It’s finally Pride time and there’s so much going on, even if you’re an average human who doesn’t usually Scrooge McDuck through piles of glitter in a typical work week. But if you weren’t planning on attending every underwear party happening this week (check out our queer calendar if you were), then here are our music critics’ picks for the best possible concert experiences also occurring June 20th to June 26th—from Mandy Patinkin in concert to the 22nd Annual Olympia Experimental Music Festival, and from Norwegian/Swedish jazz trio the Thing to Flight of the Conchords. See them all below, or check out even more options on our complete music calendar.
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JUNE 20
1. Spellbound: The Theremin Returns
One fine day in 1920, a young Russian physicist assigned to research proximity sensors for the Soviet government invented a musical instrument instead. It’s called the theremin (his Westernized name was Leon Theremin), and you play it without making any physical contact with it at all. Your hands just hover around its antennae to manipulate its ghostly, swoopy howls, making it the go-to instrument for creating any atmosphere of weirdness, particularly in classic sci-fi/alien movies. In this concert, you’ll hear everything from high art by avant-gardistes (old Varese, young Daniel Roumain) to B movie music from Mars Attacks, The Day the Earth Stood Still, and Ed Wood. The guest performer, Lydia Kavina, was a student and relative of Leon Theremin himself, so he will haunt the hall. Seattle Symphony artists form the chamber ensemble; it’s a good chance to hear them clearly. JEN GRAVES
2. Toots and the Maytals
“It sounds affected,” sniffed my friend, over Toots and the Maytals’ original version of “Pressure Drop.” Toots’s crime? Breathing. That is, breathing too close to the microphone after each “hmmm”ing, gathering in more air, warming up the “hmmmmin”ing until it burst into an ecstatic—and accusing—“It is you!” Gospel osmotic through reggae. And my friend loved the Clash cover—which is not nearly as warm. But given the source, off my man walked, his own nose in his own air. Lester Bangs called for “emotion delivered at its most powerful and direct in whatever form.” I’m not calling that the only way to great art. I’m saying Toots always exudes that ecstatic, whether it’s “Louie Louie,” “Take Me Home, Country Roads” — or a song about his old prison number. Top that, Clash! ANDREW HAMLIN
JUNE 21
3. Stanton Moore Trio with David Torkanowsky, James Singleton, and Cyril Neville
Stanton Moore brings the funk—and lets the funk go rolling down the road. As it rolls, the funk waves hello to people on the street, jumps the curb a few times trying to get people to dance, and then rushes along like it’s got other equally-but-not-more-important things to do. He’s a drummer, and his fairly simple kit puts forth participatory populism. Cyril Neville, from the Neville brothers, sits and sings at a far remove. From his first single in 1970, Neville sounds like he’ll die unless he communicates, and he’s certain he’ll die because he’s certain his soul sits on a 10-watt station broadcasting at 3 a.m. And the notion of what his soul might become, without anybody who even might listen, brings him to tears. (Repeat.) (Through June 22) ANDREW HAMLIN
JUNE 22
4. Jessy Lanza, DJ Taye, Jimi Jaxon
Strictly on the basis of its effervescent electro-pop sound alone, Jessy Lanza’s new Hyperdub album, Oh No, plays like a product of Desperately Seeking Susan–era NYC. With a dance-floor-ready mix of breathy sighs and drum pads, it brings to mind Madonna’s “Lucky Star” by way of ESG’s “Moody.” In truth, the singer-producer hails from Ontario, she coproduced the record with partner Jeremy Greenspan of the Junior Boys, and she cites Japan’s Yellow Magic Orchestra as an influence (Greenspan also coproduced her 2013 debut, Pull My Hair Back). Since trading her career as a music teacher for full-time music making, Lanza has also worked with Morgan Geist and Caribou’s Dan Snaith. Rounding out the bill: Chicago footwork producer DJ Taye and hard disco DJ Jimi Jaxon. KATHY FENNESSY
