THURSDAY 10/4

GREG DULLI, PETRA HADEN, JEFF KLEIN, TIM SEELY

(Triple Door) See Underage, page 69.

BUILT TO SPILL, CAMPER VAN BEETHOVEN, THE DELUSIONS

(Showbox at the Market) I trust Built to Spill more than any other band. Their albums are consistently well executed and interesting despite the fact they've released seven of them. If Doug Martsch wanted to start writing tedious songs just because, he could and the band would still sell records and still fill the Showbox three fucking nights in a row. But the band hasn't gotten lazy over the years; they've gotten better. Their latest, You in Reverse, threatens to be their best yet. Assertive guitars noodle around in the eight-minute adventure "Goin' Against Your Mind," and the more alt-country tinged "Liar" possesses a calm, dreamy quality. "Conventional Wisdom" is a bright rock song and promises to sound fantastic live. Everything Built to Spill does sounds fantastic live, actually—even the inevitable ADD-mocking, 25-minute jam sessions that interrupt their hit-filled sets. Built to Spill really can do no wrong. MEGAN SELING

FRIDAY 10/5

THE BLAKES, THE COPS, THE OLD HAUNTS

(Crocodile) See album review, page 59.

BUILT TO SPILL, CAMPER VAN BEETHOVEN, THE DELUSIONS

(Showbox) See Thursday's preview.

BRENT AMAKER & THE RODEO, THE VALLEY SHANE TUTMARC & THE TRAVELING MERCIES

(Tractor) See preview, page 47.

SING SING: SINDEN

(War Room) See Stranger Suggests, page 29.

THE WEAKERTHANS, THE LAST TOWN CHORUS, JEREMY FISHER

(Neumo's) Growing old gracefully isn't easy, especially for anarcho-punk rockers. But John K. Samson (long ago a member of Fat Wreck Chords Propagandhi) has managed as much with the Weakerthans. Over the course of four albums, Samson has slowly sloughed off the punk rock to reveal thoughtful folk, frost-bitten country, and painfully smart pop (he's the kind of lyricist who will internally rhyme "dissemble" and "December" in a line about rush-hour traffic) that deals elegantly with the subjects of love, age, and fading idealism. Their latest, Reunion Tour, finds the band further mellowing—songs such as "Civil Twilight" and "Tournament of Hearts" are faint glimmers of the anxious energy still abundant on 1997's Fallow and 2000's Left and Leaving. But Samson's songwriting remains strong and poignant as ever, and there are some treats for fans, such as the Reconstruction Site sequel "Virtute the Cat Explains Her Departure." ERIC GRANDY

SATURDAY 10/6

THE BLAKES, THE SATURDAY KNIGHTS

(Easy Street, West Seattle) See album review, page 59.

BUILT TO SPILL, CAMPER VAN BEETHOVEN, THE DELUSIONS

(Showbox) See Thursday's preview.

SUNDAY 10/7

GEORGE JONES

(Paramount) See Stranger Suggests, page 29, and Turn You On, page 57.

MONDAY 10/8

SHE WANTS REVENGE, KENNA, IO ECHO

(Showbox at the Market) Justin Warfield: Put down the guyliner and ditch the guitar. I understand the need for artistic evolution, but damn, man—you were such a badass MC back in '92, and this electro-goth-lite is really beneath you. My Field Trip to Planet 9 is a stone classic—a stoned classic, really—the first truly tripped-out, psychedelic hiphop album, way ahead of its time. Dense, head-spinning production by Prince Paul, reverbed rhymes about LSD, Korova Milk Bar, and Naked Lunch. You predated Edan by a decade! That shit made my senior year of high school! The only thing She Wants Revenge is making is a fair-to-middling Depeche Mode knockoff. Dude, you're Jarobi's cousin! Hiphop is in your blood! Come back, Justin! JONATHAN ZWICKEL

TUESDAY 10/9

METRIC, CRYSTAL CASTLES

(Showbox at the Market) See Stranger Suggests, page 29.

