If the mountains of snow and the gale-force winds last week made you forget that NOFX is in town tonight, here’s hoping you already scored your tickets. The band’s show at the King Cat Theater sold out.
Not that that’s much of a surprise. NOFX have spent almost thirty years building up a sizeable grass-roots following. And while they’re way too willfully goofy and unpretentious to cop to it, the Cali punk quartet’s stuck around long enough to become elder statesmen to acts like Rancid and Green Day (granted, NOFX are elder statesmen whose repertoire includes a 32-second song called “I Gotta Pee,” but still…). The band’s core membership–bassist/screamer Fat Mike, drummer Eric “Smelly” Sandin, and guitarist Eric Melvin–began playing together way back in 1985, and they’ve spent the ensuing years honing their variety of catchy, sometimes silly, and often politically-incorrect punk to a tight (but always fun) sheen.
Like a lot of elder statesmen, NOFX didn’t quite hit the cash-cow heights of some of the bands they influenced. Fat Mike and company defiantly stayed on indie labels and avoided the music industry dog-and-pony show despite a lot of major-label interest back in the mid-1990’s. Their penchant for integrating snickers with slamdancing seemed like a combination that’d break ’em big, but their knack for not keeping their mouths shut probably didn’t endear them to the suits running the corporate megaliths. A few years back they stirred things up on Conan O’Brien’s NBC talk show with some explicit Bush-bashing, and they’ve managed to deliver some persuasive protest punk in between the songs about coke-addled clowns and Tegan and Sara.
They’ve reportedly got a new full-length due out later this year, so expect some new tunes intermingled with live standards like “You Drink, You Drive, You Spill” and “Don’t Call Me White.” Rest assured, it’ll all delivered with snot-nosed feistiness that should make this evening’s King Cat crowd a bunch of justifiably happy campers.
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.
Just a quick recap, then: Sara Gazarek, due at Jazz Alley next Monday and Tuesday, started out (oddly enough) as a child, abosorbing sounds from the Seattle streets; attended Roosevelt High School where she signed up to the school’s illustrious jazz program and traveled to NYC with the Roosevelt Jazz Band. She earned the first-ever Ella Fitzgerald Outstanding Vocalist Award and took herself to L.A. to seek her fortune.
Her first album Yours, from 2005, captured her out of the gate with imaginative arrangements of Joni Mitchell (who herself owes more to jazz than many realize); a smattering of original tunes; and of all things, a song many of our mothers sang to many of us as starting-out children. Gazarek realized “You Are My Sunshine” was at its core a sad song. But she boldly sung sweetly through sadness. Her voice, simple on the surface, threw out more facets with each listen.
Her second studio album Return To You, two years later, brought back some Joni, threw in some Billy Joel, and re-affirmed that she could (co-) write some tunes deserving of standard-status through everybody else. She also cut “Hallelujah,” in danger of becoming a worn-out shoe, but once again distinctive and deceptively-simple arrangement, helped along of course by her band, spun her into the clear.
She’ll appear at Jazz Alley with second singer Johnaye Kendrick; pianist John Hanson; drummer Sean Hutchinson; and bassist David Dawda. Her old record label sank, alas (try buying her stuff from her directly), but she’s inked a new deal with Palmetto Records and a new studio album should hit shelves in the spring of 2012. She recently became a professor through the Thornton School of Music, University of Southern California. She won’t reveal her exact set list, but she promises “old tunes, new tunes and a splash of holiday magic.” I do hope to see you there.
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).
There’s some sublime–and some ridiculous–in Seattle music venues this weekend, so let’s jump right in, shall we?
Tonight (Friday, December 9):
Bushwick Book Club with The Seattle Rock Orchestra present: Music Inspired by Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas@ Town Hall. $15 at the door. Doors at 7pm, show at 8pm.
Born in Brooklyn, the Bushwick Book Club delivers one of those novel concepts that nearly always yields nuggets of sonic gold. The Schtick: Give a classic work of literature to several local musicians. Said musicians digest said work, write songs about it, and perform those songs live. This time out, the Book Club takes on Hunter S. Thompson’s gonzo journalism masterwork, replete with accompaniment by the awesome Seattle Rock Orchestra. The ace line-up of performers includes angel-voiced Youth Rescue Mission singer Hannah Williams, roots treasure Jason Dodson of the Maldives, and Mike Votava of Seattle clown princes We Wrote the Book on Connectors (who, happily, play the Sunset Saturday night).
Smokey Brights, Fort Union, Guests@ The Comet Tavern. $8 at the door. Show at 9pm.
If you’re a fan of Hannah Williams’ late great pop outfit Friday Mile, it’s a Sophie’s Choice between Town Hall and the Comet tonight: Williams’ former bandmates Jace Krause and Jake Rohr play with their new band Fort Union at the latter venue. FU’s combination of alt-folk prettiness and ghost-in-the-machine electronics suggests a more vocally-rich version of Grandaddy, with a little Wilco thrown in, meaning it’s as haunting as it is beautiful.
How the Grouch Stole Christmas Tour with The Grouch, Zion-I, Eligh, Evidence (of Dilated Peoples), Scribes @ The Crocodile. $18 at the door. Doors at 9pm.
I won’t pretend that my pale ass is anything resembling an authority on hip-hop, but Dilated Peoples’ 2000 debut The Platform is still one of the leanest and best rap debuts ever. Evidence (one-half of that legendary crew) shares the stage with Living Legends head honcho The Grouch and a ton of other MCs. They all sound more than solid to these relative neophyte ears. The geezer in me’d love to hear Evidence give the awesome “Work the Angles” some stage time, but his newest full-length, Cats and Dogs, sports production as imaginative as (and, honestly, more expansive than) The Platform. It should sound great live.
