Thursday 8/14

Nico Muhly, Doveman, Sam Amidon

(Triple Door) See Preview

Club Pop: Jeremy Jay, the Raggedy Anns, DJs Recess and Reflex

(Chop Suey) Jeremy Jay is a lanky (six foot three) young singer and songwriter from "Angel Town," California, whose album, A Place Where We Could Go, was released this spring via Olympia's K Records. His bio cites the French New Wave, art deco, Buddy Holly, Peter Pan, John Hughes; it also notes that Jay, who plays guitar and piano, likes to "drive around with the moonroof open listening to music with his friends." K is a good fit for Jay, not just because of the above preciousness, but also because his music is spiritually and sonically a direct descendant of Beat Happening's sleepy-headed-yet-coy dream pop, equal parts lo-fi and tuneful, updated with occasional synth touches. "Breaking the Ice" and the appropriately weightless "Airwalker" are especially convincing prom-night dance jams. Local outfit the Raggedy Anns mix rock, blues, jazz, and old-timey affectations into suspiciously studied shambles. ERIC GRANDY

Saviours, Titan, Treetarantula, Sandrider

(Comet) Saviours are a rare metal band that are doing everything right. They've got huge riffs, impeccably tasteful solos, and galloping beats that make you feel like you're riding a trusty steed into an evil fortress. They're a mix of Black Sabbath, early Metallica, and Motörhead refined into a modern metal juggernaut. The best part of their record Into Abaddon: The LP's inside sleeve has the same image as the front cover, except with a pile of weed and some rolling papers on top. This is a band that understand their fans. Opening is Sandrider, a new side project from Akimbo drummer Nat Damm. There is a 100 percent chance you will wake up the morning after this show with a serious bangover. JEFF KIRBY

Nellie McKay, Fences

(Neumo's) The last time I saw Nellie McKay was at the dearly departed/potentially reanimated Crocodile, where an odd-duck crowd of NPR lovers and cabaret fans stood in a crush before the stage, while the adorable McKay sat at her piano, rolling out her postmodern comedy over the score for the musical that exists only in her big, weird head. Tonight, McKay plays Neumo's—another stand-and-gawk rock club (when does she get her night at the Triple Door?) but the quality of the art compensates for any venue discord. DAVID SCHMADER

Friday 8/15

Mount Eerie, Your Heart Breaks, Karl Blau, Madeline Adams

(Vera Project) See Fucking in the Streets

eR DoN, Pontius Pilots, Linda & Ron's Dad, ndCv, Introcut

(Lo_Fi Performance Gallery) See Bug in the Bassbin

RX Bandits, Portugal. The Man, Kay Kay and His Weathered Underground, Nurses

(El Corazón) Psych is on the rise, finding it's way back into everything from folk to metal bands. Portugal. The Man are one more act playing rock that sounds as though it's composed by a bunch of strung-out weirdo art dudes. And that's a compliment. The recent Equal Vision signees play epic, dramatic tunes that are more haunting than those of tourmates Kay Kay and His Weathered Underground. They boast the same miniorchestra of strings, horns, and a handful of percussion, only instead of being awash with optimism and flowers, they're a soundtrack for coming down. While listening to them, you'll be begging for night to come a little slower because the dark is a really, really scary place full of buzzing guitars, Muppet vocals, and freaking out high-pitched strings that sound like ear mites eating away your brain. It's the best worst trip ever. MEGAN SELING

Lesbian, the Atomic Bomb Audition, Birthday Suits, Wah Wah Exit Wound

(Funhouse) Last time Minnesota's Birthday Suits played the Funhouse they were about as loud and spastic as a guitar and drum duo can get. They were so loud, in fact, that it was hard to hear what the guitarist was actually playing; the wall of noise was unnerving and impenetrable, and their ability to create it while flailing so ceaselessly was noteworthy. On this night, their bombastic antics are sandwiched nicely between the Fripp-esque prog of Wah Wah Exit Wound, the monumentally heavy psychedelic doom of Lesbian, and Oakland's Atomic Bomb Audition, an experimental metal band whose MySpace headline fittingly reads "Yes. It needs to be that loud." JEFF KIRBY

Maldives, Jesse Sykes and the Sweet Hereafter

(Mural Amphitheater, Seattle Center) Jesse Sykes and the Sweet Hereafter are as much a canyon at dusk as they are a room. For this Mural Stage show, they will be playing songs off their new EP, Gentleness of Nothing. It's a strange, reaching, and beautiful batch of emotive, folk-singed songs. Phil Wandscher's arid, echoed guitar and Sykes's forlorn, warming vocals stir each other up, then catch each other over and over. The band played Reno last week with Calexico, and driving back they passed through a butterfly migration. Jesse says, "It was so thick we couldn't see out the windows. Hundreds of butterflies dying. It was sad. The van was covered in yellow and black wings. I was able to save one butterfly at the car wash, before the hose was turned on." TRENT MOORMAN

Squirrel Nut Zippers

(Triple Door) Far greater and less silly than all of the contemporary mid-'90s swing-revivalist sucker MCs, Squirrel Nut Zippers embraced the darker and truer musical aspect of hothouse jazz and even earlier 20th-century American music forms with genuine reverence and discipline. Though they didn't shy away from the elementally fun nature of a lot of those styles, they also didn't make themselves into the sort of reproachable caricatures that, say, Big Bad Voodoo Daddy did. Particularly on their breakthrough record Hot and its EP follow-up Sold Out, the Squirrel Nut Zippers really did keep it the realest. SAM MICKENS

