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Chad hinman & the neverwas, the kitchen syncopators, rachel harrington
(The Tractor, early) See Drunk by Noon, page 40.
BRENT ARNOLD & THE SPHERES, THE STARES, THE GLASSES, THE WESTERN STATES, MARTIAN MEMO TO GOD
(Neumo's) Brent Arnold and his band the Spheres are some of the most impressive jazz and classical players in town, doing great service to rock 'n' roll every time they play. With more dynamic range in a single song than many bands achieve on entire albums, the Spheres dish out music that stirs the deepest places. The Glasses are excellent as well, with smart, catchy pop songs that strive to bust out of their genre trappings. SEAN NELSON
KING COBRA, SCREAM CLUB, LESBIANS ON ECSTASY
(Chop Suey) While hip-hott rappers Scream Club have some sweat-producing lyrics in their arsenal, they've found their techno soulmates in Lesbians on Ecstasy. The Montreal four-piece create slamming electro-punk, along the lines of Miss Kittin without the superstar posturing (not that Kittin's airs are a bad thing). Between their distorted vocals, speaker-jamming bass lines, and DIY aesthetic, LOE should help dirty up the dance floor real nice. JENNIFER MAERZ
THE COMMODORES
(Trade & Convention Center) Now that Lionel Richie is busy pimping his new album, Just for You, which features the single "Just for You" (chorus refrain: "Just for you!"), everywhere from Oprah to Jimmy Kimmel--while his feckless daughter gallivants all over America's television sets like a disgrace to her race (human)--it almost seems fair and just that his old band should still be slugging it out on the road, playing "Three Times a Lady" and "Nightshift" in casinos and showrooms. You might even say that surviving members Walter Orange, J. D. Nicholas, and William King have something Lionel left at the door: dignity. SEAN NELSON
FRIDAY 7/30
FORECAST: GLASS CANDY, PANTHER, CHROMATICS, THE VANISHING, GOLDRUSH, GUESTS
(Volunteer Park) See preview, page 31, and Stranger Suggests, page 23.
THE HIVES, SAHARA HOTNIGHTS, REIGNING SOUND
(Showbox) See preview, page 34.
LOBE, GUESTS
(Open Circle Theater) Every Friday and Saturday night for the next five consecutive weeks, the Open Circle Theater is hosting all-ages shows presented by Safecrush Productions. The 5/30 series, which showcases thirty bands in five weeks (hence the name), features local bands and musicians like Jeff Suffering, the Stares, System and Station, and tonight's opening night act, Lobe. Tickets are $5 (advance tickets can be bought at www.brownpapertickets.com) and the doors open at 7:30. A complete schedule can be found at www.safecrush.com. MEGAN SELING
ARGO
(Rendezvous) Argo's debut full-length, Jet Packs For Everyone, which is proving to have remarkable staying power, has just been picked up for release by local label Ana-Them Records, which means that more people will have a chance to discover this unpolished gem of a pop-rock band. SEAN NELSON
THE FALL OF TROY, BLUE SKY MILE, VOICES OF ADLIVUN, JOULES
(Old Fire House) Last year the Fall of Troy released their debut, self-titled full-length on Lujo Records. Seemingly coming out of nowhere (well, Mukilteo, Washington, but what's the difference?), the trio's impressive first attempt was obviously inspired by some of the band's favorites--acts like Botch, the Mars Volta, and the Blood Brothers. Earlier this month, with a handful of new material and more experience under their belt, the band self-released a four-track EP that is everything the Fall of Troy was before, just twice as much--twice the aggressive and convulsive vocals, twice the chaotic guitars, and twice the storming bass lines tearing through everything. They haven't cleaned things up or sorted anything out, and piercing guitars and forceful rhythms still fly at you from every direction, but this time you might be less afraid and more willing to succumb to their madness. MEGAN SELING
RATATAT, FCS NORTH, DJ FUCKING IN THE STREETS
(Neumo's) Could be all the soot in the beer. Or maybe it's just a city in love with bloody fretboards and dumpster drums? Either way, Detroit's a rock town and N.Y.'s Ratatat learned the hard way on a recent stop there with Clinic. Unmoved by the duo's hazy harmonies and gully Brooklyn whoomp, the crowd stirred with contempt. Axman Mike Stroud leaned in to the mic and snapped, "Where's Jack? Bring out Jack White!" Crossed arms and crunchy faces quickly gave way to wide eyes and slack jaws. "Let's have a guitar battle," he cried. "I'll murder him!" The crowd was aghast. Dare this heretic invoke the name of Detroit's monochromatic most-high? Well yeah, 'cause thing is son's nice and, along with partner Evan Mast, Ratatat flex a musical sensibility muscular enough to back such boasts. Still, sometimes you just gotta fall back. "Forget it, Mike," Evan warned. "It's Detroit." DANIEL MITHA
