Wednesday 7/20

Acrassicauda, Deathmocracy, Curse the Night

(Slim's Last Chance) See Sound Check.

XV, Casey Veggies, Logics

(Neumos) See My Philosophy.

Katy Perry

(KeyArena) Look, she's no Ke$ha. Hell, she's not even Lady Gaga. But it's summer, and if you need a sugary pop fix, Seattle's not going to get anything better: Ke$ha's not back in town until fall. You can consider Katy Perry your summer-camp fling: She's hot, and fun, and she doesn't expect any more out of you than she's willing to give. You know you can still totally lose your shit to "California Gurls" (even if you have to sit through "E.T." to get to it), and Perry reportedly changes her outfit approximately 423 times over the course of the evening. Like you've got something better to do. PAUL CONSTANT

Writer, Western Haunts, Michael Lee

(Sunset) This is not a show for dancers; it is a show for nostalgic drinkers. Writer—brothers Andy and James Ralph—play music steeped in place, with drum lines that beat as slowly and deliberately as an uphill locomotive and rusty vocals drawn straight from the rafters of some moldy barn in their native town of San Diego (provided San Diego has barns). Western Haunts live up to their name, meanwhile, with songs that unfurl in layers of percussion, drum, recorder, guitar, and, finally, mellow vocals that sound less than human. CIENNA MADRID

Sarah McLachlan and Friends

(Chateau Ste. Michelle) In college, I had a girlfriend who would only engage in very vanilla sex. Regardless, she was incredibly attractive to me. Every time we had vanilla sexytime, she insisted that we listen to Sarah McLachlan. As a result, I have not a single ill association with the singer's music. Several months into the relationship, I broke up with her because she chose her new hairstyle out of one of those celebrity-hairstyle magazines (or some such stupid reason). There have been many nights since then, and I'd prefer precious few of them to that vanilla sexytime with Sarah McLachlan on the stereo. Then again, I just moved from Capitol Hill to Greenlake. SUE ME. GRANT BRISSEY

Thursday 7/21

The Foreign Exchange

(Crocodile) See My Philosophy.

Open Mike Eagle, Redd Foxx, Los Feo Faces, Julie C, Greg & Jerome, 3Ninjas, Tangentbot

(Chop Suey) See Data Breaker.

Case Studies, Zachary Cale

(Rendezvous) Call me reductive, but I'm gonna say that Jesse Lortz's post–the Dutchess and the Duke deal, Case Studies, are sporting some serious Leonard Cohen influence. From the cold musing about love and loss to the vaguely Latin guitar work to the spot-on female backing vocals, Lortz has got himself a fine little debut with The World Is Just a Shape to Fill the Night. GRANT BRISSEY

Friday 7/22

Capitol Hill Block Party: Ghostland Observatory, the Head and the Heart, Ra Ra Riot, Yuck, Fucked Up, Thurston Moore, THEESatisfaction, and many more

(Pike St and 12th Ave) See Stranger Suggests, preview, and pullout.

Brain Fruit, Harpoon Pole Vault, Panabrite

(Rendezvous) The last time I saw Harpoon Pole Vault—the solo endeavor of Gift Tapes and DRAFT Records founder Jason E. Anderson—I had to confess to being a little late. "Did you catch only the weird stuff?" he joked. My (unspoken) reply: "When is your stuff not fantastically, entrancingly weird?" Fans of Anderson's label(s) or his work in the analog duo Brother Raven will be unsurprised to learn that Harpoon Pole Vault is a project concerned with sculpting and surveying instrumental soundscapes. Anderson has got a stash of modular synths for this express purpose, and he's able to exorcise warped, convex sounds from them with enviable panache. His atmospheres are deep, cavernous, and fearsome, but their allure is difficult to deny. JASON BAXTER See also Data Breaker.

