Previews of Every Single Thing Happening at the Festival

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3 INCHES OF BLOOD

(Mon, 9:30 pm, Exhibition Hall) Did you know there’s thought
to be only one real Viking-age helmet in existence today? It was
excavated in Gjermundbu, Norway, and now lives in the Kulturhistorisk
Museum in Oslo. And did you know Viking helmets were made of iron and
never included horns? The horns were invented in 19th-century
illustrations, overdramatizing the ferocity and appearance of Viking
warriors. Sometimes it’s fun to throw some fantasy in with your
reality. Dark metal purveyors 3 Inches of Blood definitely throw some
fantasy into their reality. And the reality is these dudes LOVE heavy
metal. Expect at least a few fans to show up in neu-Viking helmets and
waving plastic swords. GOOD TIMES! KELLY O

ADRIAN XAVIER

(Sat, 2:15 pm, Fisher Green) Adrian Xavier believes in a
miracle and would like you to forget your worries. He is a Seattle
reggae musician with a positive vibe and a slightly funky electric
edge, and at one point he found himself under the influence of Celtic
fusion. “There’s a place where we can go/Where the milk and honey
flows/I know there’s a place where we can go/Where the green gardens
grow.” See? JEN GRAVES

AKIMBO

(Sat, 5 pm, EMP) The word “akimbo” dates back to the
15th-century word “cambok,” which meant something to the effect of “a
curved or crooked stick or staff.” I’m not sure how crooked sticks or
staffs might relate to the forever-together Seattle band Akimbo, but I
know this: These guys ROCK. Their hard, fast sound is equal parts
metal, hardcore, and classic rock. Their latest and most critically
acclaimed album, Jersey Shores, is a concept record based on a
freaky series of shark attacks in 1916 that killed four and injured one
on the New Jersey Coast, and which also inspired author Peter Benchley
to write the novel Jaws in 1974. Kind of a brutal legacy, much
like the 11-year-old band’s own. KO

AKRON/FAMILY

(Mon, 6 pm, Broad Street) What is unexpected in our day and
age is to come across a post-rock band that seems to believe and evoke
mystical things. In our disenchanted time of science and technology, we
expect mystical things to be long forgotten or ignored. But the
mystical happens to be the mode and mood of Akron/Family’s music, which
is why it often recalls Talk Talk’s Spirit of Eden, the last
great work of mystical rock. For Akron/Family it comes down to
something like this: “phenomena, phenomena, phenomena… things are not
what they seem to be.” CHARLES MUDEDE

THE ALL-AMERICAN REJECTS

(Sat, 3:15 pm, Memorial Stadium) As far as I can tell, the
main thing you need to know about the All-American Rejects, which are a
popular rock band, is that the lead singer has ICY BLUE EYES THAT WOULD
LIKE TO HAVE SEX WITH YOU. Emotional sex.
Please-stop-staring-at-me-with-your-icy-blue-eyes-because-I-think-a-ghost-might-come-out
sex. Seriously, let’s just not. I’m really tired. It’s just that
I have to get up really early tomorrow morning and… milk… the
livestock. Yes, I’m a farmer. I farm. Just stop asking questions. LINDY
WEST

ANOMIE BELLE

(Mon, noon, Northwest Court) Anomie Belle are a Seattle act,
led by violinist and vocalist Toby Campbell, that take up the odd
challenge of attempting to reanimate a genre, triphop, that was a ghost
of a thing to begin with—a wispy memory of hiphop (itself a genre
built on the samples/specters of other musics) floated over a haze of
orchestral strings and disembodied diva vocals. This phantom of a
phantom is as insubstantial as one might expect, but Anomie Belle
tackle the stuff with undeniable chops. Campbell’s voice is polished
and just a little jazzy, alternating between low murmurs and high
falsettos, and her scores are sophisticated noirish stuff. Triphop is
still dead, but it can continue to haunt. ERIC GRANDY

AUDRYE SESSIONS

(Mon, 7:45 pm, Exhibition Hall) A quartet from Oakland,
Audrye Sessions bear the influences of Radiohead, Björk, and U2 to
their male-fronted (and unafraid-of-falsetto) songs. Oh, and the
bassist—the only lady in the band: Alicia Marie Campbell, joining
guitarist Michael Knox, drummer James Leste, and singer/guitarist Ryan
Karazija—is a former model. Rolling Stone named them a
2009 breakout after their self-titled debut. JG

THE BLACK EYED PEAS

(Mon, 3 pm, Memorial Stadium) Part of the “British Invasion”
and originally known as “Captain Willy and the Ha-Has,” the Black Eyed
Peas scored their first major U.S. hit in 1962 with “Baby, I’m Watching
You While You Sleep (Doo Wop Doo Woo Wop).” They went on to “Invade”
the “Britains” of many American Sally-Sues, end the Vietnam War with
their protest anthem “Yo, Just Cut This Shit Out (Nixon, I’m Watching
You While You Sleep),” and invent bitter beer face. The Black Eyed Peas
were the only people at Tupac Shakur’s bedside at the moment of his
death (they are all medical doctors), and were thus charged with the
ritual extraction and embalming of his organs in ceremonial jars for
their dark ferry ride to the afterlife. Will.i.am was then reported as saying, “I’m
getting too old for this shit!” He was never the same. Also, that one
chick peed her pants. LW

BLACK JOE LEWIS & THE HONEYBEARS

(Mon, 3:15 pm, Mural Amphitheatre) Black Joe Lewis (yup, he’s
black) & the Honeybears are eight guys who’ve been described as
James Brown–meets–the Stooges, and who describe themselves
as garage soul. They formed in Austin, they recently released the album
Tell ‘Em What Your Name Is!, and they’re all dirty and brassy,
Memphis-style. For Valentine’s Day, they put out a card that said
“Bitch, I Love You,” after their done-wrong blues ballad of the same
name. The ladies couldn’t help but smile. JG

BLACK
WHALES

(Sun, 2 pm, EMP) Seattle’s Black Whales make their official
debut later this month with the release of Origins, a seven-song
EP coming out on local label Mt. Fuji Records. Despite having not yet
had a proper release, local music fans have been loving Black Whales
for nearly a year already, thanks to both their live shows and the
self-recorded four-song demo the band have been passing around at them.
The band have a fun folk vibe, but with a little more rock-and-roll
swagger than their peers in the Moondoggies or the Cave Singers. MEGAN
SELING

BRETT DENNEN

(Sun, 8:45 pm, Mural Amphitheatre) It should be said right
away that redheaded Brett Dennen, who plays the guitar and sings and
came from California, seems like a very nice man. He promotes deserving
nonprofits on his website and his songs have conscience. They are best
called “warm,” which they are often called. It makes them sound
slightly more generic than they are, but they are still slightly
generic—but nice. His latest album is Hope for the
Hopeless, which is quite a considerate thing for a fellow to offer.
Rolling Stone called him one to watch. JG

CARRIE RODRIGUEZ

(Sat, 5 pm, Mural Amphitheatre) Rodriguez is an Austin native
who carries a fiddle and an electric guitar, wears big dark hair, and
opens for acts such as Lucinda Williams and John Prine. Blues, country,
rock, roots—it’s all thrown in together by the daughter of a folk
singer and an opera fanatic. Her latest record is called She Ain’t
Me. JG

THE CAVE SINGERS

(Mon, 6:45 pm, Mural Amphitheatre) One of the best things you
could do for yourself this Bumbershoot weekend is catch the Cave
Singers’ set. On their brand-new record, Welcome Joy, Derek
Fudesco’s repetitive guitar riffs race along like an old car on a dusty
Southern highway, while singer Pete Quirk’s slightly worn voice warmly
reminisces about the summers of his youth. You’ll be transported to a
happier place; it’ll be the calm in the midst of your Bumbershoot
storm. MS

CENTRAL SERVICES’ BOARD OF EDUCATION

(Sun, 1 pm, Northwest Court) Among the Seattle pop foursome’s
songs for the 8-to-12-year-old crowd is the popular “The Lonely
Tomato”: “I had fun sitting on top of your salads/And in between your
crust and cheese/But suddenly it seems I’m someone else inside/Things
have gotten awkward in the produce aisle.” Problematically, the tomato
has been told he “might be a fruit.” What now? JG

CHAMPAGNE CHAMPAGNE

(Mon, 4:45 pm, EMP) Few bands can make me blush like
Champagne Champagne can. The local hiphop trio pair sexy beats with
lyrics about some of their favorite (and favorite things about) women.
The soft and spacey “Molly Ringwald” is an ode to a redhead—”the
kind you find in wet dreams.” The more party-vibed “What’s Your
Fantasy” goes, “This is the moment we break it down/Put your legs in
the air while we pound in sound.” In “Cover Girls,” though, the sexual
escapades catch up to them: “She came to me/Loved me so much
unconditionally/Then she gave me what she gave every other guy/Yeah,
the clap.” Dirty, dirty boys. MS

COLD WAR KIDS

(Sun, 1 pm, Memorial Stadium) What do a bunch of white
rockers from Long Beach, California, know about the blues? Apparently
quite a bit, judging by Cold War Kids’ barnstorming interpretation of
it. The SoCal four-piece bluster in the passionate tradition of White
Stripes, Black Keys, and U2, with a heads-down/fists-in-the-air sound
that aims to fill stadia—with music and people. And people
sure are feeling Cold War Kids’ intensity and rousing tunes. DAVE
SEGAL

COMMON
MARKET

(Sun, 5:45 pm, Fisher Green) To restate the obvious: Common
Market are not only the Grand Central Terminal of Seattle hiphop, they
are the Grand Central Terminal of emerging Seattle culture. RA Scion
and Sabzi make some of the smartest, richest music
around—soulful, funky, with the glow of earnest
determination—and have worked with some of Seattle’s best new
comedians (Hari Kondabolu, the People’s Republic of Komedy), filmmakers
(Zia Mohajerjasbi), and experimental musicians (Paul Rucker). Common
Market belong to the world, but you’re lucky enough to share a city
with them. Go. Represent. BRENDAN KILEY

CORDERO

(Sat, 5 pm, Northwest Court) Ani Cordero fronts this
Latin-meets-indie-rock ensemble, which is based in Brooklyn and
bilingual. You might find in the revolving crew Chris Verene
(Rock*A*Teens, D.Q.E., and also a photographer/performance artist),
Eric Biondo (Antibalas Afrobeat Orchestra), Jon Petrow (Cloud Room,
Gachupin), Lynn Wright (Gachupin, James Hall), F.A. Blasco (Interpol,
Slow Whitey), or Paul Watson (Sparklehorse) providing keyboard, horn,
bass, drums, guitar, dancing beats. JG

DAVE ALVIN AND THE GUILTY WOMEN

(Sun, 6:45 pm, Mural Amphitheatre) It’s Dave Alvin—the
Grammy-winning country, folk, and blues man—and seven ladies.
After a member of Alvin’s longtime band, the Guilty Men, died last
year, Alvin created a tribute by working with a new band: the Guilty
Women. They first played together at last fall’s Hardly Strictly
Bluegrass Festival in San Francisco, and the twangy-roots partnership
just stuck. JG

D.BLACK

(Sun, 8 pm, EMP) D.Black is a young rapper with a lot of
heart and also a lot of history in the region—his father was a
member of the Emerald Street Boys. D.Black, an MC of the realist
school, has been at the center of the most active and successful
black-owned hiphop label in the city, Sportn’ Life Records. In 2006, he
released a local classic, The Cause & Effect, and in
September of this year, he is set to release his second album,
Ali’Yah, a work that has tracks produced by two of Seattle’s
three kings of beats, Jake One and Vitamin D (the third king is, of
course, BeanOne). CM

DEAD CONFEDERATE

(Mon, 6 pm, Exhibition Hall) These guys do not sound happy.
They sound tortured. Their first single, released this year, was called
“The Rat”: “Shoot from the back/Take good aim/Make sure I’m dead/Bang
bang/’Cause I’m a rat.” They’re grungy and Southern and heavy and a
little Gothic (in the original sense of the word), hailing from Athens,
Georgia. JG

DE LA
SOUL

(Sat, 9:30 pm, Fisher Green) A rap group that lasts two
decades is a rarity; a rap group that endures that long without showing
serious artistic decadence is even more rare. De La Soul may have
peaked with their first three albums—3 Feet High and
Rising, De La Soul Is Dead, and Buhloone
Mindstate—but the D.A.I.S.Y. Age (RIP) icons haven’t
drastically tailed off in quality, as some other hiphop vets have done.
Boasting a catalog bursting with smart party-igniters, De La Soul
should pack their Bumbershoot set with socially conscious lyrics, swift
vocal interplay, and some of the funkiest, funnest samples ever punched
into an MPC. D. SEGAL See preview.