5. Flight of the Conchords, Eugene Mirman
The self-described “almost award-winning fourth-most-popular folk duo in New Zealand” have in fact won some awards, including a best comedy album Grammy in 2008 for their Sub Pop–released album The Distant Future. Flight of the Conchords also captured the hearts of millions during the two-seasons-long run of their self-titled HBO series. Jemaine Clement and Bret McKenzie are much more than novelty-TV-stars-turned-performers (I see you, DJ Pauly D!), of course. They came up the way most aspiring comedians have: honing their performances on smaller stages until they are razor-sharp and ready for the big time, so a live setting is the proper way to get the full FOTC experience. The band has also promised to debut new material on the tour, which my professional conjecturist training tells me will be very funny. TODD HAMM
6. Marc Ribot’s Ceramic Dog, Skerik
Don’t read the comments, everyone tells you. Which does bring up the question, why does everybody still comment if nobody’s supposed to read it? Well, I went against hive advice and got stung, because Marc Ribot got dismissed as “boring surf clichés recycled. I’m not sure why these guys can’t create anything truly original.” Man. With whom has Marc Ribot played? Everybody! Who keeps hiring him? Everybody! He shouldn’t be able to impress us, let alone frighten us if he wants to! But he does! And this bill has got Skerik on it to boot. Skerik plays sax, not guitar, but like Ribot, he never runs out of ideas. And he’s from God-love-it Mercer Island. But no, I’m not reading any Skerik comments. ANDREW HAMLIN
7. Aesthetic Mess: Dreamsalon, Steal Shit Do Drugs
Even if I weren’t friends with Aesthetic Mess resident DJs Goo Goo (occasional Stranger freelancer Travis Ritter) and Jermaine Blair, I’d rate their post-punk/weird-synth monthly as one of Seattle’s most crucial sonic showcases. These two share a profound, acute knowledge of their domain and the deep crates necessary to make each installment of Aesthetic Mess an intriguing adventure. Helping them celebrate AM’s first anniversary are local dynamos Dreamsalon and Steal Shit Do Drugs (Blair plays guitar in the latter). Nobody in this city better combines post-punk angst and angularity with garage-rock catchiness than Dreamsalon. SSDD are Seattle’s whirlwind arsonists of rock decorum. They don’t so much color outside of the lines as torch them to cinders. Happy birthday, Aesthetic Mess. DAVE SEGAL
8. Máscaras, Invisible Hand, Scarves
Máscaras, a three-piece Portland group and tonight’s headliners, play progressively informed mental instrumentals with heavy indie undertones. It’s good. I’d almost consider their jams to be (ahem) “soothing.” Like, I want their music with movies made to match, or perhaps it could at least be a soundtrack for a badass Steve McQueen–style car chase. Two Seattle groups will be playing, Scarves, who play sweet, melodic, jangly indie pop, and Invisible Hand, who bang out indie rock akin to Zumpano or the Shins. Dang, I gotta hand it to Ms. Mamma’s Cave—she sure can bring the heat to Lo-Fi. MIKE NIPPER
9. The Thing, Cortex
Norwegian/Swedish jazz trio the Thing have transcended their oft-ignored genre through some high-profile collaborations and experiments with rock and pop icons like Thurston Moore, Jim O’Rourke, and Neneh Cherry. Not ignoring their roots, they’ve also collaborated with jazz heavyweights such as Ken Vandermark and Joe McPhee (with the latter they’ve covered, uh, “Louie Louie”). Better than most in their field, the Thing—saxophonist Mats Gustafsson, drummer Paal Nilssen-Love, and double bassist Ingebrigt Håker Flaten—bring rock swagger to their conflagratory jazz moves. Albums like 2013’s Boot! roil with a vengeful fury that would make Peter Brötzmann and Albert Ayler proud. Whereas many see jazz in a moribund state, the Thing say fuck that negative attitude and bring the noise and energy with the rugged artfulness of Vikings with Mensa-level IQs. DAVE SEGAL
