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Your Live Music Bets for St. Patrick’s Day Weekend

March 16, 2012 Tony Kay

The beer will flow freely this weekend, ladies and gents, and it’s more than possible to imbibe in some great live music whilst tippling.

Tonight (Friday, March 16):

KMRIA, The Less Than Equals @ The High Dive. $10 day of show. Show at 9:30pm.

Ain’t no better drinking music than that of The Pogues, so if you can’t have Shane MacGowan’s terrifying grill in person for reals, you can at least enjoy this first-rate Pogues tribute band (comprised of members of The Decemberists and Eels, as well as local rock godfather Scott McCaughey) on the day before all the green beer starts flowing.

The Raincoats, Grass Widow, M. Women @ Chop Suey. $18 at the door. Show at 8pm.

Aside from The Slits, The Raincoats were one of the few all-female outfits who elbowed their way into the boys’ club that was late 1970’s British punk and new wave. In short order they influenced a generation or two of musicians, as much for their willingness to slather dub, funk, and psychedelia over their skewed pop as for their all-girl status. The ladies haven’t cut a proper album in ages, but they’ve got more than enough great material to draw from, not the least of which is the wonderful “No One’s Little Girl,” which blended dance-y rhythms with a sawing violin a good decade before other bands discovered such disparate elements could be fun and cool together.

Head Like a Kite, Daydream Vacation, NighTraiN, Sports @ The Crocodile. $10 at the door. Show at 8pm.

Dave Einmo’s glorious indie-hip-hop-techno-disco-rock beast Head Like a Kite has been a rightful cause celebre in town for ages: Einmo’s eccentric brilliance never overshadows his melodic sense, and watching wiry and energetic drummer Trent Moorman in action is worth the cover charge all by itself. But the whole night’s an embarrassment of sonic riches, with Daydream Vacation (Einmo’s nifty pop outfit with Smoosh singer Asya) and the wonderfully mean, sloppy, and choppily-arty NighTraiN.

The Bushwick Book Club presents Fahrenheit 451 @ Columbia City Theater. $12 at the door. Show at 8pm.

Again, The Bushwick Book Club hurtles a literary classic at a gaggle of talented local musicians, all of whom read the book and write songs about it. Tonight’s subject: Ray Bradbury’s still-timely cautionary sci-fi saga. Amongst the artists performing tonight: Youth Rescue Mission’s Hannah Williams, Ravenna Woods’ mad genius Chris Cunningham, and BBC veteran chanteuse Tai Shan.

Saturday, March 17:

George Clinton and Parliament Funkadelic @ Showbox at the Market. $25 advance, $30 day of show. Show at 8pm.

Do you really need my dorky ass to tell you that George Clinton is God, and that you’re unlikely to find a better way to spend St. Paddy’s Day than getting up on the downstroke with Clinton and his funketeers at the Showbox? Thought not.

GOD, Le Cancer, Loyal Kites @ The Rogue and Peasant. $5 at the door. Show at 9pm.

Fremont doesn’t sport nearly as many prominent live music venues as Capitol Hill or Ballard, so hats off to The Rogue and Peasant for bringing a strong local bill to their ‘hood. GOD are led by ex-Whiskey Tango leader Ian LeSage, a guy whose winning pop songs combine indie-rock snottiness with some imaginative instrumentation and a poetically-skewed lyrical sensibility.

The Staxx Brothers, The Acorn Project @ The Hard Rock Cafe. $12 advance, $15 at the door. Show at 9pm.

Don’t sell The Staxx Brothers short, just because they don’t take themselves seriously. They’re a kick-and-a-half live: a party band par excellence that serves up Memphis soul and southern-fried rock in one goofily-humorous and sonically-tight package.

Sunday, March 18:

The Past Impending, Highway Evangelism, Andrew Norsworthy @ Columbia City Theater. $6 day of show. Show at 8pm.

If you’re out drinking the night before, you’ll likely wake up on Sunday feeling like The Past Impending‘s lead singer E. J. Christopher sounds. It’s a little surreal to hear a Tom Waits croak of a voice emerge from such a fresh-faced (beard notwithstanding) guy. That swallowed-glass croon unites with the melancholy hum of Lara Lenore’s cello to lend distinction to the band’s take on Americana.

Arts & Entertainment, Music

Your Live Music Bets for the Weekend of January 13th to the 15th

January 13, 2012 Tony Kay

Nothin’ but nothin’ can take the wicked sting out of the current cold snap like a night packed into a local music venue. So get out there already.

Tonight (Friday, January 13):

Dick Dale, Dead Man @ The Tractor Tavern. $20 at the door. Show at 9pm.

