This week, our arts critics have recommended the best events in every genre—from the Pierogi Fest to Debacle Fest to the HUMP! Film Festival tour. See them all below, and find even more events on our complete Things To Do calendar.
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MONDAY
MUSIC
Depths: THX-1138
George Lucas’s 1971 dystopian sci-fi film THX 1138 featured a desolately beautiful, chilling Lalo Schifrin score. Forty-five years later, some brash, inventive synthesizer players from Seattle will proffer their own interpretation of it while the movie, a depiction of a future society in which erotic impulses are outlawed—screens behind them. Should be very interesting. DAVE SEGAL
COMEDY
Collide-O-Scope
Created and hosted by Michael Anderson and Shane Wahlund, Collide-O-Scope is the cavalcade of curated video delights that takes over Re-bar twice a month. This month, the theme is “Lost Sock Memorial Day,” and, although they say that the videos won’t actually be about socks, they will “knock yer socks off and tickle you from head to toe.” If that’s not enough, there will also be free popcorn, candy, and prize drawings.
THEATER
My Name is Asher Lev
Head down to 12th Avenue Arts to watch an Aaron Posner adaptation of a Chaim Potok novel. My Name Is Asher Lev is the story of the artist as a young Jewish man with overbearing parents. Asher grows up under the patriarchal and culturally rigid thumb of his Hasidic father. The subjects (e.g., nude Jesus) and materials (e.g., ashes) that Asher uses to create his paintings render him a genius in the eyes of the art world but a potential heretic in the eyes of his father. Thus Asher is forced to chose between growing as an artist or maintaining his strong connection to his family and his community. RICH SMITH (Also Fri-Sun)
FOOD & DRINK
Yalla Pop-Up
Chef Taylor Cheney has an impressive résumé, having worked in the kitchens at MistralKitchen and the Harvest Vine (as well as the dearly departed La Bete, Licorous, and Lampreia). More importantly, she’s also spent significant amounts of time in Egypt, studying and immersing herself in the country’s cuisine. On Mondays, Cheney is taking over Capitol Hill’s Marjorie with Yalla (it means “Let’s go!” in Arabic), her Middle Eastern pop-up featuring dishes such as mutabal (charred eggplant with yogurt, tahini, and pomegranate), tabbouleh, maftoul (braised chicken with chickpea stew and couscous), and even a Moroccan mint tea julep. ANGELA GARBES
TUESDAY
READINGS & TALKS
David Rolf
Labor union leader David Rolf will give talk about The Fight for Fifteen, a book about raising the minimum wage, followed by a panel discussion with Kshama Sawant, venture capitalist Nick Hanauer, CEO of the Seattle Hospitality Group Howard Wright, and our own Heidi Groover.
ARTSaboard: First Public Meeting for King Street Station
What’s your creative vision for King Street Station? Share it at this community discussion, the first of many meetings (held over a period of six months) that will “culminate in a plan that will identify the greatest needs of the Seattle cultural community, using a race and social justice lens.”
COMEDY
Comedy Nest Open Mic
The rules of this pro-lady (but all-inclusive) stand-up night are refreshing in their simplicity: no misogyny, racism, homophobia, hatred, or heckling. Tonight’s show will feature Dina Hashem, who got her start after she won first place in the 2010 New Jersey Comedy Festival.
