Wednesday 8/29

Maga Bo, DJ Chilly, Darek Mazzone

(Barboza) See Data Breaker.

Cahalen Morrison, Eli West

(Triple Door) What if roots music wasn't dated, preachy noise banged out on tin pans and triangles? What if the artists wrote all their own material based on their lifetime of touring instead of trampling nasal traditionals in an attempt to sound authentic? Cahalen Morrison and Eli West have accomplished just that with plucky, light-as-feathers rhythms and contemplative, dreamy lyrics. Their new album, Our Lady of the Tall Trees, abounds with elegant country and bluegrass tunes that prove Morrison and West are two of the country's finest modern folk musicians. They're touring the US and UK in support of their harmonious second full-length, but before that, they're performing their pioneering Americana for you at the Triple Door tonight. SEAN JEWELL

Us on Roofs, Learning Team, the Cat from Hue, Candysound

(Chop Suey) You have to listen real closely, but Us on Roofs, through their guitar-driven, shoegazey indie rock, have the tendency to occasionally flirt with bands like the Dismemberment Plan and So Many Dynamos. Now, stick with me! I know it isn't obvious. But listen to the song "Running" from Some Unrecorded Beam (available at www.usonroofs.bandcamp.com). Just before the three-minute mark, there it is: a destruction of the song's more fluid beginning. "Oh Bright Sun" takes an unexpected turn, too. It's wonderful to see bands can still write songs that contain surprises. MEGAN SELING

Thursday 8/30

Divine Fits, Black Whales

(Crocodile) See also Underage.

Jimmy Cobb, Joey DeFrancesco, Larry Coryell, Roberta Gambarini

(Jazz Alley) These four jazz titans gather for a four-night engagement to pay tribute to guitarist Wes Montgomery and keyboardist Jimmy Smith. I'm especially enamored of Larry Coryell, a fiery, fluid guitarist who should be mentioned in the same breath as immortals like John McLaughlin, Sonny Sharrock, Pat Martino, and, um, Wes Montgomery. Montgomery's crystalline, quicksilver, feathery tone has had an immense influence on the guitarscape. Jimmy Smith—who launched the Hammond B-3 electric organ to highest uncommon denominator prominence from the mid-'50s to his death in 2005—made liberal use of the Leslie speaker to add a whorling, acidic quality to his florid jazz and blues runs. A good chunk of jazz history is going to get lavishly homaged by these virtuosos. DAVE SEGAL

Yeasayer, Daughn Gibson

(Neptune) Yeasayer are hitting Seattle with a new batch of curious tangle pop. Every album this Brooklyn trio produces makes me slightly uncomfortable with the sheer amount of unrecognizable sounds—dripping, honking, shrill, frenetic distortion pouring out of a Technicolor stop-motion clay sewer. All Hours Cymbals was a jumbled pile of world music, while Odd Blood reminded me of Peter Gabriel's late-'80s music-video technology—just the videos, not the music itself. You know when a "cutting-edge" effect comes out, and it seems totally awesome at the time, but even two years later it's ridiculous? Well, Peter Gabriel glommed onto every video effect he could get his paws on, and the results are insane. Look them up! He turns into a train at one point! Yeasayer's Fragrant World, out just a few days ago, is already on a whole new level of overwhelming. I do like that guy's voice, though! EMILY NOKES See also Underage.

Bomb the Music Industry!, Pretty Old, the Creakies

(El Corazón) Thank whatever higher power you want to thank for Bomb the Music Industry! They've been going strong, and with DIY ethics, for eight years. Their shows rarely cost more than $10, they're always all ages, their music is available for pay-what-you-can download, they bring stencils and spray paint on tour with them so you can bring an old T-shirt to their show and make a BtMI! shirt for free or really cheap, and, most important, their music (while it has "matured" [read: stopped being quite as sloppy]) has been great—fun and thoughtful, dancing/skanking/pogoing on a line between pop, punk, and ska. All good things must come to an end, though. Earlier this month, BtMI! broke the news that this just might be their last tour ever. Come see them one last time, come see them for the first time, just make sure you see them before they go away forever. MEGAN SELING

Friday 8/31

Jimmy Cobb, Joey DeFrancesco, Larry Coryell, Roberta Gambarini

(Jazz Alley) See Thursday.

