Thursday 1/21

Mad Rad, Macklemore, Breakfast Mountain, DJ Darwin

(Neumos) Zack Osterlund, the main force behind Portland, Oregon, act Breakfast Mountain, has a knack for crafting gloriously distorted yet ethereal melodies to blanket his inventive beats. Some liken the result to Brooklyn's Telepathe, a comparison that's not too far off, only Breakfast Mountain definitely utilize more of a hiphop sensibility. Live, Osterlund enlists a drummer and sometimes a couple MCs, which generally gets the crowd going totally bonkers. I'd recommend a download of his demo, Hooded, which was available for free on his MySpace page, but the link has been removed. Maybe the dudes actually want to make money for their work. With chops like these, they damn well should. GRANT BRISSEY See also Fucking in the Streets.

Friday 1/22

Battle of the Megamixes: WD4D,

Miss Shelrawka, Greg Skidmore, Jimni Cricket, DJ Verse, Kadeejah Streets, Rob Noble, xben

(Chop Suey) See Data Breaker.

Tiny Vipers, Crystal Hell Pool

(Henry Art Gallery) The haunting, spare music of Tiny Vipers (aka local folkie Jesy Fortino) is an eerily perfect match for the Henry's current Sawdust Mountain exhibit. The Henry curators really ought to be providing Fortino-stocked iPods for their patrons to serve as audio guides for the trance-inducing grandeur of Eirik Johnson's massive (and massively devastating) photographs. I guess we'll have to "settle" for this affordable live show featuring Fortino and able Seattle soundscaper Crystal Hell Pool, which is being offered as a one-time complement to Sawdust Mountain. This unique event offers the chance to experience the epic bleakness of our beloved Pacific Northwest in both sonic and visual dimensions. JASON BAXTER See also Data Breaker.

AFI, Ceremony

(Showbox Sodo) One-time East Bay punks AFI have undergone quite a transformation in the past 10 years. Davey Havok's crew went from writing soaring melodic punk anthems on 2000's The Art of Drowning to catchy, easily digestible major-label goth/glam rock on last year's Crash Love. Still, the Despair Faction—AFI's loyal-to-the-grave fan club—stays true, as does the band by bringing Bay Area, über-pissed fast-core band Ceremony on as main tour support. Ceremony vocalist Ross Farrar shoves microphones down his throat and screams, "I won't be skullfucked by faith/I am the upside-down cross." It'll at least be fun to see how they make the awkward transition from basement shows and legion halls to a venue the size of Showbox Sodo. KEVIN DIERS

Walls, Iron Lung

(Black Lodge) There was a time when labeling a band "hardcore" might be an adequate summary of its sound. Nowadays you'd be hard-pressed to find a consensus on the term's definition. Walls and Iron Lung don't fit the archetype of traditional hardcore, yet both groups belong to branches that grew out of its fertile foundations. Iron Lung bring the blast-beat fury of power-violence groups like Crossed Out and No Comment. Walls celebrate the deliberate wrong-note abrasiveness of bands like Born Against and early B'last. While these specific approaches might garner sneers from the percentage of the hardcore populace that favors youth-crew sing-alongs and half-time breakdowns, Walls and Iron Lung make a racket that is far more imposing, subversive, and ultimately more dangerous than their four-chord peers. BRIAN COOK

Saturday 1/23

Phoenix, the Soft Pack

(Showbox Sodo) There's nothing surprising or troubling about Phoenix's recent rise to stateside fame—that's just what happens when you're four ridiculously competent, cool Parisian musicians with connections to the likes of Air and Daft Punk. The only thing odd is that it took so long. The band's 2001 single "If I Ever Feel Better" should have been a charting hit here, except that its leisurely guitar postures, flirty disco rhythm, and lover's-rock coo might've put it in a weird spot between indie and easy listening. No such problems with Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix, though, a perfectly aerodynamic pop-rock album whose glossy synths, cruising rhythms, and airtight song structures give singer Thomas Mars's feather-light voice just the right propulsion to really soar. This show has been sold out since like the minute it went on sale, and deservedly so. ERIC GRANDY

Adam Franklin & Bolts of Melody, Black Nite Crash, Nightmare Air, Bronze Fawn

(Comet) You can't call Adam Franklin & Bolts of Melody's latest album, Spent Bullets, a comeback, because their frontman's never really gone away. After leading Swervedriver to muscular shoegaze-rock glory in the '90s with a trio of vertiginously exciting rock full-lengths (99th Dream was meh) and a grip of even better EPs, Franklin continued to write songs with Toshack Highway, Magnetic Morning, and then his Bolts of Melody unit. The rousing volume and expansive scope heard in Swervedriver's works may have diminished in his later projects, but the quality of Franklin's songwriting has not. He seems to have used the early Swervedriver gem "She's Beside Herself" as a template for a more introspective, spare style. The move's paid dividends in ruggedly handsome, exquisitely poignant tunes like "Bolts of Melody," "Big Sur," and "Hurts to See You Go." Never lose that feeling, Adam. DAVE SEGAL