Well before Quentin Tarantino goosed “Miserlou” into the mass pop-culture consciousness in Pulp Fiction, Dick Dale was already one of the undisputed legends of surf guitar, a virtuoso of the style who pulled dirty rock sounds into the stuttering beach party mix with volcanic ferocity; and he’s a staggering force of nature in a live setting. Get ready to frug, and to get your ears blown out.

Post Adolescence, Mothership, We Wrote the Book on Connectors, The Dignitaries @ The High Dive. $7 at the door. Show at 9pm.

Post Adolescence play winning post-punk with emotions and fun writ large in equal doses. The band’s fat and full guitar sound recalls Suede, and Johnny Straube’s tremulous tenor voice is an idiosyncratic pop taste well worth acquiring. The ballad “Don’t Walk Away” manages to make the girls swoon while the boys air-guitar, and the band’s rockers jump out of the speakers with playful energy. At the risk of sounding like a broken record, get to the High Dive early, for Pete’s Sake: Tacoma’s Dignitaries pound out garage rock with blunt-force trauma, and We Wrote the Book on Connectors bolster their ample chops with the funniest great pop songs this side of Flight of the Conchords.

The Bad Things, Bakelite 78, Bat Country, Gunstreet Glory @ The Comet Tavern. $8 at the door. Doors at 8pm, show at 9pm.

I loves me some drunken cabaret pop, and the Comet’ll have it in doses this evening. Headliners The Bad Things remain that gloriously-sodden sub-genre’s local masters, but don’t miss Bakelite 78‘s clattering Tin Pan Alley pop: Crooner/principal singer Robert Rial suggests the love child born of a bathtub-gin-fueled make-out session between Rudy Vallee and Tom Waits.

Saturday, January 14:

Allen Stone, Kris Orlowski @ The Neptune Theater. Sold Out. Doors at 8pm, show at 9pm.

Allen Stone’s honey-sweetened soul voice has arrived with so much hype it’ll almost kick in your gag reflex, but there’s a reason for the mountain of press and the Conan O’ Brien slot: The kid’s got the goods. Tomorrow’s Neptune gig is sold out, which means if you ain’t got a ticket you’ll miss Stone and what’s sure to be a solid set by Kris Orlowski, a folk singer whose sandpaper pipes rough up his rootsy compositions with bracing grittiness. Stone also plays Sunday night at the Neptune with Noah Gunderson of The Courage warming things up, and yeah, that one looks to be sold out, too. Sorry to tease you like that.

Lonesome Shack, Sugar Sugar Sugar, The Curious Mystery @ The Sunset Tavern. $7 advance, $8 at the door. Doors at 9pm, show at 10pm.

Blah, blah, another two-guy band rifling through the blues, blah, blah. But Lonesome Shack pick out a more back-porch sound than the Black Keys or My Goodness–think Leadbelly, possessing the souls of a couple of indie-rock kids. Great stuff. The Curious Mystery, meantime, sound a little like Mazzy Star’s atmospheric attempt to compose music for a Sergio Leone western after dropping acid. Oh, and I won’t prattle on any more about middle-slotters Sugar Sugar Sugar than I have already, except to say that they kick ass.

Sunday, January 15:

Orchestra Zarabanda @ Columbia City Theater. $10 at the door. Show at 8:30pm.

Seattle ensemble Orchestra Zarabanda parlay Cuban salsa music that’s utterly free of pretense or irony: It’s just there to make you dance, and it’s played to perfection. They periodically headline classy and high-priced joints like Teatro Zinzanni, so take advantage of the chance to hear this tight and danceable rhythm collective in a classy and reasonably-priced joint like Columbia City Theater.

Arts & Entertainment, Music

Your Live Music Bets for the Weekend of December 16th through the 18th

December 16, 2011 Tony Kay

Too many great shows in town…Too many great shows in town…

Tonight (Friday, December 16):

Duff McKagan’s Loaded @ Key Arena. $40.00 to $87 at the door. Doors at 7pm, show at 8pm.

Duff McKagan’s earned serious Seattle musical war-hero stripes over the years, having played drums for punk-pop legends The Fastbacks at age 16, and also manning the skins for local old-school punks The Fartz and playing bass for 10 Minute Warning. He’s probably best known as erstwhile bassist for glam-rock supergroup Velvet Revolver, but The Taking, McKagan’s current release as frontman for his combo Loaded, drags its knuckles along the same gloriously filthy path as Green River and Mudhoney, then filters that noise through an epic big-rock filter (the winningly-ugly “Follow Me to Hell” sounds like Dry as a Bone in Cinemascope). Rumor has it that McKagan has some connection with the night’s headliners, a hard-rock band that achieved a modest measure of success during the tail end of the Reagan Years. Dollars to donuts McKagan’s band will mop the floor with ‘em.

