THURSDAY 11/10
SUBTLE, JEL, THE DEAD SCIENCE
(Chop Suey) See Data Breaker, page 57.
PLAYING ENEMY, GIRTH, BACK STABBERS INC., THE KEPT
(Funhouse) See preview, page 36.
DIAMOND NIGHTS, THE VACATION, BLACK EYES & NECKTIES
(Crocodile) See Live Wire, page 48, and Stranger Suggests, page 27.
THE ROOTS
(Premier) See My Philosophy, page 51.
FRIDAY 11/11
THE FEMURS, COCONUT COOLOUTS, HONEY FOR THE BEARS
(Nine Pound Hammer) See Live Wire, page 98.
BACK TO ITS ROOTS HIPHOP WEEKEND: VITAMIN D, MASSIVE MONKEES, BEYOND REALITY, guests
(Langston Hughes Performing Arts Center) See Stranger Suggests, page 27.
MIWA GEMINI, SAMANTHA MURPHY, SERA CAHOONE, COURTNEY JAYE, guests
(Rendezvous) See Border Radio, page 36.
PATTI SMITH, LENNY KAYE
(Crocodile) Influential iconoclast Patti Smith is in town as a keynote speaker for the ROCKRGRL Music Conference (See page 47). Tonight she takes the stage with Lenny Kaye to celebrate three decades of music-making since her unconventionally punk and unquestionably poetic debut, Horses. JENNIFER MAERZ
NEIL HAMBURGER, PLEASEEASAUR, THE SACRED TRUTHS
(Funhouse) Neil Hamburger understands the stereotype of comedians as low-life losers and becomes the role with exquisite relevance; a common initial reaction to his performance is abhorrence and resentment. His art dwells in catching audiences at their most unwelcoming: some level of drunk and waiting for the next band. His clever repertoire balances the audacious and mundane until the line is blurred to a totally ridiculous degree. If you can restrain yourself from heckling, you'll find his material bursting with some of the most brilliant and relevant comedy that our era has to offer. JAMES SQUEAKY
SATURDAY 11/12
BROKEN SOCIAL SCENE, FEIST, THE MOST SERENE REPUBLIC
(Showbox) See preview, page 42.
RAZREZ, THE BLAKES, THE EMERGENCY
(Georgetown Records) See Live Wire, page 48.
CARO, KRISTINA CHILDS
(Re-bar) See Data Breaker, page 57.
IRON COMPOSER: BILLY JOE (FROM THE DUSTY 45s) VS. LORI CAMPION (FROM THE HOT ROLLERS), SEXY AMERICAN GIRLFRIEND
(Crocodile) See Stranger Suggests, page 27.
LIZ PHAIR, GUESTS
(Neumo's) Once tantalizing, groundbreaking, and dreamy, one-time, indie-babe Liz Phair now makes music that's just yucky, managing to ruin her allure and desecrate her former image. It's naturally depressing for all the rock critics and pimpled indie dorks who once had a boner for her to witness her Sheryl Crow makeover into a would-be pop diva. Her glossy new visage doesn't seem real—though, if it is authentic, that's even worse. While on Exile in Guyville, it felt like Phair was letting the listener peer into her soul, the relationship talk on her last two albums sounds like girl's night out at T.G.I. Friday's. ADAM BREGMAN
SUNDAY 11/13
FEDERATION X, DMONSTRATIONS, LESBIAN
(Sunset) See Live Wire, page 48.
GZA/GENIUS, SWOLLEN MEMBERS, I SELF DIVINE, DJ SCENE
(Chop Suey) Hiphop music was actually once capable of being b-boy, gangsta, and conscious simultaneously. MCs like Kool G Rap, Ice Cube, and Nas made songs that spoke to the whole of the hiphop experience—before becoming cartoonish parodies of themselves. I Self Divine's Self Destruction is a throwback to those days of old. As the frontman of the mighty Micranots, Minneapolis's I Self Divine cuts a ragged verbal swath as a complex lyricist—intricate as the best of New York's late-'90s indie renaissance, blunt as a 40 bottle to the temple. On his debut solo set, Self walks us through an altogether chilly and barren stretch of concrete with his icy spit. Poverty, violence, and crooked cops are as much a part of this landscape as the Great Lakes. Among it all, Immortal Technique's fiery propagandizing—check the bonus track "N-I-G-G-A" for the most thoughtful treatise on hiphop's favorite endearment since Tribe's "Sucka Niggas." LARRY MIZELL JR. See also preview, page 39.
