JON AUER, PANTY LIONS, IRVING, ALARM BELL
(Crocodile) On Irving's debut, Good Morning Beautiful, the songs don't sound identical, but they all come from the same place: Guitars jangle and hum, tambourines and cymbals rattle jubilantly, and harmonies line up like layers in a Neapolitan candy. On record, the band is hopelessly groovy, and even a little claustrophobic (imagine listening to a record made by the voices in Brian Wilson's head), but live, watching them switch the microphone around from member to member should make the show entertaining, if not completely chaotic. TIZZY ASHER

LOAD LEVELERS, THROW RAG, FLAMETHROWER, JIMMY FLAME AND THE SEXXY BOYS
(Graceland) Like the Cramps before them, Throw Rag add an extra element of psycho to the psychobilly genre--although instead of creeping up from the Black Leather Lagoon, the band from the Salton Sea, California, swaggers from behind a bar stool to tell tales of cheatin' girlfriends, booze-addled mothers, and jealous boyfriends. The band creates a smarmy world where the devil's voice whispers from behind both shoulders and the only angel in sight got the D.T.'s long ago. With the addition of instruments like a washboard and a Jew's harp, Throw Rag make menacing music that gives the oldest warnings in the book, using tools you don't hear too often in this trade. JENNIFER MAERZ

HORRIBLE, EXBESTFRIENDS, LOVELESS AND THE GOODNIGHT TRAIL
(Sit & Spin) After pulling a rather harsh disappearing act last winter, eXBeSTFRIeNDS are re-emerging with a new bass player and drummer in tow, and the band is planning on playing out much more regularly. Loveless and the Goodnight Trail are steadily building a following with their angular, R.E.M.-on-Ritalin pop-rocking, and headliners Horrible hold a great deal more potential than their name gratuitously implies. The relatively new band is led by guitarist Fred Speakman (formerly of the Droo Church and Officer Down), a criminally underlooked player who blew all the prog-heads away with his performance at the recent Yes cover night. HANNAH LEVIN

CHRIS ROBINSON
(Showbox) See Bio Box p. 57

EPOXIES, THE GLORY HOLES, THE WOLFS, THE POPULAR SHAPES

(Crocodile) I know everyone loves to compare the Epoxies to old stuff like X-Ray Spex, Devo, and Adam and the Ants... the "new" new wave, but the Epoxies are more than that. They're doing something brave and new for punk rock, not unlike what Miss Kitten and the Hacker are doing for electro. The Epoxies put on an insanely fun live show, and they're more energetic than anyone I've seen up on a stage in a very long time. KELLY O

AREA 2: DAVID BOWIE, MOBY, BUSTA RHYMES, BLUE MAN GROUP, ASH, JOHN DIGWEED, DJ TIESTO, DJ DAN, AVALANCHES, DIESELBOY, DJ TIM SKINNER
(The Gorge) Moby's handpicked selection of a post-Lollapalooza variety is just a good excuse to see David Bowie live. Otherwise, it's a long way to go for an overpriced dance party. MARK J.

RYE COALITION, GOLDEN, NEW LUCK TOY, COBRA HI
(Graceland) You can be tight and sound as if you're about to derail at the same time--New Luck Toy are proof of that. This local band performs fast, furious New York- and British-influenced new wave, melded with a ferocious rock quality that roars down at top speed. Guitars sound like keyboards at times, and every song New Luck Toy play during their much-too-short set ratchets up the excitement and audience frenzy. Clearly NLT is one of the best fledgling bands in a city full of fine new performers. KATHLEEN WILSON See also preview page 47.

