Wednesday 3/2
Cataldo, the Red River, Kevin Large
(Sunset) Cataldo (aka Seattle musician Eric Anderson) specializes in earnest, confessional indie pop that occasionally blossoms into orchestral epiphanies. It's a common approach among locals over the last decade, but Cataldo executes it competently and his voice exudes an appealing intimacy, akin to a Northwest Paul Simon. Cataldo's Signal Flare is a winsome collection of subtly crafted, folk-inflected songs that are destined to warm many a sensitive soul in the coming months. Long Beach's the Red River play extremely well-mannered, gentle indie pop that will make you want to shop for used cardigans and twee shirts. Nerd up. DAVE SEGAL
Thursday 3/3
Nightcaps, the Knowgooders, Luke Rain
(Nectar) See Data Breaker.
McCoy Tyner Quintet
(Jazz Alley) The greatest quartet in the history of jazz is the Coltrane Quartet. They flourished in the first half of the 1960s, and their pianist, McCoy Tyner, is their last living member—John Coltrane (sax), Jimmy Garrison (bass), and Elvin Jones (drums) have entered the void into which we are all heading and from which we all emerged. Tyner joined the quartet in his early 20s and brought something new to jazz piano: a percussive attack that did not beat out beauty and sensitivity. In Tyner's best work, we find a sound that has unified the passions of polyrhythmic Africa and the elegance of European high culture. This sound is nothing but the heart of America. Through Sunday, March 6. CHARLES MUDEDE
The Lonely Forest, the Oregon Donor, the Violins
(Vera) The Lonely Forest's highly anticipated follow-up to 2009's We Sing the Body Electric! is finally here. And the band appears to have grown up. Thanks to Chris Walla's pristine production, their new album, Arrows (officially released March 22), is cleaner than anything the band has done before. Instead of the songs' climaxes being built up by layers and layers of instrumentation (the product of a band doing at-home recording and maybe not knowing when to leave well enough alone), some of the songs' strongest moments are those quiet nuances that Walla is so great at sprinkling in his records—the single shake of a tambourine, the distant echo of a piano line. Overall, it's a whole new vibe for the Lonely Forest, but almost certainly fans will stand by their side as the band experiments with what bigger budgets and better contacts can afford them—especially since their live show still encapsulates every ounce of passion and energy the band has ever had. MEGAN SELING
Nod Off, Wildildlife, Stickers, Monogamy Party
(Comet) Monogamy Party stand poised to fill the Big Business–sized hole in Seattle's rock circles, but that reference is meant only as a starting point. Stickers take a bass guitar, saxophone, and drums to transform your house party straight into gangbusters. Nod Off play straightforward and serviceable hardcore. Enjoy! GRANT BRISSEY
SXSW Kickoff: D.Black, Wild Orchid Children, State of the Artist, Tea Cozies
(Crocodile) Tonight is the send-off party for Sx- Seattle, and many of the Texas-bound acts will also be on hand for the bazaar in the Crocodile's back room, hawking wares before the show. The strapping young lads of Campfire OK are putting on a kissing booth, but the prize for most creative goes to Black Whales, who are bringing an 1864 map of British Columbia's islands (with accompanying nautical handbook). WANT. GRANT BRISSEY
Friday 3/4
Dug Third Anniversary
(Lo-Fi) See Data Breaker.
The New Mastersounds, the Fox Street All Stars, Soul Senate
(Nectar) See Stranger Suggests.