USAISAMONSTER, KITES, GROOMING
(S. S. Marie Antoinette) Providence's one-man project Kites uses all homemade instruments, including a three-stringed device resembling a tinny acoustic guitar and a radically altered thumb-piano, as well as modified electronics. To say his new album, Peace Trials, has a hippie-vibe is half-deceptive. Contained within its eight tracks are huge doses of high tones that squeal so loud and piercing that the buzz creates phantom overtones. Thick analog-tape hiss, scratchy sine waves, and throbbing pulsations all hark back to early industrial/noise bands. The other half of the record contains acoustic psychedelic folk songs using field recordings and that weird guitar. JAMES SQUEAKY
BLUE CHECKERED RECORD PLAYER
(Sonic Boom, Ballard) Despite the fact that local indie pop outfit Slender Means are seeing some success of their own, guitarist Sonny Votolato has another pile of music on his plate—a solo project called Blue Checkered Record Player. The former Bugs in Amber and Fields of Mars frontman shows a quieter side with mostly acoustic material that sometimes boasts a country/folk feel and lovely melodies that could charm Wilco fans. MEGAN SELING
MONDAY 11/14
Biz markie
(War Room) See Stranger Suggests, page 27.
CHICKS ON SPEED, KEVIN BLECHDOM, PLANNINGTOROCK
(Chop Suey) Kevin Blechdom attended highbrow composer factory Mills College and played in the Bay Area duo Blectum from Blechdom, one of the weirdest and most playful IDM acts of recent times (check out The Messy Jesse Fiesta on Seattle's Deluxe Records for ear-baffling proof). But in her solo career, Blechdom (AKA Kristin Erickson) embraces her inner karaoke clown—and Peaches-style raunch. On discs like Bitches Without Britches and Eat My Heart Out, she wrings singer-songwriter conventions through several levels of "is she joking?" irony. Imagine the Shaggs with laptops instead of rock gear, and prepare for convulsions of absurdity. DAVE SEGAL
SHOUT OUT LOUDS, THE ROSEBUDS, THE SUN
(Crocodile) The "Swedish Invasion" has of late receded from the gung-ho (Hives, Sahara Hotnights) into a groovier affair. But luckily, Shout Out Louds are not the usual A&R department clean-up/take-down of a scene's sound. They strum their rock classicism with a dreamy, fuzzy bent, like some New Order tribute band seen through a '60s suave-mod gauze. Adam Olenius's forlorn vocals make like Robert Smith in vintage tees rather than a black pullover. Verses swell up, choruses dive bomb, both almost gorgeous but never sappy, as cheeky keyboards and handclaps check in and out. The Swede is dead. Long live the Swede!! ERIC DAVIDSON
THE DANDY WARHOLS, THE OUT CROWD
(Showbox) The Dandy Warhols frontman Courtney Taylor-Taylor recently moonlighted on Veronica Mars, the acerbic teen-detective show that uses his group's transcendent fizz-pop ditty "We Used to Be Friends" as its theme song. Playing a karaoke singer, he delivered a poignant pinched-falsetto version of Nazareth's "Love Hurts." In other curio cover news, the Warhols contributed a hazy rendition of "All I Have to Do Is Dream" to the surprisingly classy Stubbs the Zombie video-game soundtrack. These tunes could bring levity—and unclouded pop hooks—to a set list heavy with material from this year's plodding psychedelic jam fest Odditorium or Warlords of Mars. ANDREW MILLER
TUESDAY 11/15
THE CLIENTELE, RADAR BROS, ANNIE HAYDEN
(Chop Suey) See preview, page 41.
HAKEA, WYNDEL HUNT
(Baltic Room) See Data Breaker, page 57.
JULIETTE AND THE LICKS, GUESTS
(Easy Street Records, Neumo's) She may make superficial pop punk as disposable as a pre-chewed pack of Wrigley's, but the frontwoman for Juliette and the Licks, one Juliette Lewis, will pack 'em in regardless. The indie film star supposedly gives it her all onstage, and compared to other celeb-studded acts—30 Second to Mars (featuring Jared Leto) and the Bacon Brothers (featuring Kevin Bacon)—the Licks are Leonard Cohen. JENNIFER MAERZ
THE AGONY SCENE, NODES OF RANVIER, SCARLET, BECOMING THE ARCHETYPE
(Studio Seven) Nodes of Ranvier empty their arsenal during the instrumental overture "The Renewal," which staggers breakdown riffs, surges into an upbeat groove, and shifts into thrash overdrive. Their devotion to variety extends to the vocals. Conjuring images of Narnia's Aslan the lion, a likely literary touchstone for this Christian crew, Nick Murphy combines benevolent advice (embrace life) with a feral roar. Drummer Ryan Knutson, unlike many of metalcore's melodic foils, doesn't play the smitten crooner. His solo siren song "Grave" is especially spooky live, with his disembodied delivery of its "Drown with me" refrain wafting from behind the kit. ANDREW MILLER
WEDNESDAY 11/16
THE NEW YORKER COLLEGE TOUR: STEPHEN MALKMUS, JAMES SUROWIECKI
(Showbox) See Stranger Suggests, page 27.