MUSIC
Bob Mould, Jason Narducy, Jon Wurster, Mike Krol
No one ever really wins the argument about who invented emo. Sure, the young’uns think some Warped Tour band came up with it. Slightly older fans might point to some band that packaged its first 7-inch in a manila envelope. The old guard steadfastly point to DC and the bands of Revolution Summer. But the guy who inadvertently invented emo managed to, by and large, avoid the increasingly pejorative tag. Let’s be real: Bob Mould showed us that you could ache and rage at the same time. BRIAN COOK
Cyrus Chestnut Trio
Baltimore-born Cyrus Chestnut is not an easy pianist to describe. He is technically brilliant but when he plays, it often sounds as if technique is not his main concern. He seems willing to abandon it for a feeling he is trying (even dying) to express. Chestnut is the type who would prefer to say something badly that he wants to say, then say well something that he does not want to say. Nevertheless, one always admires the way he handles a piano. It is like watching an experienced sailor on a yacht. He knows all of the ropes, all of the tricks, but prefers to use his instincts rather than maps. The boat is the same but the seas of his sounds are constantly changing. CHARLES MUDEDE (Through Wed)
Dungen with Boogarins
In 2001, Rhino released Nuggets II: Original Artyfacts from the British Empire and Beyond, 1964–1969, which expanded the geographic borders of their psychedelic-rock series. With tracks from bands like Sweden’s Tages and Brazil’s Os Mutantes, it offered incontrovertible proof that psychedelia, musically speaking, is a universal language. This tour, featuring Swedish collective Dungen and Brazilian quartet Boogarins, confirms that it’s hardly a dead tongue. KATHY FENNESSY
Lesbian, Dust Moth, Power Skeleton
As the troops manning the front lines in Seattle’s doom-metal scene, Lesbian trade in a kind of grand, almost inviting malevolence, embodied by the forbidding yet strangely beatific portrait of some creepy-looking woods that darkens the cover of their latest release, Forestelevision. These psychedelic extremists map the topography of metal’s lunatic fringe, their excruciatingly slow-building catalog a mix of agony (polyp-bursting death gargles) and ecstasy (stirring, beatific, headlong plunges down myriad post-rock rabbit holes). JASON BRACELIN
Metal Alliance Tour
Back in 1999, two characters from the animated series South Park—Cartman and Kenny—tried their hardest to find “the brown note,” a tone with such a low frequency, it could forcefully evacuate the bowels of all who heard it. Seemingly, Boston-based metal core band the Acacia Strain were on the same search, as they chug lower and lower on each of their seven albums, gaining more notoriety and listeners on their quest for the holy grail of heaviness. Headliners Dying Fetus are exactly what one would expect with a name like that—brutal, fast, slamming death metal with vocals that make Deicide sound like Donny Osmond. KEVIN DIERS
WEDNESDAY
FILM
Branded to Kill
The dominant image we have of Japanese culture is that it’s a very orderly society. Rules are rigidly followed, a person knows who is above and below them, there is lots of bowing, and women speak softly. But that view of Japan is very limited and is contradicted by the films of directors who constitute what is known as Japan’s silver age, 1960 to 1980. One leading figure of this moment is Seijun Suzuki, whose movies are celebrated for their visual and narrative excesses. His work often overflows with violence, sex, madness, and criminals. It’s not at all surprising that they influenced Quentin Tarantino. Tonight is the last night of the Seijun Suzuki Retrospective, and Northwest Film Forum will screen Branded to Kill, a film noir that’s perhaps Suzuki’s most famous film and which both put him out of work for a decade and made him a counterculture hero. CHARLES MUDEDE
READINGS & TALKS
Brendan Jones
Brendan Jones, who has written eloquently and intimately about politics, boxing, violence, Alaskan culture, and much more, will read from his debut novel The Alaskan Laundry at Third Place Books.