Killing the Dream, Vanguard, Open Fire!, Passing in Dreams, Poverty Bay Saints, Dragline

(Viaduct) The hardcore scene deserves credit for disregarding or at least persevering in the face of trends in popular culture. And while many of its disciples don't search too far outside the confines of the loud and angry template, they do have a remarkable appreciation for their scene's history. It's little surprise, then, that Sacramento's Killing the Dream cite old underground commandos like Chain of Strength and Unbroken as primary inspirations. While drawing ideas from such a small pool may limit a band's ability to grow, it certainly cements their place in an ongoing legacy. That Killing the Dream manage to channel the same unbridled urgency as their forefathers without coming across as redundant or cliché doesn't hurt, either. BRIAN COOK

Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, Steve Winwood

(The Gorge) You know whose songs sound better on the radio than Tom Petty's? NO ONE'S. Tom Petty's songs sound so good on the radio—so at home, on-target, yet transcendent—that I regularly spend several hours every month listening to JACK FM, the "in your face" radio station programmed by robots that is nevertheless the Northwest's premier dispensary of Tom Petty compositions. Half of what JACK plays is trash—Scandal, Richard Marx, fucking Mr. Mister. But then along comes some prime Tom Petty—"Refugee," "Here Comes My Girl," "The Waiting"—and all is forgiven. Expect to hear all the best of Petty (a crowd-pleasing rock star who understands his oeuvre) tonight at the Gorge. DAVID SCHMADER

Saturday 8/16

Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, Steve Winwood

(The Gorge) See Friday's Preview

Le Castle Vania, Axcys, Thrills, DJ Colby B

(Chop Suey) See Bug in the Bassbin

Himsa, Book of Black Earth, Wolves in the Throne Room, I Declare War, Killing the Dream, They Come in Swarms, DJ Lance

(El Corazón) See Preview, and See Stranger Suggests

Neema, DJs Money D and Nphared

(Nectar) See My Philosophy

Cancer Rising, Parker Brothaz, AKrish, Logics, Clemm Rishad

(Vera Project) See My Philosophy

Sunday 8/17

Michael Vermillion, Band of Annuals, Casey Prestwood, Drew Grow

(Tractor) Mike Vermillion, aka DJ Sad Bastard, just so happens to write and play songs much like the type of dusted, depressed (read: great) material you'll hear him spin in darker bars around town. Informed by old gems of country and soul music, Vermillion has forged an outstanding debut album, Last Night on Earth. He recorded and produced Earth independently, accepting help only from friends and family to release the album. The title track is the record's crowning achievement. Backed by deep-but-subtle string and horn sections, Vermillion bellows "Last night on earth will kill us all," and you really get the feeling tonight may be that night. GRANT BRISSEY

Monday 8/18

The Punks, Talbot Tagora, Catatonic Youth

(Vera Project) With more employee turnover than an airport Starbucks, the Punks, whose current members are split between Brooklyn and Portland, are a textbook example of resilience. Through the toils of losing seven members over their five-year tenure, the Punks have persevered, and continue to create a haunting and complex sound. Plenty of delay, ethereal ghostlike vocals, and steady heartbeat rhythms on the floor tom act as the backbone for dirty layers of noise. The trio's sound will so intensely pierce your ears, you'll feel like a 12-year-old at Claire's. Though Catatonic Youth also sees nothing wrong with a little delay pedal here and there, the one man band's perfect mix of thick noise over fun punk anthems will also please fans of the less abstract. CASEY CATHERWOOD

Tuesday 8/19

Randy B., Blind Pilot, Sonic Smith

(Blue Moon) At the risk of starting—or, more accurately, perpetuating—the rivalry between the Emerald and Rose Cities, Blind Pilot sound like a Seattle band. While a legion of Portland musicians labors industriously in dark basements to bring you crafty, hand-sewn, hand-drawn and seemingly hand-recorded works of lo-fi, folk-tinged crochet-rock, their neighbors in this modest duo have delivered a dazzling unassuming album that wears its heart on its fully realized sleeve and is capable of devastating listeners at 20 paces. The most quietly confident purveyors of wounded folk-pop to emerge from Portland since Elliott Smith, they are a band that are—gasp—more than worth the trek to the Blue Moon. BARBARA MITCHELL

Wednesday 8/20

Radiohead, Liars

(White River Amphitheatre) Strangely, I've never seen Radiohead perform live as a full band (I did catch Thom Yorke and Jonny Greenwood playing acoustic at some Deck the Hall Ball—1994, maybe). I've also never been to the White River Amphitheatre. And while everyone on earth agrees that Radiohead are every bit as fantastic and futurist and far-reaching live as they are on record, most everyone also seems to agree that the White River Amphitheatre is kind of a drag (especially in the parking-lot department). So there is one question: Is the Most Important Rock Band on Earth worth the hassle of One of the Not So Great Venues in Washington? At least one colleague of mine doesn't think so, but I'm going to say sure, especially if, like me, you've never seen Radiohead perform in their full-fledged glory. ERIC GRANDY