Thursday 10/14

Superchunk, Teenage Fanclub, Telekinesis

(Showbox at the Market) See Fucking in the Streets.

Phantogram, Josiah Wolf, Anomie Belle

(Neumos) Stranger music editor Eric Grandy nailed it when he wrote, "Phantogram are sort of like a Tobacco for folks who'd prefer slightly more straightforward pop songs in their analog, beat-heavy electronics." Sarah Barthel sings in a creamily winsome style, like a triphop Carol van Dyk (of Bettie Serveert), over her brooding keyboards and Josh Carter's functional funk beats and spare guitar coloration. The Saratoga Springs, New York, duo's 2010 Barsuk Records album, Eyelid Movies, sounds like it could've come out in 1996, but it's nonetheless a quaint recapitulation of that time's triphop moves. The one exception is the neo-Numanoid "Running from the Cops," an effective slice of icy paranoia, featuring the album's weirdest and funkiest rhythm and Carter's chillingly shuddering vocals. More in this vein, Phantogram. DAVE SEGAL

Ghosts & Monsters, He Whose Ox Is Gored, Into the Storm

(Studio Seven) Before they released their latest EP, Op Amps, local noisemakers He Whose Ox Is Gored posted bar-coded flyers all over the city, which allowed fans to get a sneak peek of the album by way of their smart phones. When you scanned the bar code with a free phone app, you unlocked a page where you could download their music. Fancy! But for those without expensive phones, the Op Amps EP is now available for free via Last.fm. And if you're a fan of all things loud, heavy, and intense (and also, on occasion, beauty and melody), then you're going to want to grab it while the grabbin's good. It's free! So now you can also afford to go to tonight's show and see 'em in action. MEGAN SELING

Friday 10/15

Film School, the Depreciation Guild, Hotels

(Sunset) See Sound Check.

Wiz Khalifa, Yelawolf, Jinx

(Showbox Sodo) Wiz Khalifa is the one who's received all sorts of positive press in national glossies like Rolling Stone, XXL, Mass Appeal, and Vibe. He's the one who's already signed to Warner Bros. and Atlantic Records. But Yelawolf is the new one to watch. Maybe it's shtick. Or maybe I'm naive—pathetically and automatically gravitating toward anything labeled "redneck" or "white trash" because it reminds me of home. Whatever the reason, I can't stop listening to Yelawolf's soon to be re-released on Interscope Trunk Muzik. I first heard it, really fucking loud, in a car—zooming through the dark woods of rural Kentucky at 2:30 in the morning—while trying to find the Gathering of Juggalos. Even though Yelawolf is from Alabama, which is definitely not Kentucky, and even though he is not a Juggalo, he made so much sense that we listened to Trunk Muzik on repeat for several hours straight. Wait, did I say hours? I meant days. KELLY O See also My Philosophy.

Broken Social Scene

(Paramount) What is the sound of a dozen or so friendly Canadians coming together to form a band? If the friendly Canadians include members of Stars, the Weakerthans, Metric, plus velour-voiced wonder woman Feist and songwriter Kevin Drew, the answer is "the sound of Broken Social Scene," a dense, scrappy wall of sound incorporating scores of instruments and voices and multitracked studio delights. Tonight, Broken Social Scene (minus Feist, which is fine) hit the Paramount in support of their latest record, 2010's generally well-appreciated Forgiveness Rock Record. DAVID SCHMADER

Envy, La Dispute, Touché Amoré, And So I Watch You from Afar

(El Corazón) Screamo is a touchy subject. The term itself was coined in the 1990s to refer to emotionally gripping hardcore bands (Heroin, Swing Kids, Saetia) that steered away from traditionally metal or youth-crew-leaning song structures, but was later (around 1999) co-opted by MTV2 buzz bands Taking Back Sunday and the Used (and many more) to label their catchy pop songs with melodramatic screamed choruses. This tour bridges the screamo divide. These days, longtime Japanese screamo quintet Envy lean more toward beautifully crafted post-rock, but tourmates Touché Amoré and La Dispute write driving, emotive hardcore jams reminiscent of both Rites of Spring and Thursday. Sometimes you need to step down and meet in the middle. KEVIN DIERS

Saturday 10/16

Eugene Robinson, Great Falls, Get Down Syndrome, Mercy Sounds

(Comet, 4 pm) Eugene Robinson is a terrifying and magnetic man: articulate, polite, and bursting at the seams of his tailored suit filled with the 235-pound physique earned from boxing and mixed martial arts training. Onstage with his avant-garde noise-blues band Oxbow, he's a different person: stripped to his underwear, ears duct-taped to prevent cauliflowering from any altercations with the audience, groping himself, groaning, and howling incantations. The duality is unnerving, and Robinson's dark humor and fascination with our base instincts make you wonder which aspect of his personality is more genuine. These two shows (see below) capture him on a reading tour of his hard-boiled crime novel A Long Slow Screw. I suspect that Robinson will be on his best behavior for this more refined venture, but I'd still watch your step. BRIAN COOK

Eugene Robinson, Madraso, the Fay Curse, Great Falls

(Black Lodge) See above.