JUNE 23
10. King Khan & The Shrines, Giorgio Murderer, Candace
This is one pumped hump day hoedown! Seriously, I don’t know anyone who does NOT love the rock-and-roll mayhem King Khan brings when he and his Shrines rain down their contemporary party-time rave-ups. God damn, after a night like tonight, tomorrow morning might hurt. The rest of the bill looks hot, too: Giorgio Murderer are a raw, new-wave-ish punk group, and yes I know it’s redundant to say so, BUT their songs are angry AND catchy, while openers Candace whip up some 1990s shoegazer indie rock. They’re dense ’n’ THICK, like a good shoegazin’ ought be, but more dreamy early-’90s West Coast–style than the vibrato-driven lysergia of My Bloody Valentine. MIKE NIPPER
11. Beth Orton, Emmy the Great
The first song on Beth Orton’s new Kidsticks album sounds tribal, although I couldn’t pin down the tribe. Maybe she’s making up a new one. And there’s some stuff about getting high, except I can’t quite figure out what she’s getting high on. Most of the songs have one-word titles, the single concept as the splash for the ripples. “Moon,” one of two tracks leaked pre-release, grows more eerie with each chant. “And the same moon rises over me as you,” she notes, as electronics abrade, rubbery to rocky. “And there’s really not much ’bout that that we can do.” I cannot figure out if she means that as a good thing. But mystery, applied intelligently, can speak deeper than certainties. I’m surely on my 20th or so replay. ANDREW HAMLIN
12. Research: Lōtic, Reverend Dollars, Howin, Warlokk
Trust the Research crew to bring the quality electronic strangeness. Berlin-based Texas producer Lōtic creates a subliminal brand of club music that’s simultaneously erotic and eerie, rhythmically tricky and quivering with an almost absurd vitality. Like much of the best electronic music, Lōtic’s productions elude easy classification, but if releases like More Than Friends, Damsel in Distress, and Heterocetera are indicative, you can expect otherworldly bass music that will get you hyped in ways you’ve never been hyped before. Local support comes from members of the Darqness crew, Reverend Dollars and Howin, who couldn’t be better equipped to complement Lōtic’s beautiful sonic mutations. DAVE SEGAL
13. Studio 4/4: Josh Wink
Talk about longevity… Josh Wink has got it. The Philadelphia DJ/producer flirted with pop stardom in the mid 1990s, taking acid house to the charts in Europe with “Higher State of Consciousness,” “Don’t Laugh,” and “I’m Ready.” He couldn’t maintain that level of popularity, but Wink has carved out a nice niche on the semi-underground circuit with his brainy minimal techno that still grooves like a mofo. Yes, you need all three of Wink’s Profound Sounds mixes. As a bonus, he has extensive knowledge of acid house and techno, as his 2007 mix Josh Wink’s Acid Classics proves (two of its tracks, A Guy Called Gerald’s “Voodoo Ray” and Hardfloor’s “Acperience 1,” changed my life, and maybe yours, too). Wink seems like one of those DJs who’ll never lose his ear for underground-club greatness; his track record makes this show a safe bet for heady thrills. DAVE SEGAL
14. Ben Harper and the Innocent Criminals, and The Jack Moves
Ben Harper is dangerously smooth, and corrals a team of exceptionally talented session musicians to back up his vision. They reunite after seven years to push forward works of everyman fusion, of reggae and rock, frontier jazz and funk.
