Tag Archives: Crocodile Cafe

Arts & Entertainment, Music

Your Live Music Bets for the Weekend of December 20 through the 22nd

Jessica Dobson of Deep Sea Diver. (Photo: Tony Kay)

If you live in downtown Seattle and were hoping for Snowpocalypse 2013 this morning, my condolences as you kick the wimpy, simpering layer of faintly snow-dusted slush off your footwear this morning.

The upside: Getting around shouldn’t be too difficult (depending on where you live, natch), and you’ll be happy to know that an exceptionally-stacked three days of live music awaits. Seriously. You can’t throw a snowball without it landing on a venue hosting a terrific line-up this weekend.

Tonight (Friday, December 20):

Deep Sea Diver, Bryan John Appleby @ Neumos. 21+. $12 Advance/$14 Day of Show. Show at 8 p.m.

Jessica Dobson plays one hell of a guitar–just ask Beck, The Yeah Yeah Yeahs, or The Shins (all of whom have benefitted from her versatile axework as a touring session player). But for my money, Dobson shines brightest playing and singing with drummer/husband Peter Mansen in their band, Deep Sea Diver. DSD’s great 2012 debut History Speaks is all over the map in the best way: Stomping 60’s guitar pop and stuttering post-punk rub shoulders with piano balladry, sometimes in the space of a single song. It’s all unified wonderfully by the interplay between Dobson’s mournful wail of a voice, her pinging/chiming guitars, and Mansen’s inventive and melodic rhythms. Expect a few holiday tunes like the loverly original, “It’s Christmas Time (and I’m Still Alive),” too.

My Goodness, XVIII Eyes, Duke Evers Band @ The Crocodile. 21+. $15 at the door. Show at 8 p.m.

It’s been too long since two-headed Seattle rock monster My Goodness has put out new material, a void they’re rumored to be filling next year. In the meantime, the band’s pulverizing live show tonight (with bassist Mike Klay making it a trio) should more than scratch your primal rock itch. And if you don’t get there early enough to hear goth-math-rock quartet XVIII Eyes (formerly Eighteen Individual Eyes) weave their dark and narcotic magic, it’s resolutely your loss.

Xmas Maximus,  Cathy Sorbo, The Candy Cane Dancers @ Darrell’s Tavern. 21+. $8 at the door. Show at 9 p.m.

Darrell’s in Shoreline has been quietly booking great live shows in the north end for quite a few years, and tonight they bust out what should be the weekend’s most fun live Christmas show. The merry rock and roll elves in Xmas Maximus include local musicians like Gavin Guss, Barbara Trentalange, and members of Jessamine and SUNN O))), all bashing out playful versions of holiday classics (love their spastic punk version of “Sleigh Ride”). Plus you get salty-tongued Seattle comic Cathy Sorbo, and burlesque from The Candy Cane Dancers, all for less than it usually costs to park downtown for two hours on a weekday.

X, The Blasters, The Bad Things @ El Corazon. 21+. $25 Advance, $30 Day of Show. Doors at 7 p.m, show at 8 p.m.

See Saturday, dude.

Saturday, December 21:

11th Annual Benefit for MUSICARES with Eldridge Gravy and the Court Supreme, Aaron Daniel, The Chasers, Jeff Fielder, Robb Benson, and Kim Virant @ The Tractor Tavern. 21+. $10 Advance. Show at 9pm. 

Firstly, there’s no way you can fault the cause. It’s a fundraiser for MUSICARES, an organization that aids struggling musicians who can’t afford medical and dental insurance on their own. Secondly, this tribute show’s dedicated to an entire classic rock album–Pink Floyd’s The Wall–and the evening will showcase some ace local acts that don’t sound very much like Floyd in the first place. Hearing velour soul steamrollers Eldridge Gravy and the Court Supreme, West Seattle stoner-metal demons The Chasers, and a tassel of other great Northwest artists reinterpret Roger Waters’ paean to rock decadence should be pretty amazing.

The Physics, Tangerine, DJ Nick Beeba, guests @ The Crocodile. All Ages. $10 Advance. Show at 9 p.m.

