulous Downey Brothers, a daft combo sporting a sound and performance style that suckles the mutant teats of The Residents and Devo (5pm); two sets of Vox Mod‘s expansive electronic gorgeousness (7:40pm, 9pm); and a closing set by Portland epic pop duo The Helio Sequence.
Finally, Sunday serves up what are sure to be fine sets by Northwest music vets Carrie Akre (atomic-voiced former frontwoman for Hammerbox and Goodness (2pm) and Stag (a sterling power pop ensemble headed up by ex-That Petrol Emotion singer Steve Mack and Alcohol Funnycar axman Ben London, playing at 3pm). Other high points for Summer Fest Sunday include the Darci Carlson Band‘s 4pm set (Carlson’s got a fetching raspy snarl of a voice), and a rip-snorting shot glass of rockabilly, courtesy of Billy Dwayne and the Creepers (6pm)
You’d think that Summer Fest’s Saturday line-up would be unmissable, but the crate-burrowing reissue emperors at Light in The Attic Records have to go and throw the first annual Light in The Attic Summer Spectacular the same afternoon in Ballard (at 913 NW 50th St), replete with an equally terrific roster of artists playing live in the sunshine.
Local jazz legend Overton Berry‘s become a LITA staple thanks to the label’s reissues of his recordings and his Wheedle’s Groove connections: He lends his soulful piano stylings to a 4pm set. Alex Maas, lead singer of Texas psychedelic freaks (and former LITA signees) The Black Angels, doesn’t perform solo sets every day, so it’ll be fascinating to hear his trippy, distinctive voice unadorned by The Angels’ usual wall of cataclysmic sound when he plays at 5:15.
Local boys Donnie and Joe Emerson, meantime, became one of LITA’s great comeback stories when the brothers’ long-forgotten teenage recordings were reissued in 2008. Saturday’s 6:30pm set will represent only their third live gig in thirty years (one of those gigs was a solid opening set for Rodriguez in 2012), and if there were any justice in the world they’d be sharing stages with like-minded blue-eyed soulsters like Fitz and the Tantrums and Pickwick.
DJ Suspence mans the turntable between the Summer Spectacular live acts, and vendors from Sub Pop Records to Jemil’s Big Easy food truck will pepper the sidewalks for the afternoon, too. And if you’re (rightfully) oscillating between LITA’s Summer Spectacular and Saturday’s Summer Fest lineup, a fast car–or maybe the U.S.S. Enterprise’s transporter–could prove as essential as the earplugs.