The time between Christmas and New Year’s Eve can sometimes feel like a no-man’s-land, but we’re here to let you know that there are still great things happening around town. We’ve got everything from classic LA punks pushing past their fourth decade together (X), to the triumphant return of a Seattle soul queen (Grace Love), to the maximalist father of trap (Haute Sauce: Lex Luger). Follow the links below for ticket links and music clips, and find even more on our music calendar, or get your bones prepped for the next holiday and check out our guide to the best New Year’s Eve shows.
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TUESDAY
The Brian Setzer Orchestra’s 14th Annual Christmas Rocks! Tour
The Brian Setzer Orchestra have released five Christmas albums. I don’t know what to tell you folks except he swings, swings, swings, and smokes it through every single one of them. Heck, I’ve never even heard them, but I can smell the swing coming off those platters! No, but (more) seriously, if you want to shake and swing and, above all, sweat away all your cares from this year, just show up. Shake those hips in your seat, your aisle, your balcony, and possibly even a soft-shoe in the restroom. Phew! ANDREW HAMLIN
XURS, New Bloom, Meridian
If we must have punk in the late 2010s, let it be like XURS’s spasmodic breed of it. The Seattle band’s vocals (by guitarist Shane) are comfortingly cantankerous, but the group’s real attraction are the dense, swarming guitar/bass attack and rhythms that swerve with a surprising torque and melodies that ruggedly undulate. Imagine Flipper on speed or Wire and Thinking Fellers Union Local 282 with more overt anger issues. Against great odds, XURS are keeping a hoary musical style vital.
DAVE SEGAL
TUESDAY-WEDNESDAY
Sara Gazarek: Home for the Holidays
Last time I caught Sara Gazarek here in town, at the Triple Door, I thought I knew what she was about: warm, elegant jazz vocals caught up in ever-novel and stimulating arrangements. Boy was I wrong! She was all about warm, elegant jazz vocals caught up in ever-novel and stimulating arrangements, but she sang high, she sang low, she sang heartbreak, she held notes for mystifying lifetimes. She dropped beats, added intros, swirled songs into medleys, blew notes out like candles, and let them die away like sustain-pedaled tones from Josh Nelson’s piano. Her latest album with Nelson, Dream in the Blue, was 2016’s best album. Gazarek is already the best, and she just keeps getting better.
ANDREW HAMLIN
WEDNESDAY
Karl Blau, Heatwarmer, Whitney Ballen
Hailing from Anacortes, Karl Blau is one of Washington’s wayward gems. In his own golden spirit and style, he conjures a mercurially modern Arthur Russell or Moon Dog with his playful outsider approach to whatever genre (rock, alt-country, synth-jazz, etc.) or “Songles” he decides to bedazzle us with next. Blau recently dropped his 10th studio album, Out Her Space, and it commemorates his 20th year of making records under his eponymous solo project. He is joined by 1980s-wave band Heartwarmer (Blau’s accredited with lyrics on one their songs) and Whitney Ballen’s moodcore songwriting. This bill is an upbeat cure to that holiday hangover.
ZACH FRIMMEL
Straight No Chaser
Straight No Chaser take their name from a Thelonious Monk blues song divided not into three four-measure segments, but two six-measure sections, because Monk couldn’t do anything the normal way, heaven cherish him. So Straight No Chaser are well-versed in not doing things the conventional way themselves. But they’re not afraid to throw in a medley of boy-band classics, spiked with Britney Spears for flavor. They’re also famous for the “12 Days of Christmas” video bit that landed in 1998, and, as of the afternoon I’m typing this, has tallied 20,723,331 views. So they’re a little white bread and they make all the percussion noises with their lips, which pisses off some people, but they’re talented, choreographed, and cute. Also, hey, Britney Spears.
ANDREW HAMLIN
X, LP3 & the Tragedy
It’s unusual for a 40th-anniversary tour to include all original members, but this is a rare treat with seminal LA punks X in their complete late-1970s form. Pioneering punk poets John Doe and Exene Cervenka brought thoughtfulness to a hypermasculine punk culture with notable early songs “Johnny Hit and Run Pauline” (a commonly misinterpreted anti-sexual-assault anthem), “Nausea” (immortalized live with the Most Punk Crowd Ever™ in The Decline of Western Civilization), and “We’re Desperate.” Their sound shifted from rockabilly-flirting and 1950s-indebted rock into a heavy country aesthetic that would develop into side project the Knitters in 1985. After numerous stylistic and lineup changes over the years, X have established themselves as a Wild Gift to 40 years of punk in Los Angeles.
BRITTNIE FULLER
THURSDAY
Forms: TOKiMONSTA
Nobody thought that a few cuts of bumper music for Adult Swim would launch Los Angeles native Steven Ellison into electronic-music stardom as Flying Lotus, nor that Ellison’s career would foster the experimental production hotbed that is the Brainfeeder label. In this writer’s opinion, though, no star shines brighter in Brainfeeder’s sky than TOKiMONSTA (Jennifer Lee). Her take on instrumental hiphop bubbles and percolates with a sense of easy melody that many of her counterparts often lack. Better, Lee has proved to be prolific, releasing almost an album every year since 2010. Her latest, Lune Rouge, showcases a producer in full control of her art.
