Thursday 1/8

Caro, Talkdemonic, the Sight
Below

(Nectar) See Data Breaker.

John Spalding Memorial Benefit: Helms
Alee, Born Anchors, Patrol

(Sunset) Tonight is the second of a handful of January shows paying
tribute to dearly departed Seattle musician John Spalding (Raft of Dead
Monkeys, Ninety Pound Wuss, and most recently solo-project LoveLand),
who recently succumbed to a prolonged battle with cancer at age 33. If
a man’s measure can be found in how many people attend his funeral,
then perhaps Spalding’s impact as a musician can be gleaned from the
number and stature of bands paying him tribute this month, which
include a reunited Suffering and the Hideous Thieves, Minus the Bear,
Rocky Votolato, the Cave Singers, Past Lives, Triumph of Lethargy,
Damien Jurado, Dave Bazan, See Me River, MXPX, and of course tonight’s
lineup of amp destroyers Helms Alee, the simultaneously screamy and
groovy Born Anchors, and moody rockers Patrol. RIP. ERIC
GRANDY

Hey Marseilles, Fences, Kate Tucker
& the Sons of Sweden

(Tractor) Local singer-songwriter outfit Fences write stripped down,
compelling songs about ordinary subjects—girls, estranged
fathers, relationships. So what? Boys in America sit down with an
acoustic guitar and sing about those very subjects every 2.7 minutes.
But there’s something that makes Fences’ efforts sound more
genuine than most. Singer Chris Mansfield’s lyrics are delivered with a
gentle guitar and coy mumble, forcing you to really listen to
hear the stories he tells. It’s almost like he’s ashamed, like he’s
playing this song because he has to and he’s not quite comfortable
about it yet himself, but the only other option is death or insanity.
MEGAN SELING

Brightblack Morning Light,

Daniel Higgs

(Vera) Still touring behind 2008’s instant chill-out classic
Motion to Rejoin, Brightblack Morning Light remain one of the
most reliable blood-pressure-lowering bands working today. Gospeldelic
blues doesn’t get any better—or more lusciously lackadaisical and
paradisiacal than this. Daniel Higgs is best known as frontman for
Dischord drone-rock mainstays Lungfish. These days he more often goes
it alone as a mystical troubadour playing jaw harp and banjo. I caught
Higgs doing a jaw-harp set at Gallery 1412 about four years ago, and it
was mesmerizing. If you’re into mutant-insectoid, twangy drones (as
heard on his Magic Alphabet CD), Higgs will thoroughly sate you.
His 2007 album of banjo compositions, Metempsychotic Melodies,
is strangely riveting, too. DAVE SEGAL

Early Man, Toxic Holocaust, Book of
Black Earth, Black Breath, H.M.P.

(El Corazón, all ages) Drummer Joe Axler of Book of Black
Earth has a big-ass tattoo scrawled across his chest that reads “DEATH
TO FALSE METAL.” What exactly is “false” metal? Avenged
Sevenfold? P.O.D.? Spinal Tap? Kip Winger’s teeth? Whatever it is, it
does not apply to local heavies Book of Black Earth. On new
album Horoskopus, BOBE frickin’ mean it. And don’t even
try to argue with them. The release of Horoskopus launches a new
U.S. tour for the band. If you miss this gig, the official send-off
show is at the Funhouse on January 17. Also on the bill, and touring
with a brand-new album, are NYC thrash-metallers Early Man. On new EP
Beware the Circling Fin, they sound an awful lot like the early
Metallica. Or maybe Megadeth. Eerily so. Does that make them true? Or
false? I think I have to see them play it live to decide. KELLY
O

Friday 1/9

Asva, Trees, Iron Lung, Pig Heart
Transplant

(King Cobra) See Album Review.

Gel-Sol, Jerry Abstract, the
Naturebot, the Algebra of Need, Erictronic

(Re-bar) See Data Breaker.

John Spalding Memorial Benefit: Minus
the Bear, Rocky Votolato, the Cave Singers, Past Lives, Triumph of
Lethargy Skinned Alive to Death

(Showbox) See Stranger Suggests.

