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Arts & Entertainment

Your Live Music Bets for the Weekend of January 16 through January 18

Tacocat lead singer Emily Nokes will turn that frown upside down at Chop Suey Sunday. (photo: Tony Kay)

To those of you clamoring for more posts here at ye olde semi-dormant SunBreak, you’re the greatest. Both of you.

Most weekends in this ‘burg are pretty stacked musically, but this one’s especially resplendent with sonic riches, some suffused with significant bittersweetness. Read on.

Friday, January 16 (tonight!)

Garageland Fest  with The Paul Collins Beat, Rich Hands, Acapulco Lips, The Gods Themselves, The Knast, and heaps more  @ LoFi Performance Gallery. 21+. $12 advance/$15 at the door. Doors open at 5 p.m.

Power pop elder statesman Paul Collins never quite made the impact of late ’70s peers like The Knack and Cheap Trick, but that wasn’t for want of  insidious sugary hooks goosed with new wave jumpiness. Collins is onto something pretty awesome of late with Garageland Fest, a touring mini-festival headlined by Collins and his band The Beat that showcases bands native to each tour stop. That means you’ll hear a bunch of great Seattle outfits before Collins takes the stage tonight, including the walloping-great hard-pop stylings of Acapulco Lips, guaranteed post-punk-gone-garage-funk nirvana with SunBreak faves The Gods Themselves, and the tasty fuzztone-seasoned sixties revivalism of The Knast, among others. Expect indie vinyl retailers, an unplugged happy hour, and DJs to give you even more reasons to skip work early, and to stay late.

Katie Kate, Tangerine, Thunderpussy, Peeping Tomboys @ The Vera Project. All ages. $10 advance/$15 at the door. Show at 7 p.m.

Four strong local acts populate this fundraiser for Seattle-based non-profit Skate Like a Girl. Katie Kate‘s dance pop dips into hip-hop and electronica with equal grace, and sunny pop ensemble Tangerine took me by very pleasant surprise at Bumbershoot last Labor Day. Local all-femme supergroup  Thunderpussy stomp out throbbing groove rock with balls as big as any all-dude band,  and Peeping Tomboys sound like a bunch of riot grrrls weaned on tribal post-punk.

Chuck Prophet, The Tripwires @ The Tractor Tavern. 21+. $15 at the door. Show at 9 p.m.

Californian Chuck Prophet played in the underrated but pretty awesome Green on Red back in the 80s. His solo work for the last three decades has seen him de-emphasize his former band’s psychedelic touches in favor of a sturdy roots-rock sound–songs that’d sound ideal in a last-chance bar where Bruce Springsteen and Lou Reed share drinks. Get there early to hear The Tripwires, a terrific local power-pop band that includes alumnus from Screaming Trees, The Minus 5, The Young Fresh Fellows, and the Model Rockets.

Saturday, January 17

The Young Evils, Blood Drugs, Hounds of the Wild Hunt @ The Sunset Tavern. 21+. $8 advance/$10 at the door. Show at 9 p.m.

The Young Evils nearly hit the major label big-time last year, until complications with said major label jerked them around to a pretty lame degree. It’s a long story with a happy ending: The Evils got to keep their recordings from those ill-fated sessions. The initial fruit of those labors, last year’s False Starts EP, made for an addictive and awesome companion piece to their equally awesome 2012 Foreign Spells EP. As is frequently the case, early arrival is a must: Blood Drugs‘ scraping art-metal should translate impressively live, and Hounds of the Wild Hunt remain one of Seattle’s flat-out best live rock ensembles.

Hellbat, Silty Loam, The Heels, Bugs @ Blue Moon Tavern. 21+. $6 at the door. Show at 9 p.m.

Hellbat combines rolling psych organs, a driving punk rhythm section, gleefully unhinged call-and-response vocals, and willfully silly lyrics to happiness-inducing effect. The end result sounds like an art-punk band like X Ray Spex providing the soundtrack as Yoko Ono, Kate Pierson, and Jello Biafra beat the shit out of each other, and if the resulting anarchy isn’t fun as hell onstage, I’ll eat one of the two hats I own.

Grayskul, The Nightcappers, Imaginary Friends, guests @ The High Dive. 21+. $8 advance/$10 at the door. Show at 9 p.m.

The E-40 show at the Showbox Sunday night will surely draw a bigger crowd (and it’s got Nacho Picasso providing what’ll be a hell of a warmup), but local boys Grayskul sport imagination and smarts that deserve an equally sizable turnout. They couple their rhymes with a production style that swaddles addictive beats in a wonderfully glitchy and constantly changing framework. And if they’re not as abundant with the party jams as E-40, Grayskul give your brain a little more to chew on, in a good way.

Sunday, January 18

Another One Bites the Dust with Tacocat, Pony Time, Wimps, Kithkin, Chastity Belt, Universe People, Childbirth, and more @ Chop Suey. 21+. $10 day of show. Show at 4 p.m.