We Wrote the Book on Connectors, Discs of Fury

(Crocodile) We Wrote the Book on Connectors are a wacky local rock band that claim to have invented "mustache rock." They've written goofy but good songs about eating cake, having goth dance parties, and sad wrestlers, and these days they call themselves "the band of the future." They're not far off with that claim, either. We Wrote the Book on Connectors are kind of like They Might Be Giants, except they swear more. They're sort of like the Aquabats, but without all the ska and "rash guards." They're 100 percent weird, 1,000 percent entertaining, and tonight they exercise their musical talents in the most epic of ways, presenting a rock opera with fellow zany locals Discs of Fury. It should be something to behold—if there's any band in Seattle that can do a "rock opera" right, it's these guys. MEGAN SELING

The Helm, Scourge Schematic, the Network, Elitist

(El CorazĂłn) There's only one thing you should expect from seeing local doom/crust/whatever band the Helm: Your ears will hurt by the end of the night. While you can try wearing earplugs, isn't part of the whole "experience" of seeing the Helm having your ears numbed down to nubs by thick layers of distortion and then shocked back to attention by Bob Swift's throat-shredding yell? Absolutely. Or if you must, you can play it safe and enjoy your hearing for the rest of your life. Show up early for Portland metal band Elitist, which are equally loud and draw influence (according to their MySpace page) from weed, booze, and Alejandro Jodorowsky's film The Holy Mountain. KEVIN DIERS

Sunday 1/24

Jay Farrar & Benjamin Gibbard,

John Roderick

(Showbox at the Market) It's difficult to discuss Jay Farrar & Ben Gibbard's recent collaboration One Fast Move or I'm Gone without referencing Billy Bragg & Wilco's Mermaid Avenue sessions. Both featured promising combinations of modern singer-songwriters; both culled their lyrics from iconic American wordsmiths. In the case of Mermaid Avenue, the lost songs of Woody Guthrie provided the lyrical fodder. Guthrie was a folk forefather to present-day troubadours like Bragg and Jeff Tweedy, and his prose meshed comfortably with their modern compositions. Farrar and Gibbard, on the other hand, pieced their lyrics together using excerpts from Jack Kerouac's 1962 novel Big Sur. Kerouac's cadence was built upon jazz, and ultimately Farrar and Gibbard's Americana-flavored interpretations, while beautiful musically, aren't the best match for Kerouac's bop-fueled spieling. BRIAN COOK

Har Mar Superstar, Team Gina, No-Fi Soul Rebellion

(Chop Suey) Attention, fans of goofy music: Tonight, Chop Suey will kill you and send you straight to heaven. On the dork-heavy bill: oddball husband-and-wife honky funksters No-Fi Soul Rebellion (who aim for Prince and deliver what sounds like lo-fi Ween); charming lezzie rap duo Team Gina (which, having secured its place in local hiphop history by rhyming "Funkadelic" with "Tom Selleck," is calling it quits after tonight); and Har Mar Superstar, the performance artist who sounds like Justin Timberlake, looks like Ron Jeremy, and writes honest-to-God pop songs for the likes of J.Lo in his spare time. Go, point, laugh, dance. DAVID SCHMADER

White Denim, Brazos

(Neumos) The thing I've noticed about Texans is, for better or worse (and with the exception of those two idiots who somehow became U.S. presidents), they're usually pretty goddamn honest. They tell it like it is. They also like flags. Big flags. And they fly 'em high. The sometimes bluesy, always fuzzy and spazzy Austin trio White Denim is no exception. While they fly obvious flags honoring bands like MC5, Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, and the White Stripes, they also make honest and raw-sounding rock music that is all their own. And don't ask them to apologize, 'cause they won't. KELLY O

Radio8Ball with Levi Fuller

(Theatre Off Jackson) The Radio8Ball show combines live music with amateur divination. Selected audience members talk a little about a problem with which they've been struggling, and then they spin a wheel that reveals a song that supposedly contains the answer to the problem. The guest performer sings the song, and everyone experiences the weird Neanderthal awe of seeing how the song coincidentally applies, horoscope-like, to the problem. The show is only ever as good as its musical guest, and it should be about as good as it's ever been with Levi Fuller. Fuller's careful attention to lyrics and his ability to nail just about any kind of music—country, noise rock, acoustic rock—means that he'll be able to make the experience a properly diverse, mystical occasion. PAUL CONSTANT

