The Stranger

West Seattle Summer Fest takes over three blocks of California Avenue Southwest for three days this weekend. Mudhoney play tonight, among other bands. Team Gina (sweet lesbian electro-rap), We Are Golden (Stranger Genius Award–winning performer Sarah Rudinoff's band), Caspar Babypants (the Presidents of the United States of America's Chris Ballew playing children's songs), and Thee Sgt. Major III (rock) play tomorrow, among many other bands. Also at the festival: food, beer gardens, family stuff, a skateboard exhibition, etc. The festival is 27 years old this year. (West Seattle Junction, www.westseattlefestival.com. 10 am–8 pm, free, all ages.) by Christopher Frizzelle

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Tonight's concert marks the culmination of the Vera Project's seventh annual "A Drink for the Kids" fundraising campaign, in which Seattle's 21+ supporters raise money for the rad all-ages venue simply by drinking. Doesn't philanthropy feel awesome? Or is that the booze? Not only less annoying than a pledge drive, tonight's is a hell of a lineup: Headlining is Robin Pecknold of beardo darlings Fleet Foxes performing a rare solo set. Opening are Throw Me the Statue, whose forthcoming Creaturesque continues their fine take on catchy, clever indie rock laid out on last year's arresting debut, Moonbeams. (Neumos, 925 E Pike St, 709-9467. 8 pm, $15, 21+.) by Eric Grandy

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Carnivores unite! It's the second-annual world's greatest feast in a field, featuring a dozen of Seattle's best chefs cooking whole beasts over hot coals, all day long. The setting (and the beneficiary of this fundraiser): the ridiculously beautiful, endlessly bucolic Smoke Farm (a nonprofit haven for artists, philosophers, and other oddballs an hour north of the city). Among the chefs: organizer Tamara Murphy (Brasa, Elliott Bay Cafe), Matt Dillon (Sitka and Spruce, the Corson Building), Dustin Ronspies (Art of the Table), and Jonathan Sundstrom (Lark). New this year: venison. Continuing from 2008: a river to swim in. (Smoke Farm, Arlington, www.smokefarm.org. 6 pm–midnight, $75, all ages.) by Bethany Jean Clement

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Local psychedelic-arts collective Portable Shrines has hit the jackpot tonight, landing two of America's finest mind-warpers. Indian Jewelry, from Texas, excel at both erecting majestic drones and forging a sort of tantric garage rock that makes a thrilling virtue out of repetitive, distortion-saturated riffing. Brooklyn's Psychic Ills have morphed from 13th Floor Elevators/Spacemen 3 acolytes into a much stranger beast, a kind of lysergic dub unit. On the recent Mirror Eye, their tracks throb, glow, and drift in a disorienting haze. (Funhouse, 206 Fifth Ave N, 374-8400. 9:30 pm, $7, 21+.) by Dave Segal

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After smashing runs at Sundance and Cannes, and a gala SIFF homecoming, Humpday lands in Seattle for a proper run. In Humpday, two thirtysomething, heterosexual male friends decide to have sex on camera and submit the results to HUMP!, The Stranger's amateur-porn competition. As I wrote in this year's SIFF guide: "From this ridiculous premise, writer-director Lynn Shelton spins a small miracle: a deep, hilarious, completely contemporary relationship comedy that explores with almost scientific precision how such a ridiculous premise would play out in real life." Go see it. (See Movie Times: thestranger.com/film.) by David Schmader

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From the man behind 2007's beloved Helvetica—a history of and love letter to a font—comes another sharp, brainy documentary obsessed with design. In Objectified, filmmaker Gary Hustwit takes a kaleidoscopic view of industrial design, from interviews with design superstars to biographies of objects that set the world on fire (the iPod! The Dirt Devil! The Braun toothbrush!) to inquiries into the meaning, purpose, and dangers of our object-drenched planet. (Northwest Film Forum, 1515 12th Ave, 829-7863. 7 and 9 pm, $9.) by David Schmader

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For months, Mandy Greer has been crocheting with strangers. She has taken her project to crochet events at coffee shops, galleries, museums—basically, to whoever would have her—and now all of those people are part of her 200-foot-long "fiber river," which will be installed in an urban forest in West Seattle for the rest of July, open to visitors and thinkers and photographers. This week, for one night only, dancer and choreographer Zoe Scofield will perform with the river, blurring the lines between figure and ground as much as she possibly can. (Camp Long, 5200 35th Ave SW, 684-7434. 6:30 pm, free.) by Jen Graves

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