DELHI 2 DUBLIN

(Mon, 2:15 pm, Fisher Green) Electric sitar! Beats! These
five players are based in Vancouver and mix up electronica and world
musics with fiddle, tabla (a pair of hand drums), dhol (a barrel drum),
Punjabi vocals, that sitar, and those beats. They’re “keeping it heavy
on the Bhangra [it’s a folk Sikh thing], Celtic, and Dub flavours.”
Their friend the director Michael Mann is shooting their first music
video. JG

DEPT. OF ENERGY

(Mon, 12:15 pm, EMP) Former Dear John Letters bandmates Robb
Benson and Cassady Laton have joined forces with Ty Bailie to form
Dept. of Energy, a classic indie-rock outfit with a tendency to break
into mid-era-Beatles-inspired pop harmonies (listen to “Tuning Out” for
a prime example of this). As if they’re not busy enough with that,
Bailie also plays with the likes of Kim Virant, Shane Tutmarc, and Mike
McCready’s Flight to Mars, while Benson can often be seen around town
performing his own solo material. MS

THE DEVIL MAKES THREE

(Mon, 5 pm, Mural Amphitheatre) The Devil Makes Three are
maybe the world’s only folk/country goth band. They’ve got that old,
lo-fi White Stripes vibe, except all of their songs are about the four
horsemen of the apocalypse and graveyards, instead of crappy hotels and
skipping to school. JONAH SPANGENTHAL-LEE

DJ
SPOOKY THAT SUBLIMINAL KID

(Sun, 9:30 pm, EMP) A musical chameleon, an inveterate
collaborator, and a cultural theorist, DJ Spooky That Subliminal Kid
has many ingenious methods to stimulate your mind and body. Probably
the only musician who’s worked with Iannis Xenakis and Kool
Keith, Spooky flaunts tremendous stylistic range as a producer and DJ;
hiphop, jungle, dub, jazz, avant-garde composition, and his self-coined
genre, illbient, flicker through his back catalog with compelling
gravity. He’ll be DJing at Bumbershoot, which means you should prepare
for a dazzling dose of music-history edutainment. D. SEGAL

THE DUSTY 45s

(Sun, 1:30 pm, Mural Amphitheatre) Billy Joe, bandleader of
the Dusty 45s, made a fairly convincing Buddy Holly in the 5th Avenue
Theatre’s production of Buddy; bandmate Kelly Van Kamp played
the Big Bopper in the same production. These hometown charmers play
theatrical rockabilly-swing. Some people love them. Others are
indifferent. But they seem too aw-shucks friendly to actively dislike.
BK

DYME
DEF

(Sun, 2:15 pm, Fisher Green) The new Panic EP from
Seattle’s “3 Bad Brothaaas”—aka MCs Brainstorm, S.E.V., and
Fearce Villain (backed by producer and DJ Bean One)—is another
sure sign that one day, SOMEDAY, people will talk about Seattle hiphop
without having to mention that one guy, ol’-what’s-his-name, and his
songs about Broadway and butts. DD’s independent debut, Space
Music, sold over 10,000 copies, the Source magazine tagged
them “Unsigned Hype” for 2008, and now Panic. The trio sound
sharper and more confident than ever on this disc focused on our
shit-show economy. I predict Dyme Def will hit the mainstream before
the mainstream digs itself out of recession. It’s only matter of time,
babies. KO

DYNO JAMZ

(Sat, 12:30 pm, EMP) Seattle’s Dyno Jamz won this year’s EMP
Sound Off! competition, beating out countless young bands from the
Pacific Northwest. In the finals, they delivered their classy
combination of funk, hiphop, and a little jazz with near-flawless
results and without sacrificing any of their energy (or dance moves).
Blaring horn solos, smooth keyboard riffs, and singer Zac Millan’s
positive lyrics had everyone’s hands in the air—even the
competing bands’ fans were won over. MS

ELENI MANDELL

(Sat, 6:45 pm, Northwest Court) Eleni Mandell is a Los
Angeles–based singer-songwriter. God, what was it that Cracker
said about the world needing another folk singer? EG

ELVIS PERKINS IN DEARLAND

(Sat, 8:30 pm, Northwest Court) Elvis Perkins in Dearland
sound like they’re being beamed in on an old-timey radio (you know, the
kind in the big wooden cabinet like your grandparents had) from, well,
old-timey times. There’s weeping, woozy brass; hard-pounding piano;
trembling organ; a dustbowl troubadour’s acoustic guitar; and
music-hall-sized drums. Then there’s Perkins’s well-worn and
world-weary croon. Everything is positively time-warped. EG

ERIC HUTCHINSON

(Sat, 6:45 pm, Mural Amphitheatre) Eric Hutchinson is like a
younger, better looking (and dressed) Jack Johnson, all innocuous
acoustic guitar and piano, bland good vibes, and offensively “soulful”
singing. He has been championed by no less than internet anal wart
Perez Hilton. EG

EVEREST

(Sat, 12:45 pm, Broad Street) Everest’s online bio talks at
some length about the band’s love for Western-style snap-button shirts.
But Everest isn’t some stylized alt-country act; rather, they’re
purveyors of painfully slow and whisper-soft acoustic balladry, the
sort of stuff that strikes a fine funereal tone but probably takes
decades of listening to ever get stuck in your head. I’m guessing here,
as I don’t have the decades to spare. EG

EXTRA
GOLDEN

(Sun, 4 pm, Fisher Green) Extra Golden were born from a
three-hour international jam session in Nairobi between native
musicians Otieno Jagwasi and Onyango Wuod Omari and American indie
rockers Ian Eagleson (in Kenya to research a doctoral thesis on the
country’s popular benga music) and Alex Minoff, both of the D.C.
band Golden (Minoff also played in the Make-Up, Weird War, and Six
Finger Satellite). After Jagwasi’s death, the band recruited new
members for live performances but had difficulty getting the Kenyan
musicians into the U.S.—a difficulty that was ultimately resolved
with an assist from Barack Obama, leading to perhaps the first
nonembarrassing song bearing the then presidential candidate’s name,
Hera Ma Nono‘s “Obama.” EG

FORGIVE DURDEN

(Mon, 4:15 pm, Exhibition Hall) Are you in the mood for a
high-concept rock opera telling the story of a world ripped in two by
the selfish actions of an egotistical-yet-insecure angel, then made
whole again by the love and sacrifice of a couple brave enough to
fulfill their destinies? Then you won’t want to miss Seattle’s Forgive
Durden performing Razia’s Shadow, the indie-rock band’s concept
album about all of the above. Spoiler alert from Wikipedia: “The
musical is often interpreted as being highly allegorical for the Bible
and the story of Christ.” DAVID SCHMADER

FRANZ
FERDINAND

(Mon, 7:45 pm, Memorial Stadium) On Franz Ferdinand’s latest
album, Tonight: Franz Ferdinand, the Scottish outfit dish out
yet more stylish, sexy, new-wave-inflected rock ‘n’ roll, but with
returns somewhat diminished since their breakout debut. The band’s
stomping drums, strutting bass, and twitchy guitars are still primed
for the dance floor, and frontman Alex Kapranos’s singing voice sounds
as seductive as ever, but his whispered nothings are slightly less
sweet, his barbed asides less sly, and the band’s songs just not quite
as irresistibly catchy as, say, “Take Me Out,” “This Fire,” “Michael,”
or “The Dark of the Matinee.” Pretty fantastic live, though. EG

GANG
GANG DANCE

(Sat, 7 pm, Exhibition Hall) Although Gang Gang Dance have
gradually sheared off some of their more abrasive textures, they’re
still working far left of center from the music-biz grid. These
Brooklyn bohos have always had a predilection for strange rhythms, but
with their latest album, Saint Dymphna, GGD bend grime, gothic
dub, techno, and Madonna’s “Holiday” to their own idiosyncratic will.
This group’s tweaking of the sonic pleasure principle strikes a
subversive, usually unusual note. D. SEGAL See preview.

GRAND HALLWAY

(Mon, 3:15 pm, Northwest Court) On their upcoming release,
Promenade (out online now, in stores September 15), Grand
Hallway craft a meticulous flurry of strings, piano, slide guitar, and
various percussion to score poignant, fun, and beautiful songs. The
first single, “Blessed Be, Honey Be” (available for free on their
website), begins with explosive harmonies and swelling strings; if I
had my way, the first 20 seconds of the song would play every single
time I walked into a room. MS

HANDFUL OF LUVIN’

(Sun, noon, Mural Amphitheatre) “Handful of Luvin'” sounds
like the title of a solo-JO porn film, but actually it’s the name of a
Seattle band whose core members—guitarist/vocalist David John and
classically trained fiddler Andrew Joslyn—met in Bellingham in
2002, started playing out together in 2003, and found themselves a full
band by 2004. This band comprises, according to their press materials,
“five very diverse musicians who love music and try to communicate that
to everyone.” Now go get your Handful of Luvin’ (and don’t forget the
moist towlettes for after). DS

HEAD LIKE A KITE

(Mon, 9:15 pm, EMP) Head Like a Kite make an awful lot of
playful, sexy sound considering that they’re only two men. Trent
Moorman and his well-dressed bandmate Dave Einmo manage to persuade a
mess of wires, synthesizers, old telephones, a guitar, and drums into
dancing together in perfect electronic harmony. How they do it, though,
I just don’t know—even after seeing them a number of times. They
must have extra arms or something. Or really flexible feet. MS

THE HELIO SEQUENCE

(Sun, 9:30 pm, Broad Street) This summer is the Helio
Sequence’s 10th anniversary, and they still sound great—a
guitarist and a drummer/keyboardist who play a hybrid of indie rock and
electronic music. (Keyboardist Benjamin Weikel has also played with
Modest Mouse.) Lots of acts have glossed up their indie rock with
electronic flourishes in the past few years, but few do it better than
mellower forebears the Helio Sequence. BK

HEY MARSEILLES

(Sun, 12:45 pm, Broad Street) Last year, without much
thought, I brushed past Hey Marseilles’ late-2008 release To Travels
& Trunks because I’d had enough of that vaudevillian bullshit
with the swelling strings and lyrics about books. But Hey Marseilles
are not bullshit. And they don’t really sing about books that much,
either. Their songs are about escaping and searching for
happiness—they’re gorgeous and delicate, and if you’ve been
avoiding them, trust that their swelling strings are worth a second
listen. MS

HOLY
FUCK

(Sun, 7:45 pm, Broad Street) The thing I remember most from
seeing Holy Fuck live is how one of their members spent most of the set
pulling ribbons of magnetic tape through some onstage device like
oversized dental floss. I’m guessing it was some kind of tape delay? No
matter, because while Holy Fuck’s live machinations may be somewhat
indecipherable, their sound is viscerally immediate and understandable,
all noisy throb, heat-ticking motorik pulse, wild-animal synth squeaks
and squeals, and, in the case of the epic, Owen Pallett–assisted
“Lovely Allen,” giant, sweeping strings that could lift you right off
the Seattle Center lawn and leave you floating above the Space Needle.
EG See preview.

THE HONEY BROTHERS

(Sun, 3:15 pm, Mural Amphitheatre) Adrian Grenier, of
Entourage fame, is in a lame folk band. Somebody else in the
group plays ukulele. Ugh, whatever. Just go and stare into Grenier’s
hauntingly blue eyes as he bangs away at his drum kit, and imagine that
you are the drum kit. JSL

HOTELS

(Sat, 2 pm, EMP) The music scene is thick with ’80s tribute
bands, including but not limited to Love Vigilantes (New Order
knockoffs), Fascination Street (Cure copiers), Black Celebration
(Depeche Mode
do-overs), and This Charming Band (Smiths fakers).
And then there’s Seattle’s Hotels, an ’80s rehash act canny enough to
write their own songs—shamelessly derivative synth-pop
ditties-and-dirges that play mix-and-match with ’80s influences. One
Hotels performance video shows a Joy Division–looking guitarist
rocking out next to a would-be Paul Simonon on bass, creating a song
that sounds like Disintegration-era Cure as performed by
Bauhaus. DS

IGLU & HARTLY

(Sat, 5:15 pm, Exhibition Hall) California pop-rock
five-piece Iglu & Hartly describe their sound as “Tom Petty meets
the Pointer Sisters in a neon karaoke bar.” This sounded too good to be
true, but a quick listen to the band’s “Jump out of Your Car” proves
the description’s exactness: The music quite literally sounds like a
glossy, synthy mid-’80s Pointer Sisters hit crossbred with a
guitar-driven Tom Petty track; even the title is perfectly in tune.
Then come the vocals—squirrelly candy-rap by a pretty-boy honky
who can’t decide if he’s Jake Shears or Marshall Mathers and often ends
up sounding like a reject from Sigue Sigue Sputnik. Nevertheless, it’s
all ridiculously entertaining. Or as the kids say: It’s got a good beat
and you can dance to it. DS