Eldridge Gravy & the Court Supreme, Atomic Bride, the Braxmatics

(Chop Suey) Eldridge Gravy & the Court Supreme's irrepressible rise continues at ever-larger venues, as the 13-piece funk/soul ensemble make the jump to Chop Suey. Their shows flamboyantly accentuate the positive with mostly up-tempo, tried-and-true maneuvers: dynamic horn charts; intricate, rousing vocal interplay; "Good god!"–inducing rhythms; and inspirational keyboard swells. Unless you're an industrial-grade curmudgeon, Eldridge Gravy's bold, brassy attack wipes out glumness within seconds. Fellow locals Atomic Bride play a knotty brand of post punk with tough male/female vocals. They merge aggression and tunefulness with raw-nerved skill. The Braxmatics peddle traditional, nasty-grooved funk rendered in broad, brash strokes. DAVE SEGAL

Saturday 7/23

Capitol Hill Block Party: TV on the Radio, Les Savy Fav, Best Coast, Baths, Beat Connection, the Young Evils, Cold Cave, Akimbo, Nazca Lines, Handsome Furs, and many more

(Pike St and 12th Ave) See pullout.

Grenades, Monogamy Party, Princess, Bitches Crystal

(Black Lodge) Grenades, Monogamy Party, Princess, and Bitches Crystal—all four of these bands are new as of this year, ensuring that the heavier side of Seattle's music scene is alive and well despite our city's seemingly endless supply of folk rock. The newest to the bunch, in fact, is Bitches Crystal, a band featuring Doug Lorig (of Roadside Monument and Patrol), Eric Junge (also of Patrol), and Burke Eglington (formerly of Akimbo). So are they killer? FUCK YES, THEY ARE. Obviously. Monogamy Party are, too—they will fill that These Arms Are Snakes hole in your heart. Really, the whole lineup is solid. This is not a concert; this is an offering from the radical rock gods. MEGAN SELING

Master Musicians of Bukkake, Ghastly City Sleep, Young Bear, This Blinding Light

(Funhouse) Don't be misled by their name; Master Musicians of Bukkake aren't a juvenile shock-rock act. Rather, the vulgar play on African trance legends Master Musicians of Joujouka provides some insight into the Seattle collective's balance of cult-music reverence and tongue-in-cheek indulgence. MMOB scour the remote corners of the globe for sonic freak-outs and hypnotic drones to borrow and recontextualize into their own warped alchemy. While it's a little risky to appropriate another culture's sound, and often a bit asinine to flaunt one's love of obscurities, Master Musicians of Bukkake manage to weave a beguilingly catchy mantra mashup with charming absurdity. If you'd prefer a little less masturbation en masse in your transcendental music forms, Ghastly City Sleep can lead you down the rabbit hole with more subtlety. BRIAN COOK

Blue Sabbath Black Cheer, Sutekh Hexen, Pale Chalice, Folivore, Bell Witch

(Highline) While Blue Sabbath Black Cheer's name suggests that the project is a lark, the sound these Seattleites create is anything but lighthearted frivolity. Rather, BSBC—Stan Reed, Wm. Rage, and Crystal Perez—make music in the key of godforsaken. Their approach ranges from an eerie, post- apocalyptic serenity to an all-out, threnody-for-the-damned decibel barrage. Don't expect covers of "Iron Man" or "Summertime Blues." San Francisco noise duo Sutekh Hexen tar the air with toxic waves of nihilism. You'll hate yourself for loving it—or love yourself for hating it. DAVE SEGAL

The Fagettes, Rotten Apples

(Josephine) Yeah, the Fagettes are another 1960s-influenced garage-rock band. Yeah, they have that booze-fueled, celebratory fuck-all swagger that we all know and love. But they went and traded in the thin, tinny sounds with which some of their cohorts like meddling in favor of a thicker, heavier, cleaner sound. Then they threw in some sexual ambiguity to boot! According to an interview with Dig!, the Boston-area band is touring the West Coast "in a two-ton converted military truck that runs on vegetable oil." I can't verify that, but I do highly recommend that you check out their two EPs, Vol. 1 and Vol. 2. You can download them for free. Go. Now. DAN OBERBRUNER

Sunday 7/24

Capitol Hill Block Party: Explosions in the Sky, the Cave Singers, Battles, Mad Rad, Mash Hall, Grand Hallway, Pink Mountaintops, Federation X, the Posies, the Pharmacy, Lumerians, and many more

(Pike St and 12th Ave) See preview and pullout.

