Wednesday 3/13

San Proper

(Q) See Data Breaker.

Martha Wainwright, Shenandoah Davis

(Tractor) I have only this to say: There is so much poetry, so much grit, so much anger and pain and righteousness and vulnerability in the first Martha Wainwright song I ever heard, "Bloody Mother Fucking Asshole" (it's about her dad—ha-ha), that I think I have some neurons devoted entirely to an emotional response to the first few chords. I like it so much, I've had trouble going deeper into her catalog. I've spent many minutes (hours?) shouting along to that song, rearranging it with friends on guitars, playing it in the car, and, yeah, totally crying to it. That song is an anthem, and I'm eternally grateful for it. ANNA MINARD

Thursday 3/14

Bicep, Karl Kamakahi

(Q) See Data Breaker.

Friday 3/15

Eugenie Jones

(Royal Room) See Stranger Suggests.

Pretty Old, Whitney Ballen, Albert Square

(Heartland) See Underage.

Flash: Kindness, Joakim Bouaziz

(Q) See Data Breaker.

Lucky 2013: Pretty Lights, Arty, Zomboy, Ed Rush & Optical, High Contrast, others

(WaMu Theater) Here's another USC indoor mega-rave, this time celebrating that most EDM-friendly occasion, St. Patrick's Day (huh?). Whatever, anything will do for an excuse to gather several of the moment's top-grossing club DJs and producers and have them run through their paces before tons of emerald-hued dazzling lights. Speaking of which, headliner Pretty Lights (Colorado producer Derek Vincent Smith) sounds like a one-man revival of '90s Big Beat movement spearheaded by Chemical Brothers and Fatboy Slim, but with less overt funkiness. Other popular beatmakers on the bill include old-school junglists Ed Rush & Optical and High Contrast, trance smoothie BT, and très 'eavy French dubstep/drum 'n' basstards Dirtyphonics. And so many more. DAVE SEGAL

Milk Music, Gun Outfit, FF, Sick Sad World

(Black Lodge) Olympia's Milk Music play lush Hüsker Jr.–tinted fuzz, ripping with heavy leads and strained yowls. The foursome has a new LP in the queue—the finely titled Cruise Your Illusion, out April 2. On tour with MM are Gun Outfit (also from capital town), a trio that plays pleasant and spacious punk and pop. GO also have a new album coming out on April 2—called Hard Coming Down—an apt title for songs that sound a bit bleary and uneven, like taking a break after a weekend or possibly a few years of hard living. With Sick Sad World (tuneful one-man bedroom pop) and FF (punk-gaze trio). EMILY NOKES

Skies Below, Princess, Argonaut

(Rendezvous) Debut show alert! If you get off on the fact that you got to see a band before the rest of the world ("I saw Jawbreaker in a Berkeley basement with 15 other kids before Unfun was released!"), then take note: Tonight's show is Skies Below's first public performance. With no shows and only one song available, it's hard to get a solid read on what they're about, but "The Path of the Beam" is a dynamic instrumental that flirts with metal guitar riffs and includes really dramatic strings, something many other heavy instrumental bands from around here lack. Could get weird! Since you'll be heading down to the Rendezvous to get your insides shaken up by Princess and Argonaut anyway, why not get there early and welcome Skies Below to the scene? MEGAN SELING

Efterklang, Nightlands, Jherek Bischoff

(Neumos) One of Denmark's preeminent musical exports, Efterklang are worthy, tasteful as all get-out, and dull, like a Scandinavian Bon Iver. Efterklang's mélange of neo-chamber-y folk pop and twinkling electronica has become the Olive Garden breadsticks of the indie-music landscape. People who are born to be mild love it. Nightlands—the mellow, dozy pop project of the War on Drugs' Dave Hartley—sounds like mid-'70s Moody Blues and Al Stewart's "Year of the Cat," which takes huge balls to do in 2013. Whatever the case, you should get to Neumos early for Seattle orch-pop master Jherek Bischoff, an ingenious instrumentalist and arranger who's on a first-name basis with David Byrne and Caetano Veloso. DAVE SEGAL

Saturday 3/16

Penumbra Beer Bash: the Catheters, Pleasureboaters, Tacocat, Wimps, La Luz, Prism Tats

(King's Hall) See previews here, here, and here.

The Numbs, A White Hunter, Free Punk, Funky Photos

(Black Coffee Co-op) See Underage.

Space Rock: Ctrl_Alt_Dlt, Mikael Stavöstrand, Cyanwave, Kadeejah Streets

(Electric Tea Garden) See Data Breaker.