Bill Frisell Trio

(Triple Door) Bill Frisell is a very well-known guitarist who has a history that stretches back to the 1980s and connects him to New York's avant-garde jazz scene of that time. He has made several important albums, recorded with lots of big names in the world of popular music, and explored the strange territories of country and western music. I, however, enjoy Frisell most when the music, or his rhythm section, is grounded by jazz. This groundedness offers the best support for his effortlessly unpredictable, often exhilarating, often jarring, dublike experiments on the electric guitar. Frisell is a truly original player. CHARLES MUDEDE

Monday 1/25

Bowerbirds, Julie Doiron

(Triple Door) Bowerbirds are the Raleigh, North Carolina, trio of Phil Moore (vocals, guitar, hi-hats), Beth Tacular (vocals, accordion, kick drum), and Mark Paulson (drums, violin). Tacular's wheezing, waltzing accordion and the dispersed drumming lend the pastorally minded band's drifting vocal harmonies a more robust weight than some of their folky contemporaries. Julie Doiron was the bassist and covocalist of isolated New Brunswick indie-rock outpost Eric's Trip; since that band's breakup, she's maintained a steady and fruitful solo career. Her recent releases have included a haunting collaboration with local light Mount Eerie (Lost Wisdom), a set of traditional folk songs (Daniel, Fred & Julie), and an album of electrified rock more in the style of her old band (I Can Wonder What You Did with Your Day). Whatever mode she's in tonight, it's bound to be mesmerizing. ERIC GRANDY

Tuesday 1/26

Herb Alpert and Lani Hall

(Jazz Alley) Trumpeter Herb Alpert (the A in A&M Records, his share of which he sold in 1987) can use Benjamins for toilet paper: He's moved over 72 million records while scoring eight Grammys, 14 platinum albums, and 15 gold ones. In the 1960s, Alpert and his Tijuana Brass band pumped out breezy mariachi and pop tunes that snared much radio play and TV time ("Whipped Cream" was The Dating Game's theme). Alpert went solo when the group split in 1969 and continued to rack up hits, most memorably with the 1979 instrumental yacht-funk gem "Rise," which was sampled by the Notorious B.I.G. for "Hypnotize" (that bass line is unfuckwithable). Now 74, Alpert appears at Jazz Alley with his vocalist/wife Lani Hall (ex–Sergio Mendes & Brasil '66), as they support their standards-heavy 2009 album Anything Goes. DAVE SEGAL

Wednesday 1/27

Feral Children, John Atkins, Jabon

(Neumos) Forget the old comparisons and unfair expectations—Feral Children have been fully their own band for a while now, for better or worse. Their new album, Brand New Blood, released late last year, sees the band settling down somewhat, sublimating wild howls for ghostly choruses, ragged rhythms for distant drum rumble, and drunk, heavy piano for queasy keyboards and soft Twin Peaks synth pads. The vocals still range from strangled yelp to drawled, menacing mumble, with some tunefulness in between, but the occasional off lyric sticks out a little more here. Still, there are some fine moments: the rousing, almost sweet chorus on the latter half of "Universe Design"; the drifting choral ballad "Inside the Night"; the semiacoustic, folky "Woodland Mutts," with its swells of something sinister underneath fluttering strings; the undertowed surf guitar that opens "Enchanted Parkway." ERIC GRANDY

Nile, Immolation, Krisiun, Dreaming Dead, Evangelist

(El Corazón) There's a good reason why Nile's 1998 album, Amongst the Catacombs of the Nephren-Ka, landed a coveted spot in metal magazine Decibel's Hall of Fame: It's a fierce, technical marvel of skill and originality. As the death-metal scene reached its teenage years, most of its bands were merely pushing for greater speed and virtuosity, trying to outplay their heroes. But Nile's debut blazed past their contemporaries while incorporating unorthodox Middle Eastern melodies and instruments. Other death-metal bands were trying to match their sinister sounds by singing about Satan; Nile used their lyrics to expound their broad knowledge of ancient Egyptian culture. They're an anomaly—and even if their obsessions come across as gimmickry, they still deliver some of the most brutal material in their field. BRIAN COOK

Fatal Lucciauno, Ripynt, Gran Rapids, Notion, DJ Swervewon

(High Dive) Notion is a local rapper who deserves more light. He has, to my knowledge, released one EP, Before Now, and an album, Late Nights Until Now, which hosts guest appearances by XP of Oldominion, Macklemore, and Neema, and features the production work of the restless genius called BeanOne. Notion has a style that's not seductive or smooth or immediately appealing, but the very opposite: It is strained, stressed, and gruff. This approach, however hard on the ears, works surprisingly well with the right beat, which is why tracks such as "Back Door," "Before We Die," and "Soul Steps" are so compelling. Notion is the type of rapper who can't spit on any old beat, but needs to work very closely with an understanding producer. CHARLES MUDEDE