The Lonely Forest, Speaker Speaker,
To the Waves, Daniel G. Harmann & the Trouble

(Sunset) Finally, the Lonely Forest are releasing a new record!
They’ve been teasing for months, and now, with a new year, it’s
happening—the Anacortes trio (which recently became a quartet
again) will release We Sing the Body Electric on April 21. The
album is more pop rock than anything they’ve done before, while still
maintaining the passion. In many songs, the piano, which has been the
star in the past, takes a backseat to flawless, rolling drumming and
chiming guitar. The Lonely Forest will undoubtedly be previewing some
of the songs at tonight’s gig, a showcase for local label Burning
Buildings, which had a great ’08 with releases from To the Waves,
Speaker Speaker, and the Oregon Donor. With the Lonely Forest kicking
things off, ’09 looks just as promising. MEGAN SELING

Gabriel Teodros, Mystic, Canary Sing,
DJ Ian Head

(Chop Suey) A central figure of the second wave of local hiphop that
began in 2005, Gabriel Teodros is set to return in 2009. He made his
first appearance as half of Abyssinian Creole, a Beacon
Hill–based group that detailed in its soul-smooth tunes the
experiences, challenges, and desires of young black immigrants. His
last (and solo) CD, Lovework, was released in 2007 and provided
local hiphop with the classic track “No Label.” During 2008, Teodros
spent a lot of time in Vancouver recording new material, and this show
promises to reveal the effect that Seattle’s sister city (its
socialism, its black mountains, its Skytrain, its slim towers, its many
immigrants) has had on his thinking and music. CHARLES
MUDEDE

Miss Massive Snowflake, Bill
Horist

(Comet) Miss Massive Snowflake’s song “Shock and Awe” isn’t the
screamo guitar fuck you’d expect a song titled “Shock and Awe” to be:
Instead, it’s a quiet, thoughtful song with a jerky, lofty little
chorus. With MMS, it’s best to expect the unexpected. One song begins
with something resembling a reggae riddim, tosses in some banjo amid
the electronic bleeps and bloops when you’re not expecting it, and ties
the whole thing together with some Prince-like vocals. Another one
sounds like the best Smog song not yet recorded. I don’t know what to
call it, but I like it a lot. PAUL CONSTANT

Ray Manzarek and Roy Rogers

(Triple Door) Like the Grateful Dead, the Doors polarize music fans
into rigid positions of unstinting loyalty and spluttering hostility.
Which means they’ve done something right. Ray Manzarek (who’ll
be 70 next month) played keyboards for the Doors, of course, and his
fluid, rococo riffs and sprightly yet earthy blues-rock vamps won’t be
leaving the rock world’s collective consciousness any time soon. What
has he done for us lately? Besides an album of duets with blues slide
guitarist and tourmate Roy Rogers, Ballads Before the Rain, and
playing in a faux-Doors reunion band called Riders on the Storm, not
much, but rarely do figures of his stature come through intimate clubs
like the Triple Door. Besides showcasing some Doors classics for
tonight’s and Saturday’s performances, Manzarek will also share
anecdotes about his days with Jim Morrison and company. DAVE
SEGAL

Saturday 1/10

Ray Manzarek and Roy Rogers

(Triple Door) See Friday.

Glasvegas, Carl Barat

(Chop Suey) See Album Review.

The Dwarves, ZEKE, the Insurgence,
the Hollowpoints, Marginal Way

(El Corazón) Much ink has been spilled about the shock
tactics and crass (read: boring) irony with which longtime San
Francisco-by–way-of-Chicago punks the Dwarves dispense their
particular brand of rock. Reportedly, though, the live-show component
of said shock tactics has been in decline for years. Fair enough, dudes
are getting old. Thing is, once you strip away the publicity-stunt
mentality (the band were dumped by Sub Pop in the mid-’90s when they
issued a fake press release claiming their guitarist had died), all we
have left is a whole lot of really short, fast, rudimentary punk songs,
replete with clichéd joke lyrics that are less funny now than
they were when you were 15. The Dwarves Must Die, their latest
album, is now five years old and it has a rap song. GRANT
BRISSEY

