THURSDAY 7/26
DJ Z-TRIP, GIFT OF GAB, ACEYALONE
(Last Supper Club) Overcooked with credibility, Aceyalone, once of the
political and underground Freestyle Fellowship, and Gift of Gab, from
the ambitious and old-school Blackalicious, have decided to pull off an
all-at-once collaborative show with DJ Z-Trip, slinging the celebrated
hiphop talent around to see what happens. Z-Trip, you remember, made
taste-baiting mashups (Cyndi Lauper, Public Enemy, Ratt, Blak Twang,
UNKLE) back in 2001, when it was still a niche and sounded fresh and
playful. While he didn’t invent the trick, he did it before it was a
cliché, and even followed it up with an album of original work that
wasn’t a man-behind-the-curtains letdown. There are now a million
Z-Trips, of course, and yet none of them come across as anything but
creatively suspect coattail followers. DEAN FAWKES
THE LAST TOWN CHORUS, BARTON CARROLL
(Tractor) Talk about surface simplicity. Were you to take a slow,
minimal lap-steel line—preferably one that crosses octaves—and mix in a
touch of distortion with a heaping of reverb, you’d have yourself a
Last Town Chorus song. It may well just be that Megan Hickey heard
“Fade into You” as a teenager and that was it for her, but the woman at
the center of the Brooklyn combo takes that basic idea and works it
into something stirring. Her debut, Wire Waltz, is a dreamy
affair, but watch Hickey perform—her demure voice whispering as guitar
notes float upward, then plunge back down with a glacial brushstroke
keeping pace—and goose bumps will surface on the back of your neck.
JOHN VETTESE
FRIDAY 7/27
CAPITOL HILL BLOCK PARTY: SILVERSUN PICKUPS, BLUE SCHOLARS,
THE BLOOD BROTHERS, MATT & KIM, GIRL TALK, AND MANY
MORE
(11th Ave E and E Pike St) See pullout guide and Stranger Suggests,
page 23.
POST HARBOR, THE LONELY FOREST
(Easy Street Records, West Seattle) If you haven’t already heard, Easy
Street’s West Seattle location has started hosting rock shows. No,
these aren’t the lights-on, shop-while-you-listen, early-evening, free
in-stores that you’re familiar with—these are fully legit concerts, 21+
with booze, starting around 9:30 p.m. Cool, right? So if you’ve yet to
experience one of the stores’ after-hours parties, local emo rockers (I
mean that endearingly) Post Harbor are giving you a golden opportunity
as they celebrate the release of their new self-released album,
Praenumbra, at the record store turned rock venue tonight.
Their sound is heavily influenced by the artists that most likely owned
your depressed teenage years, namely Sunny Day Real Estate. Their songs
ebb and flow via brooding bass and moody and atmospheric guitars. The
vocals can feel slightly awkward next to the band’s thoughtful
compositions, but seeing as this is only their debut, to make a perfect
record would be more damning to their career than making one that shows
a lot of promise along with room for growth. Their live show will no
doubt be passionate, and their future could very well be brighter than
their dark melodies. MEGAN SELING
THE DEAD SCIENCE, TALBOT TAGORA, ABE VIGODA, WE QUIT,
SCREAMING FEMALES
(The Greenhouse) It’s pretty easy to fake art punk. Similarly, it’s
pretty easy to tell when a band is faking it. That doesn’t seem to be
the case for Talbot Tagora: It’s clear after spending even a minimal
amount of time with them that the bizarre sounds they create are
organic. They make catchy melodies out of discordant sounds, weaving
patterns and rhythms around in a way that confuses listeners while
drawing them closer. In a way it reminds me of blowing smoke on bees,
which both calms and confuses them while their honey is stolen. I put
on their music and at first I think, “Oh, this sounds weird,” but then
I just want to keep listening to it, transfixed. I’m not quite sure
what their angle is—I have no honey to speak of—but one time I went
downstairs from a party at a friend’s to their apartment just to say
hello and ended up buying a painting the guitar player did of Bruce
Willis. JEFF KIRBY
RYAN ADAMS
(Moore) Sometimes, it really feels like Ryan Adams has just been
playing one long game of chicken with the public, testing to see just
how much bullshit—a deluge of uneven albums, surly live shows—his fans
(and critics) will endure before he finally crashes and burns. Yet lo
and behold, he’s slammed on the brakes in the nick of time with
Easy Tiger. Backed by touring band the Cardinals, his ninth
solo album is the best thing he’s done in six years, mixing flashes of
bruised melancholy à la 2000’s Heartbreaker (“These Girls”)
with adrenaline-rush rockers in the vein of its major-label follow-up,
2001’s Gold. Don’t expect Adams to play the prodigal son—the
arrogance is part of his charm—but he deserves a hearty “welcome back,”
regardless. KURT B. REIGHLEY See also preview, page 37.
SATURDAY 7/28
CAPITOL HILL BLOCK PARTY: SPOON, AGAINST ME!, AESOP ROCK,
GRAND ARCHIVES, THE GIRLS, AND MANY MORE
(11th Ave E and E Pike St) See pullout guide.
