THURSDAY 2/7

VUE, BIOGRAPHY OF FERNS, HOT HOT HEAT
(Crocodile) I'd bet money that when Vue's Rex Shelverton was a tyke he had a really cool babysitter with a huge record collection. Either that or a savvy older sibling who filled his ears with Richard Hell, the Shirts, T-Rex, and other critically respectable punk and glam staples. Digesting such influences usually leads to either a cagey aping of one's idols or serves as a strong foundation for creating something more unique. The Vue admirably falls somewhere in between: The late-'70s influences are loud and clear, but delivered with enough troublemaker potency to sound genuine and fresh. The band has been touring like mad, crossing this country most recently with Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, and will head to Europe shortly after this show at the Crocodile. The Big Cheese at Sub Pop tells me the Vue is selling big piles of records over in Sweden. Granted, this observation may be comparable to Matt Dillon's Singles character declaring his band is "loved in Belgium," but if the Vue's live show delivers on the promise of its most recent release, Find Your Home, this band will probably soon find itself with fans of all nationalities. HANNAH LEVIN

SUFFERING AND THE HIDEOUS THIEVES, 31 KNOTS, CRICTOR
(Graceland) It's hard to reconcile the shy, subdued Jenn Ghetto of Carissa's Wierd and S with the fierce woman shouldering the Warlock as guitarist for two-piece metal outfit Crictor. She is one and the same. Equally forceful is drummer Creighton Barrett, and this duo will surely remind us all just what it is that's so damn sexy about sludge and breakneck time changes. KATHLEEN WILSON

JACK JOHNSON, MASON JENNINGS
(Showbox) Not to be confused with the controversial fist-thrower (see Stranger Suggests), Hawaiian surfer/singer-songwriter Jack Johnson writes lazy blues-inspired pop songs, and isn't a black boxer who beat up a white man to win the heavyweight championship in 1908. I'd write more about this show, but Mason Jennings fans have bought up all the tickets, so you're shit out of luck either way. JEFF DeROCHE


FRIDAY 2/8

FELIX DA HOUSECAT, DJ EVA
(I-Spy) See preview this issue.

THE FASTBACKS, THE DROO CHURCH, THE LASHES
(Sunset) After 22 years, Kim Fastback is calling it quits. As singer for the Fastbacks, that is. Tonight's show marks her final Seattle performance as frontwoman for one of this city's most beloved and long-lived bands (those fans who plan to head down to San Francisco's Noisepop festival can catch her actual final performance--March 16, 1979, was the first). Warnick will still play and sing backup in Visqueen, however, so superfans fear and rail not. KATHLEEN WILSON

POSEUR, WOKE UP FALLING, AUTOMATON, XXXAUDIO
(Graceland) Conflict of interest statement: Two-thirds of Automaton works at The Stranger, so sue us. Automaton kicks ass. The band has moved past the Sonic Youth-influenced early atmospherics and technology anxiety it showcased on the 1999 CD Futura Transmitta (back when the group was called Automaton Adventure Series), and matured into a sound that's more fully developed, yet simpler and more raucous. On Clarions and Banners, the new album that local label Pacifico will release in April, Automaton's futuristic oracle breaks down into chants and pound-along percussion, making something that sounds like Superchunk as a fair-trade protest jug band. Automaton is a political band in the subtle and unboring manner of Fugazi, and just as cerebral and hipshakingly funky as well. Early shows were extremely evocative, featuring old science-class film strips as a visual counterpart to the songs, suggestive of a future past (not unlike the band Hovercraft's accompanying projections of flowers, insects, and Cold War space program footage); our troubling current domestic and international situation should find a terrific troubadour in (Stranger news writer) Pat Kearney. The future has caught up with us, and dissent isn't a crime yet. GRANT COGSWELL


SATURDAY 2/9

RADIO NATIONALS, RICHMOND FONTAINE
(Tractor Tavern) See preview this issue.

