The Taco Libre Showdown, A Classic Photography Show, The National Film Festival for Talented Youth, And More Picks For April 25-May 1
by Stranger Things To Do Staff
This week, our arts critics have recommended the best events in every genre—from the Taco Libre Truck Showdown to an adaptation of a Chaim Potok novel at 12th Avenue Arts at to the National Film Festival for Talented Youth. See them all below, and find even more events on our complete Things To Do calendar.
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MONDAY
Jump to: Readings & Talks | Music
READINGS & TALKS
Chris Hedges: The Algebra of Revolution
Socialist and longtime journalist Chris Hedges is a well-seasoned authority on the subject of revolution, and I can think of few other people I'd like to hear talk about the current and future state of revolt in the United States. In 2002, Hedges won a Pulitzer Prize for covering global terrorism as part of a team working for the New York Times, for which he was a foreign correspondent for 15 years. He gave up the Gray Lady to start his own show, Days of Revolt, and to write for Truthdig. His talk, "The Algebra of Revolution," which shares a title with a Marxist anthology from John Rees, cites the rise of domestic terrorists on the right and complacent elites on the left as markers of the end of our capitalist democracy and the beginning of a violent era of messy revolt. RICH SMITH
MUSIC
Crystal Beth and the Boom Boom Band, Nosretep, Bushcraft, and Blame the Wizard
A classically trained clarinetist and imaginative soloist and with a music degree from Cornish, Fleenor has made a name for herself in Seattle’s experimental-music scene both as a solo artist and with well-known composers like Wayne Horvitz. The music Fleenor makes with Crystal Beth & the Boom Boom Band falls somewhere between the grisly skronk-punk of Stickers and earthy freak-indie of tUnE-yArDs, but even fans of those left-of-center acts will be thrown for a loop. TODD HAMM
Wild Nothing and Whitney
Do you yearn for exceedingly pleasant indie pop with blank, mild, and reverbed white-guy vocals? Then you will politely lose your millennial shit to the music of Wild Nothing (aka Jack Tatum). Much of his catalog reveals bloodlines to the suburban synth-pop melodicism of Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark and the gently morose guitar meditations of the Durutti Column. However, Wild Nothing’s newest album, Life of Pause, features Medicine’s Brad Laner on guitar (sounding much more restrained than usual) and opts for a slightly more diverse tonal palette, as evidenced by the percolating marimba and fluttering flutes of “Reichpop.” DAVE SEGAL
TUESDAY
Jump to: Comedy | Theater | Art | Music
COMEDY
Comedy Nest Open Mic
The rules of this pro-lady (but inclusive of all genders) stand-up night are refreshing in their simplicity: no misogyny, racism, homophobia, hatred, or heckling. This week's featured performer is Wendy Weiss, a Portland-based comic and "purveyor of nude arts."
THEATER
Stupid Fucking Bird
The question Aaron Posner keeps asking in Stupid Fucking Bird, his adaptation of Chekhov's portrait-of-the-artist-as-a-young-man-type soap opera, The Seagull, is why. Why do people even produce plays in the 21st century? Why don't we just stop making new stuff and take a few years to consider all the stuff that's already been made? One glib reply is this: Maybe if you stopped talking about yourself all the time, Theater, people would start caring a little more. In a program interview with John Langs, ACT's artistic director, Posner describes "a certain quality of laughter that tell you that people are not just laughing because it's 'haha funny,' but because it's going deeper for them," which he noticed during his play's premiere. I did get a sense of that laughter in the audience, and so my eye-rolling here could largely be a function of my frustration with theater that complains about how nobody takes theater seriously. Clearly, the people who were in the audience do take theater plenty seriously, so maybe their laughter is enough. RICH SMITH (Through May 8)