Thee Emergency, Sugar Sugar Sugar, Last Watch @ The Comet Tavern. $8 at the door. Show at 9pm.

Thee Emergency lead singer Dita Vox possesses more charisma in her well-manicured pinkie than most lesser mortals do in their entire bodies, guitar Matt “Sonic” Smith throws a pinch of glam into his garage soul riffing, and the sturdy rhythm section of Nick Detroit and Tom T. Drummer can pretty much push complacent clubgoers’ asses into motion at a hundred paces. Cracka’ Slang, Thee Emergency’s most recent full-length, trades some of that pulsating energy for dollops of candy-coated psychedelic pop and country, but there’s no way they’ll leave the Comet without busting out some beloved rave-ups like “Can You Dig It?”. They’ll have to: Awesome Bellingham heavy-groovers Sugar Sugar Sugar, who precede them, do the dirty dog with the Stooges and T. Rex somethin’ sweet.

Jay-Z, Kanye West @ The Tacoma Dome. $49.50–$99.50 at the door. Doors at 7pm, show at 8pm.

My mom, who doesn’t even own a CD player, knows who Jay-Z is, for God’s sake. She likes Annie some, but it never occurred to me to ask her for her take on the Annie-sample-laden “Hard Knock Life”.

Saturday, December 17:

Scratch Acid, Oxbow@ Neumos. $20 advance. Doors at 8pm, show at 9pm.

Art punks vomited up from the bowels of Austin, Texas, Scratch Acid cracked the skulls of Bad Brains and the Dead Kennedys together to create ungodly, ranting, cacophonous noise that remains as corrosive (and mind-blowing) today as it was thirty-some (!) years ago. They’ve (reportedly) still got the goods. And for just five bucks more, you’re nuts not to take in what’s sure to be a lively Q & A between principal Scratch Acid screamer David Yow and local music scribbler extraordinaire Chris Estey (with spoken word by Oxbow’s Eugene Robinson) across the street at the Comet Tavern two hours prior.

Dinosaur Jr. and Pierced Arrows, with an interview by Henry Rollins @ The Showbox Market. $22.50 advance, $25 at the door. Show at 7pm.

Dinosaur Jr. made Neil Young cool amongst punk rock kids, thanks to J. Mascis’s openly Young-infused whine and broiling axwork. To a lot of ears, they never topped Bug, their 1988 opus and the last Dino full-length to feature original bassist Lou Barlow until 2007’s Beyond. Also stopping by: Punk legend/spoken-word gadabout Henry Rollins, who’ll be grilling Mascis, Barlow, and drummer Murph about Bug and lotsa other stuff.

Sunday, December 18:

Holiday Showdown: Portland Cello Project, Israel and Ryan of Blind Pilot, Emily Wells @ Columbia City Theater. $12 advance, $15 at the door. Shows at 7pm and 10:30pm.

The Portland Cello Project augment well-honed perfectionist chops with puckish humor, in an engaging melange of classical, jazz, and popular music (their cover of Outkast’s “Hey Ya” kills). Things are sure to take a holiday turn, but wherever they journey sonically, it’ll sound sublime in the immaculately-appointed Columbia City Theater. Blind Pilot purvey a brand of acoustic indie-folk that gracefully transcends all of the folkies-come-lately crawling around these parts with clean and lushly romantic pop hooks. “Go On Say It” is one urgent and gorgeous acoustic love song, so here’s hoping that band members Israel and Ryan bust it out in their opening set(s).

Arts & Entertainment, Music

Soulful Sounds Warm a Frigid Friday Night in Columbia City (Photo Gallery)

December 5, 2011 Tony Kay

Prom Queen. (photo: Tony Kay)

Prom Queen cracks a smile. (photo by Tony Kay)

Nice shades: Lucas Field at Columbia City Theater. (photo: Tony Kay)

Tiffany Wilson. (photo: Tony Kay)

Lucas Field leads the band. (photo: Tony Kay)

Tiffany Wilson, singer in Lucas Field's band. (photo: Tony Kay)

Shaprece headlines at Columbia City Theater. (photo: Tony Kay)

(photo: Tony Kay)

Shaprece. (photo: Tony Kay)

(photo: Tony Kay)

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It’s too hasty to really say that Seattle’s in the middle of some sort of original soul-music renaissance, but the groundswell’s right there for everyone to see and hear.

