Thursday 9/10

Endfest: Blink-182, Weezer, Taking Back Sunday, Great Northern, Chester French, Billy Boy on Poison

(White River Amphitheatre) Blink-182 belong among the ranks of Bud Light Lime, CBS's Big Brother, and Chelsea Handler—in the lower tiers of Western culture. We're talking about grown men singing pop-punk songs about high school. But, like citrus-infused domestic beer, voyeuristic competitive reality television, and snarky celebrity bashing, their low-grade products have provided me with countless hours of enjoyment. This is not the B-movie "so bad it's good" scenario. It's more of a "so bad you can't possibly take it seriously" situation. Then you realize Travis Barker is a phenomenal drummer, and then admit Blink-182's melodies are catchy. Next thing you know, it's no longer just a guilty pleasure. You find yourself contemplating driving to White River and hoping they sell Bud Light Lime. BRIAN COOK

Sneaker Pimps: Clipse, Slick Rick, They Live!, GMK, Thee Satisfaction, Them Team, DJ Sean Cee, Dave Jeff, Jaunted, Dkae

(Showbox at the Market) A quick search on Stuff White People Like doesn't turn up anything for "Clipse" or "coke rap," but surely that's just an oversight. The Virginia Beach duo of Malice and Pusha T have long been darlings of critic and cracker alike for their terrifically overextended drug-war metaphors (best served over the Neptunes' cooler than ice cold productions), while still walking the tightrope between commercial success and "street" credibility. Their long-awaited third album, Till the Casket Drops, the sequel to 2006's outstanding Hell Hath No Fury, is due out next month, and its lead tracks include a breezy, high-gloss celebration of affluence untroubled by trap talk ("I'm Good"); a snarling, guitar-fried "we're back" boast ("Kinda Like a Big Deal"); and a (strip-)club anthem ("All Eyes on Me"). ERIC GRANDY

Skee-Lo, Orbitron, Suede, Cato, Island Trybe

(Studio Seven) Of all the questions the hugely popular 1995 rap single "I Wish" left me with, the most pressing was this: What in the blue hell did L.A.-based rapper Skee-Lo want with "a rabbit in a hat with a bat?" I know from experience that Crenshaw was no Mayberry, but why would he need this cuddly combatant to do his dirty work? Or was there some kind of grimy, underground armed-animal fighting scene in Mid-City? Maybe some ill-conceived reference to Harvey or concepts later used in Donnie Darko? Think about it. Just how far down the rabbit hole are you willing to go, man? LARRY MIZELL JR.

Friday 9/11

EVAC, Greg Skidmore, the Algebra of Need, Retic

(Re-bar) See Data Breaker.

Jherek Bischoff's 30th-Birthday Concert: 13 Compositions for 40 Musicians

(Town Hall) See Stranger Suggests.

The Ghost and the Grace, Shane Tutmarc, Zoe Muth and the Lost High Rollers

(El Corazón) See Underage

Black Flag Covers (members of Akimbo, TAD, and Black Elk), Android Hero, Spirit of Radio

(Comet) At this year's Block Party, Seattle's decade-strong hardcore trio Akimbo closed their set with an explosive version of Black Flag's bratty "Thirsty and Miserable." The at-capacity crowd at Neumos—already exhausted and drowning in sweat from shoving and dancing through 45 minutes of the band's deafening noise—went completely apeshit. The only thing that got them to cheer even louder was singer Jon Weisnewski's promise that a full-on Black Flag cover set was coming soon. The future is now; tonight the band pick up where they left off, covering 14 more Black Flag tracks with members of TAD and Black Elk. Why? "Black Flag is perhaps the purest form of 'punk' that ever was," says the band. "Let's call it a reminder of what we used to have." Fuck yes. MEGAN SELING

Jim Haynes, Colin Andrew Sheffield, Rob Millis

(Rendezvous) When he's not scrawling intricate guitar calligraphy with Climax Golden Twins or sandblasting the air fantastic with AFCGT, Rob Millis maintains a low-profile solo career, as evidenced by rarefied releases like this year's 120 CD on Etude Records. A globe-trotting field-recording maven who's done solid work for subversive world-music label Sublime Frequencies and 78-resurrecting imprint Dust-to-Digital, Millis here shows his mastery of drone building, dream-logic collage and folkish songcraft over the disc's four lengthy tracks. Expect the unexpected—and witty quips between numbers. DAVE SEGAL See also The Score.

