Wednesday 4/25

In a Silent Way: The Music of Electric Miles Davis

(Royal Room) See Stranger Suggests.

Justice

(Paramount) See Data Breaker.

DJ Shadow, Nerve

(Showbox at the Market) See Underage.

Frankie Rose, Dive, Stephanie

(Neumos) Taken in context, Frankie Rose's Interstellar is a rather astonishing effort from someone known mostly for her drum/vocal/guitar work in contemporary garage and/or shoegaze acts like Crystal Stilts, Vivian Girls, and Dum Dum Girls. Solo, Rose had released only Frankie Rose and the Outs (under the same name), which was not too big a departure from her previous work, so the elevated, graceful synth-compositions here are a welcome left hook. The opening section of "Gospel/Grace" could be mistaken for the intro to a Disintegration-era Cure outtake, and elsewhere we find her voice as light as air and the production succinct (the opposite of garage). Kudos. GRANT BRISSEY

A Story of Rats, Author & Punisher, Taurus, Golgothan Sunrise

(Comet) For the last five years or so, Seattle's A Story of Rats (musician/visual artist Garek Druss) has been darkening and enshrouding venues with locust clouds of drones that mercilessly keep cheerfulness a distant memory. His is music with which to foster deep, troubling thoughts and to travel through the stars into unsettling netherworlds. Fellow locals Golgothan Sunrise—playing their first show in seven years—cast similarly bleak shadows across the cityscape with condemnatory, doom-metal gravity, as you might expect from a band featuring members of Lesbian. Lovers of feel-bad heaviness—and lighter, post-rock meditativeness—should gravitate toward their majestically grim three-track album Glimpse Paradise Through Sickness. DAVE SEGAL

The Love Markets

(Can Can) Comprising a bevy of local talent—including Nick Garrison, Angie Louise, and Rob Witmer of "Awesome"—the Love Markets drag the spirit of the Weimar Republic (which flourished in Germany between the country's ass-kicking in WWI and Holocausting of WWII) into the 21st century. With drums, bass, accordion, trombone, keyboards, and vocals, the band revives classics by Weimar-era artists alongside new songs "written in the Weimar spirit." (Suggested prompt: Write a love song as if Hitler didn't exist yet!) The band uniform: black slip, black beret. "We are all on the market; we are all damaged goods," reads the Love Markets online credo. "Life is beautiful." DAVID SCHMADER

CopperWire Music, Black Stax

(Columbia City Theater) Meklit Hadero, Gabriel Teodros, and Burntface are CopperWire. And the trio's debut album, Earthbound, is the latest addition to a long and rich line of hiphop that the British-Ghanaian critic Kodwo Eshun calls "sonic fiction"—meaning, black science fiction. Teodros, one of the two rappers in the group, is a leading and productive figure in Seattle's underground. This is, I think, his first exploration of space and Afrofuturistic regions. The result? A record that's bold, packed, beautiful, dark, political, funky, lyrical, and moving. Hadero has a great voice, and Burntface raps like he was born to do nothing else. Enjoy this show. CHARLES MUDEDE See also My Philosophy.

Matthew Sweet

(Triple Door) Harking back to that glorious stretch of the very early 1990s when every band wanted to be Big Star (mere minutes before every band wanted to be Nirvana), Matthew Sweet pays tribute to his beloved 1991 power-pop artifact Girlfriend with a live show featuring the entire record played in order. Part of what gave Girlfriend a leg up on other Big Star approximations (hello, Bandwagonesque!) was the consistency of Sweet's songwriting and the savvy of his band. For Girlfriend, Sweet assembled a dream team of rock musicians, including Television's Richard Lloyd, legendary Lou Reed acolyte-turned-affiliate Robert Quine (also of Richard Hell & the Voidoids), and the highly capable pop-maker Lloyd Cole. For the tour, it's just Sweet and some guys. But it's Girlfriend. DAVID SCHMADER

Thursday 4/26

Matthew Sweet

(Triple Door) See Wednesday.