Wheedle’s Groove (the CD comp and the documentary) opened up the door a few years ago by shining a spotlight on Seattle’s fertile 1960’s and ’70’s R&B heyday, and the recent successes of Allen Stone and Pickwick have proven that even the most jaded hipsters can find their bodies and hearts swayed by the right groove. Great dance music’s nothing new in Seattle, of course, but soul music built around singers with the chops to sing it and the nuance to deliver it sans American Idol-esque up/down vocal fuckery? Not exactly the most plentiful of commodities in general.

The folks at Sound on the Sound, that smartest of smart local-music-blog cookies, understand. They programmed a great evening of soul-inflected pop at Columbia City Theater Friday night, with an unerring ear and likely without one eye cocked at some perceived Burgeoning New Scene. It’s too early to know if lives were changed, but booties were shaken. And in this town, that in and of itself is pretty momentous.

Prom Queen may not’ve been the most obvious opener for a night of R&B-flavored music, but that didn’t make the sounds she generated any less than awesome. This solo project from musician/comedienne Leeni veers away from the video-game blip pop that won her notoriety amongst the gaming community, placing her metaphorically but squarely into the moodily-lit corner of a fictitious bar in some old crime drama. Her sparse, mournful style seems born from a place where broken dreams and dark passions swirl just beneath a shadowy surface (not for nothing did the event poster dub her style ‘Lo-Fi David Lynch’). Leeni/Prom Queen accompanied her plaintive singing with guitar and occasional (self-programmed-and-played) pre-recorded symphonettes. Best of all, she augmented her battery of sultry original material with ingenious arrangements of modern pop songs: Anyone who can polymorph the bloated Guns ‘n Roses power ballad, “November Rain,” into a gorgeous film-noir exhortation of hard-won hope earns canonization papers from this corner.

Middle-slotter Lucas Field seemed a little rattled by some pre-set technical bugs, but quickly brought things home with some easy-grooving, very seventies-flavored pop. Field used to be in indie-rock band Low vs. Diamond, but he’s been cutting his teeth as a soul musician fronting his combo at South Lake Union’s Laadla restaurant for about a year now. The steady gigging shows. He worked the keyboards with the swing of Stevie Wonder or Billy Preston Friday, and his current crop of original songs–warm and affectingly funky, all–displayed more character and distinction than his old band’s material ever did. His band’s imaginative take on the Shuggie Otis/Brothers Johnson psych-soul classic “Strawberry Letter 23” pretty much sealed the deal, too. Tiffany Wilson–a singer whose effortless voice suggested a less affected, more subtly sensual Mary J. Blige–proved the most effective secret weapon of an already-tight ensemble. More please, guys.

Shaprece has been paying her dues for the last two years as a vocal gun-for-hire with Mad Rad, Fresh Espresso, and Blue Sky Black Death (to name a few), but Friday night she proved she’s more than got the goods to conquer the world on her own, thanks. She’s a devastatingly complete package as an entertainer, with versatile and limber Alicia-Keys-inspired pipes, unforced onstage affability, girl-next-door good looks, catchy and creative original material, and the kind of charisma that could well translate to a huge audience.

Shaprece’s recorded output reveals a wealth of influences from hip-hop to orchestral pop to clattering breakbeat (the stuttering and brilliant “Dangerous” would make a better James Bond theme song than anything you’ve heard in a real Bond flick in the last ten years), but on Friday things hit a more elemental vibe. Her Friday gig was very much a family affair, with her dad Joshua Robinson contributing a rich bed of keyboards and sister Dee Dee matching her readily on backing vocals. The rest of her great backing band, meantime, swung in sweetly old-school funky style. Elements of Sade’s phrasing and cosmopolitan cool came to the vocal table, but with a welcome rush of earthy soulfulness: Unlike the aforementioned smooth-soul siren, Shaprece bleeds when she’s emotionally cut (and she’s not above firing a spliff on the awesome THC-hazed jam, “Lift,” either.).

None of the folks gracing CCT’s stage on Friday fit neatly into the revivalist-soul pigeonhole. Prom Queen’s take on girl-group sounds is imbued with wounded strangeness, Field offset his warm velour soul with engaging indie-pop tics, and Shaprece’s stylistic restlessness embraces the future with as much vigor as the past. But all three acts brought with them a refreshing reliance on honest-to-God vocal interplay (much of my evening was spent pressed to the voice PA, happily) and songs with some melodic meat to go with the rhythmic backbone.

