Flavr Blue @ Neumos
What kind of Northwest do we experience in the elegant pop techno of the Flavr Blue? In the tunes by this trio (Hollis Wong-Wear, Lace Cadence, and Parker Joe), which has its roots in 206 hiphop, we see our city and region as a home for a kind of melancholy that’s not so much about being alone or longing for a lover but about having a lover one can’t fully connect with. This kind of Northwest melancholy also captures the sense that, even if the affair is working out, even if there is a connection, the happiness is as fleeting as cherry blossoms. The Flavr Blue have been steadily and impressively improving this new Northwest mood since their 2012 debut, Pisces. CHARLES MUDEDE
Indies First @ Various locations
Fuck Black Friday and fuck doorbusters. Get drunk the day after Thanksgiving the way the pilgrims intended and celebrate Small Business Saturday instead. Independent booksellers observe the day after Black Friday with a program called Indies First, in which authors serve as guest booksellers. At participating bookstores (University Book Store, Elliott Bay Book Company, Queen Anne Book Company), kickass novelists like Karen Finneyfrock, Sonora Jha, Jonathan Evison, and Indies First creator Sherman Alexie will recommend their favorite books, personalize their own books, and generally just be available for you. Can’t buy that at a Target. PAUL CONSTANT
Navvi @ Barboza
Seattle’s in the midst of an electronic-pop renaissance, and NAVVI and Sister Girlfriend represent two of its more accomplished practitioners. NAVVI (Kristin Henry and Brad Boettger) craft elegant, downtempo tunes that are shrouded in a maroon synthesizer mist and peppered with crisp, staccato beats. Henry sings with an icy, alluring delicateness, and there’s something of FKA twigs’ methodical beauty happening in NAVVI’s music. The music of Sister Girlfriend suggests a fantasy world where a brash Hall & Oates go on a prog-rock/futuristic-R&B bender. The four dudes in Sister Girlfriend take a glittery, circuitous route to your heart, and their aim is mostly true. Ladies gonna be faintin’. DAVE SEGAL
Young Evils & Co. @ Tractor Tavern
The Young Evils’ immediately forthcoming False Starts EP is a record borne of tons of strife and annoyance. Whisked off to LA by a major label, the garage-pop band with the sparkly melodies banged their heads against the corporate-rock wall until they were finally set free and allowed to take their music with them. But out of this season of strife and annoyance comes the highly pleasurable False Starts, featuring six shining examples of the work they tried and failed to release as their “major label debut.” Ditching their Vaselines-y beginnings, the Young Evils apply themselves to full-band rave-ups on False Starts, and tonight they celebrate their freedom at the Tractor, along with Black Whales and Timbre Barons. DAVID SCHMADER
Paperboys @ Triple Door
A nine-piece Celtic rock/pop group hailing from Vancouver, Canada, the Paperboys mix traditional Irish folk music and instrumentation with what a press release might term a “modern pop twist.” In the interest of transparency I may as well mention that they were also the band at my sister’s wedding and crushed it. They were the Platonic ideal of a good wedding band: relentlessly upbeat, adept at covers, and unabashedly crowd-pleasing through and through. Which makes it all the more disappointing that I haven’t cared for a single record they’ve put out since Molinos, which came out all the way back in 1997. They’re doing that bland, MOR adult-contemporary thing and have lost much of their youthful vigor and energy; here’s hoping they still bring the ruckus live. KYLE FLECK
Plus all this. Or just go frolic in our wee dusting of snow, the choice is yours!