JANELLE
MONAE

(Mon, 5:45 pm, Fisher Green) I first encountered Janelle
Monae on OutKast’s Idlewild, where she lit up a couple of tracks
on a good album that would ultimately be ignored. Soon enough, Monae
was signed by P. Diddy, releasing ambitious “urban alternative” records
for Bad Boy and opening for Of Montreal. All evidence confirms Monae’s
status as an art-driven diva with much more in common with Erykah Badu
than with, say, Ciara. Monae’s 2009 SXSW show was hailed as a
metal-tinged space-funk mindblower. DS

JASON MRAZ

(Sun, 9:15 pm, Memorial Stadium) Someone’s got to be the
less-douchey John Mayer, and there’s no better contender than Jason
Mraz, a perfectly good guy making perfectly nice music that will not
make you cover your ears in horror should you happen to hear it on the
radio or in the supermarket. He’s funny, humble, pro-gay, and he wears
hats. DS

KATY PERRY

(Sat, 1:45 pm, Memorial Stadium) Admit it: It’s been fun
watching Katy Perry flicker and falter in the moment (i.e., 2009)
following her initial flash of fame, as Lady GaGa’s off-the-rack
club-kid pop overtakes Perry’s lame (and formerly evangelical
Christian) faux lesbiantics. Oh sure, she’ll probably come back in 2010
or something (the supervillain always comes back one more time before
the end)—and, yes, she deserves some credit for being able to
write her own as well as other people’s songs and for being an
entertaining if entirely predictable loudmouth in interviews—but
history will remember her as a footnote, no more important though a
great deal more odious than that Jill Sobule character (whatever
happened to her, anyway?). EG

KAY KAY
AND HIS WEATHERED UNDERGROUND

(Sat, 9:30 pm, EMP) I confess I’d forgotten about Kay
Kay—the Sgt. Pepper of Seattle indie rock—until earlier
this summer, when I stumbled into a house party where the Weathered
Underground filled out the living room with their horns, guitar, bass,
and rainbow slip-n-slide harmonies. They were all big sound and
goodwill (and high on mushrooms), with their small, rapt audience
reflected in the tuba’s circular bell. Kay Kay are the sound of a
refreshing vacation, the perfect antidote to crowd-induced grouchiness.
BK

KELLER WILLIAMS

(Mon, 8:30 pm, Mural Amphitheatre) There is a powerful moment
in the movie To Sleep with Anger. It happens when Danny Glover,
who is the bad guy, says something like: “I like my blues
simple—just a man and his guitar.” This is the kind of thing (or
simplicity, or honesty) that Virginian Keller Williams strives for: a
man and his guitar. Though he has made music with groups (like the
Keels and the String Cheese Incident), a good part of his reputation
rests on his solo performances of funk, bluegrass, and rock. CM

KIM FIELD AND THE MIGHTY TITANS OF TONE

(Sat, 1:30 pm, Mural Amphitheatre) Local musician Kim Field
plays the harmonica, an instrument that has no value in jazz, little to
no value in soul, a little to some value in reggae, some to lots of
value in rock, and lots and lots of value in blues. The harmonica is to
blues what the melodica is to dub. Its sound does justice to the kind
of music Field loves and makes, music that has its roots in the
Mississippi Delta. CM

THE KINDNESS KIND

(Sun, 12:30 pm, EMP) Midday on Labor Day weekend may not be
the best time to really experience the Kindness Kind’s darker,
experimental indie rock. Singer Allessandra Rose’s voice is fragile
and, at times, haunting, and the band’s keyboards only embellish the
worried and distressed tones in her dramatic songs. There’s nothing
summery about it. But at least their set is inside, so you can pretend,
while they play, that the sun doesn’t exist and that you’re floating in
the outer limits of cold, deep space. MS

THE KNUX

(Mon, 1:30 pm, Memorial Stadium) While Jay-Z and Dizzee
Rascal are content to harness the inexhaustible power of Billy Squier
riffs, the Knux—New Orleans-by-way-of-L.A. brothers Kentrell and
Alvin Lindsey—take it back to the old school, composing their own
goddamn rock riffs on their own goddamn guitars à la the track
that started it all: Run-D.M.C.’s “Rock Box,” which featured original
guitar work by Eddie Martinez. If none of the tracks on the Knux’s 2008
debut, Remind Me in 3 Days…, achieves the perfection of that
instigating classic, they have a complete blast trying, and they’re
said to be even more intense and exciting live. DS

KORE IONZ

(Sun, 12:30 pm, Fisher Green) As one who knows his reggae, I
can confidently state that Kore Ionz are one of the better local roots
bands in the region. Three reasons why: One, the singer is actually
good; two, the band know how to blend the percussive elements with the
melodic ones; and, three, they never go too far from the traditional
beat of roots reggae. Kore Ionz are an excellent live band for the
local lovers of classical Jamaican pop. CM

KRISTEN WARD

(Sat, noon, Mural Amphitheatre) With Kristen Ward’s music, we
hear a very steady and full sound. There is sorrow here, but it’s not
bleak; no matter how bad things are, there’s always a little warmth,
like the wood of walls in a room with a fireplace. Ward is from
Seattle, is young, has two albums to her name, and has a vocal approach
that’s all about bigness. She is far from shy, she is not depressed,
she is alive and in a world that, even in tunes like “Lowdownville” and
“Loneliness,” has its flowers, long sunsets, and silver moons. CM

LENKA

(Mon, 8:30 pm, Northwest Court) You will not be surprised to
learn that the reason why Lenka (an Australian based in L.A.) has some
amount of fame is because one of her pop tunes, “The Show,” was used by
Old Navy to promote its products on TV. Her music (overwritten,
overperformed) seems designed for companies that want their products to
be attached to clever and catchy tunes. We have not seen the end of
this sort of thing. Feist, look at what you have done! CM

THE LONELY FOREST

(Mon, 3:15 pm, EMP) The Lonely Forest have had a difficult
couple of years—they battled addiction, suffered illness, and had
to reformulate their sound as a trio after their guitarist left the
band. The boys from Anacortes were on the brink of fading away. But on
their new record, We Sing the Body Electric!, the band own all
the adversity that could’ve destroyed them and make the skeletons in
their closet dance. It’s one of the most powerful and thoughtful pop
records to come from the Pacific Northwest in a while. MS See
preview.

THE LONG WINTERS

(Sat, 9:30 pm, Broad Street) Not that he’s not a great
singer, songwriter, and guitarist, but sometimes you just wish John
Roderick, the frontman of veteran Seattle indie-rock band the Long
Winters, would just quit the musician gig and go into public speaking
full-time. Because the man is funny. Sure, the Long Winters have
songs, but any gig of theirs is usually as good for the
between-song banter as it is for aching acoustic-y numbers like “The
Commander Thinks Aloud” or “Cinnamon.” Also, Roderick is a real live
yeti. EG

LOW VS DIAMOND

(Sat, 4:15 pm, Broad Street) Here is a rock band that have
the advantage of having one clear goal: producing a hit, a huge hit. If
they can do this, if one of their catchy tunes becomes larger than life
and skyrockets to the top of the charts, then their mission is
accomplished. Based in L.A., the quintet make the kind of rock that
soars with powerful feelings and transforms ordinary moments into epics
of the soul. All they need is the wonder of one big hit. CM

MACKLEMORE

(Mon, 12:30 pm, Fisher Green) In a world full of lies,
Macklemore reps truth. The Seattle MC steers clear of the
bullshit—the tired gold-guns-n-girls rap
clichés—instead tackling issues such as race, politics,
and religion with some much-needed bluntness and sincerity. And he’s
needle-pointedly funny, too. If we’re lucky, he’ll bring that mullet
and mustachioed white-boy alter ego “Aberdeen” with him to perform “I’m
an American.” That guy really keeps it real. KO

MARK TAYLOR QUARTET

(Sun, 4 pm, Northwest Court) Mark Taylor is a local, young
jazz saxophonist with a lot of experience, education, and also a
growing reputation. In 2008 he was named NW Jazz Instrumentalist of the
Year by Earshot Jazz, and he has worked with local notables like Victor
Noriega and fav trumpeter Thomas Marriott (Flexicon is an album
that needs more attention). Because the ghost of Coltrane is never far
from where he blows, expect Taylor’s set to be the site of great jazz.
CM

MASSY FERGUSON

(Sat, 3:15 pm, Mural Amphitheatre) With one album, Cold
Equations, in their past, Massy Ferguson, a local band with a sound
that their MySpace page describes as “unapologetic rock Americana for
the masses,” now have the future ahead of them. That future includes
touring Australia, the perfect continent for the band’s brand of
neo-Southern rock. I can easily picture a tavern of Aussies enjoying
their music, drinking beer, whistling, clapping, and dancing like they
are somewhere in the middle of America. CM

MATT & KIM

(Sat, 6 pm, Broad Street) The ridiculous dance party that
explodes in the audience every time Matt Johnson and Kim Schifino get
on a stage could only get sweeter if the Brooklyn indie-pop duo showed
up at Bumbershoot wearing what they wore at the end of their video for
“Lessons Learned.” Did you see that one? The video of them slowly
walking through a supercrowded, midwinter Times Square? The one where
they take off every stitch of their clothing except for Kim’s socks?
Hoo-wee! That was a good one. Can’t you picture Kim drumming under the
hazy Seattle sun, wearing just her maniacal smile and those socks? I
can. KO

MAYER
HAWTHORNE & THE COUNTY

(Sat, 4 pm, Fisher Green) Mayer Hawthorne’s debut single for
esteemed L.A. oddball hiphop label Stones Throw was pressed on red,
heart-shaped vinyl—appropriate, given how much love drips from
his blue-eyed soul songs. Not only romantic love won and lost, but a
deep, abiding love for his hometown of Detroit’s rich musical
traditions, from J Dilla on back to classic Motown. You’ll hear less of
the former and more of the latter in Hawthorne’s vintage-sounding
arrangements and straight-faced, falsetto-reaching croon. Think
Jim-era Jamie Lidell, only with less wicked wit and outlandish
stage presence; instead, Hawthorne is just dapper and pro, backed by
his slick-but-not-showy band the County. EG See preview.

METRIC

(Mon, 9:30 pm, Broad Street) Like the measurement system from
which they take their name, Canadian rock band Metric are just smarter
and more efficient than bushels and hogsheads of their American peers
put together. Frontwoman Emily Haines cracks whip-smart, precisely
poetic lyrics over her band’s high-gloss but never garish pop hooks,
and she runs the stage like a woman wonderfully possessed, pounding on
her keyboards and singing with a voice that vacillates between perfect
calm, sweet sultriness, and anxiety-inducing sneers with ease. Their
latest album, Fantasies, is not their greatest, but nothing in
their worthwhile catalog displeases; some stuff just thrills more than
the rest. EG

MICHAEL FRANTI & SPEARHEAD

(Sun, 7:15 pm, Memorial Stadium) Yes, Michael Franti has been
around forever. Yes, he sometimes smothers his songs with a thick glaze
of sanctimony. Yes, he pretty much stopped wearing shoes in 2000. But
he’s been one of the good guys from his industrial-punk days in the
Beatnigs to his early hiphop with the Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy
to the world-rap/folk of Spearhead. These days he’s singing about
“riddims” and “rude boys” and hanging out in Jamaica. Like Manu Chao,
he sometimes staggers toward self-parody but, like Manu Chao, you’ll
miss him when he’s gone. BK

MICHAEL SHRIEVE’S SPELLBINDER

(Sun, 5:30 pm, Northwest Court) Michael Shrieve has a lot of
history behind him. Back in the day, he was a drummer for Santana. He
also performed at Woodstock. These days, he has a jam band that
basically revive the spirit of that moment in avant-garde rock, with
its trippy hippies and its worship of long and elaborate guitar solos.
When old rock musicians are feeling it, we call it jamming; when old
funk musicians are feeling it, we call it cooking. Because the young
musicians of our time do not have those kinds of feelings, they neither
jam nor cook. CM

THE MINUS 5

(Mon, 1:30 pm, Mural Amphitheatre) Scott McCaughey—also
of the Young Fresh Fellows and allegedly an unofficial “fifth” member
of R.E.M.—has like eight million side projects. This is one of
them. It’s your standard post-grunge-Seattle indie folk rock stuff,
done very professionally. Their latest album is the recently released
Killingsworth. JSL

MIRAH

(Mon, 4:15 pm, Broad Street) The ideal way to hear K Records
singer-songwriter Mirah (full name Mirah Yom Tov Zeitlyn) would be to
see her on solo acoustic guitar, playing in an open field for only you
and the one you love. Second runner-up might be lying on the floor of
your room, watching her classic album You Think It’s Like This but
It’s Really It’s Like This or Advisory Committee spinning
around on your record player, her impossibly intimate singing and
breathtaking songs crackling out of a pair of old speakers. Forgoing
all this, seeing her backed by a live band on the Broad Street lawn at
Bumbershoot is not a bad way to go. EG

