It’s the last week of June, and the jam-packed music show litany that is summer is fully here. Shake your sunburn at these 23 concerts this week picked by our music critics—from zombie thrash body-draggers, to long-form existentialist dread, to Julia Roberts’ ex-husband and his horn section—and check out everything music-related you could ever want at our chock-full music calendar.
Want this in your inbox? Sign up for the Stranger Things To Do newsletter.
MONDAY
An Evening with Ms. Lauryn Hill
It’s been 18 years since The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill, Ms. Lauryn Hill’s only solo studio album, dropped. Eighteen years since Hill used her unmistakable honey, suede, and scorched-earth voice to spit rhymes with bravado and soar through soulful, textured melodies that still reverberate through the consciousness of so many people. (Seriously, have you listened to it lately? I dare you to play “Nothing Even Matters,” her duet with D’Angelo, and not get chills.) The songs on Miseducation are by turns equally triumphant and tortured. So maybe it’s not surprising that in the years since Miseducation, Hill has become reclusive and mercurial, and that her sporadic live performances are often erratic. Last month, Hill showed up two hours late for a show in Atlanta, offering an explanation that “the challenge is aligning my energy with the time.” If you’re reading this and even considering going to this show, though, you probably already know all of this. You know this show, if it actually happens, has the potential to be transcendent. You know the lyrics to “Ex-Factor” all too well: “It could all be so simple, but you’d rather make it hard/Loving you is like a battle, and we both end up with scars.” ANGELA GARBES
TUESDAY
Julia Shapiro, John Atkins, Jenn Champion
Head to the Den (Chop Suey’s curtained inner bar) for a night of solo sets from extremely talented local band leaders Julia Shapiro, John Atkins, and Jenn Champion. Shapiro (Chastity Belt, Childbirth) has one of those voices that makes you want to keep a dream journal but also burn everything around you. Black velvet at its best and liquid gravel at its worst, her vocal tone is convincing enough to rededicate yourself to your own life while wondering why you should do anything at all for the rest of linear time. Champion’s last album as S, Cool Choices, is a spinning montage of every barren parking lot on a rainy day, and you’ve just been broken up with, but you’re starting to remember that you’re human. Her earnest, reed-thin waver is a real punch in the left ventricle. Atkins (764-HERO, Sun Breaks) has proven himself as adept with experimental East African–influenced spangle-pop as he is with just a guitar and a voice (…and a dream)—his work is an unrelenting earworm, a silent intruder that slowly envelops your brain. KIM SELLING
WEDNESDAY
John Doe & His Rock ‘n’ Roll Band with Jesse Dayton
You know, or you should know, John Doe as one-fourth of the punk-rock band X, and while I always preferred the Germs (who loved X), X had the ear of the Doors’ Ray Manzarek, and they shuffled along inheriting some of Jim Morrison’s neo-noir, creepy-underpass ambience. Doe’s done plenty of movies, sometimes not as a musician, but often on a bandstand—I’m partial to Georgia, where he keeps plunking through that all-too-common moment of the bar-band player where, yes, everything is going to shit, but the plunk must go on, because they don’t get paid if they stop. The new album The Westerner points toward mellower, more C&W-influenced sounds; but a neo-noir punk should have a full bag of tricks. ANDREW HAMLIN
Bod, Dommengang, DJ Pete’s A Pie
Featuring members who play in rising electro-rock group Crater, Bod are worth unscattering your attention span for, as well. The Seattle quartet describe themselves as “post jet-ski grungegaze,” a phrase that will drive you nuts if you ponder it too long. Suffice it to say, Bod come at rock from unusual angles without totally losing the melodic plot. Their 2014 EP Party Drug captures their nonchalant oddness and sneaky tunefulness in all their glory. Some may have caught Dommengang at this year’s Debacle Fest, where their distortion-heavy krautrock excursions blew back some wigs. The long-haired New York trio’s 2015 Thrill Jockey debut, Everybody’s Boogie, apportions adrenalized motorik rhythms and burly riffage with the sort of panache heard on the better Hawkwind and Guru Guru albums. It’s fuckin’ intense, dude. DAVE SEGAL
SpiceRack, Jef Shocki and the Workforce, Merchant Mariner