Down North, Philana, DJ Leopold Bloom @ the LoFi Performance Gallery. $8 at the door. Show at 9pm.
Looking for some funk? You could do a helluva lot worse than heading to South Lake Union to take in Down North, a hard-soul combo with scrappy throwdown energy. Fireball lead singer Anthony Briscoe apparently has Prince, James Brown, and Terence Trent D’Arby sharing harmonic space in his pipes, and he’s a wonder to watch (and hear) in action.
The Taj Mahal Trio@ Jazz Alley. $32.50 advance. Shows at 7:30 and 9:30pm.
See Saturday’s entries.
Saturday, December 10:
The Taj Mahal Trio@ Jazz Alley, December 9-11, December 13-18. $32.50 advance. Set Times Vary.
For damn near fifty years, Taj Mahal’s augmented his style of blues-rock with journeys into reggae, Caribbean, and soul music. And if he’s leaned towards a brighter, more laid-back output for ahwhile, there’s no denying his skills at the fretboard and the sublime rasp of his voice. It’s not just anybody who can pack a fancy joint like Jazz Alley for nine nights of shows.
Angry Snowmans, Neutralboy, Rat City Ruckus @ The Funhouse. $6 at the door. Doors at 9:30pm.
Angry Snowmans come from the frozen North (Victoria, BC, to be exact). They play funny punk songs about eggnog, presents, trees, snow, and being pissed off about eggnog, presents, trees, and snow. Neutralboy are a bunch of Bremerton punks who’ve been kicking and spitting, drunk-and-sloppy-like, for nearly twenty years, and Rat City Ruckus are the only hardcore punk band I know of to proudly claim White Center as their home. Look, you need some sort of antidote to all of the forced-smile perkiness and consumer gorging that is the Holiday Season.
Me Talk Pretty, Madina Lake, New Years’ Day, Avion Row, Hell or Highwater, Alabaster, Anchor the Tide @ El Corazon. $14 advance/$16 day-of-show. Doors at 7pm.
It’s practically a nu-metal Lollapolooza at El Corazon tomorrow, with seven bands playing to an all-ages house. I’m not much of a fan of the subgenre, but this is undeniably a lot of bang for your buck. Three of the bands on the bill stand out: Seattle’s Alabaster hits the Paramore epic-femme-fronted-guitar-rock notes with undeniable polish, and Hell or Highwater offset their generic choruses with a bit of rockabilly twang. Headliners Me Talk Pretty invite serious guilty-pleasure status, though, with a high-gloss but extremely hooky melange of At the Drive-In noodle-rock, herky-jerky new wave, and power pop. Lead singer Iulia Preotu looks like an Eastern Bloc mallrat drawn by anime artists, and there’s an arch strangeness to her delivery that’s sometimes painfully, ridiculously strident–but never dull. If they played through busted amps and weren’t so damned fresh-faced and catchy, they’d probably be indie-rock megastars.
Sunday, December 11:
Supernaughty, Stand Up and Shout @ The Comet. $5 at the door, doors at 4pm.
Pick up some lunch somewhere on Capitol Hill, then mosey on down to the Comet for some tribute band goodness. Supernaughty is a Black Sabbath cover band, while Stand Up and Shout pays homage to the late great heavy metal elf himself, Ronnie James Dio. And you know the latter’s just gotta play this one.
While a recent article in the Seattle Times found some in the local music scene contemplating the Neptune’s quick success as a concert venue–and some remarking that its shows could all be booked elsewhere–The National rolled into town from Brooklyn to play two sold-out nights, and it was hard to believe that this show would have worked anywhere else.
The Neptune’s restored grandeur perfectly matched The National’s moody sonic opulence, and they made the most of their first opportunity at the new player in Seattle’s concert scene.
With a large screen behind them, the show began before anyone set foot onstage, as a camera following the band backstage fed live green room images to the eager masses. Finally ready to perform, well-dressed lead singer Matt Berninger, the only band member without a brother or instrument onstage with him, anchored himself and his seductive baritone at stage center, between guitar players Aaron and Bryce Dessner. In standard hands-gripping-the-microphone-and-closed-eyes pose, he kicked off their latest LP High Violet– heavy set with “Runaway.”
(photo: Chelsea Nesvig)
Throughout the evening, the band kept with the rainbow theme of the High Violet cover, as the lights and cameras doused the stage with a new color and background image for every song. During “England” and its talk of “famous angels” and “a Los Angeles cathedral,” graphics of bright blue and red stained glass windows appeared. Between songs, Berninger alternated between talk of a new drink name he’d just come up with (vodka and Coke should be called a Cold War!) and his self-reported screw-ups being noted by the Dessner brothers.
The band’s 2007 album Boxer had the next heaviest mention in the setlist with “Racing Like a Pro,” “Squalor Victoria,” and crowd favorite “Fake Empire” coming toward the end. Alligator’s epic closer (and probable Berninger throat-destroyer) “Mr. November” showed up during the encore, right after a gorgeous version of Sad Songs for Dirty Lovers deep cut “Lucky You.”
The end of the four-song encore found the whole band in a semi-circle at the front of the stage, with even Berninger away from his microphone. After some shouting at the crowd to quiet down so they could “do something artsy,” the band launched into an acoustic version of “Vanderlyle Crybaby Geeks.” As the band’s unamplified voices melded into the singing crowd, the song’s repeated line made perfect sense: “All the very best of us string ourselves up for love.”
