THURSDAY 3/29

PONCHO SANCHEZ LATIN JAZZ BAND
(Jazz Alley) See The Score.

VERUCA SALT, CHARLOTTE MARTIN, THEE EMERGENCY
(El Corazón) It's easy to pick sides when a band breaks up, backseat driving the behind-the-scenes drama like we're somehow involved. So when Nina Gordon left Veruca Salt after "Seether" and a couple of charming albums of mid-'90s alternative crossover feminine power-pop, one camp went with her and the other waited to see what cofounder Louise Post would do when she kept the band going. Result? We got "Born Entertainer," a narrow-eyed and world-trashing freefall of nasty-ass feedback crashed against a glow of a chorus—the Shangri-Las after the apocalypse. Then we got last year's IV, too, an underheard fidget between dark halls of vintage college rock and spontaneous, self-aware optimism. Veruca Salt had changed, but hadn't really weakened. No pileup just yet. GUY FAWKES

THE WHORE MOANS, AMERICAN SCHOOL OF WARSAW,MOSQUITO NECKTIES
(Hell's Kitchen) Yeah, maybe their new album, Watch out for This Thing, sounds a whole lot like the Murder City Devils at times, but fuck, man. If you're gonna rip someone off, there are two rules and the Whore Moans nail both of 'em: (1) rip off someone awesome, and (2) be goddamn good at it. Check and mate, my friends. The Whore Moans take the dirty swagger of MCD and get it all riled up with some more aggressive punk flavor. It's quite a scene to see 'em live, too, as you could imagine—energetic is an understatement. They just hauled their little sideshow down the West Coast, so tonight's Tacoma show is a homecoming of sorts. Hopefully they're not too exhausted to melt your skin off. MEGAN SELING

MACROMANTICS, NRDLNGR, TULSI, DJ COLBY B
(Chop Suey) Let's get the identity/authenticity politics out of the way: Macromantics (former Noise Addict Romy Hoffman) is a white, female, Australian rapper on Kill Rock Stars. She's also a serious tongue twister and a frighteningly verbose lyricist. This is not the stuff of Lady Sov or Streets-style international crossover, though. Macromantics' tracks are way too verbally dense and sonically middling, and the content is pretty specifically backpacker: hazy leftisms, multisyllabic non sequiturs, freshman-level cultural studies (she references Susan Faludi, Tobey Maguire's Spiderman, Steve Urkel, Britney Spears, and Christina Aguilera, all in the song "Bandwagon," for instance). The production is professional but not exceptional, and Macromantics' barrage of words frequently dominates the mix but fails to dazzle. ERIC GRANDY

FRIDAY 3/30

PONCHO SANCHEZ LATIN JAZZ BAND
(Jazz Alley) See The Score.

DRUM ENCHANTED EVENING
(Recital Hall at Benaroya) See The Score.

RANDY NEWMAN
(Paramount) Randy Newman's single "A Few Words in Defense of Our Country," his first non-soundtrack/compilation release since 1999's Bad Love, proves the hiatus hasn't dulled his acerbic wit. Addressed to an overseas audience, "A Few Words" begins with this apologetic assessment: "Now the leaders we have/While they're the worst that we've had/Are hardly the worst this poor world has seen." While playing incongruously perky piano riffs, Newman then chronicles the atrocities of the Caesars, King Leopold, and tyrants of their ilk, his signature spoken/sung delivery seeming even more subversive due to its familiarity in friendly Disney-animated settings. During "A Few Words," Newman suggests America's "time at the top might be coming to an end," but his own pinnacle position among the country's songwriting satirists remains secure. ANDREW MILLER

THE MOONDOGGIES, PURTY MOUTH, LUDWIG'S VAN
(Blue Moon) The Moondoggies bow to the millennium by maintaining a MySpace presence, but the laid-back practice tapes uploaded as samples don't reflect the heat and dust these local youngsters are capable of kicking up on a good night. They cop hard off the Basement Tapes—era Band and clearly aspire to jammier heights, but solid songs and a hard rhythm keep the proceedings earthbound and dignified. It's as if some disgruntled Sunset Strip combo circa 1966 got sick of competing with all the Buffalo Springfields and Loves on the scene, built a time machine, and high-tailed it to a future where rock bands are scarce. Why else would they call themselves the Moondoggies, a moniker better suited to a Canadian surf band than anything close to hep? Because they're as old as our dads, that's why. FRED BELDIN

SATURDAY 3/31

PONCHO SANCHEZ LATIN JAZZ BAND
(Jazz Alley) See The Score.

MAN MAN
(Neumo's) See preview.

TOM BAKER QUARTET
(Gallery 1412) See The Score.

TUDOR CHOIR
(St. Mark's Cathedral) See The Score.

KEN ANDREWS, FIRST WAVE HELLO, KEY NOTE SPEAKER
(Chop Suey) Seattle may have been known as the twin capital of grunge and heroin in the early '90s, but it was L.A. alt-rock trio Failure who best managed to capture on record the dynamic, hypnotic, and narcotic sound of those two worlds colliding. The band disbanded after 1996's epic masterpiece Fantastic Planet, with cofounding member Greg Edwards going on to form Autolux and touring guitarist Troy Van Leeuwen helping to hatch A Perfect Circle. While none of the participants has strayed far from Failure's expansive-yet-claustrophobic, darkly shimmering art rock, it's cofounder, producer, vocalist and multi-instrumentalist Ken Andrews who has most closely kept the faith. Secrets of the Lost Satellite is Andrews's latest foray into releasing his own material, and it's as spellbinding as you'd expect. BARBARA MITCHELL