Tonight’s lineup features the long-awaited reappearance of Jef Shocki and the Workforce. I think the last time I saw Shocki perform was at the release party for his self-titled album last fall; the show was an album-listening party AND a celebration of Back to the Future! Uh-huh. As for tonight’s show, in addition to Shocki and company’s groovy and soulful power pop, the group’s maybe gonna play some new jams. I hope so, ’cause I’ve heard a couple newish tracks and, while still rooted in Elvis Costello–esque songwriterly power pop, Shocki is maybe evolving into a laid-back, blue-eyed soul boy; the songs remain melodic, but with a distinct four-on-the-floor feel. Oh yeah, like, HOT DAMN! MIKE NIPPER
Royce da 5’9″ with Guests
Things are looking up for Royce da 5’9″. Ten years ago, the Detroit MC, born Ryan Daniel Montgomery, was serving time for a DUI, with the high-water mark of his career being the song “Bad Meets Evil,” a collaboration with Eminem on The Slim Shady LP. Before that Royce was in the shadows, a ghostwriter for bigger names. Now look at him: his new album, Layers, debuted at #1 on the Billboard Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums chart. This comes after a series of successful collaborations, first with Joe Budden, Crooked I, and Joell Ortiz as Slaughterhouse, and later with superstar producer DJ Premier as PRhyme. Montgomery is on such a roll that he already has another LP, Book of Ryan, slated for later this year. Preach, Ryan, preach. JOSEPH SCHAFER
Triadic Memories: A Minimalist Masterpiece
Where are all my long-attention-spanned motherfuckers?! Probably at this concert, where the Moscow Conservatory’s Alexander Melnikov will perform Morton Feldman’s piano magnum opus Triadic Memories for 90 minutes. One of the minimalist composer’s later works, Triadic Memories emits a spine-chilling tension and vague, existential unease with great economy . . . at marathon length. There’s also a kind of etiolated beauty and an infinitesimally shifting center of focus in Feldman’s long-form piece. As always with this composer, the decaying tones and pregnant pauses play just as crucial a role as the foregrounded poignant chords. Feldman’s a master of arranging these elements into compositions that move you deeply and mysteriously. DAVE SEGAL
THURSDAY
Jooklo Duo with Stanley Zappa, Hound Dog Taylor’s Hand
Jooklo Duo are two free-jazz blasters from Italy, saxophonist Virginia Genta and drummer David Vanzan; saxophonist Stanley Zappa is the nephew of Frank and reportedly used to write reviews for the amazing Bananafish zine. Together they ignite thoughtful maelstroms of blats and beats that recalibrate your nervous system to “ecstatic panic” mode. Hound Dog Taylor’s Hand are Seattle’s not-quite-dark magi of splendidly splenetic jazz rock; the Seattle trio are miles ahead of most anyone else in this realm, as their somewhat infrequent shows and Live at the Comet cassette prove. They have a new LP coming out on Abduction Records in the fall, so you’ll likely get to hear previews tonight. KO Solo is the deeply affecting, one-woman project of Kate Olson, who breathes cosmic, Terry Riley–esque air through her saxophone while working effects boxes. (Jooklo Duo and Stanley Zappa also play Gallery 1412 on Wednesday, June 29, with Greg Kelley/Wilson Shook/Andrew Scott Young Trio and Uneasy Chairs.) DAVE SEGAL
Sera Cahoone with Naomi Wachira
Sera Cahoone’s innate language is that of heartbreak, of knowing what you have in this life is perfect, or as perfect as humans can access, and there’s no way it could ever last. No matter how many fairy circles you happen upon or gentle brooks lapping at your Chaco-nestled feet, this love will end, and in that finale lies your inevitable destruction. The soft, throaty Cahoone will bandage your wounds while examining her own fault lines, drawing attention to each facet of surface tension. We could all be better, we could all be more pure and good, and Cahoone’s willowy, honest attempt to understand human nature uncovers more than you thought of your own experiences at first blush. KIM SELLING
Lee Hazlewood Night with Guests
There’s never not a good excuse to celebrate the American singer/songwriter/producer/label boss Lee Hazlewood. Tonight some local devotees of the deep-voiced, deadpan cult icon take a stab at re-creating the extraordinary self-deprecating wit and wry observations that marked his expansive catalog. Hazlewood’s songbook ranges from intimate, heartbreaking ballads to shaggy, countryish rockers to odd storytelling ditties to brassy, sleazy pop (maybe you’ve heard the Nancy Sinatra collab “These Boots Are Made for Walkin’”?) to the sui generis orchestral-psych classic “Some Velvet Morning.” As I wrote in another context, Hazlewood was “a comic, a romantic, a cynic, a poet, a drunk, and a fool,” and he imbued each of those personas with artistry of understated genius. DAVE SEGAL
