Thursday 11/26

ToneBender

(Lo-Fi) Jesus Hellcat Christ. You ate too much, drank too much, and listened to too much banal and/or infuriating chitchat from relatives whom you, thankfully, rarely see. You've gotta get out of the house/condo/apartment/log cabin/igloo and get your head right again. That's where ToneBender can come in handy. The DJs at this weekly—Randy, Paul, Mitch, and Jacob—know their shoegaze rock like, um, the top of their feet, and they're gonna swathe you in luxurious guitar whirlpools until your tryptophan fugue state dissipates into a dreamy, FX-laden rock swoon. Expect to hear the cream of the Creation Records early-'90s roster as well as choice selections of post-punk and Britpop. It's the best feeling of Loveless-ness you'll ever experience on a national holiday. DAVE SEGAL

Friday 11/27

Friendly Fires, the xx, Holly Miranda

(Neumos) See preview, and Stranger Suggests.

Macklemore, Ryan Lewis, Helladope, the Nextdoor Neighbors, Kung Foo Grip, DJ Sabzi, Grynch

(Nectar) See preview.

Eric Duncan, Trouble Dicso DJs

(Re-bar) See Data Breaker.

Wanda Jackson, Marshall Scott Warner, Petunia & the Vipers

(Tractor) Everybody has a story like this: Somebody offered you tickets to Johnny Cash when he was in town, and you passed because you were busy or because you were broke. Or you missed Merle Haggard for the same reason, and you've got to wait another five years before he blows back into town. Don't make that mistake here: Wanda Jackson is the queen of rockabilly, and if you miss her, you'll kick yourself for years to come. Jackson was there at the birth of rock and roll, and in many ways, her swagger—seriously, listen to "Hot Dog! That Made Him Mad"—was more of a precursor to punk music than Elvis's velvet swoonery. This is like Mount Rushmore traveling to Seattle. This is monumental in every sense of the word. PAUL CONSTANT

The Pharmacy, Thee Sgt. Major III, Head

(Sunset) Did you know that Seattle expats Scott Yoder, Stefan Rubicz, and Brendhan Bowers—aka poppy party punks the Pharmacy—have a new LP called Weekend? An album birthed in a New Orleans bayou? And did you know it's rumored that they're now living in a van with an old four-track? And surviving exclusively off fried chicken and red wine and Dr Pepper? They're on tour right now. Bowers says, "We just played a basement in Helena, Montana, to five 16-year-olds who were all wearing matching Bad Religion T-shirts. Their dad smoked us out, and then we went to a strip club. Come see us in Seattle! Thee Sgt. Major III are playing. And Head, that old Seattle punk band! Neat." Neat, indeed. KELLY O

D.R.I., Black Breath, Countdown to Armageddon, Deathraid, Odd Rule

(El Corazón) When Dead Kennedys' Jello Biafra chided "crossover" as "just another word for lack of ideas," he was deriding the glut of classic hardcore bands transitioning from their punk roots into the more marketable realm of heavy metal. To a certain extent, the gripe was valid: Many hardcore bands from the 1980s abandoned their early, vital sound in favor of slower, more adept, and far less interesting material. D.R.I. are considered the original "crossover" band, but it's strange that their blend of styles caused controversy. Their later albums were still solid affairs, even if they were markedly less thrashy. And in 2009, most modern hardcore bands proudly wear their metal influences on their sleeves. D.R.I. were just a step ahead of the game. BRIAN COOK

The Lonely H, the Raggedy Anns

(High Dive) The '70s-rock record bins of Port Angeles must be dusty and vacant—the five boys of the Lonely H plundered them all. You can hear the long nights of grooving to Bob Seger, the Eagles, and the rest of those geezers in the Lonely H's cocaine-Clapton guitar licks, Hammond chords, and rambling, country-rock song structures. And the lyrics! "I'm a singer/I'm a vagabond/Tradin' verses for a tear/I'm a singer/Livin' close to dead/Open roads and empty beds." They look too fresh-faced and rosy-cheeked for that kind of talk. But they've got the hair—and some of the best local talent directing their music videos: Lynn Shelton, Ben Kasulke. Rock! The Raggedy Anns make sweet, swinging pop rock. Sometimes their songs carry a little ragtime shuffle, sometimes they have a happy Britpop bounce, and sometimes they have both. The Raggedy Anns and the Draytones must've been separated at birth. BRENDAN KILEY