South Seattle hip-hop crew The Physics can always be counted on to deliver a serious party live, and the release of their new full-length, Digital Wildlife, provides a great excuse for ‘em to do so. The record retains Thig’s and Monk’s easy wordplay, with just enough new wrinkles to keep things interesting: There’s as much singing there is rapping, and some pinches of electronic music even work their way into the band’s signature style. Right now, the Prince-in-a-robot’s-body groove of new track “Fix Me” is floating my boat in a major way, but it’s the organic nature of their shows (usually accompanied by a soulful and muscular live band) that make them one of this town’s best hip-hop collectives onstage.

X, The Blasters, Girl Trouble @ El Corazon. 21+. $25 Advance, $30 Day of Show. Doors at 7 p.m, show at 8 p.m.

X caught epic shit in the 1970’s and early ’80’s from some of their peers in the fertile LA punk scene for actually writing, you know, real songs (show-offs!) and employing Doors keyboardist Ray Manzarek (a f@#king hippie!) to produce their early albums. Fortunately for the world, though, X were (and are) amazing on their own terms, influencing a couple of generations of punks, indie rockers, and roots-rock/Americana musicians in a major way. John Doe‘s and Exene Cervenka‘s vocals remain ragged yet gloriously right, and the band’s full original line-up can still kick up a shitstorm when they need to. Roots-rock legends The Blasters co-headline, and (repeat after me), get there early: Two great Northwest bands–goth-cabaret rapscallions The Bad Things and durable Tacoma garage-rock vets Girl Trouble–open up Friday and Saturday, respectively.

Sunday, December 22:

Evan Dando, Chris Brokaw, McDougall @ The Sunset Tavern. 21+. $15 advance. Doors at 8 p.m.

Evan Dando, mercurial singer-songwriter and frontman for beloved ’90s alt-rock band The Lemonheads, has always been a slacker troubadour at heart, capturing little moments of silliness, romance, and melancholy in a way that definitely presages today’s breed of singer/songwriters. He’s also a funny and engaging solo performer prone to sneaking in choice covers alongside his originals. Preceding Dando is another veteran of the Clinton-era underground rock scene, Codeine/Come guitarist/singer Chris Brokaw, and Americana musician McDougall.

Arts & Entertainment, Music

Wire Brings their DRILL Festival to Seattle

When one of the most influential and unpredictable bands of the last 40-odd years curates a music festival in this fair city, it’s bound to be an unexpected and exhilarating ride.

British band Wire have made a career out of doing exactly what the hell they’ve wanted to do for over four decades, mutating punk’s DIY aesthetic into challenging fractured art, throwing genre confines to the winds, and inspiring scores of musicians along the way. Hardcore punks, electronic musicians, and indie rockers alike have acknowledged Wire’s impact, so it’s no surprise that the Wire DRILL Seattle Festival roams all over the stylistic map. Curated by the band with assistance from KEXP, DRILL Seattle spans three nights, beginning this evening at Barboza.

Tonight’s headliners Earth began as a two-piece during grunge’s halcyon years, proffering a slow, grinding style of instrumental metal that’s morphed into an atmospheric fusion of goth and blues, all while retaining a sense of down-tempo shuffling menace. Guitarist and sole original member Dylan Carlson is a master of sonic texture (a trait likely not lost on the experimentalists who comprise Wire). Pillar Point, the latest project from Throw Me the Statue frontman Scott Reitherman, occupy the middle slot with a dose of deceptively shimmery and lyrically strong synth pop.

Friday night, DRILL Seattle moves to the Crocodile with a headlining set from Helmet. The New York alt-metal band’s been a longtime ally of Wire (frontman/guitarist Page Hamilton even guested on Wire’s 2008 release, Object 47), and Helmet’s muscular, twisty sound makes them a potent live force. The remaining two acts on the Friday bill offer a study in contrast: Seattle-based pop band By Sunlight takes a luminous, vocally-rich approach to guitar rock, while FF back up their hummable melodies with blasts of punk energy and Sonic Youth-style guitar noise.