K RECORDS SHOWCASE W/DUB NARCOTIC SOUND SYSTEM, ALL GIRL SUMMER FUN BAND (RECORD RELEASE), COCO, IGNIS DEVOCO INDUSTRIAL FIRE CIRCUS
(Local 46) Just like the name implies, All Girl Summer Fun Band is a sugary, all-female, bubblegum pop group with sweet and clever (if usually throwaway) lyrics, ample vocal harmonies, and easy mid-tempo pop chord progressions. Sound boring? A few spins of this Portland band's first K Records release--an unassuming, self-titled little jewel that rings in at 13 songs--and lyrics like "Shoo-bee-doo/I've got a crush on you," or "He got behind me in line at the grocery store/I dropped my avocados on the floor" are about the deepest revelations you'll really want to hear for about the next six weeks. Think a pop-fuzzier, less soulful Shirelles, or a mild, breezy Shangri-Las recorded at Dub Narcotic. It's K Records cute, and the band features Jen of the Softies among its members, but mercifully AGSFB manages to pull off just the right amount of preciousness without triggering the old gag reflex. JEFF DeROCHE

BEULAH, JOHN VANDERSLICE, THE LONG WINTERS
(Crocodile) Fans of Western State Hurricanes who have not yet heard or seen John Roderick's recent Long Winters project will be pleased to hear that many of these songs are old WSH material, albeit radically altered. Fans of great '90s guitar-based rock will be pleased to know that the Long Winters' upcoming Barsuk release, The Worst You Can Do Is Harm, is no less exciting than that bright, shiny, and very American rock record Spoon put out last year, Girls Can Tell. This thick and lovely guitar rock is possessed of enough intelligence and emotional conflict to convince even the most cynical of listeners that rock doesn't die, and that pop formulas never actually get played out: They just lie dormant until the right people come along to breathe life into them. JEFF DeROCHE

VUE
(Easy Street Records, Ballard) See Thurs 2/7.


SUNDAY 2/10

TRUCKER OF THE SEA, RECIDIVIST, THE GETTER FLASH
(I-Spy) Apparently a new configuration of Grand Rapids (who opened for Seam and Silkworm months ago), the Getter Flash is a coltish, hush-rock four-piece that boasts subtle arrangements--guitar, cello/bass, drums, and vintage synth--and beautiful melodies. They're clearly in-progress, but the progress appears to be worth monitoring. Stumbling onto them at the Crocodile the other night was a great surprise, the kind where you're sort of absently watching a band, then suddenly you realize you're completely enthralled. It was their last song that did it. I don't know the title, but the refrain is, "Did I fail to see you smile?" The band's excitement--it was TGF's newest tune--showed, and the show stepped up a notch. The singer let go and the interplay between cello and guitar became intricate and playful. From the standard Croc band standing up and playing, a show erupted. I want to hear that song again. I really want everyone to hear it. SEAN NELSON

MICHAEL FEINSTEIN
(Jazz Alley) Michael Feinstein is an accomplished singer and musician. He's been nominated for a Grammy and has played for U.S. presidents and English royalty. His soft and creamy voice can croon and whisper, and is charming and romantic. There's little mystery to Feinstein's music; little to be challenged by or to figure out. His self-concept, however, as captured in the sleeve portraits for the double CD Romance on Film, Romance on Broadway, is a total mystery (see photos below). What did Feinstein do--or what is he doing--to achieve such a mood? What is going on in these pictures? An informal poll of Stranger staff sleuths deducted the following: "He's thinking about God." "He's thinking about getting his dick sucked." "He just ate a delicious sandwich." "He farted." "He just smelled his own fart." "He's stepping on a beetle." "He was fisted three days prior." Feinstein is backed by a sextet tonight, which might be really foul. BRIAN GOEDDE