MODEST
MOUSE

(Mon, 9:30 pm, Memorial Stadium) Unless you’re 8 or deaf or
you’ve been in a coma (oh wait, have you been in a coma?), you have no
excuse for not being at least 10 years deep into Modest Mouse
superfandom. It’s been 13 years since their striking debut EP,
Interstate 8, and full-length, This Is a Long Drive for
Someone with Nothing to Think About. It’s been 12 years since the
indisputable, insane genius of follow-up album The Lonesome Crowded
West. If you’ve only been paying attention in the five years since
breakthrough single “Float On,” the bad news is you missed out on some
truly wild early years; the good news is that you’ve got some fucking
great catching up to do. EG

MSTRKRFT

(Sun, 8:30 pm, Exhibition Hall) For whatever reason,
crossover electronic dance acts tend to have a sadly predictable life
span, one that goes from their moment of underground cred to the
inevitable, ill-advised vocal collaborations, usually within the space
of just one or two albums. So it is with Canadian electro headbangers
MSTRKRFT, whose utterly disposable sophomore album, Fist of God,
plays out exactly as you’d expect it to—like a limp rehash of
their debut, only with a completely ridic Ghostface “guest” appearance
that sounds like it could have been lifted from a voice-mail message.
The Looks was dopey and fun; Fist of God is just dumb
(fittingly, there is also an E-40 guest spot). EG

MT. ST. HELENS VIETNAM BAND

(Sun, 2:30 pm, Broad Street) A few weeks ago, local indie
rockers Mt. St. Helens Vietnam Band reached a high point in their short
career by being the first band in the U.S. to ever play a live show on
a live volcano. Technically they played at the observation center that
was looking at Mount St. Helens—but had the mountain decided to
erupt that evening, they’d have still been toast. They survived,
though, and even played a few new songs from their next record, which
promises to be just as lush, fun, and catchy as their self-titled
debut. MS

NATALIE PORTMAN’S SHAVED HEAD

(Sat, 2:30 pm, Broad Street) NPSH are a live dance band that
sound like dorky, happy, blissfully unselfconscious kids taking drugs
and rubbing their sweaty stomachs against each other. Plus Devo. Plus
cartoons. Plus glitter. They’ve toured with CSS and Lily Allen and sing
about trying not to smoke and amusement parks: “Do you want to go on
the tilt-a-whirl?/C’mon, girl, till you hurl!” These kids are bound for
candy-colored trouble. BK

THE NEW MASTERSOUNDS

(Mon, 4 pm, Fisher Green) It seems completely improbable that
four British dudes from Leeds could play kind-of-awesome jazz-funk that
sounds like you’re on a Caribbean vacation with Curtis Mayfield. But
here it is. Whatever, Universe, you win again. JSL

NO
AGE

(Sun, 6:45 pm, Exhibition Hall) I just went to the dentist to
get a filling. (Stupid, delicious Hot Tamales.) While the work was
being done, I took in nitrous oxide through my nose and No Age’s
Nouns through my ears, via headphones. It was a perfect match,
with the sound of the drill fitting right into the music and vice
versa. The record played all the way through. I left feeling like I’d
just taken a small vacation. DS

THE NOT-ITS!

(Sat, 1:30 pm, Northwest Court) When I was a kid, the
Not-Its!’s Danny Adamson played in a punk band for young adults called
Wafflestomper (it was the ’90s). Now I’m an adult, and Adamson is a
dad, and he plays in a punk band for kids. And not “kids” in the
all-ages/DIY/hardcore vernacular, either, but actual snot-nosed,
grubby-faced, pants-pooping, crying-for-their-mommies children.
Why anyone would jump out of the frying pan of playing for moshing
alterna-teens and into the fire of performing for toddlers is beyond
me, but clearly the Not-Its! are made of tougher stuff than I. (Also,
you can misspell their name as “the No Tits,” an equally appropriate
message for the little ones.) EG

OLD 97’S

(Sat, 7:45 pm, Memorial Stadium) Alt-country like the
Drive-By Truckers, with a little more Nashville shuffle. These lyrics
really tell you all you need to know: “Well you can drop me off on
Highway 34/I hear they got some beer cans there, and I gotta get some
more/Drive me into town so we can cash ’em in/Then we will never have
to live in sin/I’m just picking up beer cans on the highway/It’s the
only thing I ever want to do/I’m just picking up beer cans on the
highway/I gotta save my dough so I can marry you.” BK

OLYMPIC SOUND COLLECTIVE

(Sat, 12:30 pm, Fisher Green) There are no kind words I can
find for this local jam band. For one, I hate jamming (as much as I
hate cooking). Also, I hate that moment after jazz (the fusion period)
when jamming was all the rage. Jamming with electric pianos and guitars
was the sound of nails being hammered into the coffin of modern jazz,
which lived from 1946 to 1969. CM

OREN LAVIE

(Mon, 5 pm, Northwest Court) Hoooooo-wee. This is some
low-key shit. Strings (sweeping, hopping), piano (tinkly), sustained
crooning (hushed). I mean, you could put this on in the car with your
mom and she would probably rock back and forth a little bit and hum.
And then she’d be like, “Who is this? Is this the kind of band
that you and your friends are into?” and you’d be annoyed even though
she’s just trying to relate to you, so then you’d feel like a dick for
feeling annoyed. And you’d say, “Yeah, Mom. It’s a pretty good band.”
And she’d say, “I love you, son. Here is $100.” KA-CHINGGGGG!!! LW

OS
MUTANTES

(Sat, 7:30 pm, Fisher Green) In 1964, the Brazilian Army led
a right-wing coup against the government. Two years later, a
psychedelic-rock band called Os Mutantes formed in São Paulo,
took too much LSD, and composed the background music for Brazil’s
uneasy combination of tropical dream and military dictatorship. “The
Mutants” played the sexiest rock of the ’60s, blending Beach Boys pop
with Hendrix soul and the stylistic kinkiness of Brazil’s Tropicalia
movement. (The voice of their original singer, Rita Lee, sounds like a
dress falling onto a cool tile floor.) Most North Americans didn’t
discover them until well after their nasty, protracted breakup (which
involved drugs, fights, and at least one coma, induced by a leap from a
six-story window). In 1993, Kurt Cobain wrote Os Mutantes a letter,
asking them to tour again. In 1999, David Byrne released a Mutantes
compilation. The U.S. love affair with the Mutants continues. BK

OTEP

(Sat, 8:45 pm, Exhibition Hall) OTEP carry on in the
tradition of Ministry, though they’re not nearly as macho and sound
more metal than industrial (and melodic metal at that—more
aluminum than lead). But the message is similar: “Smash the control
machine/Work, buy, consume, die.” Frontwoman Otep Shamaya is a lesbian,
vegetarian PETA supporter who grew up in a tough part of Los Angeles.
She writes poems, paints, and caught a raft of shit for her song about
killing dudes (“Menocide”). And she can rock a death grunt. BK

PARENTHETICAL GIRLS

(Sun, 3:30 pm, EMP) Holy Fuck may win the award for the most
obviously “offensive” band name at Bumbershoot (if you’re the kind of
adult baby who gets offended by dirty words), but they’ve got nothing
on Parenthetical Girls in the shocking-sensibilities department. In
Parenthetical Girls, frontman (and former Stranger music writer)
Zac Pennington plays a morally and sexually ambiguous dandy fop
narcissist who conducts illicit, predatory romances over cartoon-giddy
orchestral scores and delicately arranged noise. Sounds lovely, doesn’t
it? The band’s latest, Entanglements, is a fine, if freakish,
work of baroque pop. Parents, lock up your sons and daughters. EG

PAST
LIVES

(Sat, 3:30 pm, EMP) It’s hard to talk about Past Lives
without addressing the, well, past lives of the members—singer
Jordan Blilie, guitarist/synth man Morgan Henderson, drummer Mark
Gajadhar, and guitarist Devin Welch—who were all, at one time, in
Seattle-area hardcore band the Blood Brothers. Now with less screamo
and more nerve-jangling post-punk disquietude, the foursome are forging
new ground and new sounds with Strange Symmetry, recorded in
2008 and mixed by Dann Gallucci (whose past lives include Murder City
Devils and Modest Mouse). KO

PAUL OSCHER

(Sun, 7:30 pm, Northwest Court) Old-timey
multi-instrumentalist Paul Oscher used to be the “harp player” in Muddy
Waters’s blues band—and I’m pretty sure that’s the kind of harp
you blow with your mouth, not the kind you pluck and caress with your
delicate ladyfingers. Now solo, he sings and plays basic,
stripped-down, totally legit (for a white person) blues about “walkin'”
and “driftin'” at about the pace of your grandma’s morning
constitutional. If you met him, he would probably tell you to “take a
load off” and he might refer to people as “cats.” He seems like that
kind of guy. LW

POINT JUNCTURE, WA

(Mon, 1:45 pm, EMP) Okay, there’s a slight boringness issue
here. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. That’s a drum. Fuzz. Fuzz. Fuzz. Fuzz. That’s
a guitar. Blaaaaaaah. Blaaaaaaah. Blaaaaaaah. That’s a lady-singer. The
finished product is in no way unpleasant—it’s a little nice, a
little throwbacky, a little precious. You might listen to it in a car
if you were a character in a movie driving a car. A kind of boring but
kind of nice movie. LW

PORTLAND CELLO PROJECT

(Mon, 6:45 pm, Northwest Court) Portland Cello Project are,
as you might infer, a sprawling string ensemble from our sister city to
the south. The octet’s repertoire ranges from cello interpretations of
Britney Spears’s “Toxic” and Salt-N-Pepa’s “Push It” to Strauss’s “Also
Sprach Zarathustra.” The group’s most recent project was a recording
session with Justin Power and Thao Nguyen of Thao with the Get Down
Stay Down, resulting in the album The Thao & Justin Power
Sessions (man, do they have a thing for self-explanatory names).
EG

RAPHAEL SAADIQ

(Sun, 9:30 pm, Fisher Green) A couple years ago, Amy
Winehouse’s Back to Black (created with invaluable help from
Mark Ronson and the Dap-Kings) reminded a whole bunch of (white) people
about the vast aural pleasures of old-school soul. Legendary
singer-songwriter-producer Raphael Saadiq has devoted most of his life
to these pleasures, leading the chart-conquering new jack swingsters
Tony! Toni! Toné!, producing the deep funk stew of D’Angelo’s
classic Voodoo, and, most recently, releasing his freakishly
accomplished 2008 solo album The Way I See It. The latter is an
impeccable dazzler that comes on like a one-man Motown show, with
Saadiq playing all the parts, from mastermind Berry Gordy to
songwriting factory Holland-Dozier-Holland to singing-songwriting
superstar Smokey Robinson. That the end result manages to spring to its
own 21st-century life is a testament to Saadiq’s gifts. Winehouse can
only cry in her crack. DS

RECESS MONKEY

(Mon, 1:30 pm, Northwest Court) I have to warn you that
Recess Monkey, “Seattle’s Greatest Children’s Music Band,” have plans:
They want to teach your children the old “Orange you glad I didn’t say
‘banana'” joke. Do you really want that? Are you ready for that in your
home? Banana. Banana. Banana. Banana. Banana. Banana. If you
are—and you like smart, poppy music (for kids) that is somehow
both whimsical and not awful—here are Recess Monkey.
BANANA. LW

ROMANCE

(Sun, 5 pm, EMP) Listening to Romance: They are kind of like
driving the Magic School Bus straight into Robert Smith’s respiratory
system—up the goth nostril, down the breathing canal (technical
term), a nice picnic under a bronchial tree heavy with sadness fruits.
It’s a direct line to super-straightforward but well-executed ’80s
post-punk business. Uh oh, you guys… I think Robert Smith is going to
sneeeeeeeeze! Whoooa-oaaa-oa-ooohhhh!!!!! And
then—splat—right into Robert Smith’s potato salad (next up:
digestive system!). LW

ROY
AYERS

(Sun, 7:30 pm, Fisher Green) Roy Ayers is, of course, one of
the great vibraphonists in the history of jazz. He also is one of the
few jazz musicians to make a successful transition from jazz to funk
(as well as disco and hiphop). Out of all the work he has done, and it
is a lot, that which is most fascinating to me is his album with the
Nigerian Afrobeat god Fela Kuti, Music of Many Colors (1980).
The magical collaboration between the black African and black American
gave expression to Pan-Africanist feelings, to the desire to relink two
worlds that had the same (but very distant) roots. “Africa, the center
of the world.” Ayers’s imagination has yet to find a moment of rest.
CM

SAY
HI

(Mon, 2:30 pm, Broad Street) Seattle-by-way-of-Brooklyn
indie-rock auteur Eric Elbogen (aka Say Hi, formerly Say Hi to Your
Mom) sings pretty, precious pop songs about lovable geeks and the
ladies who crush them, sometimes thinly disguising his subjects as
vampires or robots, with all the obvious metaphorical implications
(vampires will drain your heart, robots have no hearts to drain). His
latest album, this year’s Oohs & Aahs, is his best yet; his
cutesier tendencies are toned down, allowing his more straightforward
characters, scenes, and sentiments more room to live and breathe. And
as ever, Elbogen’s endearing mumble is buoyed by sharp melodic hooks.
EG