MUSIC
Dream Theater
If music theory was one of your favorite classes in high school, if you get a little excited when you think about Steely Dan’s use of mu-major chords, if you listen to a Metallica album and think, “Hmm, this is pretty good, but it could use even more soaring vocals, key modulations, and labyrinthine concepts,” then Dream Theater are the band for you. Hell, if you don’t know what any of that shit is, Dream Theater might still be the band for you. The New York progressive-metal outfit’s been going strong since 1988, and even if they’re a bit long in the tooth, they still put on a stellar live show. JOSEPH SCHAFER
Modern English
While they may be best known for their new-wave pop hit “I Melt with You,” 1980s UK post-punk legends Modern English weren’t always so radio-ready. In 1981, only a year before their brief commercial success, the considerably darker and more experimental Mesh & Lace LP was released alongside other classics from Bauhaus and the Birthday Party in the 4AD label’s early days. With delay-ridden spoken-word vocals, buzzing synths, and samples of birds chirping, Modern English created one of the most cohesively creepy post-punk albums ever… Mesh & Lace remains one of the greatest artifacts of an era of wildly inventive post punk, and this #rare chance to see it performed live should not be missed. BRITTNIE FULLER
Open Mike Eagle
“Dang Is Invincible” is probably the most prototypical Open Mike Eagle song on Hella Personal Film Festival, Mike’s excellent new collaborative album with UK producer Paul White. A heavy guitar loop builds to a drop that never comes—instead the intro gives way to a goofy lounge beat over which OME gives himself early-morning props for drunkenly remembering to charge his phone the night before and skating on a hangover (“That burrito worked!”)… Even when Mike is being a goofball, he’s being insightful—and vice versa—and he’s still one of the smartest in the game. TODD HAMM
THURSDAY
ART
Vignettes Marquee: Portrait of the Artist as a Young Sad
What you must do: Get a flask and fill it. (You like juice? Juice it is, then.) Drink your secret personal drink on the street outside El Capitan apartments and soak in writer/performer/artist/badass Kim “My Favorite Medium Is Sexting” Selling‘s projected loop of photographs and writings regarding anxiety, depression, and other garden-variety buzzkills, called Portrait of the Artist as a Young Sad. Do this at twilight, at the edge of downtown where El Capitan sits, and your world will feel more yours. (Before you go, visit Rachel Maxi’s one-night-only show of paintings at Calypte, too. It’s Capitol Hill Art Walk night! Oh yeah, Selling is the Stranger music calendar editor, so conflict-of-interest me all you want, but just see for yourself if I’m wrong.) JEN GRAVES
THEATER
Puny Humans
Comic-Cons are line-around-the-block consumerist parades. Superhero movies dominate the marketplace. Nerd culture has its own money now. They got their revenge. Pretending like nerds are still the bullied kid of popular culture will no longer fly. Puny Humans, written by Bret Fetzer and Keiko Green, delightfully addresses that curmudgeonly concern in the first few moments of the play. … It’s sort of like a stage version of Robert Altman’s Nashville, but for nerds and not as weird. Bonus: The bar at Annex features sweet NES games that you can play during intermission and before the show. Make an evening of it: Get there early and drop into eight-bit nostalgia bliss. RICH SMITH (Through Sun)
A Rap on Race
Spectrum’s 2015/2016 season #RACEish deals with pressing issues of race through various artistic forms. A Rap on Race, produced in collaboration with playwright/actress/professor/MacArthur Genius Anna Deveare Smith, will focus on the fascinating conversation between author James Baldwin and anthropologist Margaret Mead in the 1970s. (Through Sun)
FILM
Translations: The Transgender Film Festival
This is the 11th year of Translations, Seattle’s transgender film festival. 2016’s lineup features films including Major!, Suited, and By Hook Or By Crook, as well as a conversation with creative talent behind the hit TV show Transparent featuring actress Alexandra Billings, filmmaker and producer Rhys Ernst, and director Silas Howard. (Through May 15)
FOOD & DRINK
Seattle Beer Week
Participating boozy venues will host special events (beer tasting, food pairing, and more) throughout Seattle Beer Week. See our list of highlights (including a bluegrass and beer festival and a luau party) on our Seattle Beer Week calendar.
Guest Chef Night
FareStart is a fantastic organization that empowers disadvantaged and homeless men and women by training them for work in the restaurant industry. Every Thursday, they host a Guest Chef Night, featuring a three-course dinner from a notable Seattle chef for just $29.95. This week FareStart welcomes Chef Brendan McGill (StarChefs Rising Star and James Beard semi-finalist) of Hitchcock.