The Murder City Devils, Past Lives, Cold Lake

(Showbox at the Market) Remember last year when the Devils played the Sasquatch! Festival? When Spencer Moody freaked everyone out by roaring into the mic, "What we do is for all the beautiful faggots, and the rest of you can eat a big bowl of wet dicks!" Man, that was good stuff. This show literally is for all the beautiful faggots—100 percent of the door proceeds will be donated to the excellent Seattle-based Lifelong AIDS Alliance. Tickets are $21 advance, but that's nothing compared to a bowl of wet dicks. Rumor has it MCD will even be playing two brand-new songs (shhh, you didn't hear that from me). Don't get there late. You need to see Cold Lake. Any self-respecting MCD fan should jump headfirst into Cold Lake. KELLY O

The Intelligence, Orca Team, Butts,Vacant Fever

(Funhouse) Portland trio Orca Team's "Vancouver B.C." eulogizes the titular city while slyly dissing Seattle, but it's no biggie, dudes—the song is so cheery and charming that it trumps any local bias. A thumping, strutting journey across well-trod sonic terrain (Orca Team are retro-pop wranglers in the popular mode), the band's recent full-length, Let It Go, nevertheless makes for a scenic and blissful ride. Rather than registering as generic, their music feels photospheric, with supersized (figurative) albedos. This Funhouse bill is crammed with other goodness, including foggy rumblers the Intelligence, Vacant Fever, and Butts. Will Orca Team's winsome old school–ery seem quaint when juxtaposed with Butts' potty-mouthed pep and the gig's overall sense of sleazy cool (see: the show poster with nothing but watercolor breasts)? No biggie, dudes. JASON BAXTER

See Me River, the Good Luck Number

(Sunset) Kerry Zettel, aka the hardest working man in the Seattle music industry, owns such a distinctive voice that it stands out well ahead of any other instrument that accompanies it. This fact doesn't always work to See Me River's benefit, but when it does, it's golden. See, for example, the band's 2009 track "Ed Jackson," a song about a neighbor's suicide, in which Zettel's baritone takes something troubling and makes it downright soothing. See Me River's latest, The One That Got a Wake, doesn't ever quite hit the heights of songs like "Ed Jackson," but it's still a pleasure to figure that out. GRANT BRISSEY

Chicago Underground Duo

(EMP) Cornetist/electronics maestro Rob Mazurek and drummer/percussionist Chad Taylor have been the creative catalysts for various manifestations of the Chicago Underground Collective since 1997. Over 11 albums these players have made some of the most challenging and spellbinding jazz of modern times with an intelligent deployment of weird electronic timbres, interpretations of European and Asian musics into their compositions, and instrumental interplay that suggests both freewheeling spontaneity and rigorous formal integrity. The twosome's new album, Boca Negra (Thrill Jockey), continues their cunning forays into richly layered minimalism and textural experimentation. This show should be one of the Earshot Jazz Festival's highlights. DAVE SEGAL

Sunday 10/17

M.I.A., Rye Rye

(Showbox at the Market) See preview.

Suicidal Tendencies

(Showbox Sodo) Mike Muir doesn't "do interviews." I tried, I really did. I woulda killed to ask him if he was really a street thug back in the day—what the gangs the Venice 13 and/or the Suicidal Cycos were really like. I'd ask him if he listened to any new-school skate-punk bands... his thoughts on current censorship laws, PepsiCo, Christine O'Donnell, Tea Partyers... I'd ask if he still wanted to kick Dave Mustaine's ass. I'd tell him that seeing ST open for Megadeth and Slayer (Clash of the Titans Tour, Detroit, 1991) pretty much changed my life, sending me into a decadelong obsession with trash metal... and how that was the first time I left a show with someone else's blood on me, after a fight during his set. I woulda eventually asked about the new album, No Mercy Fool!/The Suicidal Family, with re-recorded ST classic "Possessed to Skate" on it. If only Mike did interviews. KELLY O See also Underage.

