THURSDAY 9/1

RITCHIE HAWTIN, BRUNO PRONSATO, JERRY ABSTRACT
(Showbox) See preview, page 29, and Stranger Suggests, page 20.

GROOVERIDER, FABIO, KID HOPS
(Chop Suey) So Goldie no-showed Chop Suey in August and the club was dead anyway. Now fellow UK junglist O.G. Grooverider's due to wreck shop hardcore-style: Does anyone still care about these icons who peaked a decade ago? I asked this question on The Stranger's Forums, but nobody responded, which means apathy rules—or, that drum 'n' bass fans don't read our Forums. Anyway, revisiting Grooverider's 1997 double-disc, The Prototype Years, (featuring Ed Rush, Optical, Dillinja, Lemon D., John B., Boymerang, etc.) triggers memories of a time when d&b was at the forefront of musical innovation. What the hell happened? DAVE SEGAL

PEARL JAM
(Gorge Amphitheatre) It's been 12 years since Pearl Jam has played the Gorge, and for tonight's sold-out show, with no opening acts, the band will make up for lost time and treat their fans to an entire evening of nothing but the PJ. Vedder and the gang have been quietly contributing time and efforts to local charities over the past couple of years, playing the occasional benefit show for great local organizations like the Vera Project and YouthCare. They're slowly getting back into the full swing of things as tonight's appearance kicks off the band's Canadian tour, which will take them across the country, and then back to the USofA for a few East Coast dates. And for the diehard fans who can't wait for the new record (which is in progress), almost all of the tour dates, including the Gorge show, will be professionally mixed and available for digital download at www.pearljam.com. MEGAN SELING

FRIDAY 9/2

OLD FIRE HOUSE BIRTHDAY PARTY
(Old Fire House) See All Ages Action, page 43, and Stranger Suggests, page 20.

Bumbershoot
(Seattle Center) See pullout guide.

ROBYN HITCHCOCK
(Crocodile) We're lucky that London's Robyn Hitchcock is already back in town while huge names in British music now won't come into the country until five months after we care. Soloing off from the world-admired psychedelic post-punk of the Soft Boys for the past 20 years, Hitchcock has gradually dissolved the bits of his left-field pop brain, but last fall's Spooked had a healthy new abuse of traditions, melting Gillian Welch guest-spots over a slow-motion flame of odd folk and the vague and infectious menace of Hitchcock's own burrowing English vocal-glare. Old dogs! Tricks! Etc. GUY FAWKES

TOM PETTY AND THE HEARTBREAKERS, BLACK CROWES
(Gorge Amphitheatre) Tom Petty will forever be one of my favorite jukebox staples. Damn the Torpedoes, "American Girl," "Breakdown," even "Don't Come Around Here No More," were all perfect examples of the Me Decade's polar opposite—the regular guy's approach to lovin', livin', and leavin'. This was—and remains—down-home rock 'n' roll, a foundation of our country's classic-rock core that still sounds awesome blasting the cobwebs inside of a dive bar or blanketing the grassy lawn of an amphitheater. JENNIFER MAERZ

THE DONNAS DJ SET
(War Room) With Bumbershoot happening, Seattle is absolutely overrun with rock stars. Tonight's no exception, with the Donnas (who rock the Bumbershoot Mainstage right before the New York Dolls), guest DJing at the War Room. The ladies have been known to cover Mötley CrĂŒe, Kiss, and Judas Priest, so expect to hear a whole lotta cock rock. MEGAN SELING

SATURDAY 9/3

TOM PETTY & THE HEARTBREAKERS, BLACK CROWES
(Gorge Amphitheatre) See Friday's preview.

A-FRAMES, OLD TIME RELIJUN, THE CRIPPLES
(Sunset) See preview, page 30.

THE LONG WINTERS, DJ FRANKI CHAN, DJ RED LEATHER CHAPSTICK, DJ PARAG
(Chop Suey) See Stranger Suggests, page20.

Bumbershoot
(Seattle Center) See pullout guide.

RETRIBUTION GOSPEL CHOIR, NO WAIT WAIT
(Crocodile) Low's Alan Sparhawk and Mark Kozelek (Red House Painters, Sun Kil Moon) pair up to relegate the moody blues to their old endeavors. Word has it this new side project is more rock 'n' roll than their other creations, so fans of both musicians should come see where that assertion actually lands them on the rawker scale. No Wait Wait perform benign indie rock that's really neither here nor there. ALICIA TAM

SUNDAY 9/4

Bumbershoot
(Seattle Center) See pullout guide.

CANNED HEAT
(Triple Door) Canned Heat's deathless 1968 hits "On the Road Again" and "Goin' up the Country" invented bliss-out blues (I'll stand corrected if someone knows of an earlier example). "On the Road Again" grooves with one of those unstoppable, undulating chugs you could ride all day without chafing. On "Goin' up the Country," Bob Hite's flutey, honeyed voice provides eternal comfort and joy. Seriously, it's up there with Pharoah Sanders's sax as one of the greatest sounds in history. For these songs and their work with badass bluesman John Lee Hooker, Canned Heat merit your attention, even though they've lost three founding members. DAVE SEGAL

ABC
(Fenix) It's amazing that Bruce Willis was able to remasculate "yippie kai yay" in Die Hard, given how flamboyantly ABC's foppish frontman Martin Fry rhymed the cowboy cry with "hip hip hooray" during the '80s single "Look of Love." Mixing frilly fashions and maudlin pop, ABC were so acrobatically fey it made cosmeticized contemporary Duran Duran look like a black-metal band in corpse paint. It's been 18 years since their last hit single, the typically melodramatic "The Night You Murdered Love," but ABC still preen like a platinum attraction onstage, with Fry donning gold lamé suits and crooning the New Romantic era's most luxuriant melodies. ANDREW MILLER

MONDAY 9/5

Bumbershoot
(Seattle Center) See pullout guide.