I’m not going to begin to predict what this home-grown purple patch of groove’s gonna lead to. The Seattle soul revolution–if such a thing ever comes to pass–will not be blogged, programmed, or second-guessed to oblivion. Whether it becomes a full-on tectonic shift in Northwest music, or whether it just stays at a bubbling, booty-shaking simmer indefinitely, it’ll play through live; in the warmth of a club, with human beings singing and playing and dancing their desires and joys and pains. That’s what soul music’s all about, and what Friday encompassed, in a nutshell.

Arts & Entertainment, Music

Doe Bay Doc Raises Funds with Evocative Acoustic Show

November 17, 2011 Tony Kay

Sera Cahoone.

Sera Cahoone at the Columbia City Theater Welcome to Doe Bay Fundraiser.

Sera Cahoone.

Rusty Willoughby at Columbia City Theater.

Rusty Willoughby.

Frank Fairfield at the Welcome to Doe Bay fundraiser.

Frank Fairfield on the fiddle.

Frank Fairfield.

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Columbia City Theater, Ground Zero for a goodly share of Seattle’s alt-folk/Americana movement, hosted a fundraiser for completion of Welcome to Doe Bay last Friday.

The documentary chronicles one of the Northwest’s most unique and satisfying music festivals (yes, I am a devoted festgoer), and its makers have nearly finished post-production. If the clips on display between the acts last week were any measure, it should be pretty damned magical. The excerpts showcased some of Doe Bay 2011’s finest moments, including the exultant set by local neo-soul rising stars Pickwick that culminated in a stage packed with fans as well as band members.

The musicians that served as the night’s bedrock played at a more subdued volume than the film clips, but hit plenty of magical spots in their own right. I missed Ben Fisher’s opening set, but special guest Sera Cahoone carried the second slot gracefully, with a rough-hewn, lovely set of acoustic country-tinged folk. Rusty Willoughby followed Cahoone with gorgeous readings of several Cobirds Unite songs, some magnificent and haunting new material, and (bless my soul) a Scott Walker cover. And Frank Fairfield, well, he had the crowd in rapt silence; his voice, guitar, banjo, and fiddle serving as some sort of beautiful Wayback Machine in the final stretch. When Welcome to Doe Bay sees the light of day, his work in it should be one of the film’s indisputable highlights.

Arts & Entertainment, Music

The Cabaret Macabre Haunts Columbia City Theater Tonight

October 31, 2011 Tony Kay

Columbia City Theater’s trick-or-treat bowl runneth over tonight as the venue hosts the eighth annual Cabaret Macabre.

Most musical celebrations of Halloween lean towards goth and death metal, but The Cabaret spotlights outfits with a sense of style and showmanship that’s more Tom Waits than Rob Zombie. And like Waits, the bands on tonight’s bill know that tales of debauchery and oddball characters are as part and parcel of Halloween as conventional spooks, ghosts, and monsters.

Californians The Peculiar Pretzelmen parlay an odd and oddly wonderful amalgamation of traditional pre-rock pop and rattletrap insanity. Lead singer M Incroyable frequently barks his lyrics into a megaphone with the over-the-top, eye-rolling intensity of Screamin’ Jay Hawkins, and percussionist Deacon bashes away at everything from metal laundry tubs to washboards to (occasionally) the odd drum. The whole mix gallops along on spastic melodies carried by vintage guitars, banjos, and God knows what else, and they flat-out blew me away at the Columbia City Theater one-year anniversary show last summer.

Veteran steel guitar player Baby Gramps was born in Florida, but the Seattle-based musician’s eccentric, muttering delivery and raw guitar playing feel a world away from that sunny clime. If Tom Waits left the city to become a bearded hermit in the Appalacians, he’d sound something like this.

Any band with a lead singer who leans on a squeeze box and sings lyrics about (among other things) hard-luck cases viewing their lives through the bottom of a shotglass is all right by me; especially if the band’s as all-around wonderful as Seattle’s The Bad Things. With their top-flight musicianship and Jimmy the Pickpocket’s deceptively sweet voice at the center, the band always delivers live, leavening their brand of Pogues-style cry-in-your-pint sing-along ditties with a wry sense of humor and fun (I’m officially in love with their polka’ed-up cover of The Stones’ “Out of Time”). Make sure your liver’s ready for the alcohol onslaught, and get ready to dance.

The SunBreak

Tag Archives: columbia city theater

Your Live Music Bets for St. Patrick’s Day Weekend

Your Live Music Bets for the Weekend of January 13th to the 15th

Your Live Music Bets for the Weekend of December 16th through the 18th

Soulful Sounds Warm a Frigid Friday Night in Columbia City (Photo Gallery)

Doe Bay Doc Raises Funds with Evocative Acoustic Show

The Cabaret Macabre Haunts Columbia City Theater Tonight

Curious Georges in a conversation with Seattle