Cobirds Unite, Shelby Earl, Jason Dodson
(Tractor) Seattle musical mainstay Rusty Willoughby has been working around town for a long time now. But he's never sounded as good as he does when he performs with Cobirds Unite, a newish six-piece folk/country outfit. Much of the appeal comes from Visqueen leader Rachel Flotard's backing vocals. She harmonizes with Willoughby so gorgeously and naturally, their voices interlocked but straining away from each other in a distinctly country way. And Cobirds Unite have produced some strong material, particularly "Too Early," a drunken waltz between lovers that aches with heartfelt devotion and courteously bows to the highly unromantic realities of relationships. PAUL CONSTANT
Deicide, Belphegor, Blackguard, Neuraxis
(El Corazón) In my dream world, there's a plane carrying Fred and Shirley Phelps and several members of the Westboro Baptist Church (you know, the ever-picketing "God Hates Fags/Jews/Soldiers/America/You" Bible-reinventors from Topeka, Kansas). The plane is also carrying Tampa's Glen Benton, lead screamer and bassist of Deicide—one of the top five death-metal bands of all time. The plane crashes on a deserted island. Fred—the oldest—dies immediately. The group splits into two camps. Shirley and her team make homemade signs that say "God Hates Deicide." Glen burns another upside-down cross into his forehead and teaches his camp chants from Deicide songs like "Fuck Your God," "Behead the Prophet," "Kill the Christian," and "The Stench of Redemption." Neither are very good at killing pigs, so everybody dies except Shirley and Glen. Shirley won't ever shut up, so Glen sets the island on fire. When rescuing soldiers finally come, Shirley cries. KELLY O
Atheist, Gravenloch, Terra Morta, Triosis, Tunsa Fun
(Studio Seven) Is Glen Benton from Deicide still branding inverted crosses into his forehead now that the dude is, like, fortysomething? You could check 'em out tonight and find out. But once you get past Deicide's over-the-top, Satan-fueled, PMRC-baiting shtick, you'll realize you've caught the second-best Floridian death-metal band playing in town tonight. Atheist were slugging it out in the Southeast swamps back in the day, too, but their brand of death metal was less concerned with aesthetic extremes and more focused on head-scratching musical maneuvers. Atheist's occasional forays into prog and jazz fusion may have decreased their appeal to an audience geared toward more rudimentary musical blasphemy, but it certainly made them more interesting in the long run. BRIAN COOK
Asobi Seksu, Brahms, the Fascination Movement
(Chop Suey) Is it me, or do Asobi Seksu play Seattle at least once a year? Regardless, their presence is a welcome (if unsurprising) one during winter's blighted slate of concert options. The distortion-bitten dream pop in which Asobi Seksu traffic is the kind of music that rarely fails to satisfy (even if I had an ex-roommate who, bored and drunk, once advised the band to work on shortening its set-capping shoegaze jam-outs). Tourmates Brahms ride a slick, poppy vibe in the vein of fellow Brooklynites Yeasayer, and the Fascination Movement are local retrotronic ravers. JASON BAXTER
Fergus & Geronimo, Seapony, Idle Times
(Rendezvous) Deadpan genre navigators Fergus & Geronimo's first full-length, Unlearn, demonstrates an adept musicianship as it surveys doo-wop, garage, and folk. If they execute live as well as they do on record, this show will be a blast. Sample lyrics: "Shitting in the woods/Mud on my face/I am one with Mother Earth." GRANT BRISSEY
Drew Grow and the Pastors' Wives, AgesandAges, Baltic Cousins
(Columbia City Theater) In January, Drew Grow, frontman of Portland folk band Drew Grow and the Pastors' Wives, was in a fairly serious car accident. He suffered a broken foot, nose, and femur, and the band's van was totaled. Perhaps even more painful than the injuries themselves, though, will be the medical bills that pile up after his hospitalization, surgery, and rehabilitation. A bunch of Grow's friends in the music community pulled together to fill in for the band when they had to cancel shows, and even organized some benefit shows in Seattle and Portland to help the musician recover (emotionally and financially). Now, Mr. Grow is feeling well enough to perform again, and it'll no doubt do his soul some good to be welcomed back by a big crowd of supportive fans. MEGAN SELING
Saturday 3/5
See Me River, Summer Babes, the First Times
(Sunset) Yearning for the days when power pop was earnest and innocent, with just the right amount of sugary-sweet lyrics that read like a love letter to a teenage crush? Seattle's the First Times can help you out. On their recent self-titled debut album, they pack their songs with Rickenbacker riffs and slick mod-pop hooks in an evocative style that's somewhere between Nick Lowe's classic ripper Jesus of Cool and the Jam's In the City. The band sounds like a late-'70s Creem-magazine-approved band on Bomp! Records. The First Times' members weren't even alive when power pop peaked, but that doesn't make their music any less sincere. Power pop, meet your next of kin. TRAVIS RITTER
Silk Flowers, Flexions, U
(Cairo) The Stranger keeps telling you that Flexions are one of Seattle's best post-everything bands, yet you remain skeptical. I get it. But newbies should go and find out for themselves. We speak the truth on this matter. Seattle group U (I see what u did there) are perhaps the city's finest proponents of concrète trance pop (MySpace doesn't lie). What little of their music I've heard radiates potent Black Dice and Growing vibes, which means they orchestrate aural chaos that's cleverly arranged to make walls seem like ceilings, which in turn seem like floors. U mad, U. New York's Silk Flowers sound like a cut-rate new-wave band fronted by a guy mocking Ian Curtis's haunted basso delivery, all swathed in alienating, Residents-like production techniques. They'd improve 66.6 percent if they lost the vocals. DAVE SEGAL
MarchFourth Marching Band
(Tractor) At the Tractor on March 5, will MarchFourth be burned out from their nominal anniversary or still rolling? This Portland-based marching band looks like it had way too much fun at Burning Man—one could do without the fan dancers, stilt walkers, Hula-Hoopers, and fire twirlers—but the appeal of all those blasting horns and booming drums is undeniable. Just be aware of your nearest emergency exit. BETHANY JEAN CLEMENT
Sunday 3/6
Lords of Acid, Angelspit, Radical G, Syztem 7, Desillusion
(Studio Seven) See Data Breaker.