JOSEPH SCHAFER
Tomo Nakayama, Briana Marela, Hunter Gather, Lori Goldston with Christopher Icasiano
The least well-known act on this eclectic bill is Hunter Gather, a local group with a lyrical, patient take on contemporary jazz. On debut record Getting to Know You, the quartet trades gradually evolving melodic motifs between guitars and bandleader/composer Levi Gillis’s saxophone—a modular, postmodern approach that echoes Ornette Coleman’s. Like much-respected locals Industrial Revelation, Hunter Gather’s tastes extend beyond jazz, both old-school and avant-garde. There are numerous ambient passages, and the most intense moments approach post-rock. These are inquisitive musicians who don’t hew to preconceptions of what jazz should sound like.
ANDREW GOSPE
THURSDAY-SATURDAY
Beethoven Symphony No. 9
Things you may or may not know about Beethoven’s 9th: It was his last symphony. Other composers became scared of writing a ninth symphony because the ninth was his last. He was almost totally deaf when he conducted the premiere, so the performers had to ignore him entirely! He was so deaf he couldn’t hear the applause at the end—five standing ovations in all. A contralto named Caroline Unger had to turn him around so he could see the clapping hands and stuff thrown into the air. Caroline Unger was on the bill because Beethoven added singing to the final movement of this huge mother, which takes more than an hour to perform, post-to-post. Whew. ANDREW HAMLIN
THURSDAY-SUNDAY
Poncho Sanchez Latin Jazz Band
Playing seven shows over four nights at Jazz Alley, the Poncho Sanchez Latin Jazz Band offer plenty of chances for you to shimmy and shake to their warm, slinky, percussive-fueled rhythms during Seattle’s end-of-the-year chill. Mexican American namesake Sanchez has been rapping, tapping, and slapping congas for crowds since he played his first ever set in the mid-1970s with renowned vibraphonist Cal Tjader, with whom he played until Tjader’s death in 1982. Sanchez went on to release more than 30 albums as a solo conguero (backed by a full band that currently includes players on timbales, bass, trumpet, sax, trombone, bongos, and piano), and has built on his Latin-jazzy sound with elements of R&B, soul, cha-cha, and salsa music.
LEILANI POLK
FRIDAY
Grace Love, the Get Ahead, Carlene Crawford Band, DJ Indica Jones
Our city is SO lucky to have Ms. Grace Love. In just the last few years, her name AND full-throttle singing, both with the True Loves and solo, has excited casual listeners and dance floors across the globe. First, the True Loves’ records blew up (“Fire” is still in heavy rotation), and now her two post–True Loves 45s on Europe’s Cannonball label (especially her first Cannonball side, the string-laced dancer “Higher”) are a bumping testimony that, yes, Seattle does have soul. Don’t miss this stellar event tonight—go fall in love with Love, again.
MIKE NIPPER
Minnesota, Pressha, Willdabeast
The only DJ/producer big enough to name himself after the land of a thousand lakes, Minnesota takes over the Nectar stage with support from Pressha and Willdabeast, and visual staging by Somnium.
Queensrÿche
Back in 2012, Queensrÿche publically feuded over the use of their name with former vocalist Geoff Tate. After securing the copyright to the well-established name, the remaining members made a risky move, hiring former Crimson Glory singer Todd La Torre. Many feared this change, as Tate’s voice was synonymous with Queensrÿche’s prog-rock sound. What fans received was a love letter to the vintage Queensrÿche years, shying away from their softer, more ballad-driven material and embracing their original soaring, power-metal-esque anthems with 2013’s self-titled album and 2015’s Condition Hüman. There’s no end in sight for this old-school Northwest rock institution.
KEVIN DIERS
Resolution
In a 2012 Pitchfork interview, musician Matthew Dear was optimistic about electronic music in the United States because, not in spite, of parties like Resolution. “Five years from now,” he said of the college-aged dilettantes who populate such events, “there’s a good chance 20 percent of them will stick around,” become more discerning, and get invested in the culture. I forgot about that quote until earlier this year when a college acquaintance, once fond of fur rave boots, posted photos from Movement, the underground techno-leaning festival in Detroit. Let the kids do their thing—good taste takes time.
ANDREW GOSPE
Solar Twin, Trick Candles, Little Spirits, Darien Shields
Dolour and United State of Electronica veteran Shane Tutmarc is back with his latest project, Solar Twin, an electro-pop throwback to ’80s new wave nostalgia. He’ll be joined by Trick Candles, Little Spirits, and Darien Shields.
