Thursday 5/21
They Live!, Born Anchors, Partman Parthorse
(Sunset) Tonight's show is a stellar example of what kind of music community currently exists in Seattle: diverse and supportive—and also fucking awesome. They Live! are one of the newer hiphop acts in town, featuring Gatsby (aka Larry Mizell Jr.) of Cancer Rising (as well as The Stranger) and Bruce Illest. Their song "Weed Murder" is a tough but playful track about smokin' pot to fight violence. ("Instead of touchin' you, I'm gonna murder this weed!") Ha! Born Anchors released their debut full-length, Sprez-zatura, and I know I've said this before, but fans of Jawbox need to get on it if they haven't already. And then we have openers Partman Parthorse, a spazzy punk band that'll be sweaty and nearly naked by the end of the second song. And all of this on one bill? Of course. Because that's how Seattle do. MEGAN SELING
Friday 5/22
Melvins, Green River
(Showbox at the Market) See preview.
S.P.E.C.T.R.E., Andrew Luck vs. Dosadi, Grym
(Re-bar) See Data Breaker.
Ursula Rucker & King Britt, Black Stax, KBCS City Soul DJs
(Chop Suey) Black Stax is Silas Black, Jace ECAj, and Felicia Loud. These local hiphop and soul veterans are a synthesis of the Roots, the Coup, the Fugees, and Janis Joplin. Black Stax are the realization of an idea that began with Silent Lambs Project (Silas and Jace). That idea is the production of hiphop completely within the context and logic of the art gallery, but without once losing sight of the street. It is hiphop's complete independence from market forces, hiphop as an object for collectors rather than buyers. At one moment in hiphop's history, Jean-Michel Basquiat produced a rap recorded for Rammelzee vs. K-Rob, Beat Bop. It is useful to think of Black Stax as a return to that meeting point: the gallery and the street. CHARLES MUDEDE
Mike Watt & the Missingmen
(Crocodile) Neither serious illness nor time will stop Mike Watt. Already enshrined in all right-thinking people's pantheon for his low-end wielding in punk-funk rabble-rousers Minutemen, the indomitable bassist also has toiled for the Stooges and issued several Mike Watt albums of some merit. His latest project with the Missingmen—featuring Tom Watson of Slovenly nonfame on guitar and Raul Morales on drums—is a "punk-rock opera" titled Hyphenated-Man, which Watt describes as being akin to "a mirror from just inside my head... [shattering] into 30 pieces, each showing a piece of my state of mind (or out-of-mind) as of now." The group also have been known to execute a nice, understated cover of Television's "Little Johnny Jewel" and a rollicking version of Wire's "Ex Lion Tamer." Mike Watt cannot be stopped. DAVE SEGAL
The Green Pajamas, Capping Day
(East Street Records, West Seattle) For a quarter century, Seattle's Green Pajamas have been creating high-quality psychedelic pop that's mostly wafted below the radar of America's music consumers—though Europeans seem to dig 'em in higher numbers. The Green Pajamas are by no means the most far-out or flamboyant psych group around, but they have an uncanny ability to craft melodies that induce longing and burrow deep in your memory banks. GP leader Jeff Kelly's songwriting is baroquely beautiful, but not overly fussy; even his epics have a coherent structure, and, at least on "Kim the Waitress" (with which Material Issue scored a well-deserved hit in 1994), his hook manufacturing is impeccable. Tonight's show celebrates the release of Poison in the Russian Room, yet another bejeweled collection of intricately constructed beauties. DAVE SEGAL
Baby Birds Don't Drink Milk, Herr Jazz, Desolation Wilderness
(Healthy Times Fun Club) Weird things migrate to Lawrence, Kansas, to retire and die. William S. Burroughs spent the last 20 years of his life there, and the man who stole Einstein's brain hid there for a long time, too. All that weird shit must've imbued the soil with something freaky, because Baby Birds Don't Drink Milk are from Lawrence, and they've got some of that weirdness about them, too; they make ambient songs that are just as catchy as pop music. "Eating with Horses" has the kind of nervous energy—it's pestered by frantic percussion, using what sounds like wooden spoons—that makes you want to dance. But it's still ambient, somehow—but it rocks, too. Weird. PAUL CONSTANT See also Underage, page 47.
Rain Fest: Gone but Not Forgotten, Ill Intent, Killing the Dream, Lewd Acts, the Warriors, others
(Viaduct, Tacoma) For those of you needing an alternative to Sasquatch!, consider Tacoma's Rain Fest, the Viaduct's annual hardcore (and more!) music festival. Going Friday to Sunday, Rain Fest is three days of metal, hardcore, pop punk, and rock, with tons of local bands, and a few touring acts as well, including Comeback Kid and the Warriors (who co-headline Saturday night). With nearly 50 bands in three days, it's hard to know where to start, but Friday night don't miss Deathwish Records' Killing the Dream for a dose of pissed-off and heavy breakdowns. On Sunday, be sure to check out Make Do and Mend for a Hot Water Music–inspired blast of turbulent rock. MEGAN SELING
Saturday 5/23
Melvins, Green River
(Showbox at the Market) See preview.
Rain Fest
(Viaduct, Tacoma) See Friday.