Duffy Bishop

(Royal Room) Predating the women rockers of the grunge years and carrying on through the These Streets era and beyond, Duffy Bishop is the Northwest musical treasure beloved for her winning stage presence and absolutely humongous voice. She's been nominated for a Grammy, shared stages with John Lee Hooker, Bo Diddley, and Bobby "Blue" Bland, performed a hit one-woman show about Janis Joplin, and tonight she performs at Columbia City's the Royal Room for free. DAVID SCHMADER

Hobosexual, Black Wolf Men's Club, the Dirty Church Ladies

(Blue Moon) I've long loved Hobosexual for their fun, gritty, and heavy-hitting rock and roll, but the band displayed a new level of force when they recently opened the Seattle Rock Orchestra's Smashing Pumpkins tribute at the Moore. Hobosexual blasted through songs like "Zero" and "Quiet" with so much passion that they made 2013 Billy Corgan seem as exciting as a wax statue. And despite having only ever played in the small venues around town, Hobosexual had absolutely no problem sweating out enough contagious energy to mesmerize the 1,000-plus people in the huge room. It was what they call a star-making moment. You'd best jump on their train soon. MEGAN SELING

Murs, Prof, Fashawn

(Crocodile) The humble and consistent rapper Murs—who's been at it for 17 years now—earned this writer's allegiance with one track, 2000's "24 Hrs. w/a G/The Two Step," which featured a slinky, funky drum and bass loop, a solid tale of a day on par with Ice Cube's best, and a chorus sung by Grover from Sesame Street. Go look it up right now. Eventually a prominent member of the Oakland/San Francisco Living Legends crew, Murs went on to drop his auspicious solo LP, The End of the Beginning, on longtime friend El-P's Definitive Jux imprint. Over the last two decades, he's collaborated with more people than you've met, and his latest two, one a collaboration with 9th Wonder and the other with co-biller Fashawn, are works of tempered reserve and formidable resolve. Murs doesn't need your respect, but you owe it to him anyway. GRANT BRISSEY

Magma Fest: Marzanna, Imaginary Pants, Steve Fisk, Slim Moon & What Army

(20/20 Cycle) That a recording legend like Steve Fisk is playing the tiny 20/20 bike shop is strange, but so is this Seattle audio engineer/keyboardist's music. His 2001 album 999 Levels of Undo is still the most mad-genius-y release in Sub Pop's 25-year life span. It's a brain-baffling electronic record that eludes easy classification like politicians avoid straight answers. His work in Pell Mell (instrumental rock for long-distance driving/library music for action flicks) and Pigeonhed (soulful-as-hell down-tempo funk) also deserves canonization. Honey in a Goldmine by Marzanna (aka eccentric singer/songwriter Marianne Nowottny) is described as "psychedelic TexMex country music," but the EP is not available yet, so you'll have to take her Facebook page's word for it. Vancouver's Imaginary Pants hash out that lo-fi, featherweight, boy-girl indie pop you heard on K Records in the '80s and '90s. It's cuter than Hello Kitty. Thankfully, there's no irony in their game. DAVE SEGAL

Sunday 3/17

Blue Sky Black Death, Keyboard Kid, Child Actor

(Chop Suey) Late last year, the local beat producer Keyboard Kid released a dense, rich, and overflowing album called #Rare Drops from the Sun. One of the tracks on this record remixed/spliced/sliced/versioned/mutated/recombined Janelle Monae's wonderfully batty tune "Cold War." The curious thing is this: New Jersey's Clams Casino also remixed/spliced/sliced/versioned/mutated/recombined "Cold War" on his 2011 Instrumental Mixtape. And though I love Clams Casino's work as a whole, I do prefer Keyboard Kid's version of "Cold War," which is called "Cold War 2" and is dark, deep, and disturbing. Altogether, Keyboard Kid is more sinister and abrasive than Clams Casino. CHARLES MUDEDE

Bring the Green Out Show: Gift Uh Gab, Raz Simone, Cam the Mac, Magick

(Barboza) Barboza's website is probably calling this the "Bring the Green out" show because it falls on St. Patrick's Day, but the potent crop of local rap talent on the bill might be worth bringing out some actual I-502-sanctioned green for. The deep-mobbin' Moor Gang will be thoroughly repped by headlining "first lady" Gift Uh Gab—whose brief but strong debut EP, Queen La'Chiefah, proved that she is well-deserving of both that title and name—and recent recruit Cam the Mac, whose solid 2HUNNIDx6 had choice green-minded anthems like "My Weed" and "Best Thing Smoking." Raz Simone jump-started his rap career last year with the powerful "They'll Speak" video and a collaborative EP with Sam Lachow, and is also poised for success. MIKE RAMOS

Monday 3/18

Metal Monday: Sindios, Golgothan Sunrise, Guns of Barisal

(2 Bit) Mondays can be brutal. Do you typically have to wake up early—often hungover—only to deal with morning commuters and face the impending shitstorm of the upcoming week headfirst? If this sounds like you, you might have some excess stress, frustration, and pent-up aggression. Luckily, the kind folks over at the 2 Bit Saloon in Ballard have a support group in the form of Metal Mondays, a weekly show usually featuring some of the best, and certainly most evil metal from the Northwest. This week's headliners, Sindios, play melodic yet driving metal that recalls moments of '90s hardcore, power metal, black metal, and thrash. KEVIN DIERS

Tuesday 3/19

Django Django

(Neptune) The main reason I chose to write about this show is because I liked Django Unchained. Somehow the hype that had built around the band Django Django eluded me. But, hey, you know, these British boys are all right. They make gentle-souled psych-rock choons with subtle analog-synth embellishments in a manner that harks back to the much-missed Beta Band (you know, that band whose song was played in the record store in High Fidelity). Oh, look, Django Django's David Maclean is the brother of the Beta Band's John Maclean. Sibling influence or no, Django Django's self-titled 2012 album is a charming, quirky reminder that the hype machine doesn't always malfunction. DAVE SEGAL