ART
Louis Kahn: The Power of Architecture
Louis Kahn is the architect who designed iconic academic buildings like the Salk Institute in San Diego, the Yale University Art Gallery, and the Richards Medical Research Lab at UPenn. Focusing most of his attention on libraries, research facilities, and museums, he specialized in grand, unapologetically monumental architecture. Kahn embraced the way in which his buildings were constructed, and contributed to the now-popular approach of visible supports and conscious exposure of the buildings' inner workings. This exhibit (the first Kahn retrospective in 20 years) is organized by the Vitra Design Museum in Weil am Rhein, Germany, and will include Kahn's original drawings, sketches, and photographs, historic and newly constructed models, and watercolors from his travels through North America, Europe, and Egypt. (Through Sun)
MUSIC
The Music of Harry Partch
Department of Creation (and Destruction) Myths: Prodigy teenage composer shoves all his “normal”-sounding compositions into a New Orleans potbellied stove, flirts with a 29-tone scale, settles finally on a 43-tone scale. To play this new music, he hand-builds instruments known as “Boo,” “Boo II,” “Quadrangularis Reversum,” “Eucal Blossom,” and others of odd nomenclature. It all happened right here in, of all places, America. Harry Partch died in 1974, but his musical contraptions, kept at the University of Washington in a special collection, play on, courtesy of Professor Charles Corey, Partch doyen and an alternate-tuning composer himself. Go and let it go to your head until you can’t find your head anymore. I guarantee the buzz of the streetlights will be revelatory on your way home. ANDREW HAMLIN
Great Falls, The Jan-Michael Vincent Car Crash, Guns Of Barisal, and Binaural Beasts
A less creative person might call Seattle’s Great Falls a “power trio.” But what specific power would that be referring to? The power of amplification, maybe. Great Falls certainly like their grinding noise rock loud. The power of evil is another option. Listening to them might make one feel inclined to do something naughty: stay out too late, drink too much, commit some light arson. Let’s settle on the power of musicianship and attitude. Led by scene stalwart Demian Johnston, with Shane Mehling on bass and Phil Petrocelli on drums, Great Falls sound like a very consternated office manager exorcising all of his or her personal demons at once through a megaphone. JOSEPH SCHAFER
WEDNESDAY
Jump to: Readings & Talks | Film | Theater | Art | Music
READINGS & TALKS
Astronomy on Tap: From Atoms to You to the Universe
Learn about how the atoms in your body relate to the universe at large at this event that pairs beer and science. UW Professor of astronomy Jessica Werk will speak about "The History of You: The Rather Tumultuous Past of the Atoms in Your Body," and UW graduate student Ethan Kruse will present on "To infinity and beyond: The mind-boggling scale of the universe." Look forward to brews, knowledge, and astronomy trivia!
The Bad-Ass Librarians of Timbuktu
In a conversation with Jeremy Paley from the Global Libraries at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, journalist Joshua Hammer will tell the story of Abdel Kader Haidara, a librarian who risked death to oversee a plot to smuggle 350,000 ancient Islamic and secular texts out of Timbuktu to save them from destruction by Al Qaeda.
Local Voices
Seattle Arts and Lectures presents a free reading of original works from artists in their Writers in the Schools program, including Rachel Kessler, Carol LIght, Sierra Nelson, Nikkita Oliver, Anastacia Tolbert, and Jeanine Walker.
