Thursday 11/13

Lucinda Williams, Buick 6

(Showbox at the Market) Want further proof that we're living in a righteous new era? Little Honey, the new record by Lucinda Williams, entered the Billboard Hot 100 album chart in the top 10. Of course, this says more about the sorry state of the music industry than about a sudden widespread hunger for the well-crafted tunes of a perennial critics' darling—but still, such milestones must be celebrated. Tonight, the mighty Ms. Williams brings the rocking Little Honey to the stage, and if it's anything like the typical "Lucinda live" experience, she'll be odd, a little stiff, and sporadically brilliant (and backed by an astoundingly accomplished collection of musicians). DAVID SCHMADER

Grayskul, Strong Killings, D.Black, Elephant Rider

(King Cobra) Hiphop and rock can be a combination as delicious as chocolate and peanut butter or as disgusting as a Juggalo covered in Faygo. Luckily, this evening of music from the far ends of the rap/rock spectrum is the former rather than the latter. Theatrically gloomy duo Grayskul trade in dark rhymes and acerbic deliveries over bass-heavy beats and druggy, disorienting atmospheres; Strong Killings kick out ragged, possibly rabid punk rock–marked pounding drums, battered guitars, and garbled gang vocals that sound like they were sung with the mics inside mouths full of broken teeth. D.Black raps with casual authority, steely determination, and a commanding flow; Elephant Rider, true to their name, aim for a mammoth, heavy sound, bass and drum hits landing like trammeling footfalls, guitar and vocals echoing as though delivered from a dizzying height (their recordings don't yet quite bear this sound out, but it's likely quite crushing live). ERIC GRANDY

Friday 11/14

McCoy Tyner Quartet ft. Marc Ribot

(Moore) See The Score.

PWRFL Power, Grampall Jookabox, Terrordactyls

(Vera) See Album Reviews.

Eyvind Kang

(PONCHO Concert Hall, Cornish College) See The Score.

Lucinda Williams, Buick 6

(Showbox at the Market) See Thursday's preview.

The Dirtbombs, Little Claw, Thee Emergency

(Chop Suey) The Dirtbombs' dual-drum, dual-bass lineup guarantees you a quality American garage-rock encounter. The Mick Collins–fronted Detroit band have been doing it for 13 years, and their live show will slather you in punk and soul and fuzz. They're classic like a hand-tooled leather saddle. The 2008 release of We Have You Surrounded (In the Red) sees the Dirtbombs going deep and thematically basing the album on graphic novelist Alan Moore's comic-book story called "Leopard Man at C & A's." It's dark and deals with urban blight. Come to Chop Suey, straddle a barstool saddle, get deep, and ride the sounds of some musical legends. TRENT MOORMAN See also Stranger Suggests

Large Professor of Main Source, J.Pinder, Wizdom, DJ Marc Sense

(Nectar) Large Professor is a rapper/producer who represents hiphop in the condition of courage, pleasure, and intelligence. The Harlem-born genius has produced three hiphop classics of the modern period with Main Source; three tracks on one of the greatest albums of the '90s, Illmatic; and the most famous of all shelved albums in the history of hiphop, The LP. However, Geffen, the company that refused to release the album, did drop the beautiful track "Ijuswannachill," which contains these wonderful lines: "Nevertheless, in 3-D's Large Profess/With what I would call a bullshit-proof vest/And yes, I make the beats you could feel in your chest/And write the rhymes that reflect a young man blessed/With the mind and motivation hitting your station/Coming back to attack over a ghetto vacation/For the hiphop nation." CHARLES MUDEDE See also My Philosophy, Album Review.

Young Sportsmen, Peter Parker, Guns & Rossetti

(Sunset) Damn you, Young Sportsmen. Good bands aren't supposed to call it quits. There should be some kind of executive committee that makes these kinds of decisions and ensures that bands making great, stick-in-your-head, toe-tapping pop songs are forced to soldier on while the legions of mediocre underachievers are forced into retirement. Tonight is the last chance to see one of Seattle's most underrated treasures, so resist the seasonal urge to hibernate and get your butt (and the rest of your body) down to the Sunset before the Young Sportsmen ride off to follow their own setting sun. Their perfectly crafted, melodic tunes will be sorely missed. BARBARA MITCHELL

Saturday 11/15

Bassnectar, Michael Manahan, Rob Noble

(Neumos) How do you think an artist who goes by the moniker Bassnectar would sound? Lots of sweet low-end action, right? Such is the case for San Francisco producer/DJ Lorin Ashton, who records for Om Records and many others. His productions feature punishing bass frequencies laid down in the service of a stylistically diverse repertoire. It's a pain to categorize but a pleasure to groove to, as Ashton puts his girthful bass pressure into dubstep, breaks, hiphop, drum & bass, IDM, and dancehall. Bassnectar's genre forms may change, but the common dominator is a ruthless bass sound that bruises your pleasure centers to a deep purple. DAVE SEGAL

Schoolyard Heroes, Champagne Champagne, Don't Even Know, Sirens in the Sky

(Hell's Kitchen) Tonight's show will be the most bloodcurdling dance party in the Northwest. Schoolyard (who recently acquired a new guitarist) slay with metal-tinged and morbidly themed drama rock. By contrast, the two MCs and one DJ who make up Champagne Champagne are more about fun and fucking. They'll lay down the beats, Schoolyard will lay down the bodies—and no one will be left standing. (Also worth noting: Schoolyard songstress Ryann Donnelly is currently lending her stellar vocal talents to a new project with Champagne Champange beatmaster DJ Gajamagic (Mark Gajadhar, ex–Blood Brothers). The duo don't have a name yet, but the songs are really sultry, sexy, and some lyrics are in French. Perhaps a little collaboration will take place this evening? Ooh la la.) MEGAN SELING

