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.