FILM
Seijun Suzuki Retrospective
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. The copresented (Northwest Film Forum and Grand Illusion) Seijun Suzuki Retrospective, which this week will screen Yumeji and Tattooed Life, will provide an excellent opportunity to enter and absorb the genius of this director, who is still alive. CHARLES MUDEDE (Also on Sat)
THEATER
The Tempest
Considering that Shakespeare does set the play on an island, I can see how it makes sense to stage The Tempest in the tiny space at New City Theater. Despite the risk of claustrophobia—let's call it intimacy—I wouldn't miss this play for several reasons. (1) It features one of the greatest characters of all time, Caliban, whose little speech about "crying to dream again" in act III always makes me tear up. (2) Caliban will be played by Mary Ewald or Peter Crook, both of whom are very good and serious actors. (3) Caliban's mother has the best witch name ever, which is Sycorax. (4) There's magic and wood chopping (in the script, at least), both of which can be fun in close quarters. RICH SMITH (Through Sat)
ART
The Photograph
I can't think of a single person who wouldn't love this show. It's a luscious array of 38 photographs—many of them gelatin silver prints of classic images, like Flip Schulke's Cassius Clay training in a pool at the Sir John Hotel in Miami, 1961; and Marion Post Wolcott's Jitterbugging in a Juke Joint, MS, 1939—that form a portrait of American life across the 20th century and well into the 21st. Walker Evans, Paul Strand, Richard Misrach, Julie Blackmon; you get the picture (wah, wah). But there's another reason to go to this show, and it's to wish Gail Gibson a happy 25th anniversary in business. It's not easy running an art gallery. Gibson is a Seattle great. JEN GRAVES (Closes Sat)
No Touching Ground: You Still Feel Like Home
No Touching Ground is a street artist who occasionally provides Seattle with reflections of its own spirit, for better and worse. The police-beaten face of Maikoiyo Alley-Barnes, larger than life on a building not one block from the police precinct, a building that would soon be turned into luxury residences. On that same spot before the construction, the visage of John T. Williams, the Native American carver killed by police. We can hope that in addition to this solo gallery exhibition, NTG will grace the city with some large murals, too. Look for all of it. (Closes Sat)
Adam Ekberg: New Photographs
This show of simple, innovative, and amusing photographs by Adam Ekberg (The Life of Small Things) closes on Saturday.
MUSIC
Tortoise and Life Coach
With seven years between albums, it seemed as if Tortoise had packed it in. Nothing could be further from the truth, and their new full-length, The Catastrophist, ranks among the post-rock collective’s best, as it segues from synth-rock to ambient pop. The record, their seventh, grew out of a 2010 commission to commemorate Chicago’s jazz and improvised music scenes. KATHY FENNESSY
Kool Keith, the Bad Tenants, Suntonio Bandanaz, and DJ Indica Jones
GZA of Wu-Tang Clan recently dropped a short and vitriolic op-ed at the website Matter claiming that lyrical innovation in hiphop is dead. While he may have a point, here’s my rejoinder to GZA: Okay, smart guy, but what have you done since Liquid Swords? I’d take that argument better from a maniac like Kool Keith, who has continued to reinvent himself as a myriad of deranged character MCs. Oh, and he never stops touring. Expect Keith to pull out many of his sexually deviant and surreal alter egos, including fan favorite Dr. Octagon, when he plays Nectar Lounge. JOSEPH SCHAFER
THURSDAY
Jump to: Food | Film | Readings & Talks | Theater | Music | Queer
FOOD & DRINK
Before 600 Highwaymen: Studio Supper with PK Frank
Studio Suppers at On the Boards are Seattle civic treasures that manage to turn the dinner-and-a-show formula into something truly exciting. Before the opening performance of one of OtB’s provocative shows, you join 50 other people at a communal table for a family-style meal prepared by a local chef. There’s lots of wine and, because diners get to pay on a sliding scale ($25–$100), you’ll actually have interesting conversations with a diverse mix of people. This season’s final Studio Supper, on the opening night of 600 Highwaymen's Employee of the Year, features dinner by Little Uncle’s PK Frank, whose excellent Thai food is influenced by her own family, as well as the many family-run restaurants in Thailand that keep the country’s culinary traditions alive. ANGELA GARBES
Guest Chef Night: Dave Miller
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 Dave Miller of Portage Bay Cafe.
FILM
National Film Festival for Talented Youth
The National Film Festival For Talented Youth (open to directors under 24 years old) promises an opening night celebration, a gala, guest speakers, parties, and over 250 films. See a complete list of screenings and events here.
READINGS & TALKS
Beacon Bards: National Poetry Month
Beacon Bards' celebration of National Poetry Month will feature readings by Lena Khalaf Tuffaha, EJ Koh, and Alan Chong Lau.
Word Works: Kevin Young on Throwing Your Voice
Author and poet Kevin Young, whose nonfiction book The Grey Album: On the Blackness of Blackness won the Graywolf Nonfiction Prize and the PEN Open Award and was chosen as a New York Times Notable Book for 2012, was called "one of the most talented poets in the United States" by the San Francisco Chronicle. Tonight, he'll give a talk about voice and the perils of style, followed by a Q&A moderated by Jane Wong, a Kundiman fellow and poetry professor at the University of Washington Bothell and Hugo House.