James Pants & the Royal Zodiac, Gary Wilson and the Blind Dates, Flexions, File Jerks

(Nectar) Spokane native James Pants records for the post-hiphop label Stones Throw, the L.A.-based house that Peanut Butter Wolf built with the great Madlib. It is also the house that has Jay Dee as its guiding spirit and that is currently at the center of a movement that's inspired by Jay Dee's style of slow and trippy funk. James Pants is not a disciple of Jay Dee. His first record turned instead to the '80s and reactivated the electro-disco-funk of that moment. His music is not serious but very playful and, at times, magical—in the way a faded or broken disco ball can be magical. CHARLES MUDEDE

The Avengers, Pansy Division, Paul Collins' Beat, Pranks

(Funhouse) In 1978, short-lived and not exactly prolific San Francisco punk band the Avengers opened for the Sex Pistols' last ever show, at SF's Winterland Ballroom ("ever get the feeling you've been cheated?" etc.). The next year, the Avengers broke up. Generously, one might see the band as a step between the early, straight-ahead punk rock of New York acts like the Ramones and the experiments toward hardcore of Black Flag. But there's not much here that sounds shocking or fresh or even warrants further attention 30 years on (certainly not compared to the acts mentioned above). Opening are Pansy Division, pop punks of a younger generation or two who were part of the '90s' "queercore" movement to inject openly gay voices into punk rock. Evidence of their accomplishment is that such a movement now would seem, outside of some small circles of tough-guy hardcore or crypto-Christian rock, almost unnecessary. ERIC GRANDY

Lesbian, Kinski, Arbitron

(Chop Suey) Lesbian—who I believe consist of four straight males—play a woebegone brand of metal involving eternal-bummer chords churned out in agonizing iterations while that guy on the mic corrodes its innards with a lifetime's worth of grievances and bilious saliva. It builds character, son. Combining downtuned power-mad guitar riffs with proggy, widdly-widdly-o flourishes, Lesbian put you through a memorable sonic meat grinder, very artfully. Kinski seem to get both heavier and more accessible with every show they do. They'll likely fill some of this set with songs destined for their next Sub Pop long-player. Here's hoping they cover Teenage Fanclub's "Alcoholiday," as guitarist Chris Martin is a huge fan of those Scots—and booze. DAVE SEGAL

Saturday 9/12

HEALTH, Past Lives, Pictureplane, Pregnant

(Vera) See preview.

Kyle Geiger, Uncommon Forms

(Re-bar) The artists on this bill offer a warehouse full of hard and heady techno. Local duo Uncommon Forms (Wisconsin émigrés Milkplant and Sone, who also run the excellent From 0-1 label) bring that Midwestern burliness to minimal techno's streamlined groove science. Indiana-based Kyle Geiger has earned support from banging-tekno magistrates like Drumcode label boss Adam Beyer and the savvy folks who book Berlin's Berghain club. His sets strike a motivational balance between the hard driving and the festively minimal, with strange textures and percussive accents festooning the uptempo kick/hi-hat action. Check out Geiger's mixes at www.kylegeiger.com for a representative sampling of his exquisite taste and momentum building. DAVE SEGAL

Midday Veil, Mangled Bohemians, Brother Raven, Sokai Stilhed

(Rendezvous) This show promises to set you adrift on blissful waves of analog-synth burbles and oscillations (see especially Brother Raven and Mangled Bohemians) and ectoplasmic, post-folk emanations (see especially Sokai Stilhed and Midday Veil). These artists—all of whom are local except for Portland's Mangled Bohemians—go for a song-form-dissolving approach that favors amorphous beauty and languorous drift over rigidly defined structure or rhythmic thrust. They don't write songs so much as they create aural flotation devices. Welcome to the pleasure om. DAVE SEGAL

Wehrwolve, This Blinding Light, C'est la Mort

(Cafe Venus) With a name so eagerly misspelled and reminiscent of supernatural evil, Wehrwolve could strike you as some kind of theatrical death-metal outfit with a blood fetish, but that would be inaccurate. The truth is so much more interesting: Wehrwolve stack sounds amid and among each other—a plaintive beeping from a sci-fi horror film mixed with a mournful cello, with excited acoustic guitar slathered on top. Some songs have distant, churchlike vocals tucked behind the beats. They place these sounds next to one another, and sometimes they throb and merge into something tuneful, while other times the aggressive anti-rhythm becomes beautiful, like a chip on a marble statue. PAUL CONSTANT

The Bishop/Corsano/Chasny Trio, Wally Shoup, Chris Corsano

(Sunset) Sir Richard Bishop, Ben "Six Organs of Admittance" Chasny, and experimental drummer supreme Chris Corsano should make for a combustible "evening of improvisational and free-form jazz," as the Sunset bills it. My research unearths no documentation of this threesome, live or on record, so we could be witnessing them together for the first time. When the talent level is this lofty, you should make it a priority to witness potential once-in-a-lifetime musical magic. Veteran Seattle free-jazz saxophone colossus Wally Shoup opens with the ever-inventive Corsano. DAVE SEGAL

Super Geek League, Billy the Fridge, Johnny Sonic, Dead Vampires, MC Psycho the World's Worst Comic

(Crocodile) If this Super Geek League show is anything like the Showbox gig I saw when they played with the Jim Rose Circus and WWE wrestling heavy Jake the Snake Roberts, then audiences should expect a Polyphonic Spree–esque rock 'n' roll freak show—complete with robots, clowns, burlesque (including a barely dressed Fuchsia FoXXX), skeletons, garden gnomes, and one Sammy the Dwarf dressed as a leprechaun. And if all this isn't enough, there's the Ramones-y monster rock of the Dead Vampires, geeky electronica of Johnny Sonic, what Billy the Fridge calls his "Patented Fat Brand of Punch Face Hiphop," and somebody MCing the whole mess who calls himself "the world's worst comic." KELLY O

Sunday 9/13

Placebo canceled. I got nothing.

