SEPTEMBER 13
Juliette Lewis with Guests
No, Juliette Lewis will probably never get as good as she got singing PJ Harvey in Strange Days, and she got a lot of help from the PJ Harvey side of that equation. I watched some concert footage of Lewisâfrom YouTube, sadly out-of-synch, so you have to choose between communing with the visual or the audio. Visually speaking, sheâs got the strut down, the crowd exhortations, the bounce, the jump, the lunge. And musically speaking, she rocks hard enough. And in a venue with a roof and walls, the energy should slam off the walls back toward the center. Someone should get her out of Scientology, though. ANDREW HAMLIN
SEPTEMBER 14
Bomba Estéreo
Bomba EstĂ©reo hail from Colombiaâs capital, BogatĂĄ, and in general manifest the necessary tropes for electronic dance music: chanted, sometimes distorted vocals, more fun with the pitch bender, regimented drum computers snapping to attention at the end of phrases, bouncy beats, sounds like somebodyâs dropped a guitar in a vat of vegetable oil, chimes, echoes, whistles, and of course, the bass drop. I regret that I cannot understand most of the lyrics (some of itâs in English), but Liliana Saumetâs singing sounds passionate, even when it sounds like itâs being recorded by a recorder in the next room over (shades of Exile on Main St). The male singer, SimĂłn MejĂa, sounds like heâs having a hell of a time at his own karaoke party. ANDREW HAMLIN
Savage Master with Substratum
The majority of metal released in 2016 fits into the black, death, or thrash category and typically features a vocalist barking indecipherable lyrics into a microphone at an ear-blistering level. So itâs a refreshing treat to hear a band like Substratum, who, alongside Skelator, are holding it down for classic heavy metal in the Northwest. If youâre more into Iron Maiden and Judas Priest than Cannibal Corpse and Obituary, this is your jam. Badass frontwoman Amy Lee Carlsonâs powerful voice soars over a sound best described as old school. Throw on your favorite jean jacket and pump your fist to some beer-drinking anthems. KEVIN DIERS
Tedeschi Trucks Band with Nicki Bluhm and The Gramblers
Twelve-piece tour-de-force Tedeschi Trucks Band joins the power of Susan Tedeschi and Derek Trucks with a full crew of award-winning guitarists, two belting vocalists, dual drummers, a three- piece horn section, bass, and a multi-instrumentalist keyboard player to present themselves as the vanguard of modern roots music.
SEPTEMBER 15
Atmosphere, Brother Ali, deM atlas, Plain Ole Bill, Last Word
Since the late '90s when Atmosphere burst out of Minneapolis, they've attacked the globe with their emotionally earnest yet street-hardened sound, eventually becoming known as hiphop classics within their twenty-year career as a duo.
Charles Bradley & His Extraordinaires
With his heartfelt vocals and boundless charisma, Brooklyn soul singer Charles Bradley was meant for stardom. Without luck, however, talent doesnât always find the audience it deserves, so itâs fortunate that Daptone cofounder Gabriel Roth encouraged him to hang up the James Brown impersonator cape to strike out on his own. On his new record, Changes, Bradley adapts the Al Green template, R&B warmed with funk and sanctified by gospel, to his unique talents. He also has a way with covers, like Nirvanaâs âStay Awayâ and Black Sabbathâs âChanges,â where he amplifies the soul buried in the originals. If his late-in-life success seems surprising, Bradley doesnât take it for grantedâhe plays every show like itâs an audition that could make or break his career. KATHY FENNESSY
Earshot Jazz: Stanley Cowell Trio