JUNE 24
15. Violent Human System, Kinski, Dreamdecay, Celluloid
If you’re in search of a bill that also showcases some of Seattle’s best weird punk acts, look no further. Violent Human System (frequently shortened to VHS) are Seattle’s newest punks to watch. Tonight is the release party for Gift of Life, their new LP on Suicide Squeeze, which sees them adopting a Revolution Summer–era Dischord punk aesthetic filtered through a more antagonistic and crafty post-punk lens. Local noise-rock heavyweights Kinski dish out heavy grunge-psych riffs with Stooges-blessed raw power. Bands like Tool and Sonic Youth have embraced Kinski’s deeply sprawling rock sagas, which also possess a repetition-driven, krautrock intensity. Dreamdecay are also one of the local scene’s best noisy rock bands; they pummel through their artfully damaged “powerviolence shoegaze” songs with nuanced ferocity. BRITTNIE FULLER
16. Bad Luck, Erik Blood, Prom Queen
This bill is a three-pronged assertion of Seattle’s strong, idiosyncratic music scene. Stranger Genius Award nominee (for the second time!) Erik Blood is riding a creative high, producing Tacocat’s lauded Lost Time for Hardly Art and releasing his latest solo LP, Lost in Slow Motion. The latter is his most fully realized effort, a lush, oneiric song suite that exemplifies Blood’s facility for profound bass frequencies, unconventional rhythms, haunting melodies, and spectral vocals—his own, Shabazz Palaces’ Ishmael Butler’s, and Irene Barbaric’s. As Charles Mudede observed, Slow Motion is about longing, and few express it with more nuance and power than Blood. Prom Queen (aka Leeni Ramadan) shows grand ambition on every release, including 2014’s Midnight Veil, in which she corrals some of the city’s top players to forge alternate-world John Barry and Ennio Morricone soundtracks, rife with Ramadan’s Nancy Sinatra–esque vocal flourishes and noir-rock suspense and glinting guitar coloration from Ben Von Wildenhaus and Jason Goessl. Bad Luck bring Ken Burns–flouting, free-jazz power moves to a generation who’d only previously heard their elders speak about it in reverent tones. DAVE SEGAL
17. Gender Blender with Christeene and Guests
You’re not likely to find a Pride weekend event as vulgar and raucous as seeing Christeene Vale headline Nark Magazine’s annual benefit show, Gender Blender. There’s plenty of touring drag performers, but not many that hold on to Twitter handles like @fixmydick or perform smeared with dirt while rapping about finding porn in the woods. Christeene does all of that with no fucks given as to what the audience reaction will be. She opened for a reunited Faith No More during their reunion tour and held her own against an audience that wasn’t expecting drag with their rap-rock. Imagine how wild things will get with a friendly audience and longer set time. JOSEPH SCHAFER
18. Chris Corsano, Arrington de Dionyso, Wilson Shook, Kate Olson, Uneasy Chairs Trio
You may not know Chris Corsano’s name, or work, but he’s insistently advancing one of the passionate precepts of free jazz—that the drummer has as much of a right to an individual statement, a lead voice, as anyone else. Kim Gordon and Yoko Ono, at least, seem to agree; they’ve shared a bandstand with him. I first became aware of Arrington de Dionyso because we went to the Evergreen State College with, possibly, a little overlap—he and his alleged cousin, Fezdak Clamchopbreath, got in trouble at the college radio station, KAOS. Apparently they played the sound of a man urinating for an hour or more. Arrington bought a guitar, bought a bass clarinet, formed a band with Fezdak called Old Time Relijun, learned Indonesian, and started making albums in Indonesian. I’m pretty sure that’s the right order! ANDREW HAMLIN
19. Ben Watt, Karl Blau
Ben Watt, I owe you an apology! You came to the University Book Store in 1997 or maybe 1998 to read from your book Patient, about how you almost died and then almost got confined to the hospital for life. You were polite, warm, friendly, brave… and nobody wanted to talk about the book. Everyone wanted to talk about your music. This annoyed you, but you were too much of a gentleman to go off. I wish I’d helped you out, thrown you a line. But I didn’t. Your new stuff with Bernard Butler sounds atmospheric and melancholy, with the former Suede guitarist waiting not very patiently until he has a chance to go off, then going off. You’re a class act. Cheers. But here’s to a bit of going off when the spirit beckons—with a rude gesture. ANDREW HAMLIN
20. 22nd Annual Olympia Experimental Music Festival
This three-day event in our state’s capital can be viewed as a counterpart to Seattle’s Debacle Fest: Both boast variety, excellence, and reasonably priced tickets. If you’re into the outer reaches of jazz, Bad Luck and Shoup/Horist/Kikuchi Trio should set your world on fire. Drone lovers will elevate to higher planes of consciousness with L.A. Lungs. Four Dimensional Nightmare lives up to his name with chaotic experimental electronic music, while Dead Air Fresheners taps into a dadaistic vein of sonic subversion. Malaikat dan Singa fuse Indonesian music with rock with raucous, chakra-opening power. All this plus the surprise return of Unwound side project Replikants and their avant-electro-rock. (Through June 26) DAVE SEGAL
21. Mandy Patinkin in Concert: Dress Casual
Do you like your Emmy- and Tony-winners to have oddly sexy gruff dad vibes and a lifetime of pop culture references and Broadway credits to their name? Great, go see Mandy Patinkin, a human panacea of broad dramatic talents, and the ability to make you feel Jewish guilt for just about anything. He’s simultaneously a party-starter and a showstopper.
