Wednesday 8/8

Shonen Knife, the Mallard, Tacocat

(Tractor) Osaka, Japan's Shonen Knife have been hooking sugar addicts with their hyperglycemic pop punk (think Ramones, not Blink-182) ever since they released 1982's cassette-only Minna Tanoshiku in their home country. They gained a foothold stateside with a track on the now-infamous Sub Pop 100 comp. Shortly thereafter followed opening dates for pre-Nevermind explosion Nirvana, a deal with Capitol, and general greatness. Since addicts need their fix on a regular basis, SK graciously still make the international rounds at a fairly regular clip. In the support slot are the seemingly tireless and definitely first-rate San Francisco garage/psych rockers the Mallard, who are making their third run through Seattle this summer. Opening is some band called Tacocat. Never heard of 'em. GRANT BRISSEY

Sigur Rós

(Paramount) White white WHITE—Sigur Rós's music is blindingly white. And as these Icelandic gents have progressed over their six albums, their sound has gotten more fly-into-the-sun grandiose and live-happily-ever-after precious than Disney film exit music—totally devoid of dirt... and sex. It's a kind of Apollonian ideal of soft rock, although their first album, Von, hinted that they might become a Scandinavian Pink Floyd. But that was not to be. Imagine the polar opposite of death metal; that is Sigur Rós. But for all that, they're fascinating in the way that all extreme art is fascinating. That such a gnomic entity can play a venue the size of the Paramount is a crazy achievement, and respect is due Sigur Rós, even if their glacial, ambient-shoegaze rock sounds like its balls have irrevocably retracted into its body. DAVE SEGAL

Thursday 8/9

Blanket Truth, OK Vancouver OK, Bleating Hearts, Collapsing Opposites

(20/20 Cycle) See Underage.

Erik Blood, Hotels, Stres

(Crocodile) See preview, page 39.

Man Your Horse, By Sunlight, You Are Plural

(Black Lodge) See Underage.

Too $hort, Chillest Illest, Steady the Boss

(Neumos) See Sound Check and My Philosophy.

Regina Spektor, Only Son

(Paramount) Regina Spektor writes songs about drugs and snow and boobs and Bible stories, her voice goes all over the place, she's totally nuts, and then also sometimes her lyrics are the kind that make me choke up every single time I hear them. For example, from "On the Radio": "This is how it works/You're young until you're not/You love until you don't/You try until you can't..." YUP. Oh, and: "No, this is how it works/You peer inside yourself/You take the things you like/Then try to love the things you took/And then you take that love you made/And stick it into some/Someone else's heart/Pumping someone else's blood/And walking arm in arm/You hope it don't get harmed/But even if it does/You'll just do it all again." That is how it works, you guys. Listen up. ANNA MINARD

Master Musicians of Bukkake, Black Mass Rising

(Rendezvous) I'm still a Master Musicians of Bukkake virgin (I'm also still a bukkake virgin, which is a good thing—if you don't believe me, just google this B-word). I say "virgin" because I've never seen them perform live. It's important to experience a band with the band. The mysterious, meditational sounds—exotic and eerie compositions filled with non-Western influences from South Asia—have been compared to religious ceremonies and a twisted flip side to modern world music. Audiences claim that they've fallen into hypnotic trances—that they felt a real spiritual connection with the band and with the people standing around them. Sounds like a freaky non-Christian '70s cult. It sounds like a cult that I'm ready to join. KELLY O

CopperWire, OC Notes, Orbé

(Nectar) It happened by accident. While waiting for the bus, I set the music player on my mobile on random play and the first song to pop up was CopperWire's "Marathon." Because it took me by surprise, I was able to listen to the track with fresh ears: What I heard was a def beat, dope rhymes, and dreamy vocals. When CopperWire (singer Meklit Hadero and rappers Burntface and Gabriel Teodros) released Earthbound late this spring, it did not hit me hard enough. I thought it was fine, but I didn't understand what was special about the effort. After my random encounter with "Marathon," which should be celebrated as the local anthem for the 2012 Olympics, the other tracks on the album began growing on me. I see clearly now: Earthbound is a dense, serious, and passionate work of hiphop. CHARLES MUDEDE See also My Philosophy.

Franz Ferdinand

(Showbox at the Market) Here's the thing about winning the Mercury Prize with your first album: You'll forever be that artist who won the Mercury Prize for your first album, and chances are you'll never reach such a fine point of popularity and acclaim ever again. (Currently pending validation of this statement: the xx.) Listened to in 2012, 2004's Franz Ferdinand sounds sharp and sleek and dramatic—and about as deep as LMFAO. Happier experiences await those who revisit Franz Ferdinand's "disappointing" follow-ups, especially 2005's You Could Have It So Much Better, an equal in every way (except prizes) as the debut. Tonight's show is a comeback of sorts, one that's supposed to involve a new album that remains unreleased and completely mysterious. Whatever the case, never forget: Franz Ferdinand made America love them with their live show, and they're ready to do it again. DAVID SCHMADER

Friday 8/10

Dead Can Dance

(Marymoor Park) See Stranger Suggests.