SERA
CAHOONE

(Sun, 5 pm, Mural Amphitheatre) Carissa’s Wierd
drummer-turned-singer-songwriter Sera Cahoone plays quiet, country-time
sad songs about all the things country-time sad songs are usually
about: loss, change, highways, cigarettes. It’s nap music, in a good
way. LW

SHERYL CROW

(Sat, 9:15 pm, Memorial Stadium) Did you know that the crows
are poised to take over? Those things are fucking bird geniuses. They
can use tools, and remember things, and play tricks, and understand
concepts like “If you pick up this piece of garbage, I will give you a
food nugget.” This particular crow not only learned how to play the
guitar, it also once fucked Eric Clapton. Don’t be fooled by its
luxurious human wig; it is a nefarious, power-mad bird scientist like
all the rest. Keep both hands on your nugget pouch and stay away from
this crow. CAWWW!!! LW

SICK PUPPIES

(Sat, 3:30 pm, Exhibition Hall) Sick Puppies are from
Australia (an inherently corny nation-state) and have a hot lady bass
player and a terrible name and emotions. To the delight of girls in
fingerless gloves everywhere, the President’s Council on Super Corny
Shit named Sick Puppies the #1 Most ’90s Band of 2006, rocketing them
to slightly-sub-Evanescence-level fame and fortune. Which sounds
totally bitchy of me, until you consider the fact that I sometimes have
a deeply visceral, nostalgic yearning for The End circa 1998: all
Matchbox Twenty and Bush and Spin Doctors and Tal Bachman and
hahaahahaaaahahahaahahahahahaha. Tal Bachman!!! Hahaahahaahaahahahaaa.
LW

SLEEPY
EYES OF DEATH

(Sun, 6:30 pm, EMP) I love live shows that become more like
performance art and less like musicians standing on a stage. Seattle
electro-rockers Sleepy Eyes of Death create a spooky and gorgeous
visual experience that absolutely complements the aural one. Smoke
machines and colored lights intensify the creepy sounds of their mostly
instrumental sets created with vintage analog synthesizers and
occasional vocoded vocal bits. Expect the vividly lit EMP stage to add
that much more industrial-strength light and magic to their live show.
KO

SLY
& ROBBIE & THE TAXI GANG

(Mon, 9:15 pm, Fisher Green) How long have Sly & Robbie
been in the music business? Since the moment ska became ska and reggae
became reggae. Known for their tightness, their machinelike precision,
the duo’s impact on Jamaican pop can never be overstated. They not only
consolidated the very sound of roots reggae on “Pass the Koutchie,”
they also went on to continually change the form they helped
consolidate, even playing a role in establishing reggae’s digital
moment, in the mid 1980s, and its final computerization, in the 1990s.
Praising Sly & Robbie is the easiest thing to do in the world,
because there is no end to their achievements. CM See preview.

SOULSAVERS AND MARK LANEGAN

(Mon, 7:45 pm, Broad Street) Take heed ‘n’ stuff, Mark
Lanegan obsessives, even though you obviously know this already! UK
electronica duo Soulsavers have made an album with your man Lanegan,
and now Soulsavers and Lanegan and Lanegan’s voice box are coming to
wail and clang and sometimes hush in your faces! Did you miss Lanegan?
He is coming for you. LW

SPACEMAN

(Sun, 8 pm, EMP) If you haven’t heard Spaceman’s debut
single, “This Is That Fire,” on Seattle’s Sportn’ Life Records, then
you’d better wake up and smell the hiphop. The charismatic, 23-year-old
hypeman-turned-MC became Sportn’ Life’s sudden breakout star in 2008
and has already shared a stage with Nas, Wu-Tang Clan, 88 Keys, Bun B,
and Devin the Dude. Live, expect the S-Man to bring that heat,
including crowd surfing and/or stage diving. That boy is known to get
wild. KO

STEVE GRIGGS QUINTET

(Sun, 2:30 pm, Northwest Court) Local saxophonist and
composer Steve Griggs performs with a group of Seattle jazz greats: Jay
Thomas, Phil Sparks, Bill Anschell, and Milo Peterson. His website says
he is “writing a new set of music to celebrate the talent of the band,”
which is, quite obviously, ADORABLE. LW

SWOLLEN MEMBERS

(Sun, 5 pm, Exhibition Hall) Vancouver, BC, is the place to
be for Swollen Members, a rap crew (led by veterans Mad Child and
Prevail) who have been around since the emergence of hiphop’s
underground in the mid-’90s. Housed primarily by Battle Axe Records and
known for furious beats and twisted rhymes, Swollen Members have
produced several excellent albums and, for the longest time, were the
biggest rap act in the Pacific Northwest. It can be argued that in the
time between Sir Mix-A-Lot and Blue Scholars, Swollen Members were the
brightest star in the region. CM

TELEKINESIS

(Sat, 8 pm, EMP) You only have to hear the first 10 seconds
of the song “Tokyo,” from Telekinesis’s latest self-titled Merge
release, for the whole song to get stuck in your head for a week.
“I-I-I went to Tokyo! Only in my dreams, ’cause they’re all I know!”
All of Telekinesis’s songs are just as memorable—bouncy drumming,
hyper and fuzzy guitar. MS

TODD SNIDER

(Sun, 9:15 pm, Northwest Court) Trapped in that
between-rock-and-a-country place that hobbled Lucinda Williams for so
long, Todd Snider is the best American songwriter you’ve maybe never
heard of. The Williams comparison is an imperfect one: Snider doesn’t
seem driven to strive for a career culmination/breakthrough à la
Car Wheels on a Gravel Road (he makes great records, not
masterworks), plus he’s 10,000 times funnier than Williams could ever
be, even if she were wearing a rainbow wig and chasing a dog with a ham
in its mouth. Along with his killer wit, Snider’s signature is a
miraculous lack of sentimentality. As a weathered, perceptive,
fortysomething working artist, Snider’s subjects often come from the
hard-luck American underbelly. But Snider’s heroes aren’t beautiful
losers—they’re day-labor construction workers who pay by the week
at roadside motels. DS

TRUCKASAURAS

(Mon, 7:45 pm, EMP) Drunk electronica honkies who drape
themselves in American flags and project bizarre videos (Chuck Norris
regurgitating beer, homoerotic moments in professional wrestling):
Truckasauras make party music. It’s unclear how they’ll play at
Bumbershoot—they’re better suited to a dank basement packed with
young revelers. But if you and your 10 closest friends have just
crawled off the roller coaster and gotten stoned and are ready to
dance, the Truckasauras show might be your scene. BK

U.S.E

(Sun, 4:15 pm, Broad Street) How is it possible for a Marxist
to hate U.S.E? The local seven-piece pop/techno/rock band make music
for a socialist state that has yet to be realized. Theirs is a state of
universal everythang (transportation, health care, job security, child
care); theirs is a state of absolute social euphoria. What dreary
Marxists are striving for night and day has its end in the bright,
bright world that is imagined and celebrated in U.S.E’s nonstop
dance/disco/party music. CM See preview.

UH HUH HER

(Sat, 7:45 pm, Broad Street) This L.A.-based electro-pop duo
sounds like Elastica (remember them?) stuck a fork in a light socket,
and not in a good way. JSL

VIEUX
FARKA TOURÉ

(Mon, 7:30 pm, Fisher Green) This fucking fantastic Malian
musician has brought the guitar back from the dead. This is not a joke;
the instrument is alive and well in his gifted hands. Who in the world
knew that Mali would be the place where guitar virtuosity (dead in
America and the UK since the 1970s) is revived and given a whole new
life and direction? And it’s a strange, almost preternatural direction,
one that departs from an intersection of black-American blues and
traditional black-African rhythms. Who knew this would happen? CM

VISQUEEN

(Mon, 12:45 pm, Broad Street) If you’re looking to work up a
sweat pogoing to blasts of übercatchy power-pop this weekend, then
Visqueen are a good bet. They’re a little bit pop punk and a little bit
rock and roll, and singer Rachel Flotard is an energetic ball of sass
who’ll make you move your ass. Their performance should be extra
on-point and celebratory, as they’re releasing their new record,
Message to Garcia, on September 8. MS

VIVIAN
GIRLS

(Sun, 6 pm, Broad Street) Vivian Girls’ sophomore album,
Everything Goes Wrong, is a relative epic for the Brooklyn
fuzz-pop trio. At only 36 minutes, it’s still more than one and a half
times the length of their buzz-making self-titled debut. Not that the
Girls have gotten all ponderous or anything. Their dream-pop racket
still comes delivered in short and sweet blasts, full of blissfully
droning vocal harmonies, loose-jangling guitars, bobbing bass lines,
and upbeat, running-off-the-rails rhythms. Live, you’ll fall in love
with these ladies or else you’re just no fun at all. EG See preview.

WALLPAPER

(Mon, 6:15 pm, EMP) Most of Wallpaper’s garage-rock anthems
are stuffed with tambourine, gang vocals, and plenty of lo-fi
bubblegum-pop vibes, which puts them right at home on the K Records
roster. They definitely summon the Kinks with songs like “Rock Collage”
and “Pop Rocket,” but sometimes, on songs like “New California” (a
great summer tune, by the way), they add some synthesizer and mellow
out a little bit. MS

WE ARE GOLDEN

(Sat, 3:15 pm, Northwest Court) We Are Golden are a Seattle
ensemble led by the duo of Stranger Genius Award–winner Sarah
Rudinoff and pianist/guitarist Gretta Harley. Their music is jazzy,
coffee-shop ready stuff, marked by mostly acoustic arrangements and
theatrically sultry and smoky vocals from Rudinoff that teeter
dangerously on the edge of being overwrought. EG

THE WHORE MOANS PRESENT: THE BLACK ATOM!

(Sat, 6:30 pm, EMP) Seattle’s citizens have the opportunity
to see the Whore Moans’ sweaty and frenetic live show nearly every
week—the hardworking band are constantly playing around town. But
tonight’s performance won’t be your average Whore Moans gig. For
Bumbershoot, the band have prepared a vaudevillian rock-and-roll
spectacle they’re calling the Black Atom! It’ll be the Whore Moans
turned up to 11, with the promise of girls, dancing, costumes, guest
musicians, and plenty more surprises. MS See preview.

WORLD PARTY

(Sat, 8:45 pm, Mural Amphitheatre) After fleeing the
increasingly Ireland-obsessed Waterboys in 1986, Karl Wallinger formed
World Party and began releasing his patented blend of melodically rich,
openly derivative, lightly psychedelic Brit pop: the door-opening
semi-hit “Ship of Fools,” the wildly hyped follow-up album Goodbye
Jumbo, and two other full-lengths. The worst thing about World
Party is their presentation of throwaway lyrics as Deep Thoughts and
their occasional forays into funk. Still, this is big glossy art-pop
that makes you glad to be alive. DS

YEAH
YEAH YEAHS

(Sun, 2:30 pm, Memorial Stadium) You’ve changed, Yeah Yeah
Yeahs. Change isn’t always bad—but I preferred your jagged, arty
post-punk over your new affair with gothy dance music. I try to focus
on the good times, like the jaunty first verse of “Art
Star”—”I’ve been working on a piece that speaks of sex and
desperation/I’ve been screwing on the tracks of abandoned train
stations”—that gets pulverized by the angry, death-metal chorus
and tsunami of guitar. That was so much more (more disturbing,
more powerful, more everything) than the familiar minor-key synth lead
and chorus of your latest hit: “Off, off, off with heads/Dance, dance,
dance till you’re dead/Heads will roll, heads will roll, heads will
roll/On the floor.” Even the people who like your new
glitter-and-cocaine sound are shit out of luck at Bumbershoot. You’re
scheduled to play the stadium in the middle of the afternoon? Sorry,
Yeah Yeah Yeahs. Not this year. BK

A. K. “MIMI” ALLIN

(Sat–Mon, 11 am–8 pm, Northwest Rooms) A. K.
“Mimi” Allin is not just a poet with a list of publications (though she
has that, too: the Argotist, Crab Creek Review,
How2, Ibbetson Street Review, One Three Eight, and
La Petite Zine). She has made her name as a poet of the people.
She was nominated in 2008 for Seattle’s Poet Populist. As
poetess-in-residence at Green Lake, she sat behind a table and wrote.
She sent 60 umbrellas with text on them around the lake. She set up a
run called “Running Poets” and did a performance that involved a
300-pound block of ice and Robert Frost’s poem “Fire and Ice.” For
Bumbershoot she’s got an installation called A Silence More
Irresistible Than…“We do not know than what. JEN GRAVES

ASSEMBLAGE

(Sat–Mon, 11 am–3 pm, Northwest Rooms) Braden
Abraham is a man The Stranger has called an “excellent local
artist.” He’s a director. For his latest project, he’s coheading a
group called Assemblage in creating the series “Way Stations,” which
had its debut at the 2008 Northwest New Works Festival at On the
Boards. It’s like this: The artists compile stories, images, and
recorded sounds of a neighborhood (in this case, Seattle Center) for a
free downloadable audio tour. You take the tour. JG

DADA
ECONOMICS

(Sat–Mon, 11 am–8 pm, Northwest Rooms) In another
great idea from Greg Lundgren (Vital 5 Productions, the Hideout),
Dada Economics is the result of a roiling mass of amateur art
production that’s been going on all summer and will now be gathered in
a single exhibition. Lundgren inspired it all with $500 “Arbitrary Art
Grants,” which were handed out—randomly—after contestants
(absolutely anyone, no requirements at all) responded to calls for
writing, graphic design, dance, and art dealing. In addition to a
display of the previously made responses, a new grant will be awarded
every day of Bumbershoot for patrons who make something on the spot in
the categories of fashion, architecture, and photography. The point is
to get art made and seen without judgment. Period. JG See preview.

