Wednesday 11/30

Katie Kate, Noddy, Glitterbang, Secret Shoppers

"Copenhagen," which closes Katie Kate's marvelous debut album Flatland, brings to mind OC Notes' "Danny Glover in the '80s" and Bean One's "Phoenix." It's not just that these tracks are made by talented local producers (Katie Kate needs also to be recognized as one of Seattle's most promising producers), but how smoothly, easily, expertly they handled (or reproduce) that '80s sound. With "Copenhagen," we hear a dash of Prince, a dash of electro pop, and a dash of something that escapes us, that sounds like it's from that period but you know was not there at all. The Prince and the electro are the past moving to our present; that something is Kate moving to the past and reinventing it. Also, the hi-hat in this track remind us that often it alone can make or break a tune. In this case, it makes rather than breaks. CHARLES MUDEDE

The National, Local Natives, Wye Oak

(Neptune) Though I personally prefer the more dynamic, harmonized sound of opening band Local Natives, I totally get why some people flip over the National's melancholic, slow-burning indie rock. It's great music for drinking alone or wandering the dark, wet Northwest streets to while reflecting on your very adult problems (perhaps "still owing money/to the money/to the money you owe"). It never gets too depressing, thanks to singer Matt Berninger's deep, comforting baritone, assuring you that everything is going to be okay, even if it's really not. But while the National's music is a security blanket for some, it's a mopey snooze-fest for others. The incredibly steep $49.50-plus-fees ticket price should separate these two parties pretty quickly. MIKE RAMOS

Immortal Technique, Chino XL, Da Circle, DJ GI Joe

(Neumos) Since Peruvian-born, Harlem-raised Immortal Technique's 2001 debut Revolutionary Vol. 1, he has tried to make plenty of points about institutional racism, classism, government corruption, and all sorts of other heavy issues in his spit-flecked, polysyllabic rhyme patterns. But this kind of frustrated, paranoid yelling is rarely heard out, and the rapper has instead become punch-line fodder for the likes of Das Racist's Victor Vazquez: "I'm Immortal Technique, I'm obnoxious/Hella people tellin' me to stop it." Maybe Technique could take a cue from Vazquez, another NY-based Latino rapper who uses slick humor and satire to tackle the same social issues in a milder but more thought-provoking manner. There's more than one way to get your point across, after all. MIKE RAMOS

Beady Eye, Black Box Revelation

(Showbox at the Market) In 1995, I went to London to interview Britpop icons Oasis for a national magazine's cover story. The record company gave me quality time with Noel and Liam Gallagher. Noel was charming, loquacious, and smart. Liam was agitated, inarticulate, and acted like I was keeping him from eating his pudding. So my perception of his new band, Beady Eye (featuring three former Oasis members), is colored by that unpleasantness. Do Gallagher's snarly Lennon/Lydon vocals and fabulous cheekbones hold up in this new context? Yes. The voice has weathered the years surprisingly well, and if you dig Oasis's rehashes of a narrow vein of '60s/'70s British rock (key song: "Beatles and Stones"), you'll Union Jack off to Beady Eye, too. DAVE SEGAL

The Apollos, Branden Daniel and the Chics, Monster Trap

(Funhouse) Dear Apollos: On your song "Ain't Too Proud to Drunk Dizzle (Don't Bleed)" from the new demo you just recorded in Portland, it's really hard to understand the lyrics. What the fuck are you saying? I've listened to this song 24 times, and I still can't make out a single word. I love the jangly, garage-punk beat—but I can't sing along. Were you drunk when you recorded this? Is this some sort of drinking song? Maybe you guys should be Drunk of the Week sometime. Love, KELLY O

Thursday 12/1

The National, Local Natives, Wye Oak

(Neptune) See Wednesday.

The Cave Singers, the Young Evils

(Vera) See Friday.

Scout Niblett, the Curious Mystery, Chris Brokaw, Lonesome Shack

(Comet) Scout Niblett's wounded yowl is the culmination of years of musical evolution. You can hear some Kurt Cobain in there, obviously, and occasionally some Diana Ross (seriously: Somewhere inside her tortured voice box, Niblett has a cover of "Ain't No Mountain High Enough" that's just waiting to tear itself out like the proverbial hell-escaping bat), and a host of girl groups whose names we've all forgotten. So now she's here, following her pained vocals over enormous, desolate landscapes of guitar, and we have no choice but to go with her; she'll show us the promised land one day. The pairing of Niblett with up-and-coming psychedelic rockers the Curious Mystery is inspired; some booker somewhere deserves a raise. PAUL CONSTANT