Kid Smpl, qp, Tony Goods, DJ D'Nelski

(Baltic Room) See Data Breaker.

NighTrain, Hey Lover, Pony Time, Panama Gold

(Comet) This show is going to be Funfetti cake with Funfetti frosting! NighTrain are incredible to watch—post-punk lady soul or "locomotive punk" with repeating choruses full of lyrics like "Don't worry y'all, it's just my mating call" will get you pulling all the dance muscles in your legs and butt (yes, the dance muscle in your butt). Also there to ensure that you have a hard time walking to work the next day are Pony Time—Seattle's hardest second-hardest-working band. They will play your show (anytime), and they will blow you away (every time) with a set of catchy garage hits—now with added guitar! Hey Lover are a Portland two-piece making enthusiastic, fruit-snack bedroom pop. I haven't seen Hey Lover yet, but their online videos make me want to actually make a Funfetti cake and bring it down to the Comet for them. EMILY NOKES

Corey Fuller, Tomoyoshi Date, En, Marcus Fischer

(Chapel Performance Space) Corey Fuller was born in the United States but raised in Japan; Tomoyoshi Date also grew up in Japan but was born in Brazil. They both live in Tokyo and make music together under the name ILLUHA, music that one reviewer last year described as "seamless harmonious unions between the electronic and natural realms" in a review of their recording made in a 100-year-old church in Bellingham, where they captured the natural acoustics of the vaulted ceilings and stained glass. (Date is also a physician practicing Western and Eastern medicines.) These interesting humans will perform with San Francisco–based En and 12k labelmate Marcus Fischer. JEN GRAVES

Brad, the Young Evils, Posse

(Mural Amphitheater) The outdoor music series from KEXP and Seattle Center continues with some great local acts. Brad have been around since the early 1990s, and are composed of some old-school Seattle rockers, including members of Malfunkshun and Pearl Jam. Pop-rock outfit the Young Evils have alluring male-female harmonies, but their catchy songs can also showcase a darker side. Indie rockers Posse just released the Some Dongs EP, which covers Bill Callahan songs; I heartily approve of this. This free all-ages show starts at 5:30 p.m., and remember that the Armory has many new food options (including Skillet and MOD Pizza) for a picnic. GILLIAN ANDERSON

Red Fang, Black Breath, Brokaw

(Neumos) As the rest of the world continues to jump aboard Red Fang's runaway train, we Northwesterners get to see less and less of the scorching Portland-based band. Used to be they'd frequent Seattle, but now the kick-ass foursome are busy touring America and Europe with bands like Megadeth, the Dillinger Escape Plan, Mastodon, and Black Tusk. They're fucking great, so they absolutely deserve the exposure and success, but it also means you definitely need to take advantage of this Seattle appearance and headbang your heart out. Because afterward, they disappear again, visiting exotic places like Germany, Brazil, and West Hollywood. MEGAN SELING

Black Stax, Radio Raheem, Fysha

(Columbia City Theater) Black Stax are basically Felicia Loud and Silent Lambs Project (Jace Ecaj and Silas Blak). The three (two rappers and a soul singer) form a unit whose main, if not only, purpose is to produce good hiphop. This purpose, sadly, has lost favor with many local rappers, who now see hiphop as nothing more than a medium for self-promotion. For these people, hiphop is no longer about the music; it's about increasing their popularity, doubling followers on Twitter, and tripling friends on Facebook. Black Stax have no such illusions or designs. For these veterans, it begins and ends with the music. If local artists don't follow their example, we will not get out of the current creative slump. CHARLES MUDEDE

Saturday 8/11

Onra, Matthewdavid, WD4D, Justice & Treasure

(Crocodile) See Data Breaker and My Philosophy.

Seattle Soul Sessions: Darrius Willrich, Tamara Witherspoon, Michelle Lang, Johnny Gray, Jairemie Alexander, DJ Peg

(Columbia City Theater) See My Philosophy.

Nicki Minaj

(Paramount) She raps (fiercely), she sings (prettily), and she instigates and engages in old-school Hot 97 beef like a master. But perhaps her greatest claim to fame (besides the "Monster" verse that will be her primary legacy even if she becomes the first female president who also shoots the pope) is this: Nicki Minaj out-garished Lady Gaga. With her hideous DayGlo explosion wardrobe, assorted acid-throated animal growls, and the worst fake English accent in the history of the world, Nicki Minaj is so fucking garish she makes Lady Gaga look like Kate Middleton. Then she sings prettily about putting her dick in your face. DAVID SCHMADER

Uzi Rash, Stickers, the Pharmacy, Andrew Mason Greager

(Rendezvous) Each Uzi Rash show is unique, like a beautiful chameleon in a dumpster full of drugs and noisy kitchen utensils. Band members, instruments, and Hawaiian shirts rotate frequently, but Oakland dweller Max Nordlie will always be there to caterwaul his truth vibrations into your brain. It's weird and good and messy and some of the best disorienting art noise around. This show marks the release of Uzi Rash's reptilian sludge punk 7-inch I Forgot on local label ggnzla ($10 will get you the single and entry to the show). With Stickers (riveting neato no-wave skronky song masters), the Pharmacy (melodic party-punk psychedelic ferry riders), and Andrew Mason Greager performing "some honky tonkers of yesteryear"; not sure what that means, but Greager was in Scraps and Popular Shapes, so that bodes well. Free hot dogs will be provided, probably from a briefcase. EMILY NOKES