Jeremy Messersmith, the Thoughts

(High Dive) Jeremy Messersmith grew up in Washington, but he's been releasing sophisticated, nerdy (he has a song called "Tatooine," which you might remember as Luke Skywalker's home planet in Star Wars) pop songs in Minneapolis since 2005. His third and latest album, The Reluctant Graveyard, is a wonderful, though safe, pop record. At moments, the combination of elaborate, lavish orchestration and Messersmith's hazy rasp on "Violet!" or "Knots" sounds like Davey von Bohlen trying to reimagine Ben Kweller's Sha Sha. If Messersmith's live performance is anything like his wonderfully conceived and executed albums, this show will be a serious treat for indie-pop enthusiasts. DAN OBERBRUNER

Cock Block Party: Tit Pig, Dead Kill

(Comet) It's Sunday. You're tired. Your ship is sinking in the Block Party ocean, and if one more person elbow checks you, you're going to punch him/her in the face. You should probably go home and go to bed, but that's stupid 'cause the streetlights are still on. What you need to do is head into the Cock Block Party at the Comet. There, there, it's already better, isn't it? Get a cold beer or three, and let two of Seattle's best hardcore-punk-metal thrashers sing you a couple of tunes. They scream, break shit, and punch themselves in the face. You can just sit back and relax now. Aahh. KELLY O

Monday 7/25

Black Monday: Desillusion, Ghost in the Addict

(Sunset) As much as I'm bummed about the sun's current failure to deliver our contractually obligated six weeks of summer, I will confess to continually stockpiling 100 SPF sunblock and lurking in shadows. You might not be able to count on that glowing thing in the sky, but thankfully those of us who are recovering and current goths can always count on the good folks at the Sunset to deliver a monthly dose of heartwarming gloom in the form of Black Monday. This month's installment features the early NIN-reminiscent sounds of Desillusion and the more introspective, beautifully bruised tunes of Ghost in the Addict. It may always be sunny in Philadelphia, but it's perpetually autumn—in the best possible way—at Black Monday. BARBARA MITCHELL

Tuesday 7/26

Summer Slaughter: The Black Dahlia Murder, Whitechapel, Darkest Hour, Six Feet Under, Dying Fetus, As Blood Runs Black, Oceano, Fleshgod Apocalypse

(King Cat) Forget your Warped Tours and your Mayhem Fests—the one true yearly showcase of unrelenting underground heaviness, Summer Slaughter, has marked its return to the Northwest, bringing with it nine bands, 500 blast beats, dozens of inappropriately naughty T-shirt designs, and one word: brutality. This time around, Michigan metallers the Black Dahlia Murder headline the whole fucked-up shebang, supporting the release of their newest full-length, Ritual, a much more stripped down, visceral effort from the band. Southern "deathcore" darlings Whitechapel will surely make the kiddies squeal with delight as they chug along, while pure death-metal heads will get a kick out of Six Feet Under and Dying Fetus' gurgled barks and punishing slams. Show up early—this shit starts around lunchtime—for Italy's Fleshgod Apocalypse, or miss out on the next wave of righteous brutality. KEVIN DIERS

Wally Shoup Quartet

(Vito's) Watching Wally Shoup work is a special kind of pleasure. He knows every millimeter of his saxophone; he understands every sound he can pull from it, from the asymmetric bleats and blonks to the smooth, low moans on down to the clicks of the keys. It's like watching Fred Astaire dance or the Lone Ranger shoot a gun out of some varmint's hand. Shoup plays funny, original riffs on the songs that are buried deep in your brain (I'll never forget his clever, deflated "Pop Goes the Weasel"), and as he fidgets and squeaks through a daring solo, he'll remind you that jazz isn't just something that people listened to long ago. It's alive and well and embodied in Wally Shoup and his trusty saxophone. PAUL CONSTANT