WEDNESDAY 6/14
Steve Turner Reads from Mud Ride
(BOOKS) Mudhoney and Green River guitarist Steve Turner made it through the music-biz grinder and grunge mania with his wits intact and, what do you know, he’s a damn good writer. Anyone who read his liner notes for the Mudhoney’s March to Fuzz compilation could glean that Turner possessed wit and facility for turning a phrase. Now he’s written Mud Ride: A Messy Trip Through the Grunge Explosion—it’s a clear-eyed, engrossing memoir that details his musical and personal journey while providing a subjective mini-history of Seattle’s underground-rock scene and his bands’ role in it. To celebrate Mud Ride‘s release this week, Turner will read an excerpt from the book at Elliott Bay Books Wednesday night. (Elliott Bay Books Company, 1521 11th Ave, 7:30 pm, all ages, free) DAVE SEGAL
THURSDAY 6/15
(PRIDE) Burlesque performer Mx. Pucks A’Plenty is celebrating their 39th birthday and you’re invited. At Pride & Pucks, catch them and other performers like Goddess Briq House, INGA, Celia Lipshutz and more perform their favorite songs. Matt Baume talked to A’Plenty about the magic of funk music, Black joy, and the all-BIPOC festival What The Funk?! in 2021—they said, “There is just something magical about funk music. You hear a funk song and it’s hard to stay in a bad mood.” Make sure to bring cash for the performers and drinks at the bar. (West Hall in the Oddfellows Building, 915 E Pine St, $25 general admission/$39 front row seating/$180 VIP cabaret seating for up to four people with table service and an “extra special goody bag from the Birthday Them”) VIVAN MCCALL
FRIDAY 6/16
(FILM) Users is a beautifully filmed meditation on the future of motherhood and technology. The film’s director, Natalia Almada, is also a photographer and this fact is visible in Users‘ many sublime (in the Kantian sense) images and sequences. Our whole planet is being transformed by communication technologies and industrial transportation networks. This is the Anthropocene; the age when the third chimpanzee (as Jared Diamond described his kind) dominates the seas, the skies, and land. Almada begins her work, which is often slow and has none of the excesses that made Godfrey Reggio’s Koyaanisqatsi: Life Out of Balance ridiculously famous, in a past that’s almost mystical. Way back then (the land before time?), expecting parents had no idea if their child would be a boy or girl. There was no gender. These benighted people had to select a female and male name before the birth of their child. These days, just about everything is known about human pregnancy. Science can tell us the date of birth, the sex, the health, and genetic composition of a fetus. Science is also building for the children of today an earth that will be more like a spaceship than a planet. A line between science and science fiction does not exist in Almada’s film. (Northwest Film Forum, 1515 12th Ave, multiple screenings through June 30, $7-$14) CHARLES MUDEDE
SATURDAY 6/17
(MUSIC) For 14 years Porchlight Coffee & Records has been a Capitol Hill staple, but there’s more to it than great Herkimer coffee and a thoughtfully curated selection of vinyl. At his cozy and minimalistic 14th Avenue space, Porchlight owner Zack Bolotin has hosted live music (Waxahatchee, Laura Stevenson, Jeff Rosenstock), featured work by artists from around the world (recently Francesco Ciccolella, Nao Tatsumi, and ceramics from West River Field), and expanded the brand to include an independent record label and a design boutique, under which Bolotin creates wonderful mid-century inspired show posters, home goods, and merchandise for bands, venues, and local businesses. (My current obsession is this set of Elephant Car Wash juice glasses.) If you bring your pooch along on your coffee run, Bolotin will also love your dog as much as you love your dog, a fact in and of itself worth celebrating. Happy birthday, Porchlight! (Sunset Tavern, 5433 Ballard Ave NW, 8:30 pm, $15, 21+) MEGAN SELING
SUNDAY 6/18
(FILM) The film that introduced the leftist genius of Bong Joon-ho to the West is Memories of Murder. Before this film, which was completed in 2003, much of the world knew close to nothing of the director; after it, cinephiles from Paris to Seattle were waiting for his third film, which turned out to be the brilliant creature feature The Host. What links those early films with Bong’s most recent and famous one, Parasite, is a strong sense of political economy from the perspective of class struggle. Indeed, one of the world’s leading economists, Ha-Joon Chang, presented a must-see analysis of Parasite, “The Political Economy of Parasite,” in 2021. In Memories of Murder, which is set in the late 1980s and concerns a rural detective (the great Song Kang-ho) and a seemingly uncatchable serial killer, the political is always in the background. It’s seen in the industrialization (factories, tractors, commodified products) and proletarianization of South Korea. And Bong refuses to point out the procedural’s real criminal: the killer or capitalism? The film ends with no answer. (Grand Illusion, 1403 NE 50th St, multiple screenings June 17-20) CHARLES MUDEDE
MONDAY 6/19
Juneteenth 2023 w/Talib Kweli and Kevin Ross
(JUNETEENTH) Once upon a time, hip-hop produced not only rappers but intellectuals. These men and women often used complicated rhymes to critique our race-and-class-structured society. One such rapper is Talib Kweli, who, with Yasiin Bey (formerly Mos Def), dropped the last great hip-hop album of the 1990s, Mos Def & Talib Kweli Are Black Star. Kweli and Bey also bought and ran a Brooklyn bookstore, Nkiru Books, that featured the literature of the Black world. Though the unapologetically intellectual Kweli never made it to the mainstream, rap’s first billionaire, Jay-Z, admitted that “If skills sold, truth be told, I’d probably be lyrically Talib Kweli.” (Jimi Hendrix Park, 2400 S Massachusetts St, noon, free, all ages) CHARLES MUDEDE
TUESDAY 6/20
(MUSIC) While we mourn two pioneers of Brazilian psychedelia, Rita Lee and Gal Costa, it’s wonderful to see the next generation of tropicália stars come up. My favorite troubadour of this new wave is the São Paulo-based singer-songwriter Sessa. His sound ranges from transcendent nylon-string guitar tunes (reminiscent of Leonard Cohen) to free-flowing bossa nova, which is backed by a five-woman choir. He returns to Seattle for the first time in three years to support his 2022 album, Estrela Acesa. (Madame Lou’s, 2505 First Ave, 8 pm, $18, 21+) AUDREY VANN
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