Monday 9/14

The Asteroid No. 4, the Morning After Girls, Black Nite Crash

(Comet) Since their inception in 2003, New-York-City-by-way-of-Melbourne sleepy psychedelic rockers the Morning After Girls have toured with many of their most relevant reference points—Dandy Warhols, Brian Jonestown Massacre, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, and Warlocks (with whom they just hit town last month). Morning After Girls' aesthetic is probably closest to the Dandy Warhols', without being quite so cloying. The songwriting is much better than Warlocks' (though nowhere near as rocking) and 70 percent of anything Jonestown figurehead Anton Newcombe commits to tape, although it doesn't even come close to that other 30 percent. GRANT BRISSEY

The Psychedelic Furs, Happy Mondays, Amusement Parks on Fire

(Moore) Happy Mondays have probably gobbled up more drugs than you'll ever see in your life, and yet here they are in 2009, not dead, and even still joined by mascot/dancer/vibe-facilitator Bez, who's had some odd troubles with tax evasion and reality television since the band's Madchester heyday. About that heyday: Between binges, the Mondays made some ridiculously addled dance music, bridging funk, post-punk, and pre-rave with bleary-eyed agitation and well-baggy ease. The Psychedelic Furs recorded the song that lent its title to John Hughes's Pretty in Pink, and its easy to see why they fit so well into that director's iconic teen oeuvre—their songs are as melodramatic as teen angst and as distinctively memorable as the best of Hughes's dialogue. (Though, really, "Into You Like a Train" or "Dumb Waiters" are the better songs.) ERIC GRANDY

Tuesday 9/15

The Pains of Being Pure at Heart, the Depreciation Guild, Cymbals Eat Guitars

(Neumos) See Stranger Suggests.

Pink, the Ting Tings

(KeyArena) Interesting pairing. Pink started out as an R&B singer marketed to the teen-pop crowd, then went studio-rock for a bunch of 2001's Miss-undaztood, which featured two of the decade's defining hits: the robo-thump of "Get the Party Started" and the depressed-teen blues of "Don't Let Me Get Me." Nothing she's done since has been half as impressive, though, including last October's Funhouse, with its compressed-to-hell, yawn-inducing anthems. The Ting Tings have only one album to date, but if you've managed to avoid "That's Not My Name" anytime in the past year-plus, gold star. MICHAELANGELO MATOS

CocoRosie

(King Cat Theater) In the six years since the eerily beautiful bathtub recording La Maison de Mon Rêve, sisters Bianca (Coco) and Sierra (Rosie) Casady have launched an interdisciplinary career, playing hundreds of shows and festivals in Europe—as well as in Australia and Argentina—while keeping busy on the side (becoming fashion icons, transforming a Paris storefront into a tea gallery, opening visual art shows in NYC, Milan, and Miami). Dubbed freak folk, art rock, triphop, blue, and primitive, they describe their cotton-candy-tinged, fluorescent fiasco as a "weird continuity of deliberate mistranslation." CocoRosie's lilting lyrics weave through dark, forbidden worlds with the callow innocence of a fairy dreamland. Bianca's Newsom-esque warble sometimes teeters on helium-pitched, but anchored by the operatic aura of the classically trained Sierra and accented by flittering harp, warping toy noisemakers, hiphop beats, and found sounds galore, it works. Live shows are a black-lit spectacle of fabulous fabrics and projected video—this rare U.S. tour is not to be missed. JESSE VERNON

Wednesday 9/16

D.Black, Dyme Def, They Live!, Darrius Willrich, DJ Vitamin D, Spaceman

(Crocodile) See preview.

Frightened Rabbit, the Twilight Sad, We Were Promised Jetpacks

(Neumos) You could sell me just about any old act with a Scottish accent, so much the better if they're brooding and miserable, alternately mewling meek and bombastically anthemic. So Frightened Rabbit, the Selkirk, Scotland, act formed by brothers Scott and Grant Hutchison, are kind of a big "no duh" in my book. Scott, who began the band as an acoustic solo project, sings with the kind of broken but tuneful wail that armchair medics like myself like to describe as "wounded." The band's 2008 album, The Midnight Organ Fight, is full of fast-sticking songs, but best among them are the dizzy, sunlit, and heart-pounding "I Feel Better," the downtrodden but determined "Fast Blood," and the charged piano ballad "The Twist." Death Cab for Cutie picked the band to support them on their UK tour last year, and it's easy to see why. The Twilight Sad are equally Scottish and appropriately sad, though they emote through more of a wall of distortion than do their tourmates and countrymen. I refuse to listen to a band named We Were Promised Jetpacks. ERIC GRANDY