THURSDAY 7/19

ROCKET FROM THE CRYPT COVER NIGHT: FEATURING MEMBERS OF THE LONG WINTERS, THE COPS, MURDER CITY DEVILS, PATROL, NIGHTLIFE, POLICE TEETH, WHALEBONES, COCONUT COOLOUTS
(Crocodile) Cover nights, while good in theory, can be tragically boring. More often than not, they just make you ache for the artist all the not-as-good-as-the-real-thing acts have spent the evening pretending to be. Tonight could go either way. The evening is paying tribute to a more-than-worthy band, Rocket from the Crypt, so that's a big check in the pro column, but RFTC are known for their absolutely killer live shows—loud, tight, sweaty—and they've also got a fucking huge discography, so just picking what songs to cover proves a challenge in itself. But if these local acts can capture even half of the talent and surliness the band was known for in their heyday, it'll be a success. Rocket has set the bar ridiculously high, but with that said, members of the Long Winters, the Cops, Murder City Devils, Patrol, Police Teeth, and Whalebones are no talentless hacks either. I've got faith in you, Seattle. Get ape- shit at the Crocodile. MEGAN SELING

TEGAN AND SARA
(Triple Door) Canadian twins Tegan and Sara Quin sing harmonies that rip your spine out and fill it with chills and hope. They also have a bolting new full-length—produced by Chris Walla of Death Cab for Cutie—called The Con. This past January, the Quins moved into a Portland house and walked to Walla's studio every day towing their gear in a wagon. Then they brought in Death Cab's Jason McGerr for drums. For three months they toiled, poured their souls, got it to gleam, and filmed everything they did. They built a set in the basement for interviews and speakerphone conversations. The future of music rests in Tegan and Sara's hands and harmonies: lesbian superhero sisters that will save us from the mainstream. TRENT MOORMAN

FRIDAY 7/20

HOWLIN RAIN, CITAY, WHALEBONES, BISON
(Sunset) See Stranger Suggests, page 23.

SING SING ONE YEAR ANNIVERSARY: CHROMEO, FLOSSTRADAMUS, FOURCOLORZACK, PRETTY TITTY
(War Room) See preview, page 34, and Stranger Suggests, page 23.

SILVERCHAIR, YOU AM I
(Showbox) See preview, page 31.

CHOW NASTY, POWER OF WINGS, MASS SUGAR
(El Corazón) A few years ago, in a different city, I wrote that Chow Nasty were on their way to total world domination. I stand behind that ridiculous claim. Now that the Bay Area electro-blooze trio are armed with Super (Electrical) Recordings, produced by Peanut Butter Wolf, they're one step closer to enslaving us all with their unruly raunch-rock party jams. "Ungawa," featuring the Mission High School cheerleaders on backing vocals along with a lowbrow drum machine beat and scuzzilicious bass line, has become an unlikely club hit favored by Peaches and Le Tigre. Some words I've used in the past to describe their unabashedly fun form of freak-funk: "like KY Jelly on a Wiffle ball bat," "like hot oil on a stripper pole," and, my favorite, "like the mystery residue on the inside of your pleather hot pants." Yeah, that's Chow Nasty. JONATHAN ZWICKEL

JEREMY ENIGK, FAIR, SHANE TUTMARC & THE TRAVELING MERCIES
(Chop Suey) Jeremy Enigk has one of the most powerful and expressive voices out there—the kind that's always been able to convey the emotion of his lyrics no matter how obscured the words themselves have been. Tonight is a chance to catch the full force of that wonderful instrument as he plays a rare acoustic set. While the brilliant bombast of his backing bands has never taken away from Enigk's vocals (few other singers would even be able to hold their own under that mighty swell) a stripped-back setting will allow his voice—by turns breathy, clear, strong, and vulnerable—to take center stage, and the songs the opportunity to stand on their own as well. BARBARA MITCHELL

ISLAND FESTIVAL
(South Whidbey Community Park) A quote by Buckminster Fuller: "You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete." That one's emblazoned on the website for the Island Festival, a three-day outdoor bacchanal taking place in a lush, sprawling park on Whidbey Island. Performers include tabla beat science duo Karsh Kale and Anoushka Shankar, live breakbeat house trio BLVD, live hiphop from Alfred Howard and the K23 Orchestra, soul jazzer Karl Denson, glitch-tech DJs Bluetech and Jacaranda, and a bunch more. Expect plenty of Frisbee tossing, beer drinking in the sunshine, and late-night raging, along with permaculture workshops, sea kayaking, and hiking trips. In its inaugural year, the Island Festival is a gutsy effort to establish a new, progressive event in a beautiful, out-of-the-way place. Ol' Bucky would be proud. JONATHAN ZWICKEL

OLD TIME RELIJUN, THE INTELLIGENCE, MATTRESS
(Comet) Arrington de Dionyso's Old Time Relijun are, as their name (and his) suggests, a moonshine-soaked, fire-breathing, psycho-spiritual swamp-blues revival. Dionyso alternately plays guitar, Jew's harp, and bass clarinet, yelps invocations, and chants in a guttural growl that approaches Tuvan throat singing. His wilder turns are grounded by the steady churn and stomp provided by Aaron Hartman on upright bass and Germaine Baca on drums. The band's latest album, 2005's 2012, is appropriately apocalyptic, full of panic-stricken jam sessions and little instrumental death trips. Lyrically, Dionyso is on some heavy shit: the fossil-fuel choke of "Los Angeles," the abandoned industrial promise of "The Chemical Factory," the invasive animal terror of "Wolves and Wolverines," and the funeral-pyre jumping of "Your Momma Used to Dance." ERIC GRANDY