Akimbo, Brothers of the Sonic Cloth, Bitches Crystal

(Comet) There are some things you just know are going to be constants in our fair city: rain, passive-aggressiveness, prostitution on Aurora, all-you-can-eat hash browns at the Hurricane. It was easy to assume Akimbo's blend of chaotic PNW '90s hardcore, prog-punk dexterity, and proto-metal thunder would be a permanent fixture in the Emerald City landscape. But after 14 years, six albums, and countless shows, the beer-swilling, hair-farming trio is calling it quits. Alas, all things must come to an end, including the behemoth sounds culminated from Nat Damm's enormous kick drum, Jon Weisnewski's PA-sized bass rig, and Aaron Walters's white-hot Gibson Firebird. It was a stellar run, and they're going out in a funeral pyre blaze of glory. Show up early, both for the stellar opening bands and to ensure a hand stamp. BRIAN COOK

Ed Schrader's Music Beat, Fabulous Downey Brothers, John Lee Spectre

(Funhouse) Ed Schrader's Music Beat's Jazz Mind is an anomaly for Load Records, the Providence, Rhode Island, label known for spazzy noise rock that's most likely to make your neighbors call the cops on you. Rather, Baltimore bass-drums duo ESMB create a brand of post-punk whose agitated, grayscale melodies and thuggish rhythms evoke some of England's more cutthroat rock from the early '80s, say, the Fall circa Dragnet and Grotesque or the Cravats. ESMB's songs concisely cut to the chase, slice your jugular, guffaw at the spurting blood, and then stomp away from the crime scene in a hail of rumbling tom-toms and guttural bass tones. DAVE SEGAL

Sunday 8/12

Wino, Connie Ochs, King Dude

(Comet) Wino is best known for the gargantuan fuzz-driven guitar lines showcased during his tenure in the early doom bands the Obsessed and Saint Vitus. He pioneered a style as black and thick as hot tar, setting a precedent that hordes of low-tuned guitar players still try—and fail—to emulate. Unfortunately, these doom disciples can't always see the forest for the trees and all too often wind up stringing together a bunch of heavy riffs while foregoing actual songwriting. Perhaps Wino's latest effort, an acoustic collaboration with German singer/songwriter Conny Ochs, will provide a valuable lesson in putting the song first, the riff second. Seattle's own metalhead-gone-unplugged King Dude opens the show with his grim and dusty take on dark folk music. BRIAN COOK

Monday 8/13

Trashcan Wizard, Aloha Drones, A Sense of Gravity

(Comet) You can tell that Trashcan Wizard don't give just enough of a fuck to be a great hell-raising band. (It's the earnest try-hards who inevitably stink up the joint.) But the local wildmen who populate Trashcan Wizard harness a barely hinged ferocity in their cranky PCP-laced metal, suggesting an affinity for Butthole Surfers' levity and Melvins' gravity. Song titles like "Piss Fast Die Young," "Heavy Hair," and "The Crawling Chaos" telegraph their loftily squalid aesthetics. Trashcan Wizard mete out a blizzard of "ows," and you masochistically bang your noggin in appreciation. DAVE SEGAL

Tuesday 8/14

Jack White, Pokey LaFarge & the South City Three

(WaMu Theater) Jack White recently sold out Radio City Music Hall in minutes, which is touching—especially after the crashing meh-diocrity of Dead Weather. The former White Stripe is a hardcore blues-rock/analog-forever traditionalist who's built enough fan loyalty with his hook-intensive songs—think Led Zeppelin playing Jackson 5 and Willie Dixon tunes—to do whatever the hell he wants. His debut LP under his own name, Blunderbuss, charmingly reprises White's familiar songwriting tics—gallant vocal swoops up and down the register, hummable melodies redolent of classic-rock radio, wryly romantic lyrics—and adds more piano, woodwinds/brasswinds, and string-driven filigree to them. It's a logical continuum from his White Stripes and Raconteurs material, and you're probably going to get the special-edition vinyl of it. DAVE SEGAL

Torche, Helms Alee, Lozen

(Highline) Miami's Torche just released their third proper full-length, Harmonicraft, earlier this year on Volcom Entertainment. Though the guitar tones still dwell in the same low-end swamp as their previous LP, Meanderthal, the band injects a shot of melodic energy into songs like lead single "Kicking" that somehow doesn't sound forced. The band still has plenty of raw heaviness to spare, best evidenced on the smoldering "Reverse Inverted," which sounds not too far removed from glory-days Seattle grunge. Local sludge-rockers Helms Alee are an ideal opener, as both bands turn it way, way up in a live setting. MIKE RAMOS