Wire play their headlining set on Saturday at Neumo’s. Their new release, Change Becomes Us, finds them refining the blend of abrasiveness and artistry that that’s been their one constant since 1977, and they’ll be playing the album in its entirety. Wire’s always been a compelling onstage act (their live gigs in the early 2000s proved that they could still piledrive with the efficacy of blokes half their age), so hearing them temper that power with their more nuanced material should be pretty damned exciting.

The rest of the night’s acts reflect Wire’s good taste: San Francisco’s Vestals play classic shoegazer pop with swoony earnestness, and Seattle’s wonderful Chastity Belt sound like The Velvet Underground’s Nico fronting a funny, ragged, and hook-laden garage rock band.

There’s plenty of incentive to catch all three nights. In addition to the variety and strong local affiliations of much of the music, admission prices are reasonable ($15 for Thursday, $20 for Friday, and $25 for Wire’s headlining gig Saturday). And as was the case with the London iteration of the DRILL Festival, Wire themselves will show up throughout the fest, in various permutations, to collaborate onstage with other acts. Creativity and unpredictability, it seems, become them as much as change.

Arts & Entertainment, Music

Sub Pop Band Low Goes Where Country Should Go

“Just Make It Stop,” the first track I heard from Low’s The Invisible Way, sounded equal parts frantic and repetitive. The franticness in the repetitive put me off a bit, before I heard the song coordinated within the whole; before I put on headphones and a thinking cap.

Low, a longtime Sub Pop band, native Minnesotans, arrive in Seattle on Saturday night to play the Crocodile. Their new album finds them coping quite well with brisker tempos, thank you very much — that’s for the pundits who like to stick an “S” in front of their name. (Come to think of it, that was only one dear old ex-best-friend of mine, and he wanted the headliner, Nick Cave, and he wanted him yesterday.) Jeff Tweedy produced this, which doesn’t mean the trio’s gone country. “Country,” which, as judged by a recent trip to Jimmy Mac’s Roadhouse, finds itself clumped into predictable rebus:  “truck,” “bottle,” “jukebox,” “hat,” and yes, “country,” codified and shifted around to sing out limited messages.

Rather, Low, with Tweedy, go where country should go. Fatalism sitting side-by-side with hope, two flavor stripes in the ice cream carton, scoop up your own bowl.  Drums & Guns, the last Low LP I cared about deeply, questioned personal responsibility for violence (by extension, the irony of that blood atonement preached by, and the blood pooled around the founding of, Alan Sparhawk and Mimi Parker’s LDS faith). This one’s about beauty and joy. Formalized, sometimes mannered beauty and joy, and the suggestion of being shattered by the transcendental experience (“To Our Knees”) but beauty and joy nevertheless.

“On My Own,” the penultimate track, drops into a half-time drag-and-pound guitar-twitchfest making you hear what Robert Plant heard in this bunch when he covered two of their songs.  Zeppelin, though, probably wouldn’t end that exercise with a gout of “Happy Birthday”s. Birth, as Stephen King commented, is wonderful, but not beautiful. Too brutal, finally, for beautiful. Unless you think to yourself: Is there in beauty no brutality?

So it looks like we’re back to country’s country. But this, at least, Johnny Cash would understand.

Arts & Entertainment, Music

Atomic Bride and The Chasers Bolster Walking Papers Show Saturday

In case you haven’t already caught them live or followed them here and here at the SunBreak, Seattle supergroup Walking Papers plays the Crocodile Saturday. Tickets, $10 each plus service fees, are going like the proverbial hotcakes.

Walking Papers generate a wonderfully dark, dense and catchy spell all their own, but they also merit major respect for hand-picking a truly primo pair of opening acts, both wildly divergent from the headliners. Repeat after me: Get there early.

Ballard quartet The Chasers blew the top of my head off at 2012’s West Seattle Summerfest, pounding and pile-driving like some demonic cross between Motorhead, Queens of the Stone Age, and Dick Dale. With a grandly-hair-tossing guitarist and a lead singer who can bellow with charisma to burn, they’ll open things with style.