Don’t you love how Seattle squashes its smaller live venues by  lunging at development dollars like a mentally-defective toddler stepping on ducklings to get to a gooey candy bar? If by some stretch of the imagination you answered no, then get thee the hell over to Capitol Hill dive Chop Suey for one of its last gasps as a proper music space. It’s impossible to fault the lineup here–picks to click include Tacocat’s sunny yet snarky pop, Kithkin’s always-unbelievable ocean of rhythm, and Childbirth’s hilariously nasty female-centric punk–and the first 250 discounted admissions sold rapidly. Get ready for a long line–and a probable sell-out well before the nights’ end.

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

Your Live Music Bets for the Weekend of March 23 through the 25th

Another weekend, another tassle of great live shows. And you don’t need to miss those fleeting glimpses of sunshine to catch ‘em. Win, win, we say.

Tonight (Friday, March 23):

Kronos Quartet @ The Neptune. $50 (plus fees) day of show. Doors at 7pm, show at 8pm.

Avant-everything foursome Kronos Quartet was formed in 1973, and for nearly forty years they’ve pushed the outer boundaries of classical stringed instrumentation, recording everything from Shostakovich to Jimi Hendrix and working with artists as disparate as poet Alan Ginsberg and David Bowie. They’re stunning musicians who continue to indulge their muse : Try summoning up the list of classical musicians covering Sigur Ros (and covering them well).

Kaiser Chiefs @ Showbox at the Market. $18 at the door. Show at 7pm.

In the mid 2000’s, an explosion of British pop bands inundated the scene. Most of  ‘em borrowed from one post-punk rulebook. But amidst the lock-step grooves of Franz Ferdinand and the Futureheads,  The Kaiser Chiefs pounded out a dizzying array of great tunes. They could be as jumpy as Franz (“I Predict a Riot“), but also excelled at Smiths-style balladry (“Love’s Not a Competition (But I’m Winning)”) and jangly sixties pop (“I Can Do it Without You“). And while they’re not as image-stylish as some of their contemporaries, the Kaisers possess a terrific frontman in bounding rapscallion Ricky Wilson. Tonight’s show is a reschedule from their October 2 date, and all tickets for the original show will be honored.

Loch Lomond, Lemolo, Dinosaur Feathers @ The Tractor Tavern. $12 at the door. Show at 9:30pm.

Ritchie Young’s unearthly tenor voice lends a dreamlike cast to this Portland ensemble’s pop. If you love The Zombies and/or wish The Decemberists possessed a singer whose voice soars more than it drones, you need to hear these guys. Super-special bonus: Local dream-pop thrushes Lemolo open.

En Vogue @ Jazz Alley. $45 advance. Doors at 7pm, show at 8pm.

See Sunday, March 25 for the deets.

Saturday, March 24:

Nada Surf, An Horse @ Showbox at the Market. $25 advance, $30 day of show. Show at 8pm.

We’ll make no bones about our love for indie stalwarts Nada Surf (SunBreak staffer Chelsea Nesvig fills in all the blanks here, in case you missed it the first time). Matthew Caws writes some of the best classicist pop you’ll hear, and the band’s new full-length, The Stars are Indifferent to Astronomy, continues their decade-long winning streak of releases. They’re bound to break out some tracks from their daisy-fresh new EP, too.

White Rabbits, Gull @ The Crocodile. $13 advance. Show at 8pm.

“Percussion Gun” is so powerful, it almost dwarfed the rest of this Brooklyn six-piece’s output (cue fawning over said track here). But White Rabbits’ great new full-length, Milk Famous, proves they’re not one-hit wonders. It’s packed with the requisite variety of galloping Spoon-style piano pop and dance-rock tracks. The first single, “Heavy Metal,” definitely leans towards the latter, with a sleek slacker groove that’s unsettling and sexy at equal turns.

mr. Gnome, The Redwood Plan, Clutch Douglass @ The Sunset Tavern. $8 advance, $10 at the door. Show at 9pm.

No, that’s not a typo–you spell mr. Gnome with a lowercase m, thanks. You don’t often get batshit-crazy and ethereal beauty in equal doses, but this Cleveland, Ohio duo manages to straddle that tightrope gracefully. With their trippy lyrics, odd tempo changes, and Nicole Barille’s creamy raincloud of a voice, they sound like the spirit of Syd Barrett taking Cat Power down one twisty scary-beautiful multihued path. Seattle quartet The Redwood Plan, by contrast, throw down pogo-worthy new-wave-tinged pop–sorta like The Gossip gone spiky-haired–with an absolute fireball of a frontwoman (former Ms. Led founder Lesli Wood) at the epicenter. 

En Vogue @ Jazz Alley. $45 advance. Doors at 7pm, show at 8pm.

See Sunday, March 25 for the deets.

Sunday, March 25:

En Vogue @ Jazz Alley. $45 advance. Doors at 7pm, show at 8pm.