THE SPITS, GUTBOMB, THE DARYLS, SHIFT MAN SHIFT
(The Fun House) Tonight marks the first of three skater appreciation days at the Fun House. In addition to the musical entertainment offered here (this lineup tags the punk crowd; tomorrow goes for the metal theme with BlöödHag, Me Infecto, and Hell Promise), there's a sketchy-sounding apparatus called the "half-pipe of doom" to skate, raffle prizes to win, and 50-cent Pabst to drink. JENNIFER MAERZ
SATURDAY 7/31
MOPED ARMY PARTY: DAMIEN JURADO, SUFFERING AND THE HIDEOUS THIEVES, SUPINE TO SIT, DEAR DARLING, HIDARI MAE, HEARTBEAT, DJ MAD MAX
(Paradox) See All Ages Action, page 51.
MISS KITTIN, COLBY B., MISHA
(Chop Suey) See preview, page 33.
lifesavas, x-clan, mil cypher Feat. brother j, diverse, libretto
(Nuemo's) See Stranger Suggests, page 23.
KINSKI, CLIMAX GOLDEN TWINS, A FRAMES
(Crocodile) Seattle's Climax Golden Twins (Jeffrey Taylor, Robert Millis, Scott Colburn) are audio scavengers, sifting the past's subterranean aural artifacts for mutational purposes. The trio conjures cryptic sound worlds where high and low cultures collide and set off random and calculated sparks of sonic perversity. CGT dissolve genres and eras like masters of the absurd, but with no kitsch whatsoever. Highly Bred and Sweetly Tempered, however, is the band's most conventionally gorgeous release yet. "Dead People" opens the disc with utmost sincerity, a beautiful, mellow rock song that could be used in a particularly poignant episode of This American Life. Throughout the disc, CGT festoon the spidery, woozy blues-guitar meditations (think the Rolling Stones' "No Expectations" played by tipsy gypsies) with spectral ephemera pruned from field recordings. Much of CGT's music defies rational explanation, but on Highly Bred they play it relatively straight, forging a bare-bones folk blues that could make Alan Lomax weep. (Note: Bring hygiene items tonight to donate for YouthCare). DAVE SEGAL
Stranger Personals
SUNDAY 8/1
SPENCER DAVIS W/ALAN WHITE, GUESTS
(Edgewater Inn) "Hello, this is Spencer Davis. We're both part of a generation that will inherit the earth, and as we all know, the earth is in trouble. We all have a responsibility to do something for our beliefs. If you're 18 or over, you have the right to vote. This is perhaps the only meaningful tool at our disposal right now. I don't need to tell you who to vote for, or what needs to be done. Don't waste your vote, or your planet. Use your right to vote for a meaningful purpose. Please vote, irregardless [sic] of what the polls say."--from a PSA 45 issued by United Artists Records in the early 1970s. SEAN NELSON
FAST FORWARD, THRONES, SHOPLIFTING, DOOMSDAY 1999, HOMO ERADICUS
(SS Marie Antoinette) Between the super-spaz metal of Doomsday 1999 and the distorto blast of one-man nuclear noise machine Thrones, you already have a lineup worthy of your Sunday night gloom 'n' doom cravings .But they've also arted the bill out a bit here, adding beat-happy post-punkers Shoplifting and Fast Forward--a one-man Tasmanian devil of a performer; his show's over before you even realize he's been running around yelling for the past 10 minutes. Not surprising, since Fast Forward is onetime Le Shok member John Fones (SS Marie Antoinette is at 1235 Westlake Ave N). JENNIFER MAERZ
MONDAY 8/2
MAX FISCHER, THE EBB & FLOW, FEY RAY
(Rendezvous) I've been spending a fair amount of time over at feyray.com, after accidentally never hearing this band for however long they've been playing in town. Their songs have a lot going on: stacked guitars and pretty vocals, structures that feint left, then power down the middle, and have a whole lot of texture. Max Fischer, named for the lead character in Rushmore, is a boy-girl, pop-punk two-piece starring banging drums and fuzzy guitar. Ebb and Flow, a pretty good weirdo pop band (Pere Ubu plus Thinking Fellers divided by the square root of Sonic Youth, maybe?) from SF, rounds out the bill. SEAN NELSON
TUESDAY 8/3
HOMO-A-GO-GO
(Various venues, Olympia) See preview, page 37.