Eighteen Individual Eyes, Sad Face, the Cat from Hue

(Neumos) See Homosexual Agenda.

M83, I Break Horses

(Paramount) There is a video on the internet, and all I'll say is that it involves Yosemite, stop-motion photography, and the music of M83. Every single time I watch this video, the song's peak combined with the visuals gives me the chills, and since this is one of the last things I shared with my grandfather before he died, it occasionally brings me to tears. These are the reasons we listen to music, a language that expresses things that we can't with our words, and the music of M83 expresses the infinite and eternal better than just about anyone out there. GRANT BRISSEY

The Creakies, the Webs, Blooper

(Mars Bar) The Creakies—Seattle duo Lily Kerson and Tori Wolffe—create mutedly effusive fuzz pop that reminds me of various artists in the K, Kill Rock Stars, Simple Machines, and Hardly Art stables. On the Creakies' four-track EP, Redwood, they shamble through a cover of Cock Sparrer's "Because You're Young" and elsewhere generate tartly sweet nuggets of yearning songcraft marked by blurry, bell-toned guitar and rudimentary drumming. Check out their ramshackle pop tempests at www.thecreakies.bandcamp.com. DAVE SEGAL

Friday 4/27

Portland Cello Project

(Triple Door) See Sound Check.

Storm Large

(Neptune) See Stranger Suggests.

Rusko, Sigma, Hyperfunk

(Showbox Sodo) See Data Breaker.

Brad, Thor Brinsfield, Special Explosion

(Showbox at the Market) Seattle quartet Brad (oy, that name) have been slogging around the music biz for 20 years, and it sort of feels like they've been taken for granted in these parts. Led by the buttery soul vocals of Shawn Smith (who's also in Pigeonhed, Satchel, and lots of other projects) and Pearl Jam guitarist Stone Gossard, Brad purvey a smooth, unflamboyantly inspirational brand of rock. On the new United We Stand (out April 24 on Razor & Tie), their melodies are consistently pleasant and their execution solid, but there's something inherently middle of the road about Brad's overall sound that keeps this listener, anyway, from getting fired up about their music—although "Tea Bag" is kind of a rager. DAVE SEGAL

Sugar Sugar Sugar, Objects in Space, Elephant Rider

(Rat and Raven) Don't be fooled: There's nothing sweet about Bellingham's Sugar Sugar Sugar. This fuzzy, throbbing, stoner rock-and-roll band delivers its noisy tunes with a good dose of blues, psychedelic, and swagger. Opening band Elephant Rider swing just as hard, but they pack more of a punk-rock wallop, while Portland's Objects in Space fit nicely between the two, somehow lacing together psych and punk in a way that doesn't sound like a lazy, lowest-common-denominator genre mashup/attempt to appeal to two fan bases. In order to safely attend this show, you're gonna need earplugs, close-toed shoes, and the desire to shake a little (okay, a lot) of ass. MEGAN SELING

A Tribute to CCR: Star Anna, Kasey Anderson, Half Acre Day, Gary Reynolds, Kim Virant, Robert Roth, the Glass Notes

(Sunset) While normally I wouldn't care much about a tribute to Creedence Clearwater Revival (the last time I listened to them was in high school), tonight's showcase features enough local talent to make the evening a worthy contender in the whole "What should I do tonight?" discussion. Half Acre Day play lush pop music with a vintage twist—they'll no doubt bring out the sunny side of CCR, while alt-country singer Kim Virant's deeper, dramatic voice would sound perfect on something like "Have You Ever Seen the Rain." Of course, we don't know who's singing what—the only way to find out is to show up. MEGAN SELING

Saturday 4/28

Bushwick Book Club: Dr. Seuss

(Fremont Abbey) Bushwick Book Club is—please tell me you know this already!—a local book club that performs music as a response to its book of the month. Just like any book club, it's generally more fun if you've actually read the book, so this is a perfect show to hit up on short notice, since you've done the hard part already. There's a kid-friendly show at 5 p.m. and a grown-ups-only show at 8 p.m., and I really wanna know what happens at the late show that wouldn't be appropriate for the early one. And confidential to Bucket of Honey: MARRY ME?!? ANNA MINARD