MUSIC
Bettye Lavette and Walter “the Wolfman” Washington
Ms. Bettye LaVette is one of the last of the original 1960s/’70s soul queens still “holding on.” In fact, I don’t think at any point in her career did she ever stop touring, recording, or remaining relevant. It’s not surprising: Her records AND live shows are always spot-on, plus her voice is just as strong as it was back in 1962. Also performing tonight are New Orleans guitarist Walter “Wolfman” Washington and his group the Roadmasters, from what I can tell. Washington has a soulful pedigree two miles long: He was once in the house band at the Dew Drop Inn, he’s nephew to blues/R&B greats Guitar Slim and Lightnin’ Slim, toured with Lee Dorsey, and, uh, that’s just for starters. MIKE NIPPER
Elevator Presents Rabit, as_dfs, The Esoterics
Rabit (aka Houston’s Eric Burton) is one of the few American producers to take inspiration from England’s grime movement. But his 2015 debut album for Tri Angle, Communion, sounds much more interiorized and morbid—not exactly the get-the-crowd-hyped club jams one expects from a grime artist. Rather, Communion suggests a musician whose sound derives from the dank, chthonic atmospheres of Goblin, Coil, and John Carpenter and the angular rhythms of Autechre, Demdike Stare, and Emptyset. The album opens a wormhole into a very fucked-up, dungeon-like dimension that’s strewn with the wails of damned souls, rattled-chain percussion, advanced-calculus beats, and lung-tarring bass frequencies. That’s my kind of fun. DAVE SEGAL
FRIDAY
READINGS & TALKS
Working Stiffs: Tales from the Grind
According to the poet Patricia Lockwood, when asked if poetry was a job, Robert Frost bent down, picked up a handful of autumn leaves and said, “It IS a job, and I got paid today.” That may or may not have happened, but it does bring up a good question. What’s the relationship between writing and work? How does the grind wear on a writer? This reading series gathers several working stiffs to offer up their answers. Featured authors include Quenton Baker, Aaron Counts, Brangien Davis, Brendan Jones, and Shobha Rao. RICH SMITH
Claudia Rankine
It’s hard to overstate the impact of Claudia Rankine’s work on American poetry over the course of the last five years or so. In 2011, she confronted fellow poet Tony Hoagland for writing a poem that contained racist sentiments, claiming that it was “for white people.” That poem was called “The Change,” and in many ways, their exchange reinvigorated—or at least brought national attention to—a conversation about race, poetry, and the lack of diversity in the literary world, a conversation that thankfully continues apace today. Citizen: An American Lyric, a collage of images and poems about microaggressions and the limitations of language and the experiences of POCs living in a white supremacist culture, was published in 2014 and won the National Book Critics Circle Award in Poetry. RICH SMITH
FILM
HUMP! Film Festival Tour with Dan Savage
The touring production of beloved HUMP! Film Festival features short and sexy films by Pacific Northwest amateur porn stars. At this screening, you’ll see 18 choice films from the 2015 festival and be treated to an intro by none other than our own Dan Savage.
