THURSDAY 5/10
CHANGE VERSUS COMFORT, THE IRONCLADS, THE LIGHT BRIGADE
(Blue Moon) Change Versus Comfort won one of the Strangercrombie auctions last year. As part of their prize, I had to hike up to Sand Point to meet the young men, hang out during their rehearsal, talk to them about their music and their lives, and then write about it. Having no idea what I was in for, I was a bit terrified. Consider all the possibilities that I could’ve faced—shitty ICP-wannabe rap rock played by chubby-faced white-hat-wearing frat boys, perma-stoned Dave Matthews Band devotees who think endless jamming is like, totally cathartic, man, or sarcastic and scary hair-metal assholes who don’t know how to play a guitar solo in under five minutes… I shudder to think. Turns out, Change Versus Comfort are a very not-offensive rock outfit influenced by all kinds of music—they have a history of rock, jazz, hiphop, even some obscure world stuff. Plus they’re friendly, and they play a wicked Genesis cover. You could do worse. MEGAN SELING
ACID MOTHERS TEMPLE, MAMMATUS
(Chop Suey) You know that roommate—the one who shuts his door a lot? And smokes funny things? And talks about Can, fractals, sugar products, military hangars, Terence McKenna, thought attacks, and designer tennis shoes? Acid Mothers Temple are a band-dwarfing Japanese freak-out collective of uncountable aliases (Acid Mothers Temple & the Melting Paraiso U.F.O., Acid Mothers Temple & the Pink Ladies Blues, etc.) and endlessly rotating members, with one of the largest outputs known to man. Attached like a parasite to classic psychedelia, the group outmaneuvers usual experimentalists with extreme noise backed by a total lack of self-awareness, attempting trance states out of songs that repeat the word “what” 24 times before squalling out like a fighter plane dropped into a field of Captain Beefheart records and bagpipes. They are his favorite band. GUY FAWKES
THAT 1 GUY, ROCK ‘N’ ROLL SOLDIERS, WOLFF
(Crocodile) “That 1 Guy and His Magic Pipe” sounds like a stoner update of a Mozart opera; that’s not too far from the truth. The guy is Mike Silverman and the pipe is his homemade instrument of choice—a seven-foot-tall, electronically wired, PVC-and-metal contraption that came to the Bay Area native in a dream. Silverman—a classically trained bassist and all-around string master—plucks, thumps, twists, and loops his manic plucking on the Magic Pipe, keeps time on a kick drum, sings Les Claypool-esque stomp-funk vocals on top, and generally carries on in a sweaty, theatrical way. He’s a one-man band that puts one-man bands to shame. JONATHAN ZWICKEL
FRIDAY 5/11
BROKEN DISCO: KNIFEHANDCHOP, PassionS, SUNTZU SOUND, NOMINAL.I, NDCV, NORDIC SOUL, KRIS MOON, NAHA, MC ANTON BOMB
(Chop Suey) See Bug in the Bassbin, and Stranger Suggests.
BLUE SCHOLARS
(Showbox) See preview and Stranger Suggests.
HIGH ON FIRE, IAMTHETHORN, MICO DE NOCHE, SLAVE TRAITOR
(Hell’s Kitchen) Early next week, High on Fire will begin recording their new album, Death Is This Communion, with Jack Endino. This gig, one of a few regional dates preceding the trio’s immersion in a Seattle studio, will preview material earmarked for that fall release. It’s an ideal showcase: With High on Fire’s intoxicatingly heavy epics, familiarity is no prerequisite for enchantment. Death‘s tunes contain the first songwriting contributions from Zeke’s Jeff Matz, who replaced fellow local legend Joe Preston as High on Fire’s bassist last year. Matt Pike, unquestionably the lowest-tuned player on Rolling Stone‘s recent arbitrary “guitar god” list, ranks among metal’s sludgiest shredders, and he stretches his solos live. Drummer Des Kensel never uses the double-bass pedal, instead concentrating on making every strike colossal. ANDREW MILLER
SATURDAY 5/12
BLUE SCHOLARS
(Showbox) See preview and Stranger Suggests.