Windy & Carl, White Rainbow, This Blinding Light
(Sunset) Fifteen years into their career, Dearborn, Michigan's Windy & Carl aren't about to surprise their loyal fans. The guitar/keyboards/bells duo have gone relatively far with their cirrus-cloud-like ambient rock, a music consisting of sighs, murmurs, gentle oscillations, and seashell roars, with Windy occasionally whispering morosely over it (she's the anti–Janis Joplin). Their latest album, Songs for the Broken Hearted, offers yet more forlorn drones to which to get horizontal and contemplative. White Rainbow (Portland's Adam Forkner) keeps improving as a provider of what he probably only half-jokingly calls "full spectrum vibrational healing audio." His 2007 album Prism of Eternal Now is a sort of "what if Terry Riley recorded for VHF Records?" kosmische klassik. Kills me that I'll be out of town for this bliss-OD show. DAVE SEGAL
Heiress, Brothers of the Sonic Cloth, Requin
(Funhouse) With the Melvins and Big Business both playing shows in town, Seattle's not lacking for heavy shit this weekend, but should you need yet one more eardrum crushing option, tonight's Funhouse lineup has it. Brothers of the Sonic Cloth are Tad Doyle's latest musical endeavor (which also features Stranger designer Aaron Edge on drums). And Heiress's new vocalist is none other than John Pettibone of Himsa and Undertow fame. Also worth noting: It's Line Out commenter bunnypuncher's birthday. He's butted heads with folks a number of times on the blog (including me), but it must be said that the dude has fine taste in music. MEGAN SELING
Hurricane Lanterns, the Sugar High Mustangs, the Right Typewriters
(Blue Moon) Local outfit Hurricane Lanterns make gentle music. "I don't ask much/From you or anyone else/I don't ask much/Of myself," Patrick Dodd croons on "I Don't Ask Much." It's introspective and soft and calm. It sounds like someone spending a morning trying to get his shit in order and figure out whether he's a fuckup. But everyone knows it's the quiet ones you've got to look out for: "Hymn for the Misguided" is a kind of frightful waltz that sneaks up on you, starting out quietly (there are even crickets!) but eventually becoming a mammoth, staggering, beautiful meditation on love and death and the way that religion falls in between both of those things. PAUL CONSTANT
Sunday 5/24
Rain Fest
(Viaduct, Tacoma) See Friday.
Black Dice, Wolf Eyes, Physical Demon, Brain Fruit
(www.myspace.com/blackdicemyspace) See Stranger Suggests.
Sasquatch!: Jane's Addiction, Nine Inch Nails, TV on the Radio, others
(Gorge Amphitheater) The dual headliners might fool you into thinking you've been transported back to Lollapalooza, circa 1991. But don't fret. Nine Inch Nails still have the capacity to dazzle, especially with their vaunted light show in effect, and Jane's Addiction have enough majestic, rococo classics to bombard the night sky properly. The rest of the bill's top ballers—TV on the Radio, Murder City Devils, Of Montreal—radiate dark and flamboyant star power, and the supporting cast, while not the most mind-blowing assemblage of rock groups ever, is solid. M83's cinematic shoegazetronica in the open air should be particularly epic. DAVE SEGAL
Mark Sultan, Coconut Coolouts, the Hacks
(Funhouse) Mark Sultan is a man, a one-man band, who sometimes calls himself "BBQ" and plays with King Khan. Mark Sultan has been in a ton of garage-rock bands, including the Spaceshits, Les Sexareenos, and, more recently, the Almighty Defenders—a redheaded stepchild of a band, birthed in Berlin and made up of Khan, Sultan, and Black Lips. Mark Sultan is a fucking Canuck and is in no way related to the Sultan River or Sultan, Washington (population 3,334). Mark Sultan has a new 7-inch on Sub Pop Records called Hold On. Mark Sultan sings like an angel from Planet Psychedelic Doo-Wop. If I were Mark Sultan, I would tell you to come see me at the Funhouse. I might even mention that King Khan and the Shrines have tonight off in between shows at Sasquatch! and in Portland, so who knows who might drop by. But, hey, I'm not Mark Sultan. KELLY O
Monday 5/25
Big Business, Tweak Bird, Pontiak
(Neumos) Big Business add another member (noted shredder Toshi Kasai) and get all proggy/epic for their third full-length, Mind the Drift. The result is some of the band's finest work yet. Sludgy, hulk-sized bass riffs still dominate, and Jared Warren and Coady Willis commit typically deft performances, but Kasai's sparse, razor-sharp guitar gives everything more depth and scope, both sonically and compositionally. Add Phil Ek's crystalline production, and you get one of the best rock albums in recent memory. While I miss the days of seeing them play smaller, more obscure venues every other week in this city (remember when they used to play upstairs at Neumos?), it's gratifying to see the business getting bigger. GRANT BRISSEY
Tuesday 5/26
Zony Mash
(Tractor) See Stranger Suggests.
Fischerspooner, Ssion, DJ Colby B
(Showbox at the Market) Fischerspooner are sounding a little old these days, aren't they? No doubt their storied live spectacle is still, well, spectacular, but their new album, Entertainment, is not so entertaining. It kind of has me thinking that maybe the electronic/performance-art duo were only ever just one great single ("Emerge") and a Wire cover ("The 15th") with the good timing to hit upon a handy aesthetic trend—one that's long since run its course. More exciting by far is the opening act, Kansas City, Missouri, art-star/freak Ssion, who makes campy, fun new wave enhanced by fantastic DIY music videos and elaborately orchestrated but still totally unhinged live performances. ERIC GRANDY
Wednesday 5/27
Oscillate: Atole, Copy, Computer Controlled, Claude Balzac
(Chop Suey) See Data Breaker.
New York Dolls, the Clicks
(El CorazĂłn) The reunited-and-touring New York Dolls contain but two of the band's original members: lead singer and conceptualist David Johansen and surviving guitarist Sylvain Sylvain, joined by a band of guys you don't know. But as anyone who bothered to listen to the band's excellent 2006 release One Day It Will Please Us to Remember Even This was shocked to discover, the new New York Dolls are of a perfect spiritual and conceptual piece with the old New York Dolls, bone-deep freaks wrestling with big questions in the funnest way they know how. Tonight's show is in support of the Dolls' just-released record, 'Cause I Sez So. DAVID SCHMADER
