Thursday 11/12
Pixies, Rain Machine
(Paramount) See Stranger Suggests, and Fucking in the Streets.
Blockhead, DJ Signify, WD4D and Dead Noise, DJ Absolute Madman
(Chop Suey) Blockhead's path to recognition was Aesop Rock, a NYC rapper whose path to recognition was Def Jux, the Def Jam of the 21st century. Blockhead has done production work on all of Aesop Rock's albums, two of which—Float and Labor Days—are underground-hiphop masterpieces. Blockhead's style is not usually the sort rappers enjoy or appreciate, as it brings a lot of attention to the music (the richness of rhythms, the depths of beats, the sad sweetness of strings) and does not merely function as a backdrop for the busting of rhymes. For this reason, it's not surprising that Blockhead's solo work has been released by one of the two most famous triphop labels, Ninja Tune (the other is Mo' Wax). Blockhead is all about that abstract shit, that hiphop for the head. CHARLES MUDEDE
Krafty Kuts
(Trinity) They really do breed the breakbeat party-hounds over in Brighton, England, don't they? Martin Reeves, who does business as Krafty Kuts, makes and remixes tracks as bulbously get-down-ready as his homeboy Fatboy Slim, but it's Reeves who's been on a minor roll these past few years—with DJ-mix CDs for the FabricLive and Back to Mine series that hew to the long-standing big-beat template of old funk, populist rap, the odd pop nugget, his UK contemporaries, and lots of scratching and oddly congruous blends to show us why he goes by that name. MICHAELANGELO MATOS
Sleepytime Gorilla Museum, Faun Fables
(Neumos) Bay Area avant-rockers Sleepytime Gorilla Museum are known more for their live performances than for their recordings, both of which can be challenging to the uninitiated. SGM supplement standard rock instrumentation with violin, mallet percussion, something called a "sledge-hammer dulcimer," and other instruments, incorporating '90s-era metal brutality and staccato guitar tangents in their overall cacophony. Add the group's gothic theatrical aesthetic, otherworldly vocals, and skewed song construction, and the result comes off something like a punk-rock opera. This bizarre recipe has earned SGM a legion of dedicated, courageous followers. GRANT BRISSEY
Friday 11/13
Stranger Genius Awards: They Live!, Throw Me the Statue, U.S.F., Emerald City Soul Club
(Moore) See preview.
Bonkers!: PotatoFinger, Ill Cosby, Splatinum, Hanssen, Norse Rarebit
(Re-bar) See Data Breaker.
Pixies, No Age
(Paramount) See Stranger Suggests, and Fucking in the Streets.
Harshfest: XISIX, bllix, Amphetamine Virus, Page 27, Blackcell, In the Age of Terminal Static, Brocken Spectre
(Josephine) See Saturday and The Score.
Mudhoney, Brothers of the Sonic Cloth, Unnatural Helpers
(Neumos) Tonight's show featuring three of Seattle's hardest, heaviest, and most concisely catchy rock bands is part of the release party for Grunge: Photographs by Michael Lavine. In the book's intro, Thurston Moore writes: "The identity of punk rock in early-eighties America was at once elite and free..." The iconic faces that appear in the black-and-white photos of Lavine's new tome, those of bands and local scenesters, are truly from another time—a pre-condo-boom Seattle, a city that still had grit and teeth... and, um, maybe even a Mohawk or two. This event is sure to be a reunion of icons who were once the most elite in all of the Pacific Northwest. KELLY O
Grand Hallway, Final Spins, the Parson Red Heads, Cabinessence
(Sunset) The opening track on Grand Hallway's latest record, Promenade, is called "Raindrops"—and it's one of the best love songs I've heard in a long time. It starts simply, with an acoustic guitar riff prancing along to some piano, and then the percussion comes in, sounding, aptly, like a choir of raindrops dropping onto rooftops. Singer Tomo Nakayama notes the environment around him—construction and cranes and mothers walking with their children—and exclaims, "But I'd rather be with you," and BOOM! The song explodes. The horns swell, harmonies kick in and Nakayama jubilantly lists all the times he wants to be with his love: "when you wash your hair," "when you go to work," "when you pay your bills." It's so pretty and lush and pure—it perfectly captures the feeling of being completely in love. MEGAN SELING
Saturday 11/14
J4CK17: Hi Octane, M'chateau, Trench
(Re-bar) See Data Breaker.
Harshfest: Goly Grim, Slicing Grandpa, Hellgrammite, Galdr, Penetration Camp & Angela Martinelli, Overdose the Katatonic, Forest of Grey
(Josephine) Perhaps you prefer your poison with a heavy serving of expressionistic zeal. You want your musical purging of demons delivered by miscreants, and you want it to serve as a suitable reflection of the confused, isolated, and destructive state of modern man. Well, then, the Josephine should be your destination this evening. Harshfest wraps up its three-night run with an assortment of regional acts bent on exploring the boundaries of music and deconstructing modern artistic paradigms. If the conventional use of instruments bores you, or if you feel cleansed after being bombarded by waves of white noise, or if you merely choose to revel in all that is ugly and unvarnished, you will be in good company at the Josephine. BRIAN COOK See also The Score.