Delightful Isolation: A History of Underground New Zealand Music
If you live long enough, you’ll witness a DJ event for practically every niche imaginable. So it’s not too surprising that a night devoted to underground music from New Zealand is happening at Pony Bar (Thursday June 30, 10 pm, free, 21+). DJ Sling Dion (aka Kiwi transplant Richard Priest) presents Delightful Isolation: A History of Underground New Zealand Music. Priest says that he will “largely play the NZ psychedelic deviations of the ’60s/’70s, Maori-pop, the Dunedin/Wellington sound of the ’70s/’80s/’90s, and some treasures from the ’90s till now.” Unfortunately, Delightful Isolation will likely be a one-off event, so if you’re at all curious about this largely overlooked sector of the music world, you should make it a priority to attend. DAVE SEGAL
The Light That Fills The World: A Meditation in Sound and Light
This is a lineup of various ways that music can approach space rather than time, can merge with landscapes that are internal and external. Julia Wolfe’s My Beautiful Scream is her slow-motion scream, as she describes it, after the events of September 11 happened outside her windows in New York. John Cage’s 4’33” is the famous composition in which the performer only waits silently at the piano for the duration of the title, bracketing and framing the existing noise as it arises. John Luther Adams’s The Light That Fills the World is his portrait of Alaskan light and ice; Philip Glass’s The Light, from 1987, was one of the first minimalist works for full orchestra; and Morton Feldman’s Piano and Orchestra is completely unlike any other piano concerto you’ll ever hear (and see). JEN GRAVES
case / lang / veirs with Andy Shauf
Witness three legends in concert with each other as a part of the ZooTunes summer series. Neko Case, k.d. lang, and Laura Veirs blend their folk, pop, and indie rock legacies and many decades of swoon-worthy experience for an all ages show at the zoo.
FRIDAY
Yob, Sandrider, Un
The whole doom/stoner/sludge scene has a fetishist obsession with musical equipment. To be fair, the tools of the trade definitely play a role in sculpting a band’s sound, and in this realm of the metal world, tone is king. But you can buy all the right name brands, all the cool vintage gear, all the excessive speaker cabinets, and it doesn’t add up to shit if you don’t know what to do with it. Yob know there’s more to being oppressively heavy than just tuning low, playing loud, and having coveted amp distortion. After twenty years (minus a brief hiatus) of churning out a quagmire of Uruk-hai battle marches, the Eugene trio have become a prime example of a band who know how to rule over their gear instead of having the gear rule over them. BRIAN COOK
Electric Six with In The Whale
After spending the past decade attempting to corrupt countless youth via window-fogging rock and roll mingled with NC-17 dance-floor lechery, Electric Six frontman/lead hedonist Dick Valentine sounds a different note on Bitch, Don’t Let Me Die!, these workaholic sexaholics’ eleventh album in thirteen years. “Kids are evil,” Valentine proclaims on the song of the same name. Well, yeah, isn’t that mission accomplished, guy? Valentine’s really commenting on the perceived superficiality of the Facebook generation, but at the same time, he’s made a career out of simultaneously mocking and hawking, subverting and serving up various strains of skin-deep pop artifice, from randy garage rock to down-and-dirty disco, peacocking glam to throbbing electro. Yeah, these thrills may be cheap, but they still pack plenty of bang for the hornball buck. JASON BRACELIN
Boston: 40th Anniversary Tour, with Gary Hoey
Boston’s original lead singer, Brad Delp, killed himself in 2007—throwing down on us one more time (and we might need one more time) how depression and mental illness march on blind and deaf to prosperity, adulation, and depth of love. Armed with new singer Tommy DeCarlo, Boston hit the road still masterminded by guitarist/songwriter Tom Scholz, a reclusive perfectionist (Third Stage took six years to finish), cranky vegetarian, and litigious designer of guitar amps and accessories who seems not to enjoy being a rock star very much, and who works extensively with charities. Sure, shit’s changed since 1976, and Boston’s last two studio albums together haven’t sold as much as the one before that. Go anyway, and light a cell phone for Delp. ANDREW HAMLIN
Terrorist, Toe Tag