Following The Chasers will be Atomic Bride, a Seattle outfit who’ve crafted one of this year’s most engaging listens with Dead Air. It’s a full-length that injects The Cramps’ hellacious rockabilly sound with ripsaw punk velocity and snotty vocals that suggest the B-52s with a set of heavy brass ones. Bonus points to the awesome new Chris-Cool-directed video for “DNA,” which features hotrods, Radar Hair and Records, and singer Astra and keyboardist Rachael knife-fighting in spangly skin-tight catsuits.

Arts & Entertainment, Music

The Sea and Cake Sway, Friedberger Freaks Out at the Croc

The Purrs.
Matthew Friedberger.
The Sea and Cake.
The Sea and Cake.
The Sea and Cake.

Seattle's own Brit-pop purveyors, The Purrs, opening up for The Sea and Cake. (photo by Odawni Palmer)

Matthew Friedberger gets glitchy with it. (photo by Odawni Palmer)

The Sea and Cake, live at the Croc. (photo by Odawni Palmer)

The Sea and Cake at the Crocodile. (photo by Odawni Palmer)

The Sea and Cake. (photo by Odawni Palmer)

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Every so often, the most riveting act in a lineup comes from someone other than the bill’s headliner. That was the case on Friday night at the Crocodile, where Matthew Friedberger—one half of sibling experimental rock duo The Fiery Furnaces—used his time, sandwiched between Seattle locals The Purrs and pleasant indie rock mainstays The Sea and Cake, to utterly confound the crowd.

After The Purrs wrapped up a strong throwback-style opening set recalling ‘80s British psychedelic pop, Friedberger took the stage in promotion of his latest solo album, the 45-track (but only hour-long) Matricidal Sons of Bitches, which dropped just last week. Donning all black and with a shaggy sheepdog-meets-Cousin It haircut cascading over his face, he immediately jumped into something that was far more performance art than rock gig, neurotically marching between keyboards, setting off glitchy, disharmonious loops and samples, and muttering a nonsense—though clearly carefully-rehearsed—stream-of-consciousness monologue.

As The Fiery Furnaces’ mastermind (he handles most of the songwriting, while sister Eleanor takes on vocals) rambled on about graveyards and helicopter landings and God-knows-what-else, with few clear-cut songs emerging from his jumble of sounds, the faces of the audience watching him were priceless. Some were amused, many were confused, and the rest were stone-faced, unsure of how to react or what they were even witnessing.

“I feel like I’m being Andy Kaufman’ed,” someone whispered.

This all makes Friedberger’s antics kind of genius, placed against the backdrop of an alternative scene far more used to staid stand-and-deliver sets that mostly serve a band’s diehards, who can mouth along each word and are in euphoria by just being in the same room as their idols. So you gotta give it up for a dude ballsy and committed enough to put together a mind-melting showcase that will, at the very least, remain memorable (if not particularly enjoyable beyond its “what the f—?!” novelty) to a majority of those in attendance.

The same can’t really be said of The Sea and Cake, who fall solidly into that “stand-and-deliver” category of live performance. Then again, they have two decades under their band’s belt, as well as experience in other lauded bands, like drummer John McEntire’s double-duty as part of Tortoise. Perhaps by this point, the Chicago foursome has earned the right to let their music speak for itself.

The latest bits doing the talking are from Runner, The Sea and Cake’s ninth and most recent studio album. It continues the band’s trend of mature, laid-back tunes, like “A Mere,” performed on Friday night with its smooth, jazzy guitar opening leading into Sam Prekop’s soothing vocals. It’s obvious this is a group focused on the unity of the album over the flash of the single, and each clean and exceptionally tight song was followed by another, with variations subtle enough that the entire experience—rarely interrupted by on-stage commentary or movement more strenuous than hypnotic swaying—felt like one continuous track. Maybe a little too subtle and continuous; after wrapping up every song, Prekop would bend down and flip away another piece of poster board, a helpful reminder with each line of lyrics carefully written in black marker.