A Hawk and a Hacksaw, Shenandoah Davis
(Tractor) A Hawk and a Hacksaw's newest album, Cervantine, treads familiar ground—if you've been paying attention to folk music, you've heard this Balkan-tinged sound before. But like the best music, it rewards you when you pay attention. At the edges of the music, they welcome in Middle Eastern elements, other European folk music, and even a little bit of Indian flavor. Those elements often gradually expand to take over the songs, bending them in directions you wouldn't think possible. Sometimes, as in the album closer "The Loser [Xeftilis]," flamenco and Gypsy music combine to twist the song into something that sounds like a whole new genre. This is world music, and I mean that in the best, most un-Putumayo-like way possible. PAUL CONSTANT
Monday 3/7
OC Notes, Vox Mod, 5H1F7Y, Electrosect
(Chop Suey) See Data Breaker.
Weedeater, Zoroaster, Kvelertak
(Funhouse) Trying to define the sound of Norwegian six-piece Kvelertak is like sitting through an entire Anal Cunt record: difficult, pointless, and damn near impossible. Might as well try, though: Take the urgency of classic punk rock, mix it with the snarl of black metal, toss in some AC/DC, and translate it all into Norwegian. But even that doesn't do them justice. Riding high off the hype received from topping a dozen or so year-end best-of lists, these guys are a breath of fresh air amid a sea of try-hards. Fuck genre boundaries, this band does it all. Headlining this show is Southern-fried sludge-metal trio Weedeater, the perfect comedown from a couple of confusingly chaotic openers. KEVIN DIERS
Tuesday 3/8
Crystal Castles, Suuns
(Showbox Sodo) See Data Breaker.
Cheap Time, Dead Meat, Idle Times, Posse
(Comet) Cheap Time appeal to fans of the good old punk that the kids don't think about anymore when you say the word "punk"—think Richard Hell and the Voidoids and Buzzcocks—only slowed down and slopped out like on a hot, beer-drunk afternoon in the summer. GRANT BRISSEY
Motopony, the Courage, Kris Orlowski, Tony Kevin Jr.
(Neumos) In the Courage song "Summer Sky," guitarist (and Olympia native) Noah Gundersen and his violinist sister Abby sing in the most pristine acoustic-folk octaves possible, "Water on the highway, shadows through the night/Signs with no direction under yellow city light." The harmonies are clean, pensive, and utter glass, like a lake at sunrise without a single ripple. In the lake's reflection, you can't tell where the sky starts or stops because the surface is so smooth. Noah's voice is lower and tranquil; Abby's above perfectly matches. Her voice sounds like the section of Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel painting called "The Creation of Adam," where God and Adam are reaching to touch fingers. Through Abby's voice, they actually touch. The Courage released an LP last March called Fearful Bones. The songs are hard to stop listening to, as they contain bits of Pedro the Lion's and Mark Kozelek's gentle style of composition, mixed with Sparklehorse's isolated beauty. TRENT MOORMAN
Tapes 'n Tapes, Dale Earnhardt Jr. Jr.
(Crocodile) Minneapolis's Tapes 'n Tapes are one of those former blog-buzz bands that have carried on for years after the initial spike in attention, making you wonder what all the fuss was about in the first place. They're simply middling students in Modern Indie Rock 101 who arose at a time when "mediocre" somehow became the new "awesome" in the hive mind and the critical consensus-making machine. Do you cry tears of joy when you receive a C+ on an assignment? You'll love Tapes 'n Tapes. Detroit's Dale Earnhardt Jr. Jr. are where T&T were in 2005, and while they're slightly more interesting sonically than their tourmates, they too are nothing about which to throw exclamation points. DEJJ show more concern for chillwave-y atmospheres and danceable beats while maintaining a healthy regard for melody. If you cry tears of joy when receiving a B- on an assignment, you'll love DEJJ. DAVE SEGAL