QUESTLOVE, URSULA RUCKER W/QUESTLOVE
(I-Spy) "Poised, she rises like a Phoenix from the flame, finally bored with their feeble fuck games... she smooth reaches behind her and takes straight aim at eight shriveled-up cocks with a fully loaded Glock." So uttered poet Ursula Rucker in "The Unlocking," a brazen tale of inner-city gang rape that closed the Roots' major-label debut album and introduced an impassioned new voice coming out of Philadelphia's literary/hiphop underground. After having provided the coda to each Roots album since, Rucker's currently performing material from her powerful 2001 debut, Supa Sista, along with newer works. Employing a voice that's seductive one minute and glacial the next, Rucker delivers gritty, provocative street-life portraits--addressing such highly charged themes as child abuse, sexual oppression, racial identity, and social strife--with breakbeats and jazzy, soulful grooves bracing her potent images. MICHAEL ALAN GOLDBERG

SWEET SCIENCE, SAETA, HYPATIA LAKE, MAGSTATIC
(Sit & Spin) What is it with these experimental bands and their vaguely comical names? The moniker Sweet Science certainly doesn't mesh well with the decidedly heady and somber music created by this Bainbridge Island trio. Their stylistic influences are mercurial--shifting from jazz to post-rock to jam-band weirdness in a matter of seconds--but Sweet Science are hardly light of spirit. This is serious music for serious people. Opener Saeta are releasing their third record, Resign to Ideal, a Kramer-produced opus that promises more eerie cello/piano/voice suites. TIZZY ASHER

ENON, BLOOD THIRSTY LOVERS, TK WEBB
(Graceland) See preview page 43.

MICHAEL ROSE
(Ballard Firehouse) A reggae vocalist could not have a better name than Michael Rose! Before you've even heard him singing, his name tells you everything: Michael Rose = Sexy Man. Rose was once the lead singer of Black Uhuru, during what some consider to be its peak period. Certainly that is debatable, but what's for sure is anyone who doesn't own a copy of Guess Who's Coming to Dinner (1981) is, as Mr. T once put it, a fool. The record combines Rose's super-sexy vocals with Sly and Robbie's impeccable drum 'n' bass. CHARLES MUDEDE

THE FALL-OUTS, THE WIRETAPS, POPULAR SHAPES
(Sunset) Formed in the late '80s, the Fall-Outs helped form and influence the contemporary garage scene, yet remain relatively unmentioned in written "histories" on the Northwest sound. However, their avid following is no small number, remaining loyal through lineup changes, a lengthy hiatus, and sporadic releases. The Fall-Outs' sound is a perfect culmination of feverishly catchy melodies, guitar-forward drive, and pop. Their lyrics run the spectrum of loss, laziness, and heartache, but lack pretension. Live, the Fall-Outs are tight and modestly proficient, highlighting how far the open-mouthed antics of the new wannabes are from the real thing. For those who have lamented the non-follow-up to their mid-'90s garage classic "Sleep," tonight's the night to check out the new tunes currently being recorded for a new album. FEN HSIAO

MEMPHIS BLEEK, BEANIE SIGEL, NOREAGA
(I-Spy) In the documentary Backstage, thug rapper Memphis Bleek, who is down with the Jay-Z crew, says the most extraordinary thing. He states that the ghetto is better than the suburb, not because the ghetto offers an abundance of thug pleasures (easy women and drug money), but because if you live in the ghetto you are more likely to pursue celebrity rather than stability. His reasoning is this: The middle class are tied down to home payments and car payments and need steady, real-world jobs to sustain their mundane lifestyles. If you come from the ghetto, however, nothing restrains you from imagining the impossible--Rap stardom! MTV hos! Stretch limos!--and using all of one's resources to realize that impossible dream. This kind of thinking is nothing short of amazing--fucking, fucking amazing! CHARLES MUDEDE

Turntables on the Hudson, Kings of Convenience, Darek Mazzone
(Sky Church) If lately life has left you feeling like rehydrated cat food, and you have an extra $20 in your sad, sad pockets, move on over to the Sky Church and revel in the moodily melodic strummery of the Kings of Convenience, who are creeping across the country on their first-ever U.S. tour. Quiet Is the New Loud (2001), aside from winning my vote for dumbest album title of the year, is a disc bursting with Scandinavian charm and filled with '70s-era allure and catchy (if dour) melodies, as is the slightly faster remix album (Versus) from later that year. KATE PREUSSER

