Thursday 7/31
Harvey Milk, Annihilation Time, Hemingway
(Funhouse)
Mt. St. Helens Vietnam Band, Boat, "Awesome"
(Neumo's)
Trashy Trash Meets Bonkers!
(Re-bar)
Choklate
(City Hall)
Hypatia Lake, the Sleepover Disaster, Levator, Paris Spleen
(Comet) Local chillaxed psych-rockers Hypatia Lake just released their new (and third) album, Angels and Demons, Space and Time. The title says it all. Songs alternate between exploring dark corners of rock-and-roll hell ("The General's Gleaming Edge") and floating around the dreamy, instrumental heavens ("7777777"). While still holding onto the guitar-driven psychedelic characteristics of past releases, Hypatia Lake have dipped even more into experimental territory with thicker flourishes of synth and keyboard. The music alone could take you on a trip; live, the band double your sensory pleasure by pairing their sonic landscapes with abstract visuals. Tonight's show is their last local appearance for a whileâHypatia Lake take on the West Coast for the next few weeks and they won't be back until September. MEGAN SELING
Bow + Arrow, La Quiete, Cut Loose, Phoenix Bodies
(Vera Project) Tonight is a record-release show for local emocore stalwarts Bow + Arrow. In true DIY/punk fashion, they didn't get me the new CD with quite enough lead time for a review or longer preview in this issue (although, also in true DIY/punk fashion, they did bring it by the office in person). What I can say after just a cursory listen is that it sounds great. I can also tell you that Bow + Arrow are keeping alive a tradition of emo that is all but forgotten among today's hair-farming mall punk bands, one that is equal parts personal and political struggle, trading delicate musical moments with choruses that just beg for two-finger-pointing sing-alongs (although, until Lucas gets me a lyric sheet, I'll just be mumbling and mouthing "watermelon"). ERIC GRANDY
Friday 8/1
Rocky Votolato, Owen, Nazca Lines
(Neumo's)
Film School, the Purrs, Blue Skies for Black Hearts
(Sunset)
Onry Ozzborn, Grieves, Rudy and the Rhetoric, DJ Maze Live
(Comet) Onry Ozzborn's best solo CD, and one of the top 10 local hiphop CDs of this decade, is In Between, which was released in 2005 and features contributions by Busdriver, Non Phixion, Aceyalone, Toni Hill, and Silent Lambs Project's Blac. On In Between, track after track ("Soul Clapped," "Part 3," "Part 4") reveal an imagination that is vivid (or cinematic), fiercely experimental, and in love with the art rather than the custom of hiphop. The question that must be on Onry Ozzborn's mind each time he picks up the mic: What else can hiphop do for me? What other sounds or beats or themes can it generate? In between is a repository of great answers to his all-important question. CHARLES MUDEDE
Sioux City Pete's B-Day Bash: the Beggars, TV Coahran, Stabbings, Wildildlife, guests
(Balagan Theatre) If we were to run a picture of Sioux City Pete (the birthday guest of honor at tonight's party), you'd probably get the idea that he lives in a cave and eats only scorpions for breakfast. He looks that tough. But really he's a big old teddy bear, he's turning 40, and he's having a huge party at this new all-ages theaterânext to Boom Noodle, guys!âto celebrate. His band, the Beggars, are an experiment in coarse, crass bar rock, and they usually strip down by the end of the night in a drunken mess. However, the band you absolutely must catch are Wildildlife. The recent Bay Area transplants play a completely different kind of heavy, deep psychedelic metal. The guitar player looks like he's coaxing milk out of some kind of farm animal, and Thurston Moore gave them a fuck-yeah in his column in the Sparks issue of Arthur (which any self-respecting person should have read already). ARI SPOOL
Sing Sing: Devlin & Darko
(War Room) Two weeks ago, I prematurely announced Sing Sing's two-year anniversary celebration, saying: "Sing Sing's [anniversary] is no small accomplishment. In the past two years, it's grown from a scrappy but ambitious monthly at Havana, then Chop Suey, to a routinely slamming bimonthly War Room party with its own 12-inch, Sing Sing Breaks, out on Fools Gold. Promoter and DJ Clayton Vomero has brought to Seattle such talent as Chromeo, A-Trak, Sinden, Andrew WK, Matt & Kim, Low Budget, Flosstradamusâthe list really goes on and on." In fact, the official b'day festivities are tonight (the War Room's website had the wrong date), with Spank Rock DJs and regular Sing Sing guests Devlin & Darko, whose mixes are to summer fun what ketchup is to hot dogs: condimental. ERIC GRANDY
Resist, Jesus Fucking Christ, Toe Tag, Bill Collectors
(Funhouse) Back in 1995, a handful of kids organized punk shows in various community centers around Tacoma. It wasn't uncommon for 200 to 300 crust punks to show up with their black tapered pants and patch-covered hoodies. It was an awesome but short-lived run. The sad reality of the DIY punk scene is that anarchism doesn't encourage sustainable financial endeavors. It's amazing, then, that quintessential crust collective Profane Existence managed to operate for nearly 20 years. But sadly, they folded the record label just a few weeks ago, rendering classic hardcore albums like Resist's Ignorance Is Bliss out of print. Still, you have a chance to keep that spirit alive. Get down to the Funhouse and make punk a threat again. BRIAN COOK
Saturday 8/2
Burning Rivers, Facts About Funerals, Power of County, Silver Darling