Luke McKeehan, Sol Calderon,

Matt Wood

(Re-bar) Owner of the respected Vancouver label Nordic Trax,
McKeehan is touring behind the release of his Many Shades of House
Vol. 2 mix. He’s been DJing for over 23 years, so you can expect
McKeehan to build a well-appointed house set full of luxury fixtures
(i.e., congenial, uplifting tracks). He’ll be appearing at Uniting
Souls’s Somethin About House biweekly. DAVE SEGAL

Sunday 1/11

Free Blood, Ben Cook, H.M.A.

(Chop Suey) See preview.

AFCGT, PWRFL Power, Linda and Ron’s
Dad

(Neumos), On their self-titled 180-gram white-vinyl LP for Uzu
Audio, Seattle supergroup AFCGT (A Frames + Climax Golden Twins) create
a species of antisocial rock that aspires to freedom through a coiled
fury. The 10 songs here radiate a rancorous cacophony—thanks
largely to at least three scabrous, wiry guitars—that often
bleeds into the red, on more than one level. The quintet harbor a
no-wave-like disregard for clean production values and conventionally
“pretty” melody and the Fall and Flipper’s roughshod repetitiveness
figures heavily. I don’t hear any hit singles. Linda and Ron’s Dad
favor rugged and playful funk productions tailor-made for adventurous
MCs to rap over. PWRFL Power writes whimsical outsider pop songs that
inspire mad love and vicious hate in equal measure. DAVE
SEGAL

Monday 1/12

Tim and Eric Awesome Show,
Great
Job!

(Showbox Sodo) Season four of their live-action Cartoon Network hit
Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job! begins airing at the end
of the month, but tonight, Tim Heidecker and Eric Wareheim—the
loopy goofs behind TAEAS,GJ! and its beloved animated
predecessor Tom Goes to the Mayor—present their well-honed
shtick from the stage of the Showbox. Fans of the aforementioned Adult
Swim shows will love it. Fans of Mr. Show should like it. Folks
who’ve seen none of the above and for some reason find themselves at
the Showbox will be very confused. DAVID SCHMADER

Tuesday 1/13

A Leaf, Colonies, the Globes,

Perry Acker

(Neumos) Ben Gibbard recently got engaged—to hottie
actress/She & Him–singer Zooey Deschanel, no less. But don’t
cry, indie girls—there are many more frontmen in the world for
the taking. If you need a new object of desire on which to focus your
crush energy, I suggest local act Colonies. The band’s songs ache with
Death Cab similarities, but they’re forgiven for doing it so
well—crisp and clean compositions with spot-on harmonizing in the
choruses. At times, singer Travis Shumate even has a rounded-mouth
delivery similar to a young Gibbard—and he’s cuter, too,
actually. No word on if he’s officially single, but at the very least
you’ll be able to cope with your loss by listening to Colonies’ music
instead of making things worse with Death Cab. MEGAN SELING

Wednesday 1/14

ndCv, WD4D, Eardrumz, Absolute
Madman

(Chop Suey) See Data Breaker.

Joy Von Spain, Herpes Hideaway,

Vox Vespertinus, Crime, Selectorhead Pigeon, Death Posture

(1009 E Union St) Highbrow neoclassical composition meets
antagonistic noisician instincts in Joy Von Spain’s compelling pieces.
Her 2008 disc Seeking Stockhausen’s Moustache comes shrouded in
a bracing darkness and distinctive tonalities. It will one day be
regarded as a classic in Northwest avant-garde music—if it isn’t
already. Her new work, Lady Lazarus, is going to flip some wigs
and trigger some seizures, as well. Herpes Hideaway sound like “an icy
finger” and the dank, gray radiator emissions from David Lynch’s
Eraserhead and a kind of diseased hybrid of industrial IDM,
isolationist ambience, and noncheesy horror-film scores. DAVE
SEGAL