The Fun House, another venue with something "new" to brag about, celebrated its reconfigured management team last week. With a previously built little stage still in place, the bar started off the night with a set by Samsonknight Feathergun, featuring members of Tractor Sex Fatality. The band was astonishingly loud, deafening patrons well into the parking lot with a Drive Like Jehu-style blend of sonorous punk rock. While I was there, I heard talk of the old basketball hoop possibly being reinstated on their outdoor patio--one can only hope. (Speaking of patios, I forgot to mention last week that the new Pike Street club, the War Room--which opens in March--will keep the rooftop patio that made the space's former tenant, Blu, so popular in the summer months. Music venues with outdoor spaces are few and far between, so I'm reserving my deck chair now for that one).
Down the street a bit, the Baltic Room has been clearing house Wednesdays on Capitol Hill, as alternate weeklies Members Only and Wire give the rock kids another place to get their dance on, and both nights have been packing 'em in. This week, February 16, belongs to the Members, as Kento from IQU and Blake from L.A.'s Moving Units guest DJ.
And for a holiday that's supposed to celebrate love, Valentine's Day is more divisive than most Hallmark-card occasions. There are anti and pro parties going down all weekend in Seattle, but one that's off the beaten path a little goes down Monday, February 14, at Barça. The free, "Isn't it Romantic" event features KEXP DJ Chilly spinning love songs from the '60s and '70s, and is named after the title of a new poetry anthology celebrating l'amore. For those not into the romantic-sonnet side of things, the book also features an accompanying CD, which collects various hearts intertwined-themed material by Built to Spill's Doug Martsch, Nina Nastasia, Jennie Toomey, CocoRosie, and more.
Really, though, who needs all that love shit, anyway? Local shows of the week that have nothing to do with hearts and flowers: Portland's Swimmers manage to easily creep into the void left by the departure of the Popular Shapes from the NW punk scene. Their maniacal vocals, staccato riffs, hairpin rhythmic turns, and cynical lyrics work well played against stripped-down synth melodies, and they're very reminiscent of our recently split Seattle act. The Swimmers play on Friday, February 11, at the Fun House with A Frames and the Hunches.
That same night, Playing Enemy tear down the walls of the Rendezvous' Jewel Box Theater, as Ladies Choice Productions puts on the first of two local metal nights at the Belltown bar. Enemy will release a new CD, I Was Your City, on Hawthorne Street Records February 15. The record stays true to the concrete blocks pounded by the band in the past--terrorized screams puncturing thick layers of atmospheric hardcore, a sound that elicits both dream-state bliss and nightmarish chaos, often within the same song. "The End of Something" is breakup catharsis, hardcore style, as Demian Johnston's drawn-and-quartered delivery helps desperately describe the carnage: "Can you hear me? I think you're breaking up… I'm not telling, I'm asking. Please hear me." Filling out the Rendezvous bill are various other strains of local hardcore: Free Verse, Ambitious Career Woman, and Girth.