But even with The Sea and Cake’s years of carefully honed musicianship on display, it was difficult not to think back to Friedberger’s spectacle, and difficult to avoid contrasting the two experiences. And it prompts the question: what’s more important at a concert? A unique showing you could never get from just listening to an album (it should be noted, Friedberger’s records are significantly more melodic than what he presented on stage), or an amplified run-through of familiar sounds and the knowledge you’ve shared a space with an artist you love, thrilling stage presence or not?

Arts & Entertainment, Music

Rock and Roll Highlights from City Arts Fest 2012 (Photo Gallery)

Prism Tats.
Prism Tats.
Assemble Head in Sunburst Sound.
Assemble Head in Sunburst Sound.
Assemble Head in Sunburst Sound.
Fox and the Law.
Fox and the Law.
Fox and the Law.
Howlin' Rain.
Howlin' Rain
Howlin' Rain.
Ravenna Woods.
Ravenna Woods.
Ravenna Woods.
Ravenna Woods.

Prism Tats yowls for his supper. (photo by Tony Kay)

Prism Tats. (photo by Tony Kay)

Try saying it five times, fast: Assemble Head in Sunburst Sound. (photo by Tony Kay)

Assemble Head in Sunburst Sound. Then serve with electric Kool-Aid. (photo by Tony Kay)

Something in the Bay Area water breeds psychedelic bands like kaleidoscopic flies: Assemble Head in Sunburst Sound. (photo by Tony Kay)

Guy Keltner, frontman for Fox and the Law. (photo by Tony Kay)

Fox and the Law rock, they do. (photo by Tony Kay)

Guy Keltner of Fox and the Law. (photo by Tony Kay)

Still not sure if there's an apostrophe in there or not: Howlin' Rain at Barboza for City Arts Fest 2012. (photo by Tony Kay)

Ethan Miller of Howlin Rain. (photo by Tony Kay)

Howlin' Rain. (photo by Tony Kay)

Ravenna Woods' Chris Cunningham. (photo by Tony Kay)

Ravenna Woods' Brantley Duke. (photo by Tony Kay)

(photo by Tony Kay)

(photo by Tony Kay)

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[See our previous entry for a more exhaustive report on City Arts Fest 2012, as well as more photos from the Fest.]

This year, City Arts Fest also utilized Neumo’s basement cousin Barboza, which meant that wristband holders could see two different sets (and a slew of bands) with a simple jog up and down a flight of stairs. I took advantage of the very convenient logistics to augment the hip hop action with a dose of rock.

Barboza’s Friday night line-up included ex Koko and the Sweetmeats guitarist and singer g. vandercrimp’s one-man new wave band Prism Tats (hyper, minimalist, yelpy, and really damned fun), San Francisco psychedelic rock collective Assemble Head in Sunburst Sound (think the Brian Jonestown Massacre, Cream, and Crazy Horse sharing tabs of acid and really raging on guitar), and Seattle monster-rockers Fox and the Law (a terrific heavy-rock band whose lead singer/guitarist Guy Keltner was a show all by himself). Friday Barboza headliners Howlin’ Rain (another SF outfit) balanced their stoner tendencies with a dose of Queen-style bombast and ambition.

Last but sure as hell not least, I forced myself to exit Neumo’s before Fresh Espresso’s reportedly-great set (sorry, guys) to catch Ravenna Woods pack the house at the Crocodile. There’s a reason the Woods have earned hosannahs from nearly every music journalist in the region: On a good night, they’re the best live band in Seattle, and last Friday was a very good night, indeed.

Keyboardist Sam Miller fleshed out the sound with some apt sonic cushioning, but for the lion’s share of the set it was just the band’s core. Fount-of-ingenuity Brantley Duke capably hopscotched between guitar, keyboards, and percussion, and Matt Badger’s brilliantly outside-the-box drumming propelled the music with haunting relentlessness. At front and center, Chris Cunningham remained a  guitarist of staggering skill and a frontman of evangelical energy. Oh, and they showcased some great new material from their forthcoming 2013, too. The band plays live around town with a fair amount of frequency around town, but based on their showing at City Arts Fest, it’s a fool’s game to take them for granted.