Monday 10/18

Crayon Fields, Karl Blau, Exohxo

(Tractor) I think it's fair to say that Australian pop band Crayon Fields are not afraid to seem uncool. If you need proof, just cast your ears toward their stripped-down cover of Roxette's "It Must Have Been Love," of all things. There's absolutely no way to put the words "Roxette" and "cover song" together without losing some mammoth cool points, but Crayon Fields do find the elements of a good song hiding there in the bare bones of the schlock—an honest yearning that pierces the hair-spray mist. They use that ability to find the pure heart of a song to great effect in their original numbers—"Graceless" sounds like a British Invasion hit, "How Loved You Are" is basically, believe it or not, a hula—and it's this ability to keep things simple that makes Crayon Fields special. PAUL CONSTANT

The Hundred in the Hands, Kelley Stoltz

(Crocodile) The world's awash with musicians emulating the Beach Boys, the Kinks, and the Beatles. Some of 'em are even worth hearing. San Francisco's Kelley Stoltz is one such pop/rock classicist worthy of significant headphone time. One-dude-band-style, he writes pert, melodious songs with just enough eccentric frills to make him rise above most Wilson/Davies/Lennon/McCartney worshippers. Stoltz's new album on Sub Pop, To Dreamers, rocks more robustly than past efforts while maintaining his knack for tunesmithing that instantly stimulates your humming-along muscles and puts a summery spring in your step. Brooklyn-based duo the Hundred in the Hands record for the illustrious Warp Records, but their smooth, airy synth pop deviates from the label's typical forward-thinking thrust. They almost make Ladytron sound like Suicide. DAVE SEGAL

Recoil

(Triple Door) After a long stint as the keyboardist for, and probably most functional member of, Depeche Mode (and working as an opening act for Mick Jones and Joe Strummer's pre-Clash band), Alan Wilder became Recoil—a more experimental, darker outreach of his songwriting, song-splitting, and song-rearranging abilities. In that time, he's collaborated with Louisiana bluesmen, members of Eurythmics and Portishead, and Moby to make dark, dubby compositions that people like to dance to. Oddly, for this show, Wilder is playing the sit-down Triple Door—consider it a good opportunity to eat that pot brownie you've been saving and sit back, letting waves of electro-blues wash over you like wine. BRENDAN KILEY

Tuesday 10/19

Say Anything, Motion City Soundtrack

(Showbox Sodo) Say Anything's debut full-length, ...Is a Real Boy, is a record I will defend forever (probably—who knows what the future holds?). It's a concept album of sorts, based on a character who is a close approximation of the band's founder and lead singer, Max Bemis, who literally went crazy while making the album. While severe anxiety and bipolar disorder caused a rough patch in his personal life (mental institutions, medication, etc.), it also made for an unapologetic, pissed-off, passionate, and raucous record that is on par with Weezer's Pinkerton when it comes to being able to perfectly capture unwieldy adolescent emotions. Unfortunately, everything the band has released since then has been uninteresting and lame. But we'll always have ...Is a Real Boy. MEGAN SELING

Wednesday 10/20

Belle & Sebastian

(Benaroya Hall) See preview.

The Gaslamp Killer, Daedelus, 12th Planet, Teebs

(Neumos) See Data Breaker and Stranger Suggests.

Blue Scholars, Brother Ali, Macklemore and Ryan Lewis, Fresh Espresso, Mash Hall

(Paramount) Damn if this isn't the most wholesome hiphop show this town's ever seen—the Baha'i(ish) Blue Scholars, the Muslim Brother Ali, and the recovering addict Macklemore, whose experiences going down the pot/opiate rabbit hole and coming back up again are the lyrical bedrock of his recent work. But damn if this show isn't a tour of today's jazzy-conscious hiphop pantheon. You know Blue Scholars: Geologic's easy but brooding raps ("I measure each step, walking closer to my final destination of death") and the unhurried, blue sophistication of DJ Sabzi's productions. Brother Ali is a little more pushy and urgent, singing about his faith, his albinism, war, and sometimes how much he loves his kids. And Macklemore? He's the sincerest son of a gun in hiphop today, who favors a little gospel church organ and guitar line under his lines, but he comes off not so much corny as brave. This will be a great show, for the oldsters and for the kids. BRENDAN KILEY See also My Philosophy.

Gogol Bordello

(Showbox Sodo) This year brought Gogol Bordello's major-label debut—Trans-Continental Hustle, on Rick Rubin's American Recordings—but forever and always the band's recorded output will be secondary to its ravishingly intense live shows, where Eugene Hutz and his international band of noisemakers unfailingly create a perfect storm of gypsy punk that gets even Seattle crowds spazzing like mad. Tonight's Showbox Sodo show should have the condensed sweat dripping from the rafters. DAVID SCHMADER