MONDAY 2/11

THE IMMORTAL LEE COUNTY KILLERS, MIDNIGHT THUNDER EXPRESS, DJ CHRIS HERNANDEZ
(Graceland) The first time I saw Alabama's Immortal Lee County Killers, all I could think was how can two people make so much fucking noise? The Killers may be a duo of scrawny Southern dudes, but they make amazingly maniacal punk blues tantrums to belie the fact that there's only one guitarist/screamer and one drummer in the band. Of course you don't need to get all hot and frothy over acts like the White Stripes and the Soledad Brothers to reason that there ain't no need for a third man when there's one skilled duo working its instruments like each member sparking some highly combustible material. The Immortal Lee County Killers are like Pussy Galore getting channeled by John Lee Hooker in the middle of a violent seizure--the name of their last album for Estrus, The Essential Fucked Up Blues, should tell you a lot right there. Raised on legends like Mississippi Fred McDowell, Albert King, and, of course, their namesake Jerry Lee Lewis, the Killers get breakneck on the blues, stomping and speeding and howling and leaping through songs about big goddamn cockroaches, kitchen disasters involving fried fish, and feeling so crazy you just might get killed. Don't bother with the earplugs when it comes to these guys. The Killers are skilled at hammering their souled-out punk right through your ear hole and down to the base of your spine. JENNIFER MAERZ


TUESDAY 2/12

SWEET SCIENCE, ILL LIT, LAMP LIGHTER, FIRSTNAME LASTNAME
(Crocodile) For the most part I detest the blatant rehashing of eras or genres in music, unless the band does something interesting and/or bizarre with it. That's why I think the Sweet Science--freaky Rodgers & Hammerstein jazz-pop with cha-cha rhythms, strangle-you cello screeches, offbeat rock with weird harmonies--is pretty great. With an affinity for eerie bossa nova, mysterious cello solos, and a plain desire to rock out artfully with a palpable sentiment, the Sweet Science plays music with the most wonderful quirks and harmonies. This Bainbridge Island band is a good example of how to use different influences (jazz, punk, perhaps show tunes) without sounding like a half-assed pastiche. Plus, the Sweet Science will make you feel really smart! JULIANNE SHEPHERD

GWAR, GOD FORBID, GOATWHORE
(Showbox) GWAR is like Muppets gone horribly, terribly wrong. Its stage shows--routinely absurd, usually disgusting--are complete spectacles, filled with metal, makeup, and gore. The band is loud, it is stupid, and quite often brilliant--the key, it seems, is the fact that GWAR knows it is a joke, even if its punch-throwing audience seems to sometimes forget that fact. To experience GWAR is to gape into a nightmare, both on stage and in the audience, all the while cackling at the debacle on display. BRADLEY STEINBACHER


WEDNESDAY 2/13

AGNOSTIC FRONT, TSOL, THE CASUALTIES
(Graceland) New York's Agnostic Front is the godfather of hardcore punk, and even though the band was playing CBGB's before many of its new fans were born, time has not mellowed AF's members. The current lineup is as close to the original as has been assembled since 1984: Roger Miret on vocals, Mike Gallo on bass, Vinny Stigma on guitar, and Jimmy Colletti on drums. The new album Dead Yuppies rages with the familiar sort of sociopolitical lyrics, heavy guitar, and boot-stomping beats that will send the crowd into a chaotic fervor. While AF defined the East Coast punk ethos, Orange County's TSOL (True Sound of Liberty) created the prototypical West Coast punk sound in the early 1980s through gothic-tinged ballads about necrophilia, and classic reggae-influenced anthems like "Code Blue." For a time in the '90s some poseurs were touring under the name TSOL, but don't worry--tonight will feature Jack Grisham, Ron Emory, and Mike Roche, the original progenitors of punk. A word of warning: If you're in the same age group as these guys, think twice before heading toward the stage. Just because your heroes can still thrash doesn't mean you can. DAVID SLATTON

BLUE STATES, FCS NORTH
(I-Spy) See Stranger Suggests.