Constant Lovers, Blood Red Dancers, Final Spins, Jonathan Kimball

(Comet) That horrid and ill-defined tag of "post-punk" generally implies a disjointed, discordant, and deconstructed approach to the standard pop template. Forefathers like Gang of Four and Public Image Ltd. unleashed strangely coherent yet decisively bracing and unfriendly music, and we've been subjected to an endless stream of their stripped-down, no-frills, agitated descendants ever since. Constant Lovers are part of this ongoing legacy, yet they have both the aptitude and the ability to push the envelope one step further. Their music is even more barren, more separated, and more disrespectful. At points, one might even wonder how it qualifies as music at all. And while that approach is guaranteed to alienate some folks, those who "get it" wind up all the more enraptured. BRIAN COOK

The Vic Chesnutt Band, Fences, Liz Durrett

(Crocodile) The leader of the Vic Chesnutt Band starts their new album, At the Cut (Constellation Records), by proclaiming, "I am a coward!" That's pretty brave. That leadoff song, "Coward," is a turbulent piece of orchestral rock somewhere between the Dirty Three and fellow Constellation artists Thee Silver Mt. Zion Memorial Orchestra & Tra-La-La Band. The rest of the disc mostly eschews that sort of storm-and-stress dynamic and delves into stripped-to-the-bone, folk-rock balladry (emphasis on "dry"). Chesnutt, who's been a paraplegic since a 1983 car accident, bluntly sings about hardships in a weathered, thin, but not unpleasant voice. The man in the wheelchair's stark, moving music commands your attention and respect. Seattle's Fences (Chris Mansfield) provides a partly sunnier take on folk rock; his understatedly rootsy songs twinkle more than they brood. DAVE SEGAL

Indecisive Rhythm, Antique Scream, Nightshirt

(Blue Moon) I've said it before and I'll say it again: Indecisive Rhythm should get another name. "Indecisive Rhythm," to me, sounds like a hippie jam band or an outfit specializing in a cappella ska covers, and it horribly undervalues what IR have going on for themselves. They play Pixies-style rock—by which I mean heroically catchy pop rock of the verse-chorus-verse variety—and when they unleash the rock, they can destroy the room and make it look easy. The lead singer, Ms. Rhythm, is my favorite unsigned female vocalist currently playing in Seattle; she can purr and then let loose with an enormous, brassy howl that will make you drop to your knees, pledge allegiance to her band, and forget all about their atrocious name. PAUL CONSTANT

Saturday 11/28

Max Tundra, Deastro, U.S.F.

(Nectar) Both Max Tundra and Deastro are prodigious, precious one-man electro-pop bands. But where Max Tundra is hyperactive (playing all parts himself, jumping from one of many instruments to another live) and arch (odd songs about internet romance, references to Kevin Blechdom and Maya Deren, a love song for his favorite synthesizer), Deastro is mellow (playing with a live band to flesh out his compositions) and earnest, singing more straightforwardly emotive songs. His productions are precise and pleasurable, though—busy, frequently beautiful things that take just slightly less careening turns than do Tundra's. Opening are Seattle chillwave duo U.S.F., whose ambient, tropical tones will be an easy warm-up for the show and a welcome contrast to the seasonal cold. ERIC GRANDY

The Lashes, Thee Emergency, Curtains for You

(Crocodile) Back before the haters and anonymous commentators set their sights on Mad Rad, the Lashes were the foremost targets of passive-aggressive lament in the Seattle music scene. But as Salvador Dalí said, "The thermometer of success is merely the jealousy of the malcontents." Success for the Lashes was brief—they released one album of bratty power pop, the John Goodmanson–produced Get It, on Columbia Records. Shortly thereafter, the label summarily dropped them when guitarist Eric Howk suffered a tragic fall that left him in a wheelchair for life. Tonight is billed as a "one-time reunion show" and will no doubt be attended by a sizable Seattle fan base. The haters will presumably be at home, firmly lodged behind their keyboards, spewing bile at anyone having more fun than they are. See the rest of you at the show! GRANT BRISSEY