This Blinding Light, Trawler Bycatch, I'm a Gun, City of Ships
(Comet) Seattle quartet This Blinding Light appear to be using ritualistic Native American and/or occult practices to help launch their astromaniacal rock ramblings. They achieve ecstatic trance states through obsessive riff repetition—an old, reliable method that hits the soul's sweet spot head-on when done by those acutely attuned to the most sublime chords and textures. In this way, This Blinding Light follow in the valiant tradition of groups like the Velvet Underground circa "Sister Ray," the Stooges, Loop, Monster Magnet circa Tab, Pharaoh Overload, and Endless Boogie. Portland's Trawler Bycatch make tangled-up-in-feedback rock and roll that shares Royal Trux's Captain Beefheart/Ornette Coleman infatuation—rad madness. Locals I'm a Gun also bring the heavy raunch (similar to Jennifer Herrema's RTX), but with a more straightforward thrust. They sound like they're great in bed. DAVE SEGAL
Emerald City Metalfest: Suffocation, the Faceless, Vital Remains
(Studio Seven) Perhaps you prefer your poison with a heavy serving of fictional evil. You want your musical purging of demons delivered by capable and well-rehearsed musicians, and you want it to serve as a platform for morbid imagery and lyrical excursions into the deep recesses of the human soul. Well, then, Studio Seven should be your destination this evening. Emerald City Metalfest kicks off its first night with Suffocation and Vital Remains—two of the longest-running bands in death metal—along with current malevolent torchbearers the Faceless. If radio metal bores you, or if you feel exorcised by blast beats, tremolo-picked guitars, and guttural vocals, or if you merely choose to revel in all that is unholy, you will be in good company at Studio Seven. BRIAN COOK
Sunday 11/15
Fuck Buttons, Growing
(Chop Suey) See Stranger Suggests, and preview.
Electric Six, the Gay Blades, Millions of Brazillions
(Neumos) On Kill (Metropolis), their seventh album, Detroit's most ridiculous rock band still grinds out thick guitar riffs and disco-friendly beats in the service of humorous conceits such as "Escape from Ohio" ("Don't you want to come with me/And make a break for Kentucky?") and "Waste of Time and Money" ("Once I wrote a gospel out of everything you say/But now you're on the front page of the USA Today"). In other words, Detroit's Electric Six haven't changed a bit since 2003's Fire and its Jack White–abetted hit "Danger! High Voltage." Even in a culture of overproduction, their boffo style might seem unnecessary—but if the show I caught a few years ago is any indication, they're committed to bringing it live. MICHAELANGELO MATOS
Kiss
(KeyArena) Not counting the unfortunate Unmasked years, the great American entity known as Kiss have been putting on ridiculously entertaining live shows since before your parents were born. For the three-and-a-half-decades-celebrating "Alive 35" tour, Kiss—now featuring Gene Simmons, Paul Stanley, and two guys dressed up as "The Spaceman" and "The Catman"—are giving fans the whole blood-soaked, hit-packed, flash-pot-exploding shebang. Expect a night of hard-rock camp at its finest (and thank God for the makeup covering their ugly old asses). DAVID SCHMADER
Neon Indian, Disko Bay, Concours, D'Elegance
(Nectar) So, uh, how 'bout that chillwave, eh, guys? Chill enough for you? Austin/Brooklyn-based Neon Indian dwells in the more cartoonishly colorful, carnivalesque end of the microgenre's spectrum, making breezy electronica that sometimes wanders into the nightclub district, with compression-flattened drum-machine beats and synth parts that lock into on-beat arpeggios as often as they noodle off into the archetypically chill sunset. (Neon Indian sole proprietor Alan Palomo also makes more straight-ahead electro "bangers" under the VEGA moniker.) The act's debut, Psychic Chasms, is pleasant listening, Todd Rundgren sample and all. Disko Bay are a Ballard trio who set melancholy whining to metronomic electronic beats and single-finger synth lines. I couldn't get past the opening line of "To Date"—"word to the mothership"—but I made it through almost all 4:26 of the dully meandering "Content" before bagging off. ERIC GRANDY
Brokencyde, Kill Paradise, Watchout! There's Ghosts, Blood on the Dance Floor
(El Corazón) With the exception of Christian "crabcore" act Attack Attack (also playing this week, Tuesday at El Corazón; take a minute to Google these terms if you're unfamiliar—shit's hilarious), Brokencyde may be the single most heinous musical atrocity to emerge out of the past year. A four-piece joke from suburban "Albu-crazy," New Mexico, the act combines the worst elements of "emo" and "crunk" (off-key "emotive" whining and screaming, crap beats, two kinds of disrespect for the ladies) while looking like a Hot Topic vomited all over them. If you can watch more than 15 seconds of their breakout YouTube clip "Freaxxx," you are a champion of ironic appreciation. If you dare go to this show, you're just fucking crazy. ERIC GRANDY
Monday 11/16
Audion, Pezzner, James Grindle, Travis Baron
(Triple Door) See Stranger Suggests, and Data Breaker.