MOUNT EERIE (CD RELEASE), CALVIN JOHNSON, FAERIE TALK, GOOD LUCK MR. GORSKI
(Chop Suey) Perhaps you've forgotten what it's like outside city limits—past the sirens, the monorail debate, and the smell of exhaust. Well, Phil Elverum is trekking out of the wilderness and onto the Chop Suey stage to remind you. He brings with him washes of distortion, textured percussion, and his sensitive and broken lyricism. As Mount Eerie, Elverum is obsessed with nighttime outdoors and how to balance it with the glare of the modern daytime lifestyle, as evidenced on the project's debut full-length, No Flashlight. Think of Mount Eerie as Thoureau teaching vacation bible school, without the glitter-n-glue projects and with better songs. NICK SCHOLL

BRAND NEW SIN, BLACK HALOS, SUPAGROUP, DOG FACED GODS
(Studio Seven) "Don't count me out, don't call me history," so sings, or groans, or gargles the Black Halos' grizzled leader, Billy Hopeless. His "voice," like Stiv Bators's two-thirds to a tracheotomy, is a fitting megaphone for these Vancouver vets. In the mid-'90s, the Halos made a splash in the glam gutter with a couple of Sub Pop CDs, then called it a night in 2001. So Hopeless's labored larynx is even more fitting now for the "been there, done crack, now we're back" stance the band are working on their latest, Alive Without Control (Liquor and Poker). ERIC DAVIDSON

BALLARD METAL FEST: THOR!
(Sunset Tavern) Behold the hammer! Once again the mighty Thor takes leave of Valhalla (or is it Vancouver?) to punish puny mortals with his bombastic Viking metal. The former Canadian bodybuilding champ is remembered by dedicated rivetheads and Kerrang! readers as the strongest man in rock, as revered for onstage feats of strength as riff-heavy sword-and-sorcery epics like "Thunder on the Tundra" and "When Gods Collide." Even after 25 years of heavy-metal infamy, Thor still bends steel rods with his teeth and withstands sledgehammer attacks with pro-wrestler aplomb, a grandiloquent, head-banging comic-book hero come to life. FRED BELDIN

TUESDAY 9/6

I didn't regret a second of it.

WEDNESDAY 9/7

ACEYALONE, BUKUE ONE, EMANON, JOHN ROBINSON
(Chop Suey) The L.A. underground that brought us the legendary Aceyalone has also produced the sublime two-man team of Aloe Blacc and DJ Exile—collectively known as Emanon. I first heard Emanon's "Detour" on an old DJ Echo tape (Echo, where you at?) and was hooked ever since. Aloe Blacc's charismatic cadences are as suited to his laid-back raps as to singing hooks, as evidenced on Emanon's superb The Waiting Room. While evocative of good, head-nodding mid-'90s rap, this is no throwback rap du jour—this is simply the sound of quality hiphop circa right now. LARRY MIZELL JR.

YOUNG CRIMINALS' STARVATION LEAGUE, JASON RINGENBERG, TOM HEINL
(Tractor Tavern) After torching coast-to-coast stages for more than two decades with Jason and the Scorchers—the seminal country-punk Tennesseans who were equal parts Rolling Stones, Replacements, and Hank Williams—Jason Ringenberg is doing it solo with the same fence-straddling furor that emphasizes the torch as much as the twang. He followed his delightful 2003 children's record with a return to the honky-tonk on last year's politically charged Empire Builders. But there remains an impulsiveness to his live shows, which come complete with crowd requests and Ringenberg's wry commentary, that makes it just as likely you'll hear "I Wanna Be Sedated" as "I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry." SCOTT HOLTER

MORE

OASIS, JET, KASABIAN: Fri Sept 9, Everett Events Center

BLACK REBEL MOTORCYCLE CLUB: Wed Sept 14, Neumo's

XIU XIU: Tues Sept 20, Neumo's

NINE INCH NAILS, QUEENS OF THE STONE AGE, AUTOLUX: Fri Sept 23, KeyArena

THE QUEERS, THE INDEPENDENTS: Sun Sept 25, El CorazĂłn

SIGUR RÓS, AMINA: Wed Sept 28, Paramount

IDLEWILD: Fri Sept 30, Neumo's

FRANZ FERDINAND: Sat–Sun Oct 1–2, Paramount

THE PLOT TO BLOW UP THE EIFFEL TOWER, THE KING COBRA: Tues Oct 4, El CorazĂłn

FEAR BEFORE THE MARCH OF FLAMES, BEAR VS. SHARK, SINCE BY MAN, THE FALL OF TROY: Thurs Oct 6, El CorazĂłn

THE COUP, LIFESAVAS: Thurs Oct 6, Neumo's

TRIAL, THE WARRIORS, DEAD UNKNOWN, THIS TIME TOMORROW: Sun Oct 9, Neumo's

THE KILLERS, BRITISH SEA POWER: Wed Oct 12, KeyArena

AGAINST ME!, THE EPOXIES, THE SOVIETTES, SMOKE OR FIRE: Thurs Oct 13, Neumo's

DEATH CAB FOR CUTIE, STARS: Fri–Sat Nov 18–19, Paramount