The Moondoggies, Jesse Sykes & the Sweet Hereafter, Star Anna and the Laughing Dogs

(Showbox at the Market) All pretenses of creating innovative, 21st-century music drop with the Moondoggies; rather, they focus on writing memorable, sing-along-worthy songs that move in expected laid-back, 'bama-ambling ways (save for the tear-ass bluegrass of "Ol' Blackbird" and the burly chug of "Changing"). The Moondoggies' debut album, Don't Be a Stranger, eased its way into the pleasure centers of many people who like country-rock that doesn't suck. The new Moondoggies songs that have surfaced on YouTube via live on-air performances for KEXP suggest a redoubled reiteration of country-folk verities, with melodies rich and resonant enough to make Fleet Foxes shift nervously on their thrones. DAVE SEGAL

Doctor Doctor, Red Dress

(High Dive) Red Dress are a tiny local legend, one of those bands that should've made it but never did and whose members drifted off to other projects and have now drifted back together again. (You'll recognize some of them from the Moisture Festival house band and other vaudeville groups.) In the mid-'90s, nothing sounded quite like Red Dress and nothing still does. They're both jagged and melodic with some Talking Heads running through their songs and a little zydeco rhythm and flash hiding beneath it all—clearly the result of an original musical vision. Singer Gary Minkler squeaks and croons about awkward teenage pterodactyls, eating mice ("mousies"), and a dude who is actually a robot. They're not pretty young things anymore, but they still know how to jerk and groove. BRENDAN KILEY

Sunday 11/29

Morrissey

(Paramount) See Stranger Suggests.

Christian Swenson: Body of Music

(Rendezvous) He calls his performance "human jazz," but that doesn't quite get at what Christian Swenson does—it sounds more like aborigines making hiphop without any electronic equipment, plus a little improvised dancing. Swenson beatboxes, scats, slaps, clicks, and performs Central Asian throat singing (creating two resonant, alien-sounding tones with a single voice). Sometimes he breaks into improvised Gregorian-sounding chant; sometimes he does creepily accurate impersonations of birds and lizards. Say what you will about Christian Swenson: Dude is sui generis. BRENDAN KILEY

Monday 11/30

Cold Cave, Former Ghosts

(Vera) What do you do when your self-destructive hardcore band finally exhausts itself? Furthermore, what do you do when one of the most embarrassingly popular modern pop-rock acts—Fall Out Boy—plagiarizes large chunks of your lyrics and attempts to pass them off as their own? Well, you take legal action against said pop band, claim a sizable chunk of cash, and begin crafting brooding bedroom electro pop for your own amusement. Such is the story for Cold Cave, the solo project of former Give Up the Ghost/Some Girls vocalist Wesley Eisold. Any hardcore kids looking for vestiges of Eisold's gritty and venomous tirades will be disappointed to hear Cold Cave's fragile and somber numbers. But anyone craving the morose electronic sounds of the early '80s will rejoice to hear this sound resurrected. BRIAN COOK See also Stranger Suggests, page 19.

Simian Mobile Disco, JDH, Dave P

(Neumos) Simian Mobile Disco's sophomore album, Temporary Pleasure, takes an approach not uncommon for marquee electronic acts—namely, calling up what seems like nearly every vocalist they've ever remixed or produced for a guest appearance. As often happens with this scenario, the results can feel uneven and cobbled together more out of expediency than out of any kind of grand plan for an album. What works: the gauzy, falsetto motorik-lite of "Cream Dream"; the corny "Audacity of Huge"; the Beth Ditto–led neon disco ballad "Cruel Intentions"; the satisfyingly sour, Hot Chip–assisted "Bad Blood"; as well as steam-building instrumentals like "10000 Horses Can't Be Wrong" and "Ambulance" and the minimally vocal "Synthesise." What fails: hip-house track "Turn Up the Dial"; "Off the Map," which criminally squanders weirdo soul singer Jamie Lidell; and the Telepathe-featuring "Pinball." What never fails: the duo's eyeball-searing, ass-moving, always incredible live sets. ERIC GRANDY