GAGE DRAWING JAM

(Sat–Mon, 11 am–8 pm, Northwest Rooms) When you
are in Seattle and have the urge to draw a live human being who is
holding a position for many minutes at a time just for you, go to Gage
Academy of Art on Capitol Hill. Or go to wherever Gage Academy is
meeting you—this season at Bumbershoot. Basically, this is your
chance to go to art school for free for a weekend. Draw. Sculpt. Get
feedback. Ogle, if you must. (There’s no nudity, but there is
skimpiness of clothing.) JG

(Sat–Mon, 11 am–8 pm, Northwest Rooms) There’s
enough eco-art out there to strangle a baby seal, but this multimedia
show has promise. It’s organized by the smart and likable curators Lele
Barnett and Chris Weber, formerly associated with the tech-smart McLeod
Residence. Artists include Chris Jordan (large photographic
constructions of devastating statistics), Allison Kudla (architecture
made out of live plant cells), and DJ Spooky, who’ll show segments of
the film he made about the sound of polar ice in 2007 in
Antarctica,

Terra Nova. JG

SEATTLE-MOSCOW POSTER SHOW

(Sat–Mon, 11 am–8 pm, Northwest Rooms) Every
year, Seattle designer Daniel Smith puts together a poster show based
on what could be a weakly sister-city-ish premise. But Smith’s eye is
sharp, and he picks hot spots. The first year, Seattle designers went
up against Havana designers, then it was Tehran, and now Smith’s been
looking in Yeltsin-Putin-Medvedev territory. There’ll be more than 70
posters in all, featuring Seattle artists Jeff Kleinsmith, Coby
Schultz, and Barry Ament of Ames Bros, among others. JG

’52 PICK UP’

(Sat 2 pm, Sun 6:30 pm, Center House Theatre) Local company
Theater Simple has kept it smart, inventive, and low to the ground for
19 years, and back in 2001, they premiered 52 Pick Up—a
romantic comedy milled through chance operations. The company has
written titles on 52 cards, which are flung into the air and picked up
randomly throughout the show. The order in which they’re picked up
determines the development of the relationship. BRENDAN KILEY

COBU

(Sat 8:15 pm, Sun 1:30 pm, Mon 3:45 pm, Bagley Wright
Theatre) Yako Miyamoto is a founder of STOMP. COBU is
another percussion spectacle, this time with Japanese taiko drums and
tap dancing. BK

‘CRAFT/CRAEFT/KRAFT’

(Sat 6:15 pm, Sun 2 pm, Center House Theatre) A theater
ensemble from Portland made a show about “craft” for an exhibit of work
by Mandy Greer and Darrell Morris at the Contemporary Museum of Craft.
And now they’ve come to inflict it on Seattle. BK

DASSDANCE

(Sat, 11 am–8 pm, Festival Grounds) Fighting
Water is an energetic, high-velocity dance about water conservation
by local company Daniel and Some Superfriends Dance. BK

THE
GOLDBERG VARIATIONS

(Sat, 1:30 pm, Bagley Wright Theatre) In 1741, an

insomniac Russian count asked Bach for some music that his
harpsichordist could play to while away the sleepless hours. Out came
the Goldberg Variations, 30 brief solos on a single aria. In 1997,
choreographer Mark Haim (of Juilliard, the Jeffrey, and an NEA
fellowship) created 30 short dance solos to the Variations. They’re
lovely, fluid things—Bach’s complicated little constructions
interpolated through sinew and muscle. Haim used to perform them solo,
but he’s bringing other dancers into the mix: Beth Graczyk, Sean Ryan,
KT Niehoff, and others. BK

‘IMPROSIA’

(Sat, 5 pm, Center House Theatre) An improv comedy supergroup
with three veterans of the scene: Douglas Willott (of Jet City Improv),
Andrew McMasters (of Wing-It Productions), and Joel Dale (of Tacoma).
Instead of short sketches, these guys do long-form improv. BK

JASON WEBLEY

(Mon, 5:45 pm, Bagley Wright Theatre) Multi-instrumentalist
songwriter Jason Webley is a cabaret creature: Sometimes he belongs in
a concert hall; sometimes he belongs in a theater. His gravelly voice,
big accordion, and fedora have been around the world—on stages
and on sidewalks—bringing the people drinking songs and sea
chanteys. The adults love him, but so do the kids. BK

JUSTIN KREDIBLE

(Sat, 3:45 pm, Bagley Wright Theatre) A young magician for
young persons. BK

‘LEASE’

(Mon, 6:15 pm, Center House Theatre) An improvised,
rock-opera satire of RENT courtesy of Seattle’s Wing-It
Productions—the longstanding improv troupe of choice for
Seattle’s college students. BK

PACIFIC
NORTHWEST BALLET

(Mon, 1 pm, Bagley Wright Theatre) Mopey could convert
rock fans to the ballet. It’s a twitchy and volatile solo by Marco
Goecke, set to music by C.P.E. Bach and the Cramps, and it always
brings the house down. If you can’t normally afford to go to the
ballet, check out Mopey—at this price, you’d be a fool to
miss it. Also up in the PNB sampler platter: the balcony scene from
Jean-Christophe Maillot’s Roméo et Juliette,
Vespers by dance innovator Ulysses Dove, and a new piece by PNB
principal dancer Olivier Weaves. BK

PS
122

(Sat–Sun, 6 pm, Bagley Wright Theatre) PS 122 in New
York has been ground zero for the new and the weird in American
performance. This year, they’ve picked a few acts to take on the road.
The Panic Show, by Witness Relocation, is a hyperenergetic dance
and theater piece about hysteria, self-help, and a movie starring Jodie
Foster. Radio Play, by Tommy Smith and Reggie Watts (with
Seattle guys John Osebold and Troy Fischnaller), happens in the dark.
Geisha, by LeeSaar, is a “sensual and seething” dance between a
man, a woman, and a diva. The Scream Contest, by 31 Down Radio
Theater and Japanther, is a scream contest. Audience members read a
short script that ends in a shriek. Prizes will be awarded. BK

‘THE RADIO8BALL SHOW’

(Mon, 4:45 pm, Center House Theatre) Part talk show, part
tarot reading, part concert, The Radio8Ball Show uses music by
its house band—Jon Auer, Scott Taylor, Chad Austinson—to
answer questions from the audience. BK

SPIN THE BOTTLE JR.

(Sat 3:45 pm, Sun 3:30 pm, Mon 3:30 pm, Center House Theatre) Spin the Bottle has been Seattle’s most constant—and constantly
amusing—late-night variety show for about 500 years. Terrible
jokes, musical saws, clowning, plate spinning, people chugging milk,
people reading smut: Spin the Bottle has it all. Just this year,
they’ve launched a Saturday-afternoon version for 4- to 8-year-olds.
This is that. BK

‘WILD ROSE’

(Sun 5 pm, Mon 2 pm, Center House Theatre) A solo comedy by
Christina Sicoli about a woman who works at a cosmetics counter and
decides she’s going to become a supermodel. Today. Wild Rose was
nominated for a Canadian Comedy Award. BK

WOOLLY MAMMOTH COMES TO DINNER

(Sat–Mon, 11 am–8 pm, Festival Grounds) A
music/dance group from Portland that professes to enjoy dancing in
burned-out buildings as much as it enjoys dancing in theaters. It says:
“Often we indulge ourselves in non-sense, and then attempt to make
something coherent out of it. We believe in acceptance and inclusivity.
We try to remember our fancy pants. Fancy pants knock your socks off.”
Sounds like mealy-mouthed nonsense to me, but maybe some of you hippies
will dig it. BK

THE
BENSON INTERRUPTION

(Sat–Mon, 6:15 pm, Charlotte Martin Theatre) People
mostly associate Doug Benson with marijuana-highness, which isn’t
entirely inaccurate, because the man is very, very high. But
Benson’s stage persona, something like an awkward, man-size bearded
toddler, is sweet and dumb and only partly weed-obsessed. In the
Benson Interruption, which he performs live monthly in L.A., Benson
invites other comics to perform, then sits on the side in a chair with
a microphone and interrupts them. Like an awkward, man-size bearded
toddler. Interrupting you. It’s great. Also, I met him on a plane once
and he told me I was “not annoying.” He was probably high. LINDY
WEST

BEST OF SEATTLE INTERNATIONAL COMEDY
COMPETITION

(Sun, 3 pm, Vera Project) I judged the final round of the
Seattle International Comedy Competition, and let me tell you, it was
not great. I know funny people who have competed in the Seattle
International Comedy Competition, but they did not make it to the last
round. Because, apparently, people don’t like funny jokes. I don’t know
which comics will be performing in this show—the funny losers or
the completely unfunny winners—but the program assures me they
will be “hot” and some will be from Canada. This is what we in the
business of words call a “gamble.” LW

THE BETA
SOCIETY

(Mon, 1:15 pm, Vera Project) A film-production collective
with roots in improv, the Beta Society—children of the ’80s
living together in a giant weirdo mansion—combines well-pitched
wit, found footage, dirty sensibilities, and pop-culture kitsch into
video sketches that are like a delicious soup made out of all that
stuff I mentioned before. Remember? Go back and read the part that
starts with “well-pitched wit,” and let me know when you’ve caught up.
Okay, now I’ve got to go. I’m really busy. LW

BLOOD
SQUAD

(Sun, 4:45 pm, Vera Project) These fuckers are good at what
they do. And what they do sounds like it could be awful, but it is, in
fact, wonderful! Hooray for us all! First, Blood Squad receives a
slasher-film title from the audience. Like, say, Prom Night at Stab
Stab High. And then they improv the SHIT out of it, moving and
sliding deftly between horror-movie tropes like the fucking
three-headed Kristi Yamaguchi of horror-movie improv. Or more like
Stabby Yamaguchi! GET IT!? See, this is why I am not a member.
LW

CANADIAN
COMEDY THAT CARES!

(Sat, 3 pm, Vera Project) I’m not sure what these “Canadians”
“care” about, exactly—syrup? Health care? Covering up their yeti
ancestry? But they’ve followed the mighty caribou migration down to our
subtropical paradise, and they’re ready to teach us a few things about
sticky, maple-frosted comedy. Chris and Bev, cohosts of the BC-based
variety show It’s Good to Know People, provide very funny
“people-positive comedy from the suburbs!” involving singsongs, white
pants, and keeping it real. Here they perform with fellow
funny-crypto-humanimal-of-the-north Jane Stanton. LW

CHARLYNE
YI, PATTON OSWALT

(Sat–Mon, 8 pm, Charlotte Martin Theatre) Patton
Oswalt’s unedited live comedy album, 222, is sooo fucking good:
a giddy, sprawling, rambling, drunken masterpiece filled with pathos
and gravy and Easter eggs and apocalypse and ice-cream cake and heavy
metal. It’s everything I love about live comedy. It is a marvel.
Charlyne Yi is this sort of baby koala of a person who deals in awkward
pauses and interruptive murmurs. Her standup is surreal, eagerly
stretching the medium (and her new movie, Paper Heart, is just
fucking adorable). To see them together will be a happy-making
experience. LW

CRACKED UP!