(Comet) With a name like Facts About Funerals, it should be fairly obvious that this isn't party music, which isn't to say that it's not worth celebrating. Tonight, the band mark the official release of their debut album, Love Songs & Funeral Homes, a collection of fuzzy, cough-syrup-coated songs that will leave you feeling warm and blissed out and maybe just a tiny bit disoriented. With close ties to San Francisco, it's no wonder that there are moments that hint at American Music Club's visceral twangst; passing ghosts of Jeff Buckley's quieter moments also flutter by. The result is something wholly its own, and utterly mesmerizing. BARBARA MITCHELL
Panda & Angel, Telekinesis!, Grynch, TacocaT!, Skeletons with Flesh on Them
(High Dive) What happened to Panda & Angel? Their eponymous debut showcased delicate vocal melodies within a framework of rudimentary electronics and fragmented guitars. The resulting ambience was emotionally honest, but alsoâperhaps deliberatelyâa little cold. It was an engaging mix, though not instantly inviting. But then the band disappeared. Rumors of label trouble and personnel changes circulated. Had they broken up? After a quiet 2007, a crop of show dates popped up and some new demos appeared online. Judging from their new recordings, the band have emerged from their chrysalis a fully developed and radiant entity. The hooks are stronger, the arrangements are more focused, and the performances are increasingly confident. Whatever the rationale for their break, the rest served them well. BRIAN COOK
Jaguar Love, Talbot Tagora, the Batteries
(Old Fire House) It was always kind of a big deal when the Blood Brothers, post blowup, would come back to their lowly Eastside roots to play a show at the Old Fire House teen center. Shit would sell out, kids would go nuts, a good time would be had by all. Glammy post punks Jaguar Loveâwho feature Blood Bros Johnny Whitney and Cody Votolato as well as exâPretty Girl J Clarkâdon't seem to be drawing quite the same kind of rabid crowds just yet, but that might only be a matter of time, as they're about to drop their debut full-length, Take Me to the Sea, on August 19. "Featuring former members of" is never as cool as "back in the day," but tonight should still be a fine preview of their forthcoming album. ERIC GRANDY
Loaded, Guns & Rossetti, Girl Trouble, Red Jacket Mine, the I Love Myselfs
(Sunset) Duff McKagan! Dude used to be in Guns N' Roses! And the Fastbacks! Now cutting his teeth in the arena-bro-rock outfit Velvet Revolver, McKagan's gotta find something to do while VR singer Scott Weiland is busy with court dates, so he's focused again on his decade-old project, Loaded. Unfortunately, Loaded's rock songs aren't memorable at all. But openers Guns & Rossetti are goofy and funâthey sing snarly, tongue-in-cheek rock songs about douchebag boyfriends and dating derelict women. Tonight they'll keep their sense of humor in the face of tragedy, as this show is a lovefest/benefit for the band's bassist John "Chopper" Fisher. He and his wife Donna recently lost their 4-week-old daughter to a rare genetic disorder. At about the same time, they both lost their jobs. So even if Loaded aren't your bag, Guns & Rossetti will make you smile and that's worth a few bucks, right? MEGAN SELING
Sunday 8/3
The Herbaliser, Linda and Ron's Dad, SunTzu Sound, Kamui
(Nectar) See Bug in the Bassbin
Monday 8/4
Secret Chiefs 3, Master Musicians of Bukkake
(Neumo's) A lot of experimental music folk embrace the pursuit of esoteric knowledge, real-world magic(k), and the appealing rumored superhumanness of ancient lost sects, but few become agents of these interests with as much hard-bitten discipline as Secret Chiefs 3. The shifting lineup led by guitarist Trey Spruance (with frequent chiefs including local composer/violinist Eyvind Kang, Xiu Xiu's current drummer Ches Smith, and musical polymath Shahzad Ismaily) is staggeringly masterful in their execution; there is an awesome thoroughness to the group's performances that's reflective of the divinely touched skill of the assassins, warriors, and magicians of yore. Their music, a heady swirl of Morricone's ecstatic grandeur, the oceanic snap of surf music, and intricate North African and Asiatic melodies and time signatures, murders with holy fire. SAM MICKENS
Samantha Crain
(Triple Door) Oklahoma is hardly the return address you'd expect for a "musical novella," but far stranger things have happened. The state that gave us the off-kilter oddness of the Flaming Lips and Starlight Mints has now unleashed the talents of youngster Samantha Crain. The precocious 21-year-old's debut EP, The Confiscation, takes all the tragedies and triumphs of the Dust Bowl and wraps them into a sparse, gothic folk package with five "chapters." While that may sound a bit on the pretentious side, Crain's literate music and startling voice are instantly accessible. If Cat Power had been raised in the hardscrabble Indian lands of Oklahoma and not the lazy, languid environs of the Deep South, this is what she would sound like. BARBARA MITCHELL
Tuesday 8/5
Oliver Mtukudzi
(Triple Door) We know Zimbabwe is going through hell. We know that nearly 30 years ago it was the breadbasket of Africa. We know that today it is the basket case of Africa. We know all of this because it's always on the news. But for just one minute, let's think about the good things that have come out of Zimbabwe: good things like the African songs of Oliver Mtukudzi (a real Zimbabwean legend) such as "Ruki," which is about people who are just plain lucky ("ruki"). Some people, Mtukudzi sings, live by luck and nothing else. They are lucky to have food, lucky to have money in the bank, lucky to have petrol in their car. Luck is such a wonderful thing for them to have. But why in the world are these people lucky and these others are not? What is it about luck that makes it so unfair, so uneven? "Ruki" is a popular song in Zimbabwe. CHARLES MUDEDE
Wednesday 8/6
Skream, Roommate, NoiseMaker
(Nectar)