The Cops, Kinski, Bali Girls

(Sunset) The Cops (the band, not to be confused with actual cops, ever) are some of the nicest guys around. I met them by accident years ago in San Diego when our tours serendipitously started paralleling each other—fast-forward to serious chicken dancing (dancing like a chicken as seriously as you possibly can, preferably in a room full of sexy, humorless people) and nearly getting kicked out of a fancy tiki bar. I remember being impressed by their super-fun, straight-up rock 'n' roll live show—as their bio states, "no fuss, no muss, no stupid hippie haircuts." Kinski make intricate haze rock, precise and powerful. From what I can tell, Bali Girls took a six-year break and are now back on the scene with their noisy experimental rock. Welcome back, Bali Girls! EMILY NOKES

Kids on Fire, the Know Nothingz, Rat City Ruckus, Poop Attack, the Savage Henrys

(Kraken) Having been looking at the music listings closer than anyone in his right mind would for the past few years, I feel like I've seen a few of these names a million and a half times. So I decided to check them out. "Grand Mystifier," the first song on Kids on Fire's Myspace presence (insert LULZ), is serviceable Rancidesque feelings punk. Then Myspace skipped to some god-awful aural spew titled "Without You," a number off the album Take It to the Limit, by a band called Hinder. Said spew features this chorus: "Without you/I'm livin' it up a little more every day/Without you/I'm looking at myself so differently." This ruined my ability to listen to music for a time, as I was forced to douche my ears out with a turkey baster, some gasoline, and gobs of Motörhead. GRANT BRISSEY

Kareem Kandi Trio

(Mona's) You cannot separate these parts: Kareem Kandi, jazz saxophone, and the Pacific Northwest. Each part is tied closely and complexly interacts with the other parts. All three parts make a whole career that began in Pierce County, was consolidated at Cornish College of the Arts, and has long been at the center of the region's vibrant jazz scene. Kandi currently teaches jazz composition at Tacoma School of the Arts, and he performs free jazz, trad jazz, modern jazz, funk, and blues. To get a good idea of his talent (he has a smart, swift, agile sound), download the album See What I'm Saying. CHARLES MUDEDE

Saturday 9/1

Bumbershoot

(Seattle Center) See pullout.

Amon Tobin

(Moore) See Stranger Suggests and Data Breaker.

Jimmy Cobb, Joey DeFrancesco, Larry Coryell, Roberta Gambarini

(Jazz Alley) See Thursday.

Freaky Flow, Selrahc, Charlie Eon

(Bogart's Airport Way) See Data Breaker.

JaWaan Larue, Dyme Def, Juga Hill, Peta Tosh

(Nectar) See My Philosophy.

Kayo Dot, Dog Shredder, Rose Windows

(Highline) Nailing a sweeping arpeggio on guitar requires some skill, but it's not high art. An unrelenting double-kick drumming requires stamina and discipline, but it's not the be-all and end-all of percussive mastery. As much as some metal musicians act like their music is the pinnacle of instrumental technique, the baggage of metal's over-the-top aesthetics and monochromatic force causes many critics to write the whole realm off as musical junk food. Fortunately, there are bands like Kayo Dot to remind us that not every "heavy" group relies strictly on volume and one-trick virtuosity. The Brooklyn-based troupe writes linear compositions stitched together by various wind and string instruments, jazz drumming, counterintuitive chord arrangements, and, yes, the occasional distorted assault. Kayo Dot aim higher than out-shredding Slayer, reaching instead for the heights achieved by Ornette Coleman and Karlheinz Stockhausen. BRIAN COOK

Dunes, Weed, M. Women

(Cairo) Vancouver, our neighboring megaplex to the north, is currently bubbling over with quality rock and noise acts. Case in point is that city's Weed, whose self-described "sludge pop" is your new favorite genre. If you remember Times New Viking's Dig Yourself, you're partway there. These are simple, airy jams with sweet vocals and ultraviolet blasts of sonic haze. Hooks come at you like they're from the other side of a heat wave, and after a hot minute, you've waded into a pleasant bleariness at your work desk. GRANT BRISSEY

Hank III

(Showbox Sodo) As the son of mainstream sensation Hank Williams Jr. and grandson of one of country's most storied heroes, Hank Williams, Hank III proudly gives Nashville the finger and does it his way—playing countrified punk rock with a big dose of "fuck you." With songs declaring his love for drugs, Hank III certainly won't be appearing on CMT any time soon, but that's fine by him, as he's well known for going against the grain of country-music politics, as heard in "The Grand Ole Opry Ain't So Grand Anymore." KEVIN DIERS

Sunday 9/2

Bumbershoot

(Seattle Center) See Stranger Suggests and pullout.