Tuesday 12/1

Footlaos: A Benefit for Laos

(Sole Repair) Last year, Visqueen queen Rachel Flotard traveled to Laos, where she met the students of the Ban Na Mouang Elementary School, whose administrators answered the question "What does your school need more than anything?" with "A floor." Tonight's and tomorrow's Footlaos benefits are designed specifically to get that school a goddamn floor. (Seriously, elementary school is hard enough without cold, mud-encrusted feet.) Tonight at Sole Repair, there's a Footlaos dance party, featuring DJ sets by MC Queen Lucky, Darek Mazzone, and DJ Colby B, along with donated delights from Cupcake Royale and Tom Douglas Restaurants. Tomorrow at the Comet, there's a Footlaos rock show, featuring Fastbacks mastermind Kurt Bloch, Cantona leader Leslie Beattie, and various friends "doing their usual mix of vaudevillian folk and punk rubbish," according to Beattie. Tonight's dance party costs $10, tomorrow's rock show costs $5, and all proceeds go directly to buying a floor's worth of concrete mix and delivering it to Laos. DAVID SCHMADER

Japandroids, Surfer Blood

(Chop Suey) Vancouver power duo Brian King and David Prowse aren't reinventing anything; if you've heard No Age or Cymbals Eat Guitars, you'll have the idea well in advance. But Japandroids' speed-paradiddles and mock-heroic guitar, as well as lyrics along the lines of "I don't wanna worry about dying/I just wanna worry about sunshine girls/Auuuugh!" from "Young Hearts Spark Fire," off the new Post-Nothing (Polyvinyl), give them a winning, fresh-faced quality it's damn hard to dislike. That almost certainly will go double for this Chop Suey gig. MICHAELANGELO MATOS

Roy Hargrove Quintet

(Jazz Alley) When it comes to jazz, I side with the Albert Murray school (Stanley Crouch, Wynton Marsalis, Charles Johnson). Meaning, I'm a traditionalist. And so any encounter with a living and still developing jazz artist is always met with one concern: Is he/she breaking with jazz (or modern jazz—I have no ear for swing) or continuing it? My encounter with the talented trumpeter Roy Hargrove brought me to this conclusion: He is doing both. The tradition is very much in his music, but he has not escaped the appeal or gravity of hiphop. Often his jazz pieces have a hiphop beat or turn to funk, and this is all well and good, but it's not how I understand jazz. I enjoy Hargrove most when the beat is classical—the brushes, the two rapid taps concluded by a third on the hi-hat. As for Hargrove's blowing, the beat does not matter either way. He never fails to produce that noble and warm sound. CHARLES MUDEDE

Wednesday 12/2

Roy Hargrove Quintet

(Jazz Alley) See Tuesday.

Footlaos: A Benefit for Laos

(Comet) See Tuesday.

Blind Pilot, Laura Veirs, Mimicking Birds

(Neumos) Blind Pilot kind of sound like a lot of different bands; their eccentric guitarwork and emotive lyrics wouldn't be out of place wedged into the middle of a soundtrack of a Wes Anderson movie, for example, and I'm sure that rabid folk fans have tried to keelhaul Blind Pilot into their own, weirdly isolationist corner of the musical landscape. But that's always the case with truly good bands; you want to force them into a cubbyhole until you're comfortable enough to give them their own category, into which you'll toss lesser bands. For me, the moment of individuation for Blind Pilot in my brain was in their song "Go On, Say It," when the violins rise and the lead singer lets loose with a clever little "Uh-huh, uh-huh!" That was the birth of the Blind Pilot sound for me. PAUL CONSTANT

Diminished Men, Saint Siren, God's Favorite Beefcake

(Sunset) Diminished Men's new album, Shadow Instrumentals (on Alan Bishop's impeccably curated Abduction Records), thrusts them to near the top of Seattle's instrumental-rock mountain. Its 13 tracks conjure the pulse-quickening and jugular-slicing atmospheres of spaghetti-western and horror-flick soundtracks, respectively, while avoiding ham-fisted signifiers of those cine-sonic approaches. Fellow local quartet Saint Siren have a new self-titled album (featuring Diminished Men's Dave Abramson on drums) that explores more traditional rock songwriting tropes. With its nuanced melodies, slightly downer mood, and deft playing, the disc recalls the mellower end of John Lennon's solo career and Randy Newman's music-hall-ish '70s output. DAVE SEGAL