QUEER
Sherry Vine in Adult Content
There’s no telling what to expect when Sherry Vine takes the stage at Unicorn/Narwhal this Friday—but we can safely assume that her musical-comedy-cabaret act will hit her three reliable Ps: poop, penis, and prostitution. It’s a night of naughty jokes, drag parody songs, and filthy stories that you’ll never be able to repeat at work, unless you work in the box office of a porn theater. (And even then.) Expect to gasp multiple times throughout the night, to clasp your pearls and ask, “Did she just say that?” And to be told that she probably shouldn’t have, but she did, and she’ll do it again. MATT BAUME
MUSIC
Debacle Fest
The odd juxtaposition of forward-thinking music filling an old venue is just one of many interesting facets to the ninth annual Debacle Fest. Featuring 26 acts on two stages over two nights at the handsome, acoustically brilliant Columbia City Theater, Debacle Fest crams in more scintillating sounds per square foot than do most music events. Musicians like Mára, DoNormaal, Newaxeyes, Brett Naucke, Benoît Pioulard, Spectrum Control, and DIAD offer unconventional twists on folk, rock, hiphop, psychedelia, electronic, ambient music, and more. In a world of increasingly commercialized and homogenous music festivals, Debacle stands out for its bold and idiosyncratic curation. DAVE SEGAL (Through Sat)
Benjamin Cissner and the Apologies, Plantation Band
Southern Gothic as a musical genre (sometimes also called “death country” and “gothic Americana”) is a deeper, darker alternative to country/folk/rock. Much like Harry Crews, Flannery O’Connor, and other mysterious cousins of its literary namesake, the Nick Caves and the Bill Callahans in the genre use their work to examine a darkness of humanity. Benjamin Cissner does just that with his debut album, Birds in the Night. The former Seattleite, who some may remember from his long tenure at Jive Time Records and his guitar contributions on the first Tiny Vipers record, has a new endeavor loaded with a low-lit, swirling palette of shadowy colors and existential freak-outs. BREE MCKENNA
Cate Le Bon
Only a few years into her career, Cate Le Bon relocated from Cardiff, Wales, to Los Angeles. It could have marked the point at which this fiercely independent artist sold her soul to the highest bidder, but Le Bon remains the master of her musical domain. The only difference: collaborations with crafty coast-dwellers like Perfume Genius and White Fence’s Tim Presley (with whom she made the loopy Hermits on Holiday under the name DRINKS). Across four solo recordings, including this year’s Crab Day, Le Bon has found the sweet spot between acid folk and post punk. She is, by turns, a scrappy Joni Mitchell, an electrified Vashti Bunyan, and a one-woman Incredible String Band. Through it all shines her past as a country kid who grew up with woodland creatures and Velvet Underground records. KATHY FENNESSY
Pallbearer, Norska, Wounded Giant, Scriptures, Nox Velum
Any underground metal band that wins the accolades of the indie press is likely to get some flak from its original constituents. So it’s hardly surprising that Arkansas doom group Pallbearer had a contingent of skeptics when their debut album received glowing praise from outlets like NPR and Pitchfork. And to be fair, Pallbearer aren’t as relentless heavy as Sleep or as sinister as My Dying Bride, but why even try to rival the masters? … While their peers try to out-doom each other by tuning lower, playing louder, and mistaking riff-writing for songwriting, Pallbearer carve out their own niche by simply writing great songs. BRIAN COOK
SATURDAY
FOOD & DRINK
Pierogi Fest
Every Friday night, the generous folks at Capitol Hill’s Polish Home Association open their doors to all Seattleites and welcome us in to eat homemade cabbage rolls, pickle soup, pork chops, and pierogi. As if that weren’t enough, for the last 10 years the Polish Home Association has also given us its annual Pierogi Fest, an all-day “dumpling extravaganza” where you can get a plate of pierogi (meat, potato, cheese, plum, and more) for just $10. (Kids’ plates are available for $5.) Sit back, stuff yourself, and enjoy Polish folk performances, live music, and dessert. If you want to take the festivities home, bags of frozen pierogi will also be available. ANGELA GARBES
May is for Morels
Learn how to work with wild morel mushrooms, roses, asparagus, nettles, watercress, and “the abundance of full-on Spring!” in this hands-on class from Le Gourmand Seattle; price includes a four-course meal with wine.
ART
Georgetown Art Attack
Once a month, the art that resides in the tiny airport hamlet of Georgetown ATTACKS all passersby. In more literal terms, it’s the day of art openings and street wonderment.
This Might Not Work: Rob Rhee
Rob Rhee is the artist whose mediums include the oldest plants in the world—gourds, of course—and the online tourism platform Airbnb. (Not at the same time.) You should hear him talk. JEN GRAVES
FILM
UCLA Festival of Preservation
See newly restored versions of “classics and seldom-seen gems” at the touring UCLA Festival of Preservation, hosted by Northwest Film Forum and co-hosted by the Grand Illusion. The festival runs through May 27, but this weekend, you can see Spring Night, Summer Night and The Crime of Dr. Crespi, a horror classic recommended by Charles Mudede, which was released in 1935 and shot in the Bronx.
