The Stranger

The revamped Crocodile has been open for over a week, but tonight may as well be its official grand reopening party. You couldn't hope for a Seattle band to christen your new club with more positive vibes and body-moving sounds than electro-rock crew United State of Electronica. The band has a new album in the works, and an early sneak peak reveals it to be (duh) another happy helping of big, blissed-out, vocoder-led dance jams. With Velella Velella. (Crocodile, 2200 Second Ave, www.thecrocodile.com. 8 pm, $12, 21+.) by Eric Grandy

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Producer extraordinaire the Swedish Housewife continues her quest to bring the best of New York's gender-bending performance artists to Seattle with the one and only Justin Bond. Best known as Kiki of the earth-shatteringly-great punk cabaret duo Kiki & Herb and as the star of John Cameron Mitchell's sweet sex film Shortbus, Bond now presents Rites of Spring: More Songs for a Neo-Pagan Revolution. It's a glittery-yet-gritty celebration of "regeneration and rebirth" in story and song, and it should be awesome. (Triple Door, 216 Union St, 838-4333. 7 pm [17+] and 9:30 pm [21+], $22 adv/$25 DOS.) by David Schmader

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Would you like a spaghetti-and-meatball submarine sandwich? How about one topped with lots of high-quality provolone, then baked until the provolone bubbles? And made by one of the city's best chefs? It costs $11, but it's big enough to share (ditto a giant $10 Caesar salad). Monday is spaghetti night at Spring Hill in West Seattle (which is, on other nights of the week, acclaimed for Mark Fuller's highly refined Northwest cuisine). Your spaghetti sandwich awaits (as does regular spaghetti and meatballs). Also, good Chianti for cheap. Thanks, New Economy! (Spring Hill, 4437 California Ave SW, 935-1075; spaghetti supper 5–9 pm, no reservations.) by Bethany Jean Clement

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Preston Sturges's 1941 screwball comedy answers the most compelling question of our time: "How did Paul Blart: Mall Cop make so much fucking money?" John Sullivan, a director of comic films, is sick of being funny. Instead, he wants to live with the hoboes and make a serious movie about the "true canvas of the suffering of humanity!" If you've never seen this movie, you've missed one of the best comedies ever made. If you've seen it before, you should rewatch it just for Veronica Lake (as "The Girl") and her million-mile legs. Hubba hubba! (SIFF Cinema, 321 Mercer St, 633-7151. 7:30 pm, $10.) by Paul Constant

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Seattle's funnest new rock night pits band versus band in a rockcentric spin on the classic game show, and it's a perfect balance of sloppy DIY attitude and thoughtfully planned effort. What makes watching the whole spectacle so great is host Jake Stratton's knack for playing the greasy, know-it-all host. This month's feud is the Girls vs. Blank Its, both of whom will bang out sets between rounds. (Re-bar, 1114 Howell St, 233-9873. 9 pm, $7, 21+.) by Megan Seling

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"Generosity," the opening song of Mirah's new album, is as beautiful as anything the K Records singer-songwriter has ever recorded. The sad, spent lyrics suggest Shel Silverstein's classic The Giving Tree. The arrangement includes stately strings, deeply resonant piano, martial drums, quietly distorted guitar, and a chorus of singers led by Mirah, whose voice is whisper-soft and utterly commanding, always pitch-perfect. Mirah has a catalog over a decade deep, from the four-track pillow talk of You Think It's Like This... to the orchestral song cycle about insects of Share This Place. With Lovers and Whitney Ballen. (Vera Project, Seattle Center, 956-8372. 7:30 pm, $14/$15, all ages.) by Eric Grandy

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Balagan's Closer is faithful to the script in the sense that it is easy to grasp and consume. It offers no real challenges, difficulties, or profundities, but explores the surface of life in London at the end of the 20th century in the way a lover explores the flesh of a beautiful and aroused woman. What we see in the four characters—Larry the doctor, Alice the stripper, Dan the writer, Anna the photographer—is our decade in its infancy. There is nothing new about cheating on your partner; there is, however, something very new about starting a relationship with someone you meet on the internet. Closer is just the right play for a first date. (Balagan Theatre, 1117 E Pike St, 800-838-3006. 8 pm, $20. Through April 4.) by Brendan Kiley

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