THE BLAKES, SPEAKER SPEAKER, THE WHORE MOANS
(Crocodile) Speaker Speaker’s songs barrel downhill like a bike with broken brakes, fast and reckless. Lead singer Colin McBride has the kind of breathless whine and cracking voice that could only sound great breaking all over hectic, duct-taped-together pop punk (of the Jawbreaker rather than the Blink 182 variety). But while taking inspiration from Jawbreaker is always a good idea, having the audacity to cover them is a risky business (I’m still pissed about the Ataris’ version of “Boxcar”). The Whore Moans deal in dirty guitars, dark organs, and shredded vocals that reveal the heavy influence of the early Murder City Devils—and that’s not a bad thing. These guys aren’t fucking around, and it’s nice to have some unapologetically wasted and bloody punk rock in Seattle again. ERIC GRANDY
A-FRAMES, CHEVEU, TYVEK, NICE SMILE
(Funhouse) Tyvek is a synthetic material made of high-density polyethylene that’s very difficult to tear and often used by the U.S. Postal service for Priority Mail envelopes. It’s also a weird and wiry punk band from inner-city Detroit. It’s been suggested that Tyvek’s fuzzy, scratchy lo-fi sound is uniquely “21st-century decaying Detroit”—that the music is a product of the burnt-out city: the empty buildings, the loneliness, alienation, and boredom. There’s something in the buzzed-out crudeness and raw, almost awkward vocals that suggests that if the Dead Boys’ Stiv Bators and Pere Ubu’s David Thomas could somehow have a baby and raise it in the Dirty D, that baby would stay in its room all day, writing bastard songs that sound a lot like Tyvek’s. KELLY O
BOW+ARROW, JOEY CASIO, LITTLE PARTY AND THE BAD BUSINESS, TALBOT TAGORA
(Old Fire House) Seattle’s Bow + Arrow bristle at being called emo, and it’s understandable. For many, that phrase evokes little more than the gothic cirque-du-emo crap of Panic! at the Disco or My Chemical Romance. But before it was all eyeliner and spectacle, emo was just a thoughtful, melodic offshoot of hardcore, and it’s from this older, deeper well that Bow + Arrow draw inspiration. The band recently doubled in size to include a second guitarist and a bass player, lending their already compelling songs greater weight and dynamics. Another trait of old-school emo that the band keep alive is a fiercely radical political consciousness. Band members are involved with the Seattle DIY collective among other things, and one of their numbers is a tribute to Josh Harper, a local animal-rights activist jailed for refusing to cooperate with a grand jury. ERIC GRANDY
SUNDAY 5/13
DEATH OF A PARTY, PARIS SPLEEN, TEETH AND HAIR, CAPTAIN INCOGNITO
(Comet) Tacoma’s Paris Spleen tap into the early ’80s post-punk of bands like Joy Division and Gang of Four and more-recent revivalists like the Rapture. Their best songs mix morose vocals with rhythmic stabs of guitar and loosely pulsing bass. Their worst songs sound painfully indebted to Out of the Races and Onto the Tracks. Port Townsend’s Captain Incognito similarly borrow from modern bands that are themselves heavy borrowers—Franz Ferdinand, the Strokes, and Interpol most conspicuously—but whatever, their songs are original and catchy enough to stand on their own. Lead singer and guitarist Nico Janssen’s vocals are cool and resonant, and his guitar work turns easily from jagged melodies to sunny choruses. Bassist Kyle Hove and drummer Conor Sisk keep a steady rhythm throughout, accented by the occasional handclap or backup shout. ERIC GRANDY
FERGIE, HILARY DUFF, LILY ALLEN, KATHARINE MCPHEE
(Everett Events Center) I can’t think of a better way to spend Mother’s Day than to take mommy dearest to the Everett Events Center and subject her to Fergalicious’s “lovely lady lumps” and Hilary Duff’s watered-down pseudo-dance drivel that’s even more vapid than Mandy Moore’s early “Candy” years. Oh wait, yes I can. How about you give her a lobotomy? Or flowers filled with killer bees that will sting her in the eyes until she goes blind? Maybe you could buy her a box of chocolates laced with medical-grade laxatives? C’mon! After all your mom has done for you, you wouldn’t dare think to drag her to this show, would you? Love your mom; celebrate her. Don’t take her to a show that will make her feel ashamed to be a woman. MEGAN SELING
PETER BJORN AND JOHN, Fujiya & Miyagi
(Neumo’s) You can’t stop hearing it, can you, that whistling that’s been stuck in your head since, what, last summer? That would be “Young Folks,” the dangerously memorable single from Swedish group Peter Bjorn and John’s 2006 album Writer’s Block. Apparently, the band doesn’t do the whistling themselves live, ceding that all-important task to a sampler instead. But who cares? It’s still one of the best songs to come out in the past year, and the rest of the band’s album is, if not quite as infectious, still full of gorgeous pop moments. Beyond the fake whistling, these guys are total professionals when it comes to live performances. ERIC GRANDY
MONDAY 5/14
EL-P
(Neumo’s) See preview.
EVERCLEAR, 3 INCH MAX
(Crocodile) I fondly remember Everclear. I was 14 years old, maybe 15, when I was really into them. They were the “Just another overdose!!” band from Portland, OR, who sang rock songs about girls strung out on heroin and glow-in-the-dark stars stuck to bedroom ceilings. Those were good days. Anything past Sparkle and Fade, though, is fairly worthless—hook-filled Top 40 soccer-mom rock—and the latest incarnation of the band is more of an Art Alexakis and Co., as not a single member of the original band remains besides the crazy-eyed frontman. So is Everclear playing tonight? Yes. And will they play the “Just another overdose!!” song? Probably. But it won’t be the same. MEGAN SELING
TUESDAY 5/15
THE SEA AND CAKE
(Neumo’s) See album review.
WEDNESDAY 5/16
It’s coming.