MUSIC
Violent Femmes
Maybe Violent Femmes should have changed their name after the first album. Maybe they should change their name after every album. Because all people want to listen to and even talk about is the first album. So, okay, the drummer just quit, but the new one plays a charcoal grill—score! And they’re catching flak for song doctors, but that’s two or three songs out of 10 on the new album We Can Do Anything, and anyway, it has all that Femmes fodder you love so much like untrue true love, undead dead lovers, supernatural hauntings, songs to sing in the back of a battered red pickup truck while you’re shirtless with a cracked guitar and slamming the tailgate for a backbeat and getting burned red as the pickup. In simpler terms, excelsior! ANDREW HAMLIN
Whitey Morgan and Cody Jinks
The time has come to officially conscript the phrase “I listen to anything except country” to only Tinder pages that you should really, really be swiping left on. Sure, the bro’d-out pop-inflected variety of the genre has only become more common and more putrid, but that stuff is the Natty Light of music, and there’s quality microbrews to be found if you look. Case in point, Flint, Michigan’s Whitey Morgan, whose punk background and honky-tonk sound give his music the kick of a good IPA. Songs like “Ain’t Gonna Take It Anymore” balance humor and self-destructive pathos with aplomb—they go down smooth but bite at the end. JOSEPH SCHAFER
SUNDAY
READINGS & TALKS
National Geographic Live: Ocean Wild
Photographer Brian Skerry is an expert at capturing shots under the waves, having spent more than 10,000 hours underwater using his camera to portray rare and isolated creatures. Come to this National Geographic Live event for Brian’s wildlife photography, and stay for the educational material on the wonders of the sea.
MUSIC
Leon Russell, Jefferson Grizzard
Tho’ now his records are mostly dollar-bin staples, Leon Russell ascended to something like godhead status in the early 1970s as a producer, songwriter, and good-time rock and roller. He became legend and prolly sold just shy of one and a half billion records… As for tonight, I’m not totally sure of his current set list, but his catalog is sizable and he will undoubtedly play a stew of blues, R&B, country rock, and pop. He’s 74 now, still has his voice, and is still wearing his signature white cowboy hat and white beard and playing a white piano. MIKE NIPPER
Sean Watkins with Petra Haden and Jesse Harris
For those tuning in late, Petra Haden—one of the famous Haden triplets—transmogrified “Don’t Stop Believin’” into a multitracked a cappella affirmation of everything right with the world, and threw in a video for same depicting a love story between a pocket calculator and a fried egg. She’s recorded an a cappella cover of the entire The Who Sell Out LP and a similar album of classic movie themes. Here she’ll gig with singer-songwriter Jesse Harris (himself a twin), and Sean Watkins from Nickel Creek (no relation to Nickelback!). YouTube samples seem to promise haunted-space excursions into eerie psyches, summoned by Haden’s violin. ANDREW HAMLIN
Soulfly, Suffocation, and Guests
In 1991, a group of longhairs from Long Island wrote the blueprint for all brutal technical-death-metal bands to come. With the release of their Human Waste EP, and later that year, the critically acclaimed “Effigy of the Forgotten,” Suffocation slammed harder than any death-metal band before them. Soulfly are the main attraction for many, as it’s Sepultura mastermind Max Cavalera’s brainchild. KEVIN DIERS
The Who with Slydigs
The granddads are alright! Or so we hope—vocalist Roger Daltrey’s viral meningitis led to this show being postponed till now. Daltrey, Pete Townshend, Pete’s guitarist brother Simon Townshend, and Ringo’s drummer son Zak Starkey will be grinding through one of the most inspirational, powerful, and catchy rock-band catalogs ever waxed, for the last time ever, probably…. Part of The Who Hits 50! tour (they’ve actually been around since 1964, but hey), this concert should be an action-packed nostalgiafest on overdrive. DAVE SEGAL
This post has been updated since its original publication.
