THURSDAY JAN 30
Free Valentines
(OUR GIFT TO YOU) Every year in our Valentine’s Day issue, we here at The Stranger donate a hefty amount of editorial space–space we normally squander on our incessant rantings–for you, our dear readers, to blubber away about those you love. It is a free service, this opportunity to blubber, so by all means send in your love notes. Information can be found on page 13, or just go to www.thestranger.com and follow the link. And please, try to keep the “Schmoopies” and “Lub-a-dub-a-doos” to a minimum. Love, BRADLEY STEINBACHER
FRIDAY JAN 31
Zen Guerrilla
(MUSIC) Zen Guerrilla are a rock ‘n’ roll religion of their own making. The band’s been around longer than God (well, since the early ’90s), and frontman Marcus Durant is a rock ‘n’ soul preacher whose Good Book is filled with psychedelic musings. The San Francisco band’s blues/gospel/Bowie-cover sermons are delivered with more sweat than an evangelist on the stand for tax evasion, and their theatrical energy only adds fuel to the musical grease fires that spread throughout their live shows. (Graceland, 109 Eastlake Ave E, 381-3094, 10 pm, $8 adv.) JENNIFER MAERZ
SATURDAY FEB 1
Farewell Fallout
(SUPREME SADNESS) Tim Hayes, owner of Fallout Records, recently announced the sad news that his East Olive Way record store will be shutting its doors permanently in February (see p. 36) after many years of operation. Although Seattle has its share of fine independent places to buy music, the news of Fallout’s shutdown is really disheartening, as Hayes is a very active member of the Seattle punk community–from supporting local bands to booking nights at the short-lived Continental to housing art openings and selling non-major-label CDs (plus lots of local stuff on consignment) and indie magazines/zines. Today marks Fallout’s final in-store show, with the super amazing Viva L’American Death Ray Music (think garagey Velvet Underground), and a good reason to show support for a guy/store that consistently made a positive mark on the local independent music scene. (Fallout Records, 1506 E Olive Way, 323-2662, 3 pm, free.) JENNIFER MAERZ
SUNDAY FEB 2
Jesse Paul Miller
(ART) Here is Miller’s Secret Records (Redux), a set of cast-resin record albums (shown years ago at SAM) annotated with the kinds of castoff items and trash that make you think the artist must be hooked into some information channel the rest of us can’t hear. It’s a kind of frustrated synesthetic experience–the records you can’t listen to, the information you have no access to, the system so wildly personal and abstract that you can only begin to guess at its meaning. But so very, very cool. (Wall of Sound, 2237 Second Ave, 441-9880. Through March 31.) EMILY HALL
MONDAY FEB 3
William Gibson
(READING) Author of one of the most important novels of the 20th century, Neuromancer, William Gibson comes down to Seattle from heaven–Vancouver, BC–to promote his new novel, Pattern Recognition, which is not, as all of his previous novels, set in the near future. It is instead set in the here and now–our world, our time–with a heroine whose eyes are real eyes and not electronic mirrorshades. It seems that the eventful future described in Neuromancer has finally arrived in Pattern Recognition‘s post-9/11 datascape. (University of Washington, Kane Hall, room 130, 634-3400, 7 pm, free. Also Tues Feb 4 at Elliott Bay Book Company, 101 S Main St, 624-6600, 7:30 pm, free.) CHARLES MUDEDE
TUESDAY FEB 4
Ascent
(FILM) On film, dear old Mother Russia is all snow crushed by army boots, human spirits crushed by ludicrous governmental stricture, and viewers’ attentions crushed by ponderous pacing. Larisa Shepitko’s Ascent, a story of Russian fugitives behind German lines in Belarus, is an exception to the rule that just because a movie was made in the Soviet ’70s, it has to be a crushing bore. Dramatically bold and radically self-critical, Ascent is also rarely screened, and like several of the films in the Northwest Film Forum’s current “futility of war” series, a bit more morally complex than your typical antiwar screed. (Fri-Sun Jan 31-Feb 2 and Tues-Thurs Feb 4-6 at the Grand Illusion, 1403 NE 50th St, 523-3935, $7/$4.50 members.) SEAN NELSON
WEDNESDAY FEB 5
I Put a Spell on Me
(FILM) Screamin’ Jay Hawkins, the subject of I Put a Spell on Me, was a crazy man–not “get the fuck away from me with that thing” crazy, but crazy like emerging on the stage in a coffin with a flaming skull named Henry at his side, drunk, groaning and gurgling his way through his blues ballads with psyche-ward-worthy abandon (especially odd since he got his start in the 1950s). Although he’s best known for his freakish cover of “I Put a Spell on You,” what Hawkins collection would be complete without, say, a copy of his “Constipation Blues”? (You can’t say the guy lacked a warped sense of humor.) If this documentary is half as entertaining as its eccentric subject, that’ll still be twice as good as anything else in the theaters tonight. (JBL Theater at EMP, 325 Fifth Ave N, 770-2775, 7 pm and 9 pm, $5 members/$7 general.) JENNIFER MAERZ