Samothrace, Witchburn, Plaster

(Highline) See preview.

Jimmy Cobb, Joey DeFrancesco, Larry Coryell, Roberta Gambarini

(Jazz Alley) See Thursday.

Bell Biv Devour, Tony! Toni! Robbins!

(Sunset) I agreed to recommend this show based solely on the strength of the band names. Bell Biv Devour is, of course, a pristine creation, hucking the jagged percussion of "Poison" into the decomposing face of a zombie. And what Tony! Toni! Robbins! lacks in conceptual cohesion, it makes up for in rhythmic pizzazz. Perfunctory googling revealed nothing more about either band except that both are playing the Sunset tonight. Proceed at your own risk. DAVID SCHMADER

Pollens, Tartufi, By Sunlight, Silian Rail

(Barboza) As mentioned in these pages before, Pollens rank as one of Seattle's most inventive pop groups. They're masters of captivating, interlocking African rhythms and dazzling, intricate vocal interplay among their well-oiled, gender-balanced, six-person lineup. Pollens' songs take flight through melodies that flow in unexpected yet catchy patterns over serpentine percussion foundations, lifting things far above indie-pop orthodoxy. Silian Rail play advanced-level math rock that's as pretty as it is convoluted, falling somewhere between Polvo and Don Caballero. Bay Area trio Tartufi aren't as frenetic as Pollens nor as angular (yes, no other word will do) as Silian Rail, but their alluring, arty rock complements both groups' sound. You might not flip your wig tonight, but you will raise your brow to "high." DAVE SEGAL

Baby Guns, Wishbeard, Perpetual Ritual

(Crocodile) Baby Guns are a fashionable trio of attractive humans making lugubrious gloom pop. Black-lacey synth and slow, eerie vocals create perfectly catchy songs for an '80s Halloween-themed prom in a funeral home. Wishbeard are a Seattle "queermocore" band that play lovely music for sailing to the moon in your dreamboat made of pizza. You can dance to Wishbeard, you can kiss to Wishbeard, and you can listen to Wishbeard and wish you had a wispy purple wizard beard. EMILY NOKES

Dave Matthews Band, the Avett Brothers, Allen Stone

(Gorge) Dave Matthews would like to personally invite you to ditch Bumbershoot and come to Hippie Lite™ country, where blond dreadlocks and sociology degrees, tasteful tie-dyed bandannas and professionally whitened teeth, Ganesha back tattoos and spray tans can finally frolic together through the weed-scented fields of George, Washington. Joining in the festivities are North Carolina's twangy, bluegrass-rolling Avett Brothers (who are actual brothers)—their songs sound like the "slowly walking away after a big talk" part of a romantic movie or perhaps an uplifting commercial for jam. Allen Stone will also be present, crooning the outdoors' pants off with his feel-good brand of soulful aunt rock. EMILY NOKES

Monday 9/3

Bumbershoot

(Seattle Center) See pullout.

Tuesday 9/4

PackFM, Jonny October, Art Vandelay, Type, Worst Animal, Griff J

(Nectar) See My Philosophy.

The Men, Hurry Up, Broken Water

(Chop Suey) The Men are yet another Brooklyn buzz band, which probably should make you roll your eyes, sigh, and curse VICE magazine... again. But as buzz bands go, the Men (gotta respect that huge "fuck you" to googlers) are respectable upholders of tough, no-bullshit, punk-inflected rock that also knows how to receive rays of beauty into its earthbound squall. Bonus points for titling a song "Bataille"; go read the dead Frenchie's Story of the Eye for a supremely dirty, transgressive literary experience. DAVE SEGAL