Sunday 11/16

Darker My Love, the Strange Boys

(King Cobra) The Black Angels, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, the Dandy Warhols, the Brian Jonestown Massacre, the Warlocks—we're not really hurting for contemporary American bands with a fondness for shoegazer rock's FX-propelled space travel. As evidenced on the recent 2, Los Angeles quintet Darker My Love do this strain of psychedelia quite well, with pleasantly stoned, distant vocals complementing the alternately chikka- wakka, snarling, and sitarlike guitar attack. DML craft memorable hooks without being obnoxious about it, making a virtue of sonic moderation; this is harder to achieve than you think. Also, Darker My Love use the third-greatest instrument in existence: the clavinet. Props. DAVE SEGAL

Spindrift, Black Nite Crash, Midday Veil

(Comet) The West Coast is a perennial hotbed of spacey rock that wants to take you higher (see the Darker My Love blurb above for another convenient example). El Lay's Spindrift—whose lineup includes current and former Brian Jonestown Massacre and Warlocks members—inject a little Morricone-esque spaghetti-western dust into their psych-rock gestures; unsurprisingly Quentin Tarantino chose Spindrift's "Indian Run" to appear in his latest flick, Hell Ride. Spindrift don't get too far out, nor do their tempos rarely exceed a leisurely amble, but their strummy, ringing tones have a shivery sundown splendor to them. And we Seattleites could sure use some of that SoCal solar power now. You may want to bring some cash to purchase Spindrift's new album, The West. DAVE SEGAL

Vic Chesnutt, Elf Power

(Chop Suey) Elf Power's recent In a Cave isn't an overwhelmingly flashy, conceptually dense, or structurally byzantine pop album (for that, there are other Elephant 6 options in town this week). Instead, it's a simple, slow-burning, and ultimately satisfying psychedelic folk-rock album, full of singer- songwriter Andrew Rieger's bleary hallucinogenic visions and serene existential contemplations, all wrapped in warm blankets of gentle amplifier fuzz and aided by able drumming, bass, and hints of synthesizer, strings, harmoniums, and more in the atmosphere. And it's all sneakily catchy as hell, especially songs like "Owl Cut (White Flowers in the Sky)," "Spiral Stairs," "Softly Through the Void," and "Quiver and Quake." It's all so cozy that you feel as though Elf Power have taken you into their pastoral home and sat you down by the fire before quietly dosing your chamomile tea. ERIC GRANDY

Monday 11/17

The Mighty Underdogs, Zion-I

(Neumos) TMU are an Oakland supergroup of two celebrated MCs—the breathlessly inventive Gift of Gab and the sharp-flowing Lateef the Truth Speaker—along with producer Headnodic. Both rappers are associated with the Bay Area–based Quannum collective and have released a lifetime of work with Quannum crews (Blackalicious and Latyrx, respectively), but the Underdogs' Droppin' Science Fiction LP is released on NYC indie-hop giant Definitive Jux, known for success with left-of-center shit like El-P and Aesop Rock. While Gab and Lateef's most experimental works are behind them (4th Dimensional Rocketships Going Up and Latyrx [The Album], respectively), their soulful new record and status as Jukies will, let's hope, bring their bold rhymes some more ears to bend. LARRY MIZELL JR.

Tuesday 11/18

O'Death, Hillstomp, Gravelroad

(High Dive) O'Death hail from the Brooklyn borough of New York City, but they sound more like they reside in a rural shack in the Appalachians, where presumably they would fund their intentionally raw recordings by selling handmade folk crafts and moonshine. A few elements serve to dislocate this band from Brooklyn to Bumfuck—fiddle, banjo, clangorous drums that sound like they could only have been played that loud in the middle of nowhere—but nothing transports the band so much as lead singer Greg Jamie's slightly feral, possibly moonshine-blind yelps. O'Death tag themselves as "gothic/country/punk" on that most ubiquitous of social networking sites, and indeed, what most separates them from similar sets of city slickers with country affectations is a dark, deranged vibe so pronounced as to border on burlesque. ERIC GRANDY

In Flames, Gojira

(Showbox Sodo) During the early '90s, in Gothenburg, Sweden, In Flames (along with At the Gates and Dark Tranquility) decided to put some chocolate in their peanut butter and add melody to death metal. It was a great idea to mix brutal drumming, scalding riffs, and growls with soaring melodies. At least it was, like, 20 years ago. Nowadays, the genre's a dead horse that's been processed into something closer to emo hardcore than death metal. So that sucks. But In Flames still have a couple bushels of old songs that defined the genre and will inspire some mighty whipping of dreads. The second they start playing "Moonshield," it won't matter how good melodic death metal is now, because at one point it was the best. SHANE MEHLING

Wednesday 11/19

Of Montreal, HEALTH

(Showbox Sodo) See preview.

Apollo Sunshine, Dead Confederate, Feral Children

(Chop Suey) Apollo Sunshine's Shall Noise Upon spawns from three multi-instrumentalists whose joyous, expansive songcraft channels the spiritual bliss of George Harrison's All Things Must Pass without obviously emulating that landmark LP's Spectorized Krishna rock. Apollo Sunshine—Jesse Gallagher, Sam Cohen, and Jeremy Black—lean toward psychedelia's whimsical end, but not cloyingly so. And they throw a few change-ups, too: "Brotherhood of Death" chugs headlong, like if Canned Heat joined forces with early Meat Puppets; "The Funky Chamberlain (Who Begot Who)" recalls Lothar and the Hand People's "Machines" (always a good thing), but it's funkier; "Green Green Lawns of Outer Space" sounds like Raymond Scott gone Hawaiian. Casual, free-range brilliance lives. DAVE SEGAL