Pianist Stanley Cowell has been around since the 1960s, playing with Rahsaan Roland Kirk, Sonny Rollins, Clifford Jordan, Stan Getz, Marion Brown (a devastating, criminally underhyped alto man), and others. Cowell brandishes a fist of force in a glove of elegance. His right hand roams on long, fast lines, making merry, while his left hand plunks down doubt, sadness, and restraint. Sometimes the right hand catches up with the left hand and they must have what my mother calls a come-to-Jesus meeting. Outside those climaxes, though, the chase still thrills. Go if you care a jot about living, breathing jazz. ANDREW HAMLIN
Inga Copeland
Russian-born musician Inga Copeland crept into public consciousness with the postmodern sampledelic duo Hype Williams in 2007. Their music met at the unlikely nexus between chillwave and bass music, causing profound feelings of poignant ambivalence. Hazed-out covers of Doug Hream Bluntâs âGentle Persuasionâ and Donnie & Joe Emersonâs âBabyâ reflected their tendency to distance themselves from âsincereâ demonstrations of emotion. It was always filter upon filter, fake identity upon fake identity, creative feint upon creative feint for Hype Williams. Since HW split in 2012, Copeland (aka Alina Astrova) released the 2014 solo album Because Iâm Worth It, a fittingly enigmatic excursion into cryptic, droll songwriting and elliptical, abstract electronic music that avoids easy categorization. This should be very interesting. DAVE SEGAL
Studio 4/4: James Zabiela
Studio 4/4 keeps chugging along in tried-and-true techno/house time, marking three years of internationally renowned bookings in those styles. Their run of good taste continues with headliner James Zabiela, a Southampton, England, DJ/producer whoâs gained notoriety for mixing in breakbeats, loops, and effects into his house and techno productions. Besides being an in-demand remixer (heâs reworked tracks by Radiohead, Orbital, Luke Vibert, Röyksopp, and many others), Zabiela has shown a keen ear for the dark, semi-strange end of the dance-music spectrum, without being too alienating. That ainât easy to do. DAVE SEGAL
Xenia Rubinos with Stas THEE Boss
Xenia Rubinos wants to punch you in the face with her work. She flings power chords, slashing drums, stringent truths about race relations in America, and ruby-red high notes around your throat like a bloodied vine. Her old-world vocal charm flurries through tales of public indignation and broken promises to raise a swirling eddy representative of the stark intensity of the high feminine. If sheâs even half as powerful live as she is on her latest album, Black Terry Cat, then we are in for a proper throwdown. Stas THEE Boss is one half of the now-defunct but forever important duo THEESatisfaction whoâs been performing solo sets rife with whip-smart, razor-sharp summer bummers. Donât miss these two. KIM SELLING
SEPTEMBER 16
Bonnie Raitt
Bonnie Raitt is a national treasure, a boozy beauty who speaks to your late-night karaoke heartâs truest desires. Lonely? Bonnie. Tired? Bonnie. Lovelorn and tongue-tied? Bonnie. Her latest album, Dig in Deep, serves up all her sweet spots: thumping percussion meets steel-string wailing, with her signature vocal rasp and the classic heartsore lyricism of the responsibilities and subsequent fallout of human relationships. Outside of the eye-rollingly-named track âG*psy in Me,â (gonna chalk that one up to casual white feminism and her longtime Chicoâs-Meets-Palm-Springs-Rodeo-Mom style), this album shows Bonnieâs staying power in the light-rock-less-talk genre thatâs still got some kick to it. She remains stronger than many of her contemporaries and all around smoother going down than just about any Nora Ephronâesque rom-com soundtrack youâll ever meet. KIM SELLING
Drake with Future and Guests
Views, this year's new album from everyone's favorite Canadian rapper/singer/songwriter/producer/actor, has already broken multiple recordsâincluding beating those previously set by both Michael Jackson and Whitney Houston for leading the Billboard Hot 100 and Billboard 200 simultaneously for the longest amount of time (eight vs. seven weeks). Don't miss this chance to see the rapper of the moment, along with Future and their equally ego'd-up MC crew.