JUNE 25
22. Grace Love: Sex, Drugs, Rock and Soul Musical
Not to over-editorialize, but Grace Love is a thoroughly invigorating vocal powerhouse and a Seattle treasure, and she deserves all of our money. For years, she’s been culling material of the heart-rending R&B variety as fodder for a one-night-only, one-woman theatrical foray into her world, replete with full musical flourish. Backed by her choir, the Dirty Dozen, and local musicians, Grace prepares to break out an autobiographical coming-of-age tale, of returning to music after her mother’s death, and the physical and spiritual pratfalls along the way. This production happens once and will most likely sell out, so get in early and watch a truly beautiful soul be laid bare. KIM SELLING
23. Gygax, Substratum, Trannysaurus Rox, Hexengeist
Equating the nerdy escapism of Dungeons & Dragons to the appeal of heavy metal was once a supreme put-down for the fans of the latter, right up there with accusations of Hot Topic patronage. But that’s all changed in the eight-sided-die-gripping hands of California throwback hard rockers Gygax, whose debut, Critical Hits, is an album-long ode to the fantasy game in question. Think Deep Purple embroiled in a wizard fight. Here’s another novelty: When Gygax hit town, they’ll be joined by a trio of regional ragers, among them “butt glam” trailblazers Trannysaurus Rox, who promise “Death by Dildo” among other delights, classic metallers Substratum and thrashers Hexengeist, all of whom feature women in their ranks. Yes, at long last, a bunch of Dungeons & Dragons aficionados and some real-life females will share an evening together. JASON BRACELIN
JUNE 26
24. Big Business, Andy the Doorbum
Let’s talk drum and bass. No, not the subgenre of electronic music. I mean the seldom-used hard-rock formation. In a post–White Stripes/Black Keys world, rock duos have cornered a piece of the dwindling commercial music market, but the majority of those duos sport one drummer and one guitarist. Big Business, however, are all about that bass. Well, that bass and gorgeous dual-harmonized singing. Their approach to the genre has made the Pacific Northwest a regional hotbed for the drum-bass configuration (see: Same-Sex Dictator, et al.), but few other groups know how to harness the brute force of low-end frequencies the way Big Business do. JOSEPH SCHAFER
25. InAeona, Immortal Bird, Grenades, A Province of Thay, Slow Code
Don’t sleep on Immortal Bird. I already made that mistake and I regret it wholeheartedly. If you appreciate forward-thinking, genre-bending metal music, you’ll be blown away by this sometimes chaotic, but always driving death/crust and black metal-influenced band from Chicago. All three of those metal subgenres mixed together might sound a little awkward on paper, but this Windy City crew created a true beast of originality on their 2015 album Empress/Abscess. Make sure you show up in time for local band A Province of Thay, who will blend enough soaring melody into an evening that otherwise oozes brutality. KEVIN DIERS