THE DILLINGER ESCAPE PLAN, HELLA, BETWEEN THE BURIED AND ME, HORSE THE BAND, THE FLASHBULB
(Neumo's) See preview, page 45.
ADULT., NUMBERS, GENDERS
(Chop Suey) Detroit's Adult. get progressively rockier with each release. Whereas they were once lumped (erroneously and to their dismay) with electroclash's Liquid Sky–worshipping bump 'n' grind shtick, Adult. now cultivate a paranoid strain of goth rock to which you can dust off your stiffest '80s new-wave dance moves. Adam Lee Miller's sooty bass and propulsive, spasmodic electro-rock grooves and Sam Consiglio's scathing guitar riffs provide neurotically tense backdrops for Nicola Kuperus's anxiety-stricken yelps. While the trio's newest album, Gimmie Trouble, is their most varied and least uptight work, Adult. can still induce B-movie fear in you. DAVE SEGAL See also Data Breaker, page 57, and preview, page 36.
DEPECHE MODE
(KeyArena) Playing the Angel, Depeche Mode's 11th full-length, is in parts like each of Mode's albums of the past 15 years. "Pain and suffering in various tempos," the album's back-cover postscript cheekily announces. And indeed you can count the songs off as the tempos of 1990, 1993, 1997, 2001... and now 2005 as Angel celebrates all Mode's subfusc yet stadium-ready mores: the confluence of spectral and tocsin synths, murky, regurgitating guitars, crystalline and stomping choruses, and empathic outcasts drawn from heroin-tracked wallows. There are successful aspirations and perspirations to erect bruised blues anthems atop torrid analogue-flogging productions—three contributed by frontman David Gahan, marking his first Depeche Mode composition credits. Angel may not be new but it's genuinely renewed; and while at times it may be theoretically possible to confuse which DM album you are listening to, Angel admirably transfixes an eternally angst-smeared but cynical corner of the spirit. TONY WARE
BOAT, CARS CAN BE BLUE, THE WITHHOLDERS
(Crocodile) Boat's new record, Life Is a Shipwreck, We Must Remember to Sing in the Lifeboats, boasts a most appropriate title. The local band's keyboard- and melodica-tinged pop would work well being sung while waiting for rescue in the middle of the sea—a little sad but still hopeful and quite romantic in sound. Organic melodies reminiscent of Neutral Milk Hotel meet easy, flowing harmonies that take the edge off the lo-fi recording. Fans of Quasi and the Shins, take note, as you'll surely be pleased. MEGAN SELING
SAVES THE DAY, SENSES FAIL, THE EARLY NOVEMBER, SAY ANYTHING: Fri Nov 18, El Corazón
DEATH CAB FOR CUTIE, STARS: Fri–Sat Nov 18–19, Paramount
AVENGED SEVENFOLD, SAOSIN, DEATH BY STEREO, BULLETS AND OCTANE: Fri Nov 18, Showbox
PROPAGANDHI, THE GREG MACPHERSON BAND: Sat Nov 19, Neumo's
EVERCLEAR, GUESTS: Sat Nov 19, EMP
GWEN STEFANI, M.I.A.: Mon Nov 21, KeyArena
CHILDREN OF BODOM, TRIVIUM, AMON AMARTH: Mon Nov 21, El Corazón
FIONA APPLE: Wed Nov 23, Moore
ANDREW W.K., PRETTY GIRLS MAKE GRAVES, THE SCHOOLYARD HEROES: Fri Dec 2, University of Washington
ECHO AND THE BUNNYMEN, INNAWAY: Sat Dec 3, Neumo's
THE ALL-AMERICAN REJECTS, ROONEY, THE ACADEMY IS...: Wed Dec 7, Showbox
KANYE WEST, FANTASIA, KEYSHIA COLE: Sat Dec 10, Everett Events Center
MY CHEMICAL ROMANCE, THE (INTERNATIONAL) NOISE CONSPIRACY, CIRCA SURVIVE: Sun Dec 11, Premier
SCHOOLYARD HEROES, NIGHTMARE OF YOU, BURNING ARMADA: Sun Dec 11, El Corazón