john langford and the sexy, carolyn mark, scott mccaughey, jace and john
(The Sunset) See Drunk by Noon, page 40.
STIFF LITTLE FINGERS, THROW RAG, THE GOD AWFULS
(Graceland) If band reunions are either outpourings of better-than-anything-now new material, live events orchestrating mass-fan celebrations (Happy Mondays! Wire!), or a parasitic suck-attachment on the bloated demon-womb of super-pointless memory stimulators, the idea of Northern Ireland's Stiff Little Fingers back together (again) sits kind of alright (okay), and pretty much in the middle of all those possible scenarios. SLF were more interesting than the Ramones, yet after a spell in the late '70s' second wave of punk, the band had already lost their political youth-powered snot-fire niche, and last year's Guitar and Drum didn't help them from being perpetually stuck--known to a future audience as the band that was played for the girl from Roseanne in High Fidelity to show where Green Day got all their ideas. GUY FAWKES
OLDOMINION, THE NEW MEXICANS, THE SATURDAY KNIGHTS
(Chop Suey) If the Wu-Tang Clan aesthetic was informed by kung fu films, then Oldominion is informed by gothic fiction and architecture. But Seattle has little or no gothic architecture, and it has never produced a single, notable work of gothic fiction. What this means is, Oldominion's gothicisms, which are perfected on their CD One, a Northwest hiphop classic, are inspired by the natural environment rather than the built environment. The fog and rain of London were translated into buildings like the House of Parliament; the clouds and drizzle of Seattle's winter months are translated into the music of Oldominion. CHARLES MUDEDE
WEDNESDAY 8/4
ONEIDA, KRMTX, DIE MONITR BATSS
(Hideaway) See Stranger Suggests, page 23.
STEEL PULSE W/TREVOR HALL
(Moore Theatre) See preview, page 33.
HOMO-A-GO-GO
(Various venues, Olympia) See preview, page 37.
BILL HORIST
(Rendezvous) Seattle's preeminent experimental guitarist, Bill Horist has entered the rarefied zone inhabited by six-string explorers like KK Null, Derek Bailey, Fred Frith, and Robert Fripp. Though he's capable of shredding as psychedelically as Hendrix or Sonny Sharrock, Horist more often opts to generate disturbingly alien textures and subliminally creepy motifs that deserve major screen time in David Lynch's next film. At his frequent local solo outings, Horist refuses to repeat himself; instead he improvises with an array of unlikely devices lodged under his strings that keep his emissions unpredictable and captivating. His new album, Lyric/Suite, offers yet another fascinating slant on Horist's abstract-expressionist sound art. DAVE SEGAL
DREW VICTOR, AMY BLASCHKE, THE MALDIVES, TIM SEELY, JEFF LONDON
(Sunset) Several major local talents bejewel this bill, including Drew Victor, whose music is austere and downturned, but worth the work; Amy Blaschke, whose songwriting is transcendental; and Tim Seely, formerly of Willis and Actual Tigers, who has rebounded from the gulag of major labeldom with a new self-produced record that highlights his champion melodic skills. SEAN NELSON
ASAHI
(Old Firehouse) The band showcasing the most beautiful singing voice in Seattle (it belongs to Tomo Nakayama, for reference) has just entered the studio to record a follow-up to last year's stellar Head Above Water. Meantime, there's this show to tide you over. Few things are more impressive than when a band whose music relies on dynamic control and melodic execution can deliver live as well as they do on record. Asahi delivers. SEAN NELSON
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