Raphael Saadiq, Anjulie
(Showbox Sodo) Raphael Saadiq's show at the other Showbox (at the Market) on March 5 was one of the best concerts of the year, a throwback R&B revue in the style of the great The Way I See It (Columbia), his 2008 Motown-manqué move. Not that Saadiq is altogether new to retro tinges: 2004's Ray Ray tipped its hat to '70s blaxploitation soundtracks, and his '90s band Tony! Toni! Toné! brought supple old-school flair to new jack swing. The Market show tied it all together with a bow, and in his mustard-colored suit and horn-rim glasses, Saadiq had the ladies screaming. Even if the echo at Sodo is too much, it's worth finding out why. MICHAELANGELO MATOS
Julian Plenti, I'm in You
(Chop Suey) As one of Interpol's staunchest haters, it makes perfect sense for me to preview the Seattle debut of Julian Plenti (Interpol frontman Paul Banks's new project). Well, hate is too strong a word to apply for my feelings toward the wildly popular New York band; indifference and astonishment over how such drab approximations of Joy Division and Kitchens of Distinction have become media/radio/alt-rock sensations would be more accurate. All that aside, Banks's solo debut album, Julian Plenti Is... Skyscraper, treads slightly more interesting ground than does Banks's meal ticket. Now, instead of grayscale, earthbound neo-postpunk, Banks is making grayscale, earthbound neo-postpunk with more electronic and orchestral embellishments. Hey, it's still better than Editors—I'll give him that. DAVE SEGAL
Tuesday 11/17
Girls, Dominant Legs
(Neumos) You really can't fuck with San Francisco band Girls' bio: Born and raised in the Children of God cult—which forced his mother into prostitution and allowed his brother to die because they didn't believe in medicine—Christopher Owens was given his first guitar by former Fleetwood Mac guitarist and fellow cult member Jeremy Spencer, learned to play by busking, ran away from the cult to Texas punk gutters at 16, landed a wealthy benefactor, then returned to SF to start this band. Blah blah blah—so, how's the music? Good. And fucked-up. And kind of all over the place. Owens sings with a wounded but biting croon reminiscent of a young Elvis Costello, and his songs range from seriously needy plaints to fuzzed-out, carefree surf pop, all treated with softly psychedelic production. Oh, hey, did we mention the super-NSFW video (two words: penis microphone!) that they made for their irresistibly catchy song "Lust for Life" (no relation)? Yeah, well... ERIC GRANDY
Wednesday 11/18
The Fiery Furnaces, Cryptacize, Dent May
(Chop Suey) See preview.
Grant Hart
(High Dive) Last month I praised the visiting Bob Mould for "having co-powered the best American band of the 1980s," and this month, I get to lavish equal praise on Hüsker Dü's other great co-power. Grant Hart may have never managed another semibreakthrough band à la Mould's Sugar, but his 1989 release Intolerance remains my favorite solo record by a Hüsker Dü member, and his best songs—"Diane," "Terms of Psychic Warfare," "Sorry Somehow"—are eternal classics. Tonight Hart plays out in support of his new solo record, Hot Wax. DAVID SCHMADER
Anti-Pop Consortium
(Studio Seven) Back from a seven-year hiatus, New York foursome Anti-Pop Consortium strike this longtime hiphop listener as one of the genre's greatest combinations of musical and lyrical inventiveness. All three MCs—Beans, High Priest, and M. Sayyid—also make beats while producer Earl Blaize hangs in the background, just as crucial to APC's overall sound as the more prominent figures. Their comeback album, Fluorescent Black, is a slightly smoother reiteration of the spiky, diamond-sharp electro funk APC cut on Arrhythmia for the revered Warp label. APC triple-team the mic, raising braggadocio to a science while waxing wise on political and societal issues through surprising, odd metaphors and similes. And unlike many hiphop artists, they thrive in live settings. DAVE SEGAL See also Stranger Suggests, page 31.
Russian Circles, Young Widows, Helms Alee
(Neumos) Here's a tip: Right now, go get the new Russian Circles record, Geneva. Now go home, put it in the CD player or load it into your computer or put it on your turntable or whatever, and turn it up. Louder. Turn off all the lights, lie on your bed or your floor or your couch, and close your eyes. And just listen. Do nothing else. This instrumental record is so goddamn overwhelming—from the booming bass lines to the soaring, buzzing guitar riffs—it shouldn't be listened to while you're doing anything else. It needs your full attention. And it's good that you're lying down. Because afterward, you're gonna need a nap. MEGAN SELING