AA, DAS LLAMAS, PLEASUREBOATERS
(Comet) See Stranger Suggests, page 23.
HANK WILLIAMS III, ASSJACK, BIG RED GOAD
(El Corazón) There is no greater influence on country music, and,
arguably, the American song, than Hank Williams. Understandably, his
grandson Hank III, who bears an uncanny resemblance to his grandpa and
can match his golden voice effortlessly, initially shied away from
country music, sustaining himself as, believe it or not, a punk and
metal drummer. Eventually, at the age of 26, he released a mainstream
country album—and declared the sultry- smooth recording immensely
unsatisfying. Citing the likes of Steve Earle, Hank III has pushed
toward a raw country music, a genre he calls “Hellbilly,” which
involves a whiskey-tortured but pitch-perfect voice, punk drum rhythms,
and tightly rhymed lyrics more cutting even than Mr. Earle’s. It’s
country made relevant. BART CAMERON
POWER OF WINGS, GRAIG MARKEL, THE TRULY ME CLUB
(Sunset) Portland’s the Truly Me Club are Sonic Boom Recordings’ newest
signing. They are dreamy love pop with orchestrated arrangements and
lyrics about bullets traveling through brains. There are keys,
electronics, percussion, strings, and restraint. Sonic Boom owner Jason
Hughes was on crutches at a fashion show in Portland and feeling like a
gimp when he discovered the Truly Me Club. He had a twisted ankle and
someone gave him the CD to make him feel better, which it did. Jason
listened to the CD for three days and decided he had to put it out.
Turns out the guy who gave him the CD was Tony Moreno, a member of the
band. So don’t be shy about giving your music out, especially to
record-label owners who are gimped up. TRENT MOORMAN
SUNDAY 7/29
DAFT PUNK, THE RAPTURE, SEBASTIAN, KAVINSKY
(WaMu Theater) As if man-machine headliners Daft Punk weren’t enough
(they are), the opening acts on this bill would make for a pretty great
show just on their own. Kavinsky’s apocryphal backstory—after a fatal
high-speed crash in his Ferarri in 1986, Kavinsky returns from the
grave a zombie—threatens to overshadow his Giorgio Moroder by way of
Jan Hammer—arpeggiated ’80s synth cheese, which fittingly enough sounds
custom built for high-speed chase scenes. SebastiAn is more substantial
musically, if less conceptually appealing. He’s perhaps the best single
example of the Ed Banger sound, bridging the gap between Justice’s
digitally distorted fuzz and the dapper hiphop breaks of DJ Mehdi. He
mangles vocal samples, bit crushes synths to the point of static, and
does it all over simple, satisfyingly dusty beats and grooves. The
Rapture will be the odd band amid all the Parisian producers, but
they’ll shine in such company. Their music has ranged from ragged disco
punk to black-lit electro pop over the years, with the emphasis lately
tending toward the latter, and their live show is a manically energetic
collision of the two—cowbells bounce off of sick synth sequences, disco
high hats accent drum machine kicks, live bass and guitar strut and
twitch around Luke Jenner and Matt Safer’s commands to get down. ERIC
GRANDY See also Stranger Suggests, page 23, and preview, page
35.
MONDAY 7/30
Call in sick. You had a long weekend.
TUESDAY 7/31
FIONN REGAN, DEATH VESSEL
(Sunset) Fionn Regan doesn’t sing so much as skate across his
bare-bones originals; like a flat stone skipping over the surface of a
pond, his voice touches lightly down on the melodies. This beguiling
elocution is underscored with arrangements of watercolor simplicity:
mostly acoustic guitar, some brushed snares, an occasional violin or
viola. The lazy point of reference is that sad, dead fellow from the
Volkswagen ads, but Regan’s sound and lyricism also recall Tim Hardin
and Fred Neil. Released overseas last year, the Irish
singer-songwriter’s debut album, The End of History, was just
nominated for the Mercury Music Prize. Arctic Monkeys and that sodden
harlot Amy Winehouse are getting better odds from bookmakers, but even
at 10 to 1, Regan is the dark horse to put your money on. KURT B.
REIGHLEY
WEDNESDAY 8/1
IGNITE, STICK TO YOUR GUNS, ZEROYEAR, DOWN WE GO, SCREAMING
FADED
(Studio Seven) Studio Seven: The gun-control debate rages in the
hardcore arena, as Ignite, authors of the antiweapon rallying cry
“Bullets Included, No Thought” (“put down your gun, punk, put up your
dukes, son, why can’t you be a man?”) shares the stage with Stick to
Your Guns. The California-based bands also operate on opposite ends of
the genre’s sonic spectrum, with the veteran outfit Ignite playing
fast, melodic tunes with clean vocals and STYG opting for guttural
roars, plodding breakdowns, and inspirational chants (“With a heart
that’s pure/we’ll be victorious”). Despite their differences, both
groups join forces on Team Positivity, railing collectively against
racism, sexism in the scene, war, poverty, and every other imaginable
evil. Ignite even step into U2’s messianic slippers to cover “Sunday,
Bloody Sunday.” ANDREW MILLER