Peter Murphy, She Wants Revenge

(Showbox at the Market) Work with me here, because I'm about to colossally mix some metaphors and get my goth credentials revoked once and for all. Peter Murphy is the Tom Landry (original coach of the Dallas Cowboys and a perpetual hero of mine) of music—original, intelligent, full of integrity, and about the most elegant man in his field. Murphy might not have Landry's signature fedora as a trademark, but his spine-tingling, soulful baritone still provokes goose bumps in the way only someone who has danced with darkness and chooses to breathe light can do. Forget the Illuminati—Murphy is the illuminated, and his spiritually inspired music continues to (like Landry) lift us out of the ordinary and into the extraordinary. BARBARA MITCHELL

Mickey Hart Band

(Tractor) Master drummer/psychedelic shaman Mickey Hart could've coasted on the Grateful Dead's good karma, mellow vibes, and robust concert earnings till his last breath, but he's got too much energy and creativity to settle for that. Instead, as he related to Trent Moorman in last week's Sound Check, Hart explores various cultures' approaches to drumming and applies his rhythmic knowledge toward healing people with Parkinson's and Alzheimer's disease. An encounter with Mickey Hart Band surely will lead to salutary sweating and righteous chakra aligning—all done in varied and tricky meters. Beat that! DAVE SEGAL

Friday 12/2

Midday Veil, Os Ovni, Panabrite

(Cairo) See Data Breaker.

The Cave Singers, the Builders and the Butchers

(Neumos) The Cave Singers have really pulled me in with their soulful roots music. While their gorgeous songs are steeped in deep American culture, their attitude toward it all is punk rock. They aren't just duplicating an old sound; they are taking traditional forms and injecting a modern attitude—and they're willing to get far out. There is an energy there that you don't find in the current run of folk and traditionally instrumented music; their sound is accessible but never predictable. Plus, that album-cover photo of them in a group hug nearly broke my heart. GILLIAN ANDERSON

The Sea and Cake, Lia Ices, Elba

(Crocodile) Musicians used to retreat to Compass Point to focus creative energy; now they decamp to the frozen woods. To compose her sophomore full-length, Manhattan resident Lia Ices ventured outside her comfort zone both figuratively and literally. Not only does the recent Grown Unknown augment the Spartan piano-and-voice palette of her 2008 debut Necima with acoustic guitar, strings, and more rhythm, she composed it in a Vermont mountain cabin. No electricity for heat, baking her own bread... sound familiar? Indeed, fellow homesteader Justin Vernon—who fashioned Bon Iver's acclaimed For Emma, Forever Ago in snowy seclusion, too—supplies haunting harmonies on Ices' "Daphne." Grown Unknown didn't whip up as much critical brouhaha as the 2011 full-lengths from Feist and St. Vincent, but it equals them in quiet intensity. KURT B. REIGHLEY See also preview, and Sound Check.

Noise for the Needy Benefit: The Absolute Monarchs, Brokaw, Monogamy Party, Cold Lake

(Comet) If you ever lament the damage you're inflicting upon your eardrums while listening to some dude beat the shit out of his drums while his partners in crime blare their guitars at 110-plus decibels, and while your liver fights a losing battle with that booze you're sippin' on as you watch, you can find solace in knowing that proceeds from tonight's show go toward a good cause. And though you're gonna put your body through a beating, at least you're doing it to a quality soundtrack. Absolute Monarchs, Brokaw, and Monogamy Party belong to the clamorous roster of the fittingly named Good to Die Records. While not labelmates, Cold Lake share the other acts' inclination toward unhealthy bouts of percussive brutality and guitar squall. Get your positive self-destruction on. BRIAN COOK

Saturday 12/3

Latyrx, Dyno Jamz

(Crocodile) See Stranger Suggests and My Philosophy.

ohGr

(El CorazĂłn) See Data Breaker.