MICHAEL IAN BLACK AND MICHAEL SHOWALTER

(Neumo's) Technically this isn't a rock show, but it sure as hell will rock. God that's a terrible intro. I'm really sorry. I'm under a lot of pressure here! It's really hard to write about two of the funniest men in America (as voted by me) without (a) using their own jokes as examples and ruining them, (b) coming off like a fangirl with a ridiculous grade-school crush on the class clown, or (c) making them sound not funny at all by desperately insisting they are. But I swear to Christ Michael Ian Black and Michael Showalter, two-thirds of the dildo-obsessed comedy troupe Stella, are hilarious. Their exaggerated facial expressions alone make me nearly piss my pants, and Black's deadpan delivery only makes Showalter's self-deprecation and giddy desire to be loved that much funnier. MEGAN SELING

WEDNESDAY 10/10

FILM SCHOOL, THE HUGS, EULOGIES

(Crocodile) Film School are the perfect companions for your nostalgia trip to the early '90s, when bands like My Bloody Valentine, Ride, and Slowdive made every day feel rainy and every heart feel broken. The California band builds on that shoegaze sound, twisting guitar lines ever more tightly around each other, embracing the cool/desperate dichotomy, and reveling in the glorious darkness of it all. It sounds old and new at the same time. Lead singer Greg Bertens picked up a new bassist (Lorelei Plotczyk), guitarist (Dave Dupuis), and drummer (erstwhile Seattleite James Smith) for the new album, Hideout, and the result is majestic, atmospheric, and downright beautiful. And it certainly is fun to glance backward now and then to that heady time when feeling bad felt oh so good. CHRIS McCANN

FUJIYA & MIYAGI, DIRTY ON PURPOSE, PROJECT JENNY, PROJECT JAN

(Neumo's) Fujiya & Miyagi are actually three pale Brits—Steve Lewis, David Best, and Matt Hainsby—with a knack for taut Krautrockin' grooves, coolly whispered vocals ("We were just pretending to be Japanese"), and moments of inexplicable but infectious white-boy funk. Their third album, 2006's Transparent Things, is full of deadly creepers, songs that begin as mellow nods then quietly grow into irresistibly propulsive jams—before you know it, you're busting all the stiff, lame moves that the phrase "white-boy funk" invokes. Dirty on Purpose are an inoffensive, occasionally grand vanilla rock quartet from Brooklyn with some pretty cute music videos. Project Jenny, Project Jan are in fact two dudes—Sammy Rubin and Jeremy Haines, also from Brooklyn—whose genre-skimming, sample-heavy pop, studied rapping and scatting, and weak electronica is just fucking awful. Arrive late. ERIC GRANDY

MAGIK MARKERS, I'M A GUN

(Sunset) The selling point for Boss, the new LP from East Coast noise nerds Magik Markers, is that it's their first with actual precomposed songs. Let's face it, that's hilarious. After trimming down to a duo, the band forsook the unrelenting sonic violence of their infancy for a crisp postpunk/pop approach that still swarms with the same tensions under a (relatively) conventional surface. Guitarist Elisa Ambrogio's icy vocals consider desire's destructive hunger, while drummer/multi-instrumentalist Pete Nolan draws from his cobwebbed solo project Spectre Folk to fill the remaining space with buzz, creak, and hiss. Taking this leap into linear songsmithery could be the boldest step possible for a band so identified with improvisatory sound. Such maverick spirit suggests Magik Markers might be capable of anything. FRED BELDIN

THE SADIES, CHUCKANUT DRIVE, THE BELTHOLES

(Tractor) Used to be the Sadies were frontrunners in the barely lucrative world of country genre amalgamation. But as the Toronto band near the decade mark, their roots/rockabilly/blues/boogie/whatever has been copped by too many kids who think the term "alt-country" actually means something. Perhaps that's why brothers Dallas and Travis Good accept the role as genre statesmen on their latest studio album, New Seasons, on which they rein in their trademark yip 'n' howl romps to focus on their songwriting craft. The subdued, tempered result sounds like a Jayhawks record for the most part, but the band's vigor is still plenty apparent on psych-country numbers like "A Simple Aspiration," which means the band's reputation for hootin', hollerin', guitars-blazin' concerts should still be intact. SAM MACHKOVECH

BILL CALLAHAN (FORMERLY SMOG), SIR RICHARD BISHOP

(Triple Door) In "To Be of Use," Bill Callahan crooned, "Most of my fantasies are of making someone else come." I always admired the song's lonesome, generous nature until I found out he was dating the love of my life, Joanna Newsom. Suddenly, Callahan was actualizing my fantasies as well as his own, and it made me want to sick up all over. I felt like he was my admired college professor, tall and handsome with a deep voice and published work, and he was dating the most beautiful and intelligent girl in my class, thus denying all of us her age the chance to woo her. Every day I'd curse Professor Callahan behind his back; I detested him, but I would trade places with him in an instant. That lucky bastard. Hear me now, Bill Callahan: Someday, somehow, I will take that which you hold most dear. JEFF KIRBY