THEATER
My Name Is Asher Lev
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 (Through Sun)
Assassins
In Assassins, the Stephen Sondheim musical running through May 8 at ACT Theatre and produced in partnership with 5th Avenue Theatre, everyone from John Wilkes Booth to John Hinckley Jr. gets a chance to explain themselves: Some are driven by insanity, some by politics, some by a desire to be remembered. Their motives and circumstances vary, but their common bond is that they all grasped for power by taking shots at some of the most powerful men on earth. The cast members of Assassins face the exhausting task of identifying with killers and trying to convince the audience to take their side. MATT BAUME (Through Sun)
Behind the Wheel: Life on the Metro Bus
This one-person performance by Stokley Towles, based on dozens of interviews he conducted with bus drivers, is set on board a Metro bus for an immersive, intense feel. (Through Sat)
Puny Humans
Puny Humans, with a bunch of intertwining plot lines à la Crash, is different from Crash in that it's set at Comicon. With dramatic plot lines including pregnancy, fame, and love between unexpected cosplay characters, this play by Bret Fetzer and Keiko Green promises the depiction of "one epic day." (Through Sun)
MUSIC
Kenny G
Although fate was obviously kinder to one of us, Kenny G and I had the same saxophone teacher. John P. Jessen, aka Johnny Jessen, taught sax out of the Sixth and Pine building downtown for ages. Johnny showed me an early press photo of Kenny G, dressed in a red tracksuit and jumping off of something. Kenny G used to play two saxophones at once, back at Franklin High School. And his early records were funk. Maybe not great funk, but funk. And we used to say, “Hey, local kid makes good.” I am not at all sure about his new bossa-nova album. I am not at all sure about anything of Kenny G’s after 1989. But I sure do miss Johnny Jessen. ANDREW HAMLIN
Kyle Craft, Mr. Night Sky, and Hotel Vignette
Could Sub Pop have found the new Harry Nilsson? Kyle Craft’s debut album for the Seattle indie label, Dolls of Highland, bursts with the sort of singing-for-the-upper-balcony drama that typifies Nilsson classics like “Without You,” “One,” and “Jump into the Fire.” Craft is a huge-lunged, pop-traditionalist singer-songwriter who says a David Bowie greatest-hits comp sparked his desire to compose songs. Actually, this Louisiana native sounds very American, although residual traces of UK glam rock seep into his grandiose showstoppers. “Lady of the Ark” especially showcases Craft’s ability to create flagrantly beautiful melodies meant to be sung on stages in basketball arenas and at massive amphitheaters. One can imagine him touring with Father John Misty and the two tussling nightly to see who can wring more italicized and bold-faced emotion out of their tunes. My money’s on Craft. DAVE SEGAL
Rhine, Deathblow, Xoth, and Hexengeist
I first saw Rhine a year ago at the bottom of a bill in the side lounge at El Corazon before it became the new Funhouse. Sandwiched between straight-up brutal death-metal acts was this plucky, if kind of haphazard, band of technicians splicing 1970s prog and what sounded like funk segments into otherwise typical metal music. It’s not a new approach, but it’s a rare one in America, and Rhine pulled it off pretty well. One year after, they have a new self-released album, and even if its title (An Outsider) is a bit on the nose, the songs within are deranged and full of curveballs. They’re forward-thinking in the way metal bands need to be these days. JOSEPH SCHAFER
Spectral Waves and Nosretep
Featuring some of the most skillful musicians from Seattle’s psychedelic- and prog-rock scenes, Spectral Waves have been around since 2013. Guitarists Simon Henneman (Diminished Men), Dennis Rea (Moraine, Flame Tree), drummer Jack Gold-Molina (Flame Tree), and bassist/vocalist Cary Kindberg are making intricate, interesting music that fuses some of the most gripping elements of prog and jazz-fusion. Structurally dynamic and strangely beautiful, Spectral Waves’ music takes you on spellbinding, circuitous journeys redolent of the halcyon days of Herbie Hancock’s Mwandishi band and Terje Rypdal’s ECM Records output from the 1970s. DAVE SEGAL
QUEER