(Mon, 4:45 pm, Vera Project) The brainbaby of local comics
Solomon Georgio (Stranger Gong Show winner and all around PIECE OF PIE)
and James Parkinson (white male), the monthly local showcase Cracked
Up! has been a welcome, consistently funny addition to Seattle’s comedy
landscape. It is a showcase that will contain the bodies of local
comics with, one assumes, jokes coming out them. LW

EUGENE
MIRMAN AND MYSTERY GUEST

(Sat, 5:30 pm, Intiman Theatre) Have you heard that bit where
Eugene Mirman talks to the anti-gay phone company? When he presses “1”
to oppose same-sex marriage because “I want to destroy it, yes”? I know
that was like 45 years ago, but it’s still the first thing I think of
when I think of Mirman. He better not have gotten less funny since
then. Don’t fuck this up, Mirman. Oh, and I don’t know who this
“Mystery Guest” is because I don’t believe mysteries exist. LW

FAMOUS MYSTERIOUS ACTOR

(Sun, 1:15 pm, Vera Project) The Famous Mysterious Actor is a
frightening specter. It has long hair, like a woman, or a hippie. It
has a high-pitched voice, like a woman. Or a wild bird of some kind
that speaks human language. It has a thing about Pixi Stix, like most
women, and it wears a mask like Eric Stoltz in Mask or Jim
Carrey in Look Who’s Masking Now. Or a Mexican. It is very
mysterious. It comes from Portland. LW

THE IMPROVISED SHAKESPEARE COMPANY

(Sat–Mon, 4:30 pm, Charlotte Martin Theatre) The
Chicago-based Improvised Shakespeare Company takes two things that
aren’t that funny (improv, which is always starving for structure, and
Shakespeare, which is mostly a pun wrapped in a fart joke) and combines
them into one thing that totally works. Their MySpace page lists their
interests as “Swordplay, Revenge, Ambition, Forbidden Love, Mistaken
Identity, Disguises, Bastards, Ghosts, Betrayal, Irony, Swashbuckling”
and their favorite music as “anything crumhorn.” See? Funny! LW

JON
GLASER, NICK SWARDSON

(Sun 2 pm, Mon 3:45 pm, Intiman Theatre) Jon Glaser is a
person you have seen all over the fucking place doing really, really
great and slightly unnerving characters in television shows (Late
Night with Conan O’Brien, Human Giant, and lately
Delocated) and movies (The Rocker, Baby Mama,
Be Kind Rewind). If I had any money and some sort of comedy
bookie, and if betting on comedy were an actual thing and not
just something I invented for the construction of this blurb, I would
bet that Jon Glaser’s standup involves characters, high concepts, and
weird shit. Do I win? The fake money? Also, Nick Swardson: not so bad!
LW

LAFF
HOLE

(Sat–Mon, 6:30 pm, Vera Project) Laff Hole is the
grandpa of Seattle “alternative” comedy nights—not a withered,
gross grandpa like Grandpa Simpson, but a sturdy, robust, kinda-hot
grandpa like Kris Kristofferson. Created four years ago by the People’s
Republic of Komedy, it’s been a consistently well-curated weekly
showcase featuring local and formerly local treasures. And not the kind
of treasures you might find in Grandpa Simpson’s underpants (poops!),
but the kind you might find in Kris Kristofferson’s sock drawer
(weed!). This metaphor is getting complicated. Like my feelings for
Kris Kristofferson. LW

LO-BALL

(Sat, 4:45 pm, Vera Project) Lo-Ball is yet another local
comedy showcase (headquartered in Ballard), which is not particularly
distinguishable from the other local comedy showcases (local, made of
comedy), except that it claims to feature “a blend of sketch, stand-up,
and falderal.” Anyone else offered you a nice chunk of falderal lately?
And before you say, “WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT, EVEN?” let me remind you
that asking questions is not polite. LW

MATT
BRAUNGER, REGGIE WATTS, TODD BARRY

(Sat 3:45 pm, Sun 5:30 pm, Mon 7:15 pm, Intiman Theatre) Todd
Barry is like a small frightening snake. A comedy snake. He is quiet
and poisonous and enraged and mean. Also, he eats mice. If you can
catch him in the right moment, spinning sublimely into the
metamechanics of joke-telling and audience reception and
self-deprecation, it’s like a master class in being the world’s
funniest small frightening snake. Reggie Watts does a sort of bizarre
stream-of-consciousness thing with large hair. Matt Braunger looks
British but isn’t. LW

ONE
NIGHT ONLY, PART II

(Sat, 1:15 pm, Vera Project) Kevin Clarke and Travis Vogt
have been one of the best parts of Seattle’s
little-comedy-scene-that-could for a while now. The duo makes dirty,
dirtbaggy, DIY video sketches about murder and ninjas and cancer (“Al
Pacino as CANCER”). And they also took, like, zero dollars and
made a feature-length science-fiction movie (Steel of Fire Warriors
2010 A.D.), which is fucking ridiculous and actually funny, AND
THAT IS IMPOSSIBLE. Kevin and Travis are winners, and this is their
live show. LW

THE RED
WINE BOYS, NICK SWARDSON

(Sat, 7:15 pm, Intiman Theatre) Ohhhhh, the Red Wine Boys.
Todd Barry and Jon Benjamin. Don’t you want to rub yourself just
thinking about it? On your boday? Slightly? The pair, in their twin
deadpans, perform a sort of drunken, free-form variety program. Bring
your boday (FOR RUBBING). Also, Nick Swardson: medium appealing! LW

STORY
PIRATES AFTER DARK PRESENT ‘FOUND’

(Sat–Mon, 2:45 pm, Charlotte Martin Theatre) The New
York–based Story Pirates (who perform plays based on stories
written by children) team up with FOUND Magazine for this
“multimedia comedy musical” about the weird shit that people leave
lying around (“based entirely on lost and discarded notes, diaries,
love letters, and to-do lists”). You are encouraged to bring your own
weird shit that you found lying around, so these pirates can make it
into comedy. LW

TOMMY
JOHNAGIN, WYATT CENAC, MARIA BAMFORD

(Sat 2 pm, Sun 7:15 pm, Mon 5:30 pm, Intiman Theatre) No one
delivers an “Uhhhhhhhhhh” quite like Maria Bamford, and nobody has ever
done impressions of phlegmy fathers and mall-walking bitchez in such a
perfect and dark and exhilaratingly bizarre way. She is possibly a
genius. Wyatt Cenac you know from his deadpan, politically astute
Daily Show segments (and the recent film Medicine for
Melancholy) in which, according to Wikipedia, he integrates
“satirical Black-oriented material.” For Monday’s show, he will be
replaced with a mystery guest. Tommy Johnagin is a male human. LW

UBIQUITOUS THEY

(Mon, 3 pm, Vera Project) Ubiquitous They makes cuckoo,
conceptual sketch comedy about things both funny and not-funny: like
tickling and stabbing and mammograms and getting laid off from the
blowjob factory (“whole blowjob industry’s goin’ overseas”). Good
sketch comedy is hard. Shitty sketch comedy is common. Ubiquitous They
is good sketch comedy, somewhere between grounded raunch and the silly,
freewheeling heights of similarly structured acts the Cody Rivers Show
and the Pajama Men. It’s a good place to be. LW

WYATT
CENAC, EUGENE MIRMAN

(Mon, 2 pm, Intiman Theatre) Eugene Mirman—glum,
Russian, strangely attractive—is one of those comedians who, when
you’re watching him, makes you think, “I am watching the best comedian
in the world.” He’s not the best comedian in the world,
obviously—that honor belongs to a cat that poops in a toilet!
(whaaaaat!?)—but Mirman is a close second. Almost as good
as a cat pooping in a toilet. Which is like saying he’s almost as good
at swimming as Poseidon or almost as good at being a sandwich as two
pieces of bread and some ham that just haven’t been assembled yet!
(What I’m saying, Mirman, is grow some fur and learn to poop like a
human and we shall discuss.) LW

THE
ANIMATED LIFE

(Sat, 5:30 pm, SIFF Cinema) This selection of animated shorts
includes one called The Mouse That Soared, which is about a
gross pink tiny orphan mouse (raised by birds) that flies around on
little makeshift wings. It’s quite sweet. But, um, by the way, you
guys, we already have flying mice. They’re called BATS, and they
have rabies. Stay away from rabies. LINDY WEST

AUSSIE VS. KIWI

(Sun, 7 pm, SIFF Cinema) A selection of films from those two
down under islands: the big one with the desert and the terrifying
spiders, and the other one with the hobbits. LW

BEST OF SIFF 2009 AUDIENCE AWARD WINNERS

(Sun, 4:30 pm, SIFF Cinema) Oh, audiences! You always pick
such special chestnuts as your winners! Not that these shorts (chosen
by audience vote during SIFF this year) are bad or
anything—they’re just generally the most campy, the most silly,
the most broadly accessible. Full Employment is a
horror-comedy-mockumentary about entry-level zombie hunting. French
Roast is a glossy, Frenchy, perfectly enjoyable cartoon about a
snooty Frenchman who has toooo muuuuch cooooffee (and not enough money
to pay for it)!!! Audiences love coffee jokes. LW

BEST OF
SIFF 2009 JURY AWARD WINNERS

(Sat, 3:30 pm, SIFF Cinema) These are the very best
selections from SIFF’s bloated shorts weekend, chosen by a jury of
professionals (instead of audiences, who can be dumb). The films live
up to their promise. Photograph of Jesus is a documentary
narrative
illustrated by stunning cut-paper animation, about the
ridiculous requests fielded by a photographic archivist. The
Herd, bless its little heart, is a quick, oddly moving trifle about
a baby deer that falls in with a herd of cows. LW

CRIME AND PUNISHMENT

(Sat, 8 pm, SIFF Cinema) These films all shortly have
something to do with crime. And punishment, I suppose. In Kidnapping
Caitlynn, Jason Biggs, whom I have not seen in a while and am not
unhappy to have back, goes on a date with an attractive lunatic. The
attractive lunatic says she needs to go to her ex-boyfriend’s house and
get her stuff, which is really never a good sign when on a date. Then
they steal a dog. Then things escalate. Biggs is charming. LW

CRITICAL MASS

(Mon, 1 pm, SIFF Cinema) Do you like bikes? These are bike
movies. For you. Fanatic concerns Daniel, a dreadlocked British
dwarf living in Barcelona as a bicycle courier. He zips around the
city—industry, history, Gaudi—delivering packages, failing
to reach elevator buttons, flirting with receptionists, and fielding
hugely demeaning outbursts such as, “You’re a dwarf!” It’s thoughtful
and humanizing. And there are bikes. LW

DREAMSCAPES

(Mon, 9 pm, SIFF Cinema) The only information I can find
about this shorts program is the following sentence: “Film is the
perfect medium to tell fantastic tales!” Now, if there’s one thing I
like more than tales, it’s fantasticness. Don’t let me down, vague
film-related sentence from the Bumbershoot website. LW

FILMS4FAMILIES

(Sat–Mon, noon, SIFF Cinema) This kid-friendly shorts
program offers a different lineup each day. Selections include various
iterations of adorable children, cuddly animals and bugs, lessons for
young lives, and bunnies. In Something to Hold On To (Monday),
kids introduce the audience to their best stuffed-animal pals, from
Barry the Bear to Wolfy the Wolf. Adorable? Yes! Entertaining? Not that
much. LW

FLY FILMS SIFF 2009

(Sun, 1 pm, SIFF Cinema) Fly filmmaking is a thing where
teams of filmmakers receive some sort of hook (a title, a prop, a
location, etc.) and then they have x number of hours to make a film.
And then everyone watches everyone’s film, and some people’s are bad,
and some people’s are okay—which, by comparison, makes them seem
amazing. I don’t totally get why this is more than mildly interesting.
It feels like watching basketball teams run drills. LW

HEJ!

(Sat, 4:30 pm, SIFF Cinema) Movies from Sweden! They have
come from Sweden to bring you Swedish movies! If I know
Sweden—and I do, biblically—the movies will most
likely feature rice pudding, seven-foot-tall blond Adonises, socialized
medicine, and Pippi Longstocking. Skål! LW

I HAVE SEEN THE FUTURE…

(Mon, 8 pm, SIFF Cinema) AfterVille, an Italian short,
takes place in a digitally enhanced Turin-of-the-future, where the
landscape is studded with immense, silent, mysterious disks that fell
from space, and which are prophesied to destroy the earth any minute
now. The people go about their sullen, mundane, everyday
business—wandering the streets, drinking, watching TV, and
obsessing about failed relationships. Like you would. Why does the
future always have to be scary? LW

INTERNATIONAL MALE

(Mon, 7 pm, SIFF Cinema) This program is described as “films
for the boys and the boys who love them.” Boys and boy-lovers, hold on
to your boy-pants. Films include Awkward (a little conceptual
switcheroo about
what-if-people-were-scandalized-by-super-mundane-shit),
Boycrazy, and Henry Is Dead. LW

LIVE EARTH FILM FESTIVAL

(Sun, 5:30 pm, SIFF Cinema) Movies about maybe not
completely screwing over the planet, if we can help it, with
titles including One Less Car, Taking America’s
Temperature, Penguin in a Pickle, and Polarbearman.
LW

LOVE AND MARRIAGE

(Sat, 7 pm, SIFF Cinema) A selection of shorts about love and
loss and infidelity and mistakes. In True Beauty This Night, a
man (possibly delusional, like most love-at-first-sight types) falls in
love under completely fucked circumstances and suffers for it. This
Is Her is a genuinely affecting little story about a woman who
simultaneously gives birth and narrates (omni-potent) her husband’s
future infidelity. Love is sad and hard, you think. LW