ROCKY VOTOLATO, LANGHORNE SLIM, GHOSTS & LIARS
(Hell's Kitchen, early) Listening to Langhorne Slim is a Jekyll and Hyde affair. In most of his recorded material, you hear a gifted songwriter who knows his way around a hook—you find yourself humming his country/folk melodies while puttering around your day. His rough-around-the-edges voice warms a chilly night and cools a sweltering day, encouraging you to sit back and relax. All that goes out the window when you see him live. Forget about soothing and comforting; Slim's all about rocking and energizing. Exuberantly passionate, he'll make you dance, shout, sing, and sweat, all in a single song. Humming seems pointless. Instead, give yourself to the music in the way that he does, body and soul. Catch that riff as though it were a thermal and you a hawk. And fly, you sorry bastard, fly. CHRIS McCANN

SATURDAY 7/21

ISLAND FESTIVAL
(South Whidbey Community Park) See Friday's preview.

IAN McFERON AND THE BAND, WESTERLY
(High Dive) Everybody knows Ian McFeron's number-one hit from the '80s, "Don't Worry, Be Happy." It won the Grammy for best song in 1988, and became the motto for a country desperately searching for a new way to put the blinders on. A popular urban legend is that after the fame started to fade from his only big hit, McFeron committed suicide. This obviously is untrue, as we are graced by his presence in Seattle this Saturday at the High Dive. Sure, he may not have done anything of note recently, but come on; the man did the theme song for the The Cosby Show. I know I'll... wait... what? Bobby McFerrin? Really? Oh. Shit. I don't know who Ian McFeron is. JEFF KIRBY

SLINT, THE DRIFT
(Showbox) In 1991, Louisville, Kentucky's Slint released the epic (six songs, 40 minutes) postrock masterpiece Spiderland. And then they broke up. In the years since, they've reunited a handful of times: in 1994 to record an EP, in 2005 to curate All Tomorrow's Parties, and in 2007 to perform their pioneering album live in its entirety. The band never toured for Spiderland, so even for old fans, these reunions offer a fresh opportunity to hear it performed, and the album still stands as one of the most influential independent releases of its time. Its ambling rhythms, tense guitars, and alternately whispered and screamed lyrics still sound startling today. Hell, just the chance to hear the crushing crescendo of "Good Morning, Captain" live is reason enough to go to this show. ERIC GRANDY

SUNDAY 7/22

ISLAND FESTIVAL
(South Whidbey Community Park) See Friday's preview.

MAXÏMO PARK, MONSTERS ARE WAITING
(Chop Suey) You're Warp Records, right, and you want a band to segue you from a top-shelf label of massively influential electronic experiments to one that's peppered with popular-again guitar music. And you go with Maxïmo Park? A band from the Northeast of England, they're the third-tier of the endless postpunk revival, going through the unconvincing new-wave motions of the Franz Ferdinand side of the scene like a pedophile looking at his wife. They're the Shed Seven of nostalgic postpunk, its Silverchair or Mock Turtles. Having just played the Glastonbury Festival, on grounds of 200,000 people, to jump around like an angry noodle at Chop Suey should suggest a dangerously temporary creative cash-in, and both Warp and Maxïmo Park should know a hell of a lot better. DEAN FAWKES

THE SLEEPING, A THORN FOR EVERY HEART, A DAY TO REMEMBER, VALEYRA
(El Corazón) The Sleeping christened their maiden headlining voyage "Flip on a Tweak Realm and Set It (Off)," but the musically lucid Long Island—based quartet avoid the clumsy obliqueness and jam-band rambling that its stoner-speak tour title implies. The Sleeping inevitably arrive at anthemic power-emo choruses, with the routes to that destination ranging from dance-punk (hard-funk riffs, high-hat rhythms) to hardcore (staggered breakdowns) to Incubus-style chilled ambient guitar lines. Adrenalized enough to earn a spot on the Crank soundtrack as well as nods from testosterone-infused video games Madden NFL 07 and Tony Hawk's Downhill Jam, the Sleeping's songs are also deceptively complex, as plastic-ax masters will learn when combating one of the band's selections as a bonus track on the impending Guitar Hero III. ANDREW MILLER

VAMPIRE WEEKEND, CANTONA, SHORTHAND FOR EPIC
(Neumo's) Music blogging is so overrated. And so are most of the baby bands Pitchfork, Stereogum, Brooklyn Vegan, et al., single out for early distinction. Seriously, Clap Your Hands Shut Up Already! Maybe it's because I learned about Vampire Weekend through old-fashioned channels (i.e., a friend), or simply every rule truly does have an exception, but the forthcoming debut from this cheery Brooklyn outfit merits all the internet buzz. Imagine if one of the myriad "danceable postpunk" outfits clogging the universal bandwidth had grown up obsessing over Paul Simon's Graceland and The Indestructible Beat of Soweto comps, instead of Gang of Four and Joy Division. Or, as one of my savvy cronies put it, "Bloc Party raised on nonstop Wo' Pop." It's a combo that probably shouldn't work, but it does, and delightfully so. KURT B. REIGHLEY

MONDAY 7/23

Umm, well, I guess... It's hard to explain.

TUESDAY 7/24

TINY VIPERS
(Sonic Boom, Capitol Hill) See preview, page 33.

WEDNESDAY 7/25

FEMI KUTI
(Showbox) See preview, page 37.