PETER PARKER, DORKWEED, DEAR JOHN LETTERS
(Sit & Spin) Dorkweed, whose Fluxivity Test Project just came out, have made a career out of an interesting premise: Write hooky songs about nothing in particular. The band's songs have subjects, they just tend to be fairly pedestrian things, so that a CD track listing tends to read like someone's free-association project. This can be a strength: Most of the situations described are so commonplace as to evoke an amused smile of recognition in the listener. And, of course, the music is solidly written and more than competently performed. As Dorkweed get better at what they do, their music's central conceit grows stronger, too. It would be interesting, though, to hear the band use this device to deeper effect. GENEVIEVE WILLIAMS

SEATTLE HEMPFEST
(Myrtle Edwards Park) Speaking of weed, bro, the Hempfest sets aside two days to celebrate the kind, sticky nugs. This event features DJs, live bands, speakers, and, presumably, hacky sacks, hairy legs, and dogs named Kaya. DR. HARRY BUDS

CORNELIUS
(Showbox) See preview p. 48

SEATTLE HEMPFEST
(Myrtle Edwards Park) See Saturday August 17.

KITTIE, SHADOWS FALL, KILLSWITCH ENGAGE, HOTWIRE
(Graceland) It's getting much harder to call Kittie "that teenage Canadian chick thrash-metal band" these days. For starters, they're only 66.6 percent pure Canuck (newish bass player Jennifer Arroyo is from Staten Island, NY), and live, they're only 75 percent female (guitar-tech-turned-axman Jeff Philips ratchets up the group's monstrous bellow and body-hair quotient on stage). And singer-guitarist Morgan Lander has learned to occasionally set aside the Slayerisms and purr a respectably honeyed melody, teasing and charming you like Homer's Sirens before drowning you in those demonic death shrieks you know and love. But don't let recent titles like "Pink Lemonade" and "Safe" throw you off. Kittie's assault is still plenty potent, just not so full-frontal anymore. MICHAEL ALAN GOLDBERG

We could have ice cream but somebody unplugged the fucking refrigerator.

MISFITS 25TH ANNIVERSARY PARTY FEATURING MISFITS, HIMSA, DIRTY THIEVES, YOUTH AT RISK
(Catwalk) It would be easy to write off the current incarnation of the Misfits as just another group of backing-band hacks trying to soldier on without their primary songwriter/frontman, and, to an extent, this wouldn't be entirely incorrect. The "new" Misfits material has never recaptured the effortlessly catchy horror-rock anthems of Walk Among Us, and no frontman could ever match the Elvis-meets-Lugosi swagger of Glenn Danzig in his heyday. However, Danzig isn't exactly writing quality material these days either and has violently severed any connection with his first (and best) band, so I say bully for bassist Jerry Only to carry on. The current Misfits incarnation is Only, Marky Ramone, and Dez Cadena (who was the best of all of Black Flag's frontmen), playing a mix of classic songs from all of their previous bands. WILLIAM BULLOCK

THE BAD WIZARD, DÄLEK
(I-Spy) Things to expect from Bad Wizard frontman Curtis Brown: he douses headbangers with beer; he staggers, struts, and often rips off his (and sometimes his bandmates') shirts; and he taunts the audience with Bon Scott-era AC/DC songs like "Come On." The band's crowd-pleasers--"Lay Your Love on Me" and "Keep High/Stay Low"--combine blues-infused Sabbath and Blue Cheer guitar riffs with the energy of Tight Bros. from Way Back When at a volume that would make Christopher Guest of Spinal Tap proud. Watch out for Bad Wizard's follow-up to Free and Easy this October. LISA LEEKING

THE NAYSAYER
(Crocodile) There's a lonely desert at sunset, a dusty wind curling around your feet, and, in the distance, a coyote frames itself against the moon, preparing to howl. These are stills from the film that should accompany Heaven, Hell or Houston, the second country-tinged effort from the Naysayer. Songwriter Anna Padgett (along with Retsin's Cynthia Nelson and Tara Jane O'Neil) expresses solitude in all its forms, from the disconnect of a bad relationship to the quiet of a desert night. Her voice is almost too jagged at times, but still brings a comforting sense of solace and familiarity. This is a world that we all know, either consciously or unconsciously. The Naysayer just understands how to make it tangible. TIZZY ASHER