Marduk, Rotting Christ, Carach Angren, Necronomicon
Norwayâs âbig fourâ of Burzum, Emperor, Darkthrone, and Mayhem may not have invented black metal, but they are typically given credit for establishing its parameters, both in terms of sound and aesthetics. But the international influence of founding genre fathers Celtic Frost, Hellhammer, and Venom meant that this supposed golden era of black metal wasnât confined to Oslo and Bergen. Swedenâs Marduk and Greeceâs Rotting Christ were churning out gnarly albums in the early 1990s that were far more refined and palatable than the work of the more tabloid-famous Norwegians. Decades later, Marduk and Rotting Christ continue to put more emphasis on crafting vicious songs rather than falling back on black metalâs penchant for peddling controversy instead of culture, as evidenced in their most recent albums Frontschwein and Rituals. BRIAN COOK
The Legendary Pink Dots with Orbit Service
Even just looking at the Legendary Pink Dotsâ catalog is daunting. Try listening to it sometime. Thereâs a Grateful Deadâlike discographical bloat to the globe-trotting English-Dutch groupâs 36-year tenure, and having a filter or trusted guide would help one locate the peaks. Or is it all good? I donât have the time to find out, but what I have heard is sporadically brilliant. If you like laid-back Pink Floydian psych rock cloaked with gothic accouterments (main man Edward Ka-Spelâs morose, mischievous, Syd Barrettâesque vocals and the Silvermanâs creepy, gossamer synths), the Legendary Pink Dots will have a surplus of material to transport you to whimsical and infernal realms. DAVE SEGAL
SEPTEMBER 17
Blink 182, A Day to Remember, All-American Rejects
Relive your adolescent pop-punk dreams by seeing Blink 182 (minus sweet alien lover and master conspiracy theorist Tom DeLonge) with A Day to Remember and All-American Rejects, at KeyArena.
Del Tha Funky Homosapien, Richie Cunning with DJ Bad DJ, Poe Lucero
This is from a review of The Best of Del tha Funkee Homosapien: The Elektra Years (2004): "[It] includes most of the best moments from I Wish My Brother George Was Here and 1994 follow-up No Need for Alarm, making it valuable for those who haven't been able to track them down. However, those who have followed Del all along should also take note; this set also contains a small bounty of B-sides, most of which are of some import... The package scores bonus points for its informative liner notes, not to mention the shout-out to borderline-genius writer Kodwo Eshun." If I have any claim to hiphop history, it is that I wrote the liner notes to this collection, which contains most (not allâDel's work with Gorillaz and Dan the Automator is not included) of the best work by one of the greatest West Coast rappers (Ice Cube's cousin, no less) in the history of the art. From Del to infinity. CHARLES MUDEDE
Great Falls, Big Trughk, Voycheck, Pink Muscles
Offstage, the Great Falls guys are some of the nicest dudes in the Seattle heavy-rock scene. Put Demian Johnston (guitar, vocals), Shane Mehling (bass), and Phil Petrocelli (drums) onstage, however, and they reveal their evil intentions. A Great Falls live gig is an awesome, limb-flailing display of consolidated aggression, the physical embodiment of their explosive grindcore sound. More than just big riffs, their latest release, The Fever Shed, slows and accelerates as a cold-blooded creature would rest before it uncoils to catch prey. Elongated breakdowns stand next to choppy bursts of distortion, the binding factor being the same walking-on-hot-coals catharsis you feel in the audience at their show. TODD HAMM
Lee "Scratch" Perry with Dub Lounge International and Guests
I have the new Lee âScratchâ Perry album! Itâs called Must Be Free! Itâs great! It makes no sense even by Lee âScratchâ Perry standards! Iâll quit with the exclamation points now! Heâs collaborating with something or someone called Spacewave. The man says he can read minds, but he doesnât know that his own website hasnât been updated since 2010. Iâm fascinated on each spin at how the new music recognizes the pull of classic, therefore expected, arpeggios and riffs in electronica, then systematically refuses them and throws out subtlety instead. No idea if the album will relate to the show at all. But Perry is 80. Catch what you can catch of him while you can. ANDREW HAMLIN
Thirdstory, LOLO
Harmonizing multi-instrumentalist super cuties THIRDSTORY were on tour with Tori Kelly earlier this year and will be gracing us with their presence a second time later this September.
SEPTEMBER 18
Tears For Fears
Get ready for Britainâs Tears for Fears to offer heaping portions of 1980s nostalgia at the lush grounds of Woodinvilleâs Chateau Ste. Michelle. Few bands better embody the brooding melancholy and paradoxically uplifting choruses as the pop-rock songwriting savants Roland Orzabal and Curt Smith. Their first three platinum-selling LPsâThe Hurting, Songs from the Big Chair, and The Seeds of Loveâexemplify the sort of fastidiously pretty songcraft and melodramatic lyrical worldview that swells hearts and offers succor to those living in a mad world. DAVE SEGAL