Tom Kha & Kremwerk Present: Ivy Lab
North London trio Ivy Lab explore a “new generation of sub-genres” in their music, birthed from the Drum’n’Bass scene of the early 2000s. Hear them perform with Nofux Gibbons and Portland’s Sublimate Crew.
SATURDAY
Haute Sauce: Lex Luger, Swervewon, Famous, Krescendo
Ask Dr. Dre, J Dilla, or DJ Mustard: Any rap producer who comes up with a distinctive sound is bound to see it bastardized, watered down, or appropriated. That axiom applies to Lex Luger, whose production style—bass-boosted 808s, skittering hi-hats, bleak synths—became synonymous with trap, which became the biggest cliché in popular music (especially once EDM dudes caught wind of it). Even so, Luger’s maximalist beats for the likes of Rick Ross, Gucci Mane, and Waka Flocka Flame still sound singular, particularly the latter’s 2010 album Flockaveli. Expect a set full of club bangers from a guy who’s made more than his share.
ANDREW GOSPE
MarchFourth, the Fungineers, DJ CobraWolfShark
The vivacious, extravagantly bizarre MarchFourth is a performance troupe that hails from Portland and features 15 or so members that encompass a full band (bassist, guitarist, percussion corps, brass section) along with fire-eaters, stilt walkers, burlesque dancers, and acrobats. Clad in bedazzled, repurposed marching-band-themed costumes given a burlesque-meets-vaudeville-meets-circus-tent twist (think lots of black-and-white stripes, gold buttons and sequins, feathers, and flamboyant head pieces), MarchFourth delivers a high-spirited, intoxicating mix of indulgent theatrics and musical mastery, their sound dousing New Orleans–style marching band brass with elements of hard rock, funk, gypsy jazz, Afrobeat, and even some Latin music. All together, it makes for one wildly eclectic stage show that is far from novelty and definitely worth checking out.
LEILANI POLK
New Year’s Eve-Eve ’80s Dance Party
Celebrate the end of a not-so-great year a day early with DJ Vox Sinistra and DJ Domenica. They’ll be spinning Italo disco, synth pop, and assorted ’80s dance tunes on vinyl.
Prince Tribute
If there’s a Prince-shaped hole in your life, fill it with covers by Derneill Washington, Mark Mattrey, Jamal Robinson, Melissa Montalto, Alex Mortland, and Andrew Nunez at this funky tribute show.
The Sacred Music of Duke Ellington
Legend has it that Duke Ellington began his sacred music composing—the first of three full programs of sacred (Christian) music his band would perform—with six notes standing in for the six syllables opening the Bible: “In the beginning, God.” Over on the West Coast, his co-composer Billy Strayhorn tackled the same opening. Then they compared results. They opened and ended on the same note, and only two notes were different. That was Ellington and Strayhorn—the symbiosis. And they created something grounded in jazz, with instrumental solos, gospel testifying, and heavy concepts. But swinging—always swinging. ANDREW HAMLIN
Tribute to TRIO: Songs of Dolly, Linda, and Emmylou
Where would any of us be without the magic and music of Dolly Parton, Linda Ronstadt, and Emmylou Harris? This tribute to the 30th anniversary of their TRIO recordings will show us just how valuable these women are, with an evening of classic covers by local women musicians and a support set by bluegrass band Farmstrong.
SATURDAY-SUNDAY
Eldridge Gravy & the Court Supreme, Bread & Butter
If there is one thing to do TWICE before the shitshow of this year ends, it’s go and get your get-downs you’ve been hopin’ to get off with Eldridge Gravy & the Court Supreme. Course it’ll be a breeze, ’cause, as I’ve said before, “They’re a full and funky complement of honkin’ horns, tinklin’ keys, uh, lots of sweat, and a hype man, all bent on laying down high-energy, concrete-thick, late-1970s funk.” Damn right, and I did say “twice,” as these mofos are playing a two-night stand to swing in the New Year!
MIKE NIPPER
Manatee Commune
Manatee Commune is gaining momentum as a producer of pleasant, chillworthy electronic songcraft with crossover potential. The Bellingham multi-instrumentalist has a sweet touch with melodies and a keen ear for vocalists—Moorea Masa, Marina Price, and Flint Eastwood—who complement his dewy, pastel tonal bouquets and delicate rhythmic origami. Manatee Commune’s self-titled album on Bastard Jazz explores the lushly beauteous, almost symphonic territory of fellow Washingtonians Odesza, but on a more intimate scale. Overall, the production is too well-scrubbed and cute for my taste, but there’s no denying the meticulous craftsmanship of it. This young man’s going to go far.
DAVE SEGAL
Sallie Ford, Lonely Mountain Lovers, La Fonda
Portland artist Sallie Ford on the bill is almost too good to take. Ford’s album Slap Back, on which she metamorphosed from very-good-singer-songwriter-with-a-country-bent to garage-soul-psych-rocker (who still writes fantastic songs), has made the past year a lot more bearable.
SEAN NELSON
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