MADE IN SEATTLE

(Mon, 5:30 pm, SIFF Cinema) A few selections from local
up-and-comers: Megan Griffiths’s Eros, Steve Edmiston’s The
Day My Parents Became Cool (which opens with a Dave Barry quote and
doesn’t expand much beyond its title), and A Morning on Maple
Street, a pretty, slight glimpse at intersecting lives. LW

THE
MEANING OF LIFE

(Sun, 8 pm, SIFF Cinema) This film program purports to
“contain tiny clues” to figuring out the meaning of life. I can tell
you that The Assastant is a semicharming
excuse-for-a-portmanteau about an assistant assassin and 200
Block contrasts the localized realness of collapsed buildings with
the world-shaking abstraction of a collapsed economy. If your life has
more meaning now, you’re welcome. LW

NEXT GENERATION OF GERMAN FILM

(Mon, 3:30 pm, SIFF Cinema) What do you not understand from
the title? These are movies made by Germans: The Next Generation.
Presumably they make films under the bald tutelage of Patrick Stewart
and occasionally grope (over the jumpsuit—this isn’t
porno) to the dulcet tones of Jonathan Frakes’s space trombone. The
films I saw include Amoklove, the story of a hungry, ambiguous,
public transit–based whirlwind affair; Rose-colored, about
being blinded by love; and You Are My Hero, an animated
adventure about knights errant, tomato soup, and infidelity. Whoopi
Goldberg is in there somewhere, I’m sure. LW

THE NIGHTMARE FACTORY

(Sat, 9 pm, SIFF Cinema) This selection of shorts “may give
you bad dreams.” I will never stop wondering: Why would anyone
want bad dreams? Regardless, scheduled films include
Alexandria, The Archivist, and Psycho Hillbilly Cabin
Massacre! (Exclamation point theirs.) LW

PICTURE
& SOUND: MUSIC VIDEOS

(Sun, 2 pm, SIFF Cinema) This lush showcase of music videos
includes—among others—Damien Jurado’s “Caskets” (home
surgery, sadness, paradisiacal sunsets), the stop-motion gorgeosity of
Fleet Foxes’ “White Winter Hymnal” (about the crank that turns the
world), and the bloody lo-fi romance of the Dutchess and the Duke’s
“Mary.” It all reminds you about the amazing things humans can make
when they are not lazy sacks of shit. LW

REEL
GRRLS

(Mon, 2 pm, SIFF Cinema) Reel Grrls is a local nonprofit
committed to getting young women engaged in media production. It is
awesome. The films in this program all have rough DIY edges, but the
commitment they share is rousing and sweet. A Generation of
Consolidation interviews local high schoolers on their feelings
about media consolidation (they’re anti). Dark Material thinks
about shadows: “Why does darkness inspire fear?” And It’s in the
P-I takes a fairly straightforward look inside the last days of our
recently deceased colleague. LW

ROCK PROPHECIES

(Sat, 1 pm, SIFF Cinema) This documentary feature follows
photographer-of-rock-stars Robert M. Knight “on a quest to find both
himself and the world’s next great guitar player.” Okay. Did you check
the car? Where did you last see them? LW

THE TWILIGHT ZONE

(Sun, 9 pm, SIFF Cinema) You know! It’s the Twilight Zone.
It’s the zone where eeeeeverything is weeeeeird! Like twilight! Like a
zone FULL of TWILIGHT! This showcase includes Forever’s Not So
Long, a short about finding true love just before the apocalypse.
That doesn’t seem weird at all—it seems totally logical. Someone
to make out with during the apocalypse? I accept. And you don’t even
have to get old and pissed off at each other. Maybe that one needs to
find a new zone, is all I’m saying. LW

WOMEN IN FILM

(Sun, 3:30 pm, SIFF Cinema) Women in Film are, generally,
women who make or star in films. Does that make sense? I am very much
in favor of women in film. The only selection I’ve seen from this
program is One Night, which is about a woman who wakes up bloody
and tries to piece together memories of a night gone violently wrong.
It is just okay (unsurprising, unsubtle). The other women in Women in
Film may have done better. LW

CHRISTIAN LANDER’S STUFF WHITE PEOPLE LIKE

(Sun, noon, Leo K. Theatre) The blog Stuff White People Like
first appeared in January 2008. By the summer of that year, the man
behind the blog, Christian Lander, published a whole
book—Stuff White People Like: A Definitive Guide to the Unique
Taste of Millions. The book, like the blog, was a big success. It
became a best seller. It was flying off the shelves and landing in the
living rooms and bedrooms of white people who like to read about the
things white people like. CHARLES MUDEDE See preview.

DAVID
CROSS

(Sun, 8:15 pm, Bagley Wright Theatre) Saying that David Cross
is your favorite funny person is so completely no-duh it’s like wishing
for more wishes (tell me you didn’t fuck that one up). Over the
past decade or so, Cross, a bald man, has been harsh and weird and
never-not-funny in almost every medium in which funniness is possible
(standup comedy, sketch comedy, situation comedy, live comedy, TV
comedy). Now he’s written a book: “a mix of personal essays, satirical
fiction posing as truth, and a top-ten list of top-ten lists” called
I Drink for a Reason. I’m sure the reason is funny. LINDY
WEST

THE
ENABLERS HAVESPOKEN AND YOU’RE FINE WITH SPENCER MOODY

(Sun, 1:45 pm, Leo K. Theatre) Spencer Moody is special. He
screams at homophobes at Sasquatch!, likes a hat with flaps, can be
mistaken for an Orthodox Jew, and does not try very hard at an
Easter-egg hunt. Officially he’s known as the frontman for the Murder
City Devils and Triumph of Lethargy Skinned Alive to Death, and the
owner of the Anne Bonny, a store named after a female pirate where you
can buy cheap local art and the furnishings of people who are dead. But
for Bumbershoot, he’s curating a session of “poetry for the
people”—giving a platform to writers and lyricists he loves:
Anthony Anzalone, Clyde Petersen, Patrick deWitt, Andrea Zollo (Pretty
Girls Make Graves), Pete Quirk (the Cave Singers), and Gavin
Tull-Esterbrook. It is a safe assumption that every one of them is at
least slightly special. JEN GRAVES

F IS FOR FOOD

(Sat, noon, Leo K. Theatre) Kathleen Flinn wrote a book about
learning to cook at Le Cordon Bleu in Paris called The Sharper Your
Knife, the Less You Cry. Tom “T-Doug” Douglas is a rotund, bearded
chef who rules his local restaurant empire—Dahlia Lounge, Palace
Kitchen, Etta’s, etc.—with an iron fist. He, Dale Chihuly, and
Paul Allen are the secret cabal that really runs Seattle.
BRENDAN KILEY

THE GREAT NORTHWEST

(Sat, 3:30 pm, Leo K. Theatre) This trio will discuss what
it’s like to live and write in the upper left-hand corner of the United
States. Jess Walter is from Spokane and responsible for five novels
including Citizen Vince, which Nick Hornby both loved and
excerpted in Housekeeping vs. the Dirt. Citizen Vince is
a series of Hemingway-esque sentences about a guy in the
witness-protection program who works the creepy shift at a doughnut
shop where cheap whores, junkies, and gamblers converge. Kevin Sampsell
recently edited Portland Noir, and Kerry Cohen wrote a novel
called Loose Girl. BK

ILL-LITERACY

(Sun, 7:30 pm, Leo K. Theatre) A bookish hiphop trio from
Oakland. They claim to rap for “the post-crack epidemic pre-Obama ’80s
babies who were prescribed Ritalin because they liked music more than
school.” They are currently looking for an apartment in NYC with four
to five bedrooms in the $3,000 range. BK

MANIC D PRESS AT 25

(Mon, 1:45 pm, Leo K. Theatre) Based in San Francisco, Manic
D Press publishes weird stuff by upstart writers and has won lots of
awards: the San Francisco Bay Guardian Best of the Bay, a Lambda
Literary Award, the Publishing Triangle’s Edmund White Award for Debut
Fiction, etc. At this event: Amber Tamblyn (Bang Ditto), Jon
Longhi (Wake Up and Smell the Beer, The Rise and Fall of
Third Leg), Lynn Breedlove (Lynnee Breedlove’s One Freak
Show), and Bruce Jackson (Growing Up Free in America).
BK

McSWEENEY’S NEW FICTION

(Sat, 5:15 pm, Leo K. Theatre) Do not try to repress
McSweeney’s editor Dave Eggers, or you will find, as per the
description of this event on the Bumbershoot website, that he is
“irrepressible.” It simply cannot be done. Presumably, the new fiction
writers gathered here today by Eggers’s publishing concern are equally
unruly. They are, in order of height, Jessica Anthony (The
Convalescent), Mac Barnett (Billy Twitters and His Blue Whale
Problem), Bill Cotter (Fever Chart), James Hannaham (God
Says No), Ross Simonini (interviews editor, the Believer),
and program host Starlee Kine (This American Life). ERIC
GRANDY

MELVIN VAN PEEBLES

(Sun, 3:45 pm, Leo K. Theatre) Melvin Van Peebles, the father
of Mario Van Peebles, is known primarily as the director of a film that
opens with these famous words: “To all the Brothers and Sisters who had
enough of the Man.” Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song is raw in
every way: raw sex, raw violence, raw revolutionary politics, raw
photography, raw editing, raw acting, and raw, raw writing. CM

NIGHT SHIFT

(Mon, 7:30 pm, Leo K. Theatre) A new short story by Lyall
Bush—about a opossum that has taken up residence in a woman’s
kitchen and what she does about it—and songs by Devin Sullivan of
Malthusian Orkestra. BK

SEATTLE NOIR

(Mon, 5:45 pm, Leo K. Theatre) A new anthology of crime
stories edited by Curt Colbert, set in and around Seattle: a
geoduck-rights battle among the Duwamish, a Hispanic soldier who has
trouble with the Seattle Police Department, etc. BK

S. E. HINTON

(Sun, 3:30 pm, Bagley Wright Theatre) The author of
young-adult novels—The Outsiders, Rumble
Fish—which became films that started the careers of Micky
Rourke, Ralph Macchio, Emilio Estevez, and others. Hinton grew up in
Tulsa, and the gangs in her high school inspired her to write about
tough kids. DJ and music writer Kurt B. Reighley will moderate, along
with local actor Tim Hyland. BK

SPEAK, POET!

(Sat, 7:30 pm, Leo K. Theatre) A triumvirate of slammers.
Tara Hardy won the “Poet Populist” award, Danny Sherrard won the 2008
World Cup Poetry Slam competition, and Jack McCarthy wrote a poem
called “Drunks.” Its first few lines: “We died of pneumonia in
furnished rooms/Where they found us three days later/When somebody
complained about the smell/We died against bridge abutments/And nobody
knew if it was suicide/And we probably didn’t know either.” BK

VAMPIRES AND ROBOTS

(Mon, noon, Leo K. Theatre) Kevin Emerson is a member of the
band Central Services and writes the Oliver Nocturne series,
about a boy-vampire who lives in Seattle. Daniel Wilson is from
Portland and wrote How to Survive a Robot Uprising: “Keep your
hair short and your clothes tight… Don’t bother with karate unless
you can punch through sheet metal.” BK

WRITERS IN THE SCHOOLS

(Sat, 2 pm, Leo K. Theatre) Students will compete with the
grown-up writers-in-residence at their schools—Karen Finneyfrock,
Daemond Arrindell, Rachel Kessler, others—in a game of “literary
know-how.” BK

THE WRITERS OF ‘LOST’

(Mon, 3:30 pm, Leo K. Theatre) This one time on Lost,
a guy went underground to turn an old-timey wheel in order to move an
island, but then not only did the island move but time moved, too, and
then some people came back to the island but it wasn’t really clear
whether they had been there before or whether this was their first
time, and there were already some people there doing research on
something unclear. AND THEN TV VIEWERS FAINTED AND NEVER WOKE UP. All
I’m saying is that you may not want to hear about the terrible,
terrible writing on Lost. But you can. If you must. Show writers
Carlton Cuse, Eddy Kitsis, and Adam Horowitz will be interviewed by the
audience and by Jeff Jensen, Entertainment Weekly blogger.
JG

YOUTH SPEAKS SEATTLE

(Mon, 7:45 pm, Bagley Wright Theatre) The winners of this
year’s Seattle Youth Poetry Slam, along with Staceyann Chin and
Prometheus Brown (also known as Geologic of Blue Scholars). BK

ZAK
SMITH

(Sun, 5:45 pm, Leo K. Theatre) Zak Smith grew up in
Washington, D.C., got his MFA from Yale University, made a drawing for
every page of Gravity’s Rainbow, had a few shown in the Whitney
Biennial of 2004, and made his porn debut two years later. His new
book, We Did Porn, is a constellation of anecdotes, musings, and
drawings about the porn—especially the alternative porn industry.
The ink drawings lie dense on the page: naked women with Mohawks
nestled against roadside signs enveloped in intricate patterns of
crosshatches and boxes, like doodles by Francis Bacon. Smith isn’t the
world’s clearest writer, but the material sells itself. BK