One of the biggest superstar acts of the 1990’s finishes out an intimate four-day stint at that class joint, Jazz Alley. Yeah, it’ll be a total wallow in nostalgia, but most of the original line-up remains intact, those brassy harmonies are still in place, and they’ve got some of the era’s most addictive soul-pop tunes in their arsenal. Try not to sing, “No, you’re never gonna get it,” over and over again now, for the duration of your work day.

Sharon van Etten, The War on Drugs @ The Neptune. $15 advance. Doors at 7pm, show at 8pm.

Singer/songwriter Sharon van Etten’s connected with the world in a big way. Maybe it’s that dusky alto voice, or maybe it’s the wistful quality of her songs, which possess the relatability and warmth of a shoebox full of faded family photographs. Her set at Bumbershoot last year was one of the Fest’s surprise hits, so the Neptune will likely pack up.

Arts & Entertainment, Music

Catching Up with the Weekend’s Live Music Offerings

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Pearl Dragon of Champagne Champagne hits the Lo-Fi on Sunday. (photo by Tony Kay)

I don’t care what you’re in the mood for musically this weekend. Something, somewhere in the Seattle city limits will scratch that sonic itch for you, so dive in below already.

Tonight:

Laudanum, Bell Witch, Blood of Kings, Salo @The Highline. $8 at the door. Doors at 8pm.

With its incongruous but winning combination of vegan pub grub, ace cocktails, and metal-up-the-ass (most of the time) acts, The Highline  has carved its own wonderful niche in Capitol Hill.

Headlining the headbanging this evening: Oakland troglodites Laudanum, a motley lot brandishing downtempo piledriven rhythms, shards of epic goth guitar, and a vocalist (Nathan Misterek) who often sounds like an orc with Bauhaus crooner Peter Murphy stuck in its throat.

Fountains of Wayne, Mike Viola @The Crocodile. $20 advance, $25 at the door. Doors at 8pm.

Fountains co-frontman Adam Schlesinger’s probably most famous for penning the hit title track for the Tom Hanks rock pic, That Thing You Do. But Fountains of Wayne have been plying their brand of smart and catchy power-pop for a couple of decades now, and they’re currently touring behind Sky Full of Holes, a terrific record that effectively re-captures the lightning-in-a-bottle brilliance of their gem, 1999’s Utopia Parkway. Get there early to catch the warm-up set by Candy Butchers frontman Mike Viola, who knows a thing or two about brainy, toothy pop himself.

Saturday:

Reverb Fest 2011 @ various venues in Ballard. $10-$20 wristbands can be purchased at individual venues Saturday afternoon.

Between the juggernaut that is Bumbershoot and the highly-touted City Arts Fest next weekend, the Seattle Weekly’s sponsoring its own festival, a celebration of local music that corrals some 70 Seattle bands in eight Ballard venues for marathon all-day bills. There’s an embarrassment of riches to be found, but from where we’re standing the best locations for Reverb look to be The Sunset (where hip-hop kings Mash Hall and Grynch wind down the night), the Tractor (rife with everything from The Cops’ winning post-punk snarl to a set by Seattle pop wunderkinds Curtains for You), and folk stronghold venue Conor Byrne (capped by a set from Cobirds Unite, the masterful Beatles-gone-roots project fronted by Rusty Willoughby and Visqueen’s Rachel Flotard). Check out the Reverb site for more details, and get your money’s worth. It’s easy to do.

Sunday:

Dum Dum Girls, The Crocodile Girls, Colleen Green @The Crocodile. $13 advance, doors at 8pm.

Dum Dum Girls frontwoman Dee Dee co-produced her band’s debut CD with pop legend Richard Gottehrer (he of Blondie and Raveonettes production gigs), which should give you an idea of her band’s sensibilities. Their new album, Only in Dreams, is more pensive lyrically than the first, but it’ll still take the chill off the impending fall in a major way, with a sound as divinely vintage as their wardrobes. Four beautiful California girls in black, putting out cucumber-cool guitar pop with spunky Debbie-Harry-inspired vocals = Win-win.

Locksley, Mona, Funeral Party @The Tractor Tavern. $10.77 advance, $12 at the door. Doors at 8pm.

Locksley do Beatles-style pop with the kind of brio and songwriting chops that woulda made them household names in the 1960’s, so there’s no reinvention of the wheel here. But Dear Lord in Silk Jammies, they do it winningly, spectacularly right. Peerless hooks and a live show that peels wallpaper look to be the order of the night. If “The Whip” doesn’t become a hit between its monster melody and this imaginative fan-made pop-culture riff of a video, then the universe is even harsher than we imagine.

Pearl Dragon, Bronz FM, OC Notes @ The Lo-Fi Performance Gallery. $7 at the door, doors at 8pm.

It’s always a treat to hear individual members of Seattle’s best hip-hop collectives working outside their better-known units, so get thee to the Eastlake ‘hood’s great overlooked dance venue to listen to one-half of the indisputably awesome Champagne Champagne work a mic. Pearl Dragon’s solo material plies a more direct flow than Champagne’s psychedelic style, and it’s great.