On the first day of the New Year, I was at the Comet, hopping around drunk and sweaty while sometimes-Seattle-but-mostly-Brooklyn scuzz-punk sing-along band Japanther tore through a set of (sadly) much new material, a couple older jams, and an amped-up encore cover of the Cure's "Boys Don't Cry." The show combined DJs and bands, rock and hiphop and electro pop, and it sold the place out on the most hungover day of the year. Seems like an awfully auspicious start to 2010.

Earlier in the evening, Champagne Champagne and They Live! offered competing but complementary visions of Seattle hiphop in 2010: both flippant and fun, but anchored by some serious skills, with Champagne showcasing Mark Gajadhar's live instrumentation (and Pearl's penchant for perching on PA speakers and summoning feedback out of them, magic wand–like, with his mic) and They Live! incorporating as many dance moves into their goofball rap routines as the bar's limited stage space would allow (with Bruce Illest, aka djblesOne's hands snapping around like an episode of Sifl & Olly with the socks yanked off). Advantage: They Live! (Although, aren't we all really the winners here?)

Two nights later, the good feelings were evaporated across the street at Neumos, as Triumph of Lethargy Skinned Alive to Death frontman Spencer Moody allegedly kicked an audience member in the chest while onstage with his band. Apparently, the audience member had been "provoking" Moody by talking loudly during the band's set. Now, I've applauded Moody's drunken antics in the past—most notably his awesomely shit-housed Sasquatch! performance with Murder City last year, in which he railed memorably against what he felt were the dumb ugly jocks of the Sasquatch! audience and praised all the "beautiful faggots" of the world (and also thrust his queer-allied crotch into one lucky photographer's lens/face)—but this shit (what you might call "pulling a Pettibone") wasn't cool. The aggrieved audience member apparently got his revenge, though, as TOLSATD guitarist Corey Brewer posted the following coda to his Twitter following the show: "I guess if you kick an asshole in the chest during your set, dude might slash your tires while you're loading out. Ah, the good life."

Punk rock: still stalled in perpetual immaturity for 2010! Hooray!

Opening that show were two newish bands from which I expect to be hearing a lot more in 2010, for what it's worth. Wild Orchid Children, it turns out, are basically like the Mars Volta, only without all that Spanish and with perhaps less (if not fewer) jammy, jazzy guitar-solo freak-outs. Young family band the Tempers (two sisters and one brother) are rather a not-yet-fully-formed mesh of Glass Candy, Kate Bush, and Siouxsie Sioux. They suffered many MIDI-keyboard-related technical malfunctions, they could benefit from still having a fourth player on guitar or bass on a few songs, and the singer's vocal shudders and jerky dance moves are kind of hilariously histrionic, but they're charismatic for such a young act, and I wouldn't be surprised to see them getting it together nicely in the coming year. At least they didn't kick anyone in the chest—yet. recommended