Metal Chocolates, Vox Mod, Shifty, A Cedar Suede

(Electrical Room) Metal Chocolates—rapper Rik Rude (Fresh Espresso) and producer OC Notes (Secret Society)—are still not getting the love they deserve from this town. Rik Rude is one of the most progressive and fluid/fluent rappers on the scene, and OC Notes only continues to grow and bless this city with beats from another world. They are a match made in heaven. This city is lucky to have them circulating through its system. We need to stop whatever we're doing and give these talented brothers our undivided attention. CHARLES MUDEDE

WTF Fest: John Sinclair, Geist & the Sacred Ensemble, Duke Ballsworthy & the Damn Shame, Pat Thomas, Shane & Amy Bugbee, Terminal Fuzz Terror, Ghost Power, Adi Maya, Spike

(Comet) Organized by Shane and Amy Bugbee, WTF Fest serves as a lightning rod for agitational thoughts and confrontational sounds. It wears its liberal, revolutionary spirit on its tattered sleeve. Today's event, starting at 1 p.m., features former White Panther leader/MC5 manager John Sinclair, a rabble-rousing poet who often rhapsodizes about 20th-century jazz greats, and Listen, Whitey! author Pat Thomas, an entertaining scholar who lectures on the galvanizing sights and sounds of Black Power. The rest of the bill contains freak-flag-fliers of the psychedelic-mystical/avant-jazz variety and visual artists like Dave Archer, who paints trippy interstellar vistas on glass with help from a Tesla coil. WTF has many ways to make you utter just that. DAVE SEGAL

Sunday 4/29

Lil B the BasedGod, Keyboard Kid

(Neumos) See preview.

Monday 4/30

Opeth, Mastodon, Ghost

(Showbox Sodo) Death-metallers-turned-prog-rockers Opeth's epic metal melodramas have been compared to both Joy Division and Pink Floyd, and nearly all of their songs clock in at over 10 theatrical minutes. These Swedes seem determined to take their live shows to impossible new heights. In 2010, they released a live album recorded at London's fancy-pants Royal Albert Hall—the same theater where the English National Ballet and Cirque du Soleil regularly perform. This would all be ridiculous if Opeth weren't such gifted musicians. To quote Shakespeare: Be not afraid of greatness. KELLY O

Tuesday 5/1

Lambchop, Alina Hardin

(Tractor) "Have to respect how the lugubrious, syrupy country unpop of Lambchop's Mr. M makes me want to jump out of my skin and set said skin on fire," I wrote on Twitter recently. And I mean it. Lambchop have been peddling restrained, molasses-slow, orchestral alt country since 1994, all of which has been maddening and admirable in equal measure. Lambchop leader Kurt Wagner possesses a voice like warm cream gently cascading over your ears, sung as if not to wake a sleeping baby, and his words morph in a deadpan from mundane to momentous to hilarious. The music is delicate and beautiful and so not geared for quick-cutting, ADHD-addled 21st-century minds. If a long-attention-spanned oldster like me can't handle Lambchop's sonic languor, how will it connect with the youth? Dunno, but Merge Records keeps believing in 'em. It's a goddamn miracle of sorts. DAVE SEGAL

The Underwater Tiger, the Midnight Creep, Surrounded by Breakers, DvOd

(Comet) Okay, I don't like the Underwater Tiger just because a search of the band name produces one of the greatest Google image results on the internet (go try it—it's awesome!). I also like that the Seattle band plays a bluesy rock and roll with a good sprinkling of classic rock attitude, maybe reminiscent of the early Stones. And here's a tip: Don't get Seattle's Underwater Tiger confused with New York's Underwater Tiger, who just released an album called Where Miles Become Meaning—it's watered-down emo rock that will bore your brains right out of your head. Stay away! MEGAN SELING