Poison Idea, SS-Kaliert, Embrace the Kill, the Insurgence

(Funhouse) Sometimes retirement just isn't in the cards for punk legends. Whether they're disgusted by the current wave of mall-punk poseurs or just not ready to call it a day, we're increasingly seeing these bands pop up, ready to rage as they age. Influenced by the almighty Black Flag, Portland's Poison Idea developed a fierce reputation for their unrelenting hardcore fury in 1983 with their debut EP Pick Your King. And while the band contains only one original member these days—Jerry A.—they continue to speed through blasting sets of anxiety-ridden ferocity with that same old spirit. KEVIN DIERS

Eyvind Kang, Darin Gray with Bill Horist, Alchimia, Figeater

(Josephine) Eyvind Kang is a shape-shifting virtuoso of the violin, viola, and erhu. He's enhanced the sounds of such divergent artists as heavy-metal muthas Sunn O))), avant-jazz genius John Zorn, gentle guitar hero Bill Frisell, multi-culti pranksters Sun City Girls, Laurie Anderson, Mike Patton, and Beck. His solo works maneuver in the interstices of neoclassical, art rock, drone, and improv. Kang's new minimalist opus for Editions Mego, Visible Breath, manifests a foreboding tension with his viola and the horns of legends like Julian Priester, Stuart Dempster, and Cuong Vu. Improvisational bassist Darin Gray put in time with refined noise-spaz units like Brise-Glace, Dazzling Killmen, Yona-Kit, and You Fantastic! Not sure what he's going to do with Seattle experimental guitarist Bill Horist, but Gray's past suggests that it will be uncompromising and vital. DAVE SEGAL

Sunday 12/4

Dan Deacon, USF

(Neptune) See Stranger Suggests.

The Trashies, Partman Parthorse

(Rendezvous) Did the Trashies really need to reunite? They were glorious when they were together, destroying equipment and hosting basement shows where people would always get hurt and bleed all over everyone else. But do we need them to get back together and inflict their hate-fuckery on Seattle for a second time? If they're going to keep squeezing out singles like "White Mold," the answer is yes: If you stomp on pop music and then spread salmonella all over the jagged edges, you've got the Trashies, and pop music needs to be beaten to death now more than ever. Let's hope the next time the Trashies quit will be the last, though; we don't need to see them staggering geriatrically all over a stage. Maybe they'll go out the way the Good Lord intended: With bombs strapped to their chests, in a crowded club. PAUL CONSTANT

Monday 12/5

Sting

(Paramount) Ten reasons why I love Sting: (1) He mentioned Nabokov in "Don't Stand So Close to Me." (2) Chill Rob G's brilliant "Let the Words Flow" samples the Police's equally brilliant "Voices Inside My Head." (3) The drummer of the Police, Stewart Copeland, is one of the greatest drummers in rock history. (4) Branford Marsalis's contribution to Sting's first solo album, The Dream of the Blue Turtles, a monument of '80s pop. (5) "Englishman in New York" is far better than Shinehead's "Jamaican in New York." (6) The bass on "The Bed's Too Big Without You" (it proved he knew reggae inside and out). (7) The jazz break on "Moon over Bourbon Street." (8) The video for "Roxanne." (9) His performance in David Lynch's Dune. (10) Writing the stalker anthem "Every Breath You Take." CHARLES MUDEDE

Charlie Brown Christmas:The Music ofVince Guaraldi

(Erickson Theater Off Broadway) Vince Guaraldi, the jazz composer who scored the Peanuts cartoons, was a master of playfully swinging, bluesy chord progressions and made records with titles like A Flower Is a Lovesome Thing and Jazz Impressions of Black Orpheus before vaulting into crossover superstardom by writing music for Peanuts. He died suddenly at the age of 47—from either an aneurysm or heart attack—while resting in a hotel room with drummer Jim Zimmerman between jazz sets at Butterfield's Nightclub in California. Tonight the Jose Gonzales Trio will play Guaraldi's music from the Peanuts Christmas special—Gonzales is a local actor and jazz musician who brings the same playfully blue approach to his piano that Guaraldi brought to his. This evening should send lovers of mid-20th-century jazz and/or Peanuts straight to heaven. BRENDAN KILEY

Tuesday 12/6

Sting

(Paramount) See Monday.

Ganglians, Young Prisms

(Crocodile) Watching Ganglians perform before a sparse crowd at Vera in August, I was struck by the injustice of it all. I also thought these Cali dudes would be playing a much larger venue—possibly at Bumbershoot—come 2012. Better than most in the populous field, Ganglians create infectious, un-self-conscious pop that has trace elements of '60s Beach Boys and '00s Animal Collective's lightly glazed psychedelia running through its DNA, although not in a blatant way. Ganglians' tunes sound at once immediately familiar and slightly otherworldly—a combo that should net them many bright, young fans. Doesn't hurt that singer Ryan Grubbs looks like a tall, emaciated Kurt Cobain, either. San Francisco's Young Prisms' recent Friends for Now album strikes the same cheery yet hazily distanced pop vein as Ganglians do. DAVE SEGAL