D. BLACK, DYME DEF, CHOKLATE, KHINGZ OF ABYSSINIAN CREOLE
(Vera Project) D. Black presently stands as the flagship artist for Seattle's premier (and nearly only) hardcore-centric rap label, Sportn' Life Records. Undiluted and unapologetic in his forthright flow and narrow-eyed content, D. Black spits, like rappers from here to Manila, about the grind of the drug game, servicing fiends, surviving the harsh tokes of growing up in the hood, making and having money, and beating dudes down. Last year's full length, The Cause & Effect, sought to set a substantial stake for D. Black by musically running the gamut of modern commercial rap music. "Get Loose" sports a beat that aims for the same sort of inarguably swaying pomp as the most mammoth radio rap crushers, but also sounds a little unpleasantly reminiscent of Ice Cube's recent "comeback" single "Go to Church." "Swing," meanwhile, evokes the both sonic and conceptual minimalism of some recent Southern singles, and ends up feeling like a somewhat less invigorated Three 6 Mafia. SAM MICKENS

JENNIFER O'CONNOR, JESSE SYKES & THE SWEET HEREAFTER
(Tractor) Jennifer O'Connor reminds me how rad it was when Liz Phair first declared that girls can be delicate, slutty, badass, and weird, all at the same moment. O'Connor's latest album has the same spareness Liz had in the Matador years (fittingly also O'Connor's label), and something about her voice conveys a Phair-like confidence that stops just short of swagger, as if to say, "Look, bitches: I don't need your fancy production or your faux-intellectual vocab to write good songs. Just gimme a guitar and a stretch of empty highway. And maybe a Xanax." But there's a lot more pain in O'Connor's voice—the result, maybe, of living through truly bad shit like the death of two sisters and what sounds like a few thorny breakups. Husky and Aimee Mann-ish, O'Connor's tone flirts with listlessness on her sadder songs but cracks with air and promise just when you wonder if her spirit's been broken for good. Despondency never felt so uplifting. MAYA KROTH

PAT METHENY, BRAD MEHLDAU
(Paramount) The "butterflies of the soul," as neurons were poetically dubbed by early brain scientists, not only serve as the pixels of human experience and perception, they contain in their flickering, winged lifespans the very notions of the human potential. No American music has mirrored the brain's dancing particles better than bebop and its true, direct-line musical descendants (read: not-smooth jazz). Both pianist Brad Mehldau and guitarist Pat Metheny have had successful careers as modern jazz artists, and both have maintained a keen focus on the sort of jazz that is at once highly cerebral and stirringly visceral. Both have certainly wandered far from the confines of purity (Metheny with both extremely experimental noise guitar records and Mehldau with unlikely covers of a bunch of Radiohead songs), and they ultimately stand as fairly rare and shining examples of how jazz music can still be a force for utter human elevation. SAM MICKENS

SUNDAY 4/1

SEATTLE PHILHARMONIC
(Meany Hall, UW Campus) See The Score.

PONCHO SANCHEZ LATIN JAZZ BAND
(Jazz Alley) See The Score.

LESLIE & THE LYs, SCREAM CLUB, TEAM GINA
(El Corazón) Leslie & the Lys are the hiphop performance act by that nutball Leslie Hall, the gem-sweater lady. You remember her, right? The deadpan chubbstress with the giant '80s eyeglasses, blond bouffant, and skin-tight gold-lamé spandex pants? She's gotten hype in Vice, Bust, and Paper magazines, and her self-portraits have graced the cover of this rag. She's an internet darling, and between her site www.gemsweater.com and the hilarious videos on YouTube (check "Gold Pants Lullaby" or "Ring My Bell") you've no doubt seen her face. She's got the uncomfortable genius of a good punk drag queen, except she's actually a girl (I think). How her comedy, which relies so heavily on the visual of her clothes and crazy situational drama, will translate into a touring live music show remains to be seen. KELLY O

MONDAY 4/2

JIM KNAPP ORCHESTRA
(Seattle Drum School) See The Score.

WOVENHAND, WILLARD GRANT CONSPIRACY, PALODINE
(Triple Door) How do you like your Bad Seeds? David Eugene Edwards, the twisted, gothic-Americana mind behind Wovenhand (and, previously, 16 Horsepower) leans more toward the early stuff, the "Papa Won't Leave You, Henry"—type epics where battle-ready floor toms goad on chaotic crescendos and the strained shrieks of a singer about to lose his shit. Listen to the amazing "Winter Shaker" from his band's 2006 release, Mosaic, and watch out for the whiplash. On the other hand, there's Robert Fisher of Willard Grant Conspiracy. With a husky voice and a predilection for morose pedal-steel sing-alongs, he sounds like he spent all that angst years ago and now wants little more than a bed to lie in. If you had to tie him to an era of the Seeds, it would be their later period of plaintive arrangements and reflective themes. Putting these two on the same stage could mean a showdown to see who can do Nick Cave better. JOHN VETTESE

TUESDAY 4/3

JOHN SCOFIELD TRIO
(Jazz Alley) See The Score.

WEDNESDAY 4/4

DIE! DIE! DIE!, PARTMAN PARTHORSE, GUESTS
(Funhouse) New Zealand's Die! Die! Die! combine tense, cranked guitars with squalling feedback, careening drums, and urgent, acidic vocals. Fans of the late, great Welsh rockers Mclusky may find some solace in Die! Die! Die!'s smart, noisy racket. Like that band, Die! Die! Die! lace their distorted skronk with enough clever pop hooks to keep things interesting. Their self-titled debut "full-length" (the 10-song album is just over 20 minutes long) was recorded by indie audio wizard Steve Albini, and it benefits from a simple, live production. Die! Die! Die!'s live shows look to be intensely energetic, although the Funhouse's ceiling is probably too low for them to do any back-flips. Partman Parthorse pack plenty of sharp, noisy attitude as well. Ears will be ringing early tonight. ERIC GRANDY