Tag Archives: Skylark Cafe Seattle

Arts & Entertainment, Music

Your Live Music Bets for the Weekend of October 12th through the 14th

It’s getting colder and wetter out there: All the better for you to catch some live music this weekend.

Tonight (Friday, October 12):

Reykjavik Calling with  Apparat Organ Quartet, Sudden Weather Change, Asgeir Trausti, and the Redwood Plan @ Neumo’s. Free Admission. Doors at 8pm.

This is the third year that Seattle’s hosted a musical summit with its sister city of Reykjavik, Iceland. As we’ve reported once or twice in the past, the shows are customarily wonderful. And like the preceding two, this one should be a kick and three-quarters. The Icelandic contingent includes the wonderful mechanoid pop of Apparat Organ Quartet, an epic blast of jagged guitar rock from Sudden Weather Change, and suave dance pop courtesy of Asgeir Trausti. Super-special bonus: cross-continental songwriting collaborations will pair Apparat Organ Quartet with local writer Ryan Boudinot, and Seattle new wave marvels The Redwood Plan with Icelandic author Sjon. Oh, and it’s totally free, too, so arrive early.

Corin Tucker Band, Houndstooth, Dude York @ The Crocodile. $15 at the door. Show at 8pm.

One of the trilling, thrilling voices that fueled Sleater-Kinney, Tucker’s work with her self-named ensemble augments S-K’s angular post-punk guitar attack with warmer melodies and Tucker’s more romantic melodic sense. The openers represent the yin and yang of the headliners: Local boys Dude York cover the art-punk end, while Portland’s Houndstooth generate dreamy pop with a  twist of shoegazer atmosphere.

Rodriguez, Donnie and Joe Emerson, Michael Chapman. $15 advance, SOLD OUT. Doors at 8:00pm.

If you haven’t seen the fabulous rock doc Searching for Sugar Man yet, the very existence of this show provides one spoiler right out of the gate: The doc’s subject–enigmatic singer/songwriter Rodriguez–did not shoot or immolate himself onstage. He’s headlining this Tenth Anniversary Tribute to Light in the Attic Records, the crate-digging label that lovingly reissued his lost-classic records, Cold Fact and Coming from Reality. Also on the bill are grown-up pop-wunderkinds Donnie and Joe Emerson and veteran British folk-guitar wizard Michael Chapman. It should be an amazing night, but if you’re not one of the lucky humans who already holds a ticket to the sold-out gig, Searching for Sugar Man‘s still playing at the Varsity…

Lushy, Summer Aviation @ The Skylark Cafe. $5 at the door. Show at 8pm.

West Seattle’s best live-music venue (from a programming standpoint, for sure) serves up some serious, chic swankness in the form of Lushy. The long-running lounge-pop act has been proffering their incalculably cool tropicalia for years now, and they always sound smooth as silk live.

Saturday, October 13:

Bananarama @ The Hard Rock Cafe. $15 advance. Show at 9pm.

Just a week after the Psychedelic Furs’ Showbox gig, another fondly-remembered band from the Reagan Years hits the stage at the Hard Rock. It’s anyone’s guess as to how many original members of the chirpy new-wave girl group will be onstage tomorrow night, but you’re damn sure to hear “Cruel Summer,” and 100% of the proceeds go to the American Cancer Society’s fight against breast cancer.

Drew Grow and the Pastor’s Wives, Fort Union, Ole Tinder @ The Comet Tavern. $10 day of show. Show at 9pm.

Yeah, Bob Dylan’s playing on this night, but for my money, you’ll get a live singer-songwriter show much closer to the heart at the Comet with Portland’s evangelically-powerful Drew Grow. If there’s a human being who hurtles himself more into live performance than Grow, we’ve yet to locate them. Middle-slotters Fort Union have more than proven their awesomeness as a live act already (and have delivered a sparkling new long-player to boot), so repeat after me: Get there early.

Sunday, October 14:

JEFF the Brotherhood, Diarrhea Planet, Moldy Castle @ The Crocodile. $15 advance. Show at 8pm.

JEFF the Brotherhood have been kicking around for about twelve years now, bashing out a style of rock that somehow combines Camaro-worthy arena riffs with indie-rock raggedness, all without any post-modern irony. Good as their recordings are, though, they pretty much rule live. Plus the opener’s named Diarrhea Planet, for God’s sake.

Woods, Night Beats @ Barboza. $10 advance. Show at 8pm.

I won’t prattle on yet again about the abject awesomeness of Texas expats Night Beats too much, except to say that their unhinged live performances scorch synapses faster than a mug of electric Kool-Aid. Headliners Woods hail from Brooklyn, and their sound normally leans towards a mellower, folk-infused variety of psychedelia–a mild contact high to Night Beats’ acid-induced freak-out.

Arts & Entertainment, Music

Your Live Music Bets for March 2nd to the 4th

It’s the spring, and from the frigid temperatures you’d never know it; all the better to pack into a local music venue this weekend.

Tonight (Friday, March 2):

Peter Case and Paul Collins, Summer Twins, Bang sha Bang @ The Funhouse. $20 day of show. Doors at 8pm.

Together as The Nerves and separately as members of The Plimsouls and the Paul Collins Beat, Case and Collins helped lay down the groundwork for the punchy/sweet dichotomy that is power pop. If you’re a fan of Weezer, Ted Leo, or OK Go, and you want to hear the roots of those sounds, this should be unmissable. Expect to hear plenty of gems from these guys’ deep back catalogs, and Case will surely  belt out that classic of classics, “A Million Miles Away”.

Steel Tigers of Death. Partman Parthorse, Halcyon Daze @ The High Dive. $7 at the door. Show at 9pm.

Local punks Steel Tigers of Death bust out furious noise that still manages to be catchy (and funny) as all get out, and the band frequently sports the most inspired wardrobes of any punk band in town.

The George Tisdale Band, Kissing Potion, Down North @ The Skylark Cafe. $10 at the door. Show at 8pm.

West Seattle’s most fun hole-in-the-wall club brings the funk tonight. I’ll abstain from rattling on (again) about the snap and greatness of Down North, largely because The George Tisdale Band‘s swaggering brand of eighties-influenced funk and Kissing Potion’s jazzy variation on thick 1970’s soul will make this bill a stem-to-stern booty-shaker.

Saturday, March 3:

The Spittin’ Cobras, Witchburn, Zero Down, Ancient Warlocks, Piston Ready @ El Corazon. $6 advance, $10 day of show. Doors at 8pm.

It’s all local metal, wall to wall, at South Lake Union’s most metal of venues with this bill. The two headliners bring gloriously old-school headbanging to the table: The Spittin’ Cobras sound like Judas Priest beating the shit out of Kiss in a back alley, while Witchburn‘s call-and-response metal attack sports some serious firepower thanks to iron-lunged lead singer Jamie Nova’s hellstorm of a voice.

Sunday, March 4:

Andrew W.K, The Evaporators @ The Showbox at the Market. $25 advance, $28 day of show. Doors at 7pm.

It’s hard to believe Andrew W.K’s ripe and robust cheese-metal-pop masterwork, I Get Wet, is a decade old, but there you go. This tour’s an unashamed roll in the Elysian Fields of nostalgia, so you’ll likely hear all of I Get Wet, and heaps of the old hits. Party Hard, indeed.