As this crazy year of music quickly comes to a close, it's hard to imagine a story more phenomenal than the rise of Seattle's Hardly Art record label. In the course of this year, the small revivalist-leaning label has dropped wildly popular albums from the Moondoggies, the Pica Beats, and, quite possibly most important, the Dutchess and the Duke. On its initial July release, all of Seattle was abuzz about D&D's debut, She's the Dutchess, He's the Duke. Its songs were hailed as the second coming of '60s songsters like Bob Dylan and the Rolling Stones, and hell if its single "Reservoir Park" wasn't this years "Paint It Black"—jangly guitars glimmering, shakers and claps filling the space around vocalists Jesse Lortz and Kimberly Morrison's hopeless voices all made for a song that was addictive and inescapable. KEXP blew it up like it was going out of style, the album flew off record-store shelves, and the band were swiftly shipped out on the lonesome road imagined in so many of their songs for a lengthy U.S. tour. It's been a while since we've heard much from the band, but no doubt they'll deliver an early holiday present for their fans when they take the stage at the Vera Project this Friday.

Fri Dec 12: The Dutchess and the Duke, Panda & Angel, Kusikia, Another Perfect Crime at the Vera Project, 8 pm, $11 (10 w/ club card).

Fri Dec 12: Jinu Park at Q Cafe, 7:30 pm, $8.

Fri Dec 12: Phantom of the Opera (w/ live soundtrack) at Gallery 1412, 8 pm, donation.

Sat Dec 13: Hawnay Troof, Little Party and the Bad Business, Talbot Tagora, the Wiggins at the Vera Project, 8 pm, $9 (8 w/ club card).