In the early ’80s, a group of snotty kids from Oak Harbor called the Accüsed put Northwest hardcore on the map with a gruesome take on thrash that was later named “splatter rock.” Vocalist Blaine Cook fronted the band during their wildest years, and it’s that same energy that he channels into Toe Tag, alongside fellow Accüsed alumnus Alex “Maggot Brain” Sibbald and a couple local splatter heads, Steve McBeast and Diabolical Chris Diamond. Their music is raw and fast, and it comes complete with gory imagery, featuring song titles like “Bat Pussy” and “Sawtopsy.” If crossover is dead, Toe Tag are zombies of the genre—back to feast and thrash some more. KEVIN DIERS
SATURDAY
KEXP Rocks the Dock: Erik Blood, Telekinesis, Summer Cannibals, DJ Evie
It’s never a bad time to catch up with the Northwest acts on this KEXP-endorsed Rocks the Dock bill, but it doesn’t get much better than now. In May, Seattle songwriter, producer, and engineer Erik Blood (Shabazz Palaces, THEESatisfaction) received his second Stranger Genius Award nomination. The recognition followed the release of his sophomore long-player, Lost in Slow Motion, a searching, multilayered reflection on romantic loss: Think A.R. Kane meets Flying Lotus. Michael Benjamin Lerner’s fourth full-length as Telekinesis, the vintage-synth-saturated Ad Infinitum, recalls peak-era OMD in its atmospheric introspection. Portland singer-guitarist Jessica Boudreaux’s Summer Cannibals, recent signees to Kill Rock Stars, round out the bill with their fuzzed-out, high-octane take on garage rock. Late-night KEXP DJ Evie will be spinning records between sets. KATHY FENNESSY
Fred and Toody Cole, Topless, Top Down, Male/Female
Fred and Toody Cole are, in a word, indefatigable. Far before many of us were dragged into this world, they were screeching through walls, blasting through graveyards, and exposing the Northwest region to what could be your life if you just paused at an Oregonian club to flirt with a local waitress. For decades, this twosome has released album after album with the same rugged yet tender passion for freeform psychedelia and hard-won punk rock. You want the gritty heart of a regional music scene that’s outlasted each fad for which this place is known? The Coles are it. KIM SELLING
You May Die in the Desert, Wander, A Province of Thay, Medicine Bows
I didn’t realize it until I checked the band’s website recently, but local trio You May Die in the Desert have been making music for over a decade. They were a band who were always around, popping up on bills left and right, wowing crowds with ridiculously tight sets and reliably great music, but who never quite broke through to the big venues and national audiences. That didn’t stop them from producing two albums and an EP that are alternately beautiful and crushing, and which became more fully realized the longer they stuck together—something like the prettiness of Explosions in the Sky delivered with the urgency and bite of These Arms Are Snakes. The few recent audio/video snippets they’ve teased online lately also show a band who aren’t done yet, which means there’s still time for the listening public to catch on. TODD HAMM
Pity Sex, PWR BTTM, Petal
Ann Arbor, Michigan, quartet Pity Sex skillfully revive the tender, tuneful end of the C86 aesthetic, conjuring the great Scottish pop band the Shop Assistants and McCarthy (Tim Gane’s pre-Stereolab group), but more animatedly, as well as the sound of My Bloody Valentine acolytes Lilys. Pity Sex find many ways to finesse their glumly dulcet male/female vocals and surging, fuzzy guitar attack into songs you want to listen to again and again, the better to discern their subtle contours. They’re gonna go pretty far. PWR BTTM come off like a gay-male, glam-pop elaboration on the Kimya Dawson paradigm of poignant-awkward confessional songwriting, balancing fun music with lyrics that tackle romantic frustration. Their songs will strike a certain type of misfit as being very relatable. The uplifting Smiths-ian melancholia of “All the Boys” seems destined to become an anthem in some special queer space yet to be established. DAVE SEGAL
Research: One Year Anniversary
Celebrate the one year marker of Research, a bastion of adventurous dance music, with featured artists Raica, Simic, Aaron J, and Nick Carroll downstairs, and live sets from J-Justice, Young Customs, and US41 out on the patio.
An Evening with Lyle Lovett and His Band
Remember when Julia Roberts and Lyle Lovett were married? That was weird. Anyway, here’s prolific country crooner Lyle and his massive band. They’ll be playing a full set as a part of Chateau Ste. Michelle’s summer concert series, with charm enough that’s sure to please even the most cynical of old school country music enthusiasts.
SUNDAY
Spend today celebrating Depeche Mode and Erasure synth player/songwriter Vince Clarke’s 56th birthday, or preparing for Fourth of July tomorrow.