Ga(y)me Night
I know, I know, between the new Fallout DLC, Dark Souls, and Star Fox, it's hard to leave the house right now. But at some point, you must step out into the sun… before then immediately scurrying back inside for more gaming. Seattle Gaymers are taking over the already-pretty-queer Raygun Lounge on Thursday for "two-dimensional games with three-dimensional people," including Marvel Munchkin, Werewolf 2.0, and maybe Call of Cthulhu if you have a few hours to kill. All that plus booze and food means you'll totally forget that Sebastian is waiting for you to gay-marry him on your Stardew Valley farm. MATT BAUME
FRIDAY
Jump to: Readings & Talks | Queer | Music
READINGS & TALKS
National Poetry Month Celebration with Tod Marshall
It's National Poetry Month because April is, as T.S. Eliot said, full of people breaking up with each other and new spiders. To help get your mind off all that nastiness, you should go see MacArthur Geniuses Lucia Perillo and Heather McHugh, two people with probably the most electric and expansive minds on the planet, read at this event. Tod Marshall will headline the event. He's Washington State's current poet laureate and author of Bugle, a humorous and jabby and melancholy collection that worries about our impending doom due to climate change while simultaneously refreshing old romantic forms for 21st-century palates. He'll be coming down off a statewide tour, so you should ask him about the state of poetry in the state of Washington. I bet it's doing pretty good. RICH SMITH
Cephalopod Appreciation Society
Celebrate octopus, squid, chambered nautilus, and cuttlefish at this Hugo House event featuring poetry, music, art, and film.
QUEER
Rebound with Joe Gauthreaux
Hop on the Rebound with renowned babe DJ Joe Gauthreaux and local talent Bret Law. Verotica Events is pulling out all the stops with the double DJ bill, drag shade stylings, drinks, and all-night dancing. A portion of the proceeds go to Gay City, so pull those wallets out.
MUSIC
Kinski, the Tripwires, the Spoils
Kinski’s seventh—or is it eighth? —full-length record, 7 (or 8) is the band’s most succinct, to-the-point testament to the primeval powers of rock and roll, where the sheer number of van-rockin’ riffs top a sumo wrestler’s daily calorie count. Yeah, things get seriously spacey on 12-minute album closer “Bulletin of the International String Figure Association,” a far-out, slow-building splash down, but that’s only because all rocket ships need to come back to earth eventually. JASON BRACELIN
The Shivas, Acapulco Lips, Charms
The Shivas are K Records’ great psych-rock hope. The Portland group have cut three albums with the Olympia label since 2012—Whiteout, You Know What to Do, and Better Off Dead—and they’re mostly full of the sort of rollicking, reverb-heavy songs that flood your senses with feel-good juice. As is often the case with psychedelia, the tension between structure—even throwback girl-group-songwriting tropes—and chaos lends the Shivas’ songs their enduring allure. Seattle’s Acapulco Lips have just dropped their self-titled debut LP on the new Killroom Records, and its instantly gratifying garage-/surf-rock tunes are destined to soundtrack many memorable parties here, there, and potentially everywhere. DAVE SEGAL
Bombino, Last Good Tooth, Faint Peter
Hailing from the Agadez Desert in Niger, Bombino (aka guitarist/vocalist Omara Moctar) is a musical conveyor of rebellion from the Tuareg people, whom the Nigerien government isolated from the rest of the country in a dispute over uranium production. On Guitars from Agadez Vol. 2 (Sublime Frequencies, 2009), this dexterous player and his band created a sinuous, mantric brand of desert blues that boasts a seemingly infinite beneficence and durability, as Moctar’s guitar reflects Jimi Hendrix’s textural flamboyancy and Mark Knopfler’s fluid precision. This is soul-sustaining music born out of the struggle for survival, carrying the yearning of exile. DAVE SEGAL
Death Eyes, Same-Sex Dictator, Stiltfisher, Me Infecto
The album cover for Death Eyes’ recently released self-titled LP features a caricature of a demonic looking Pope Francis shooting wormy-looking upside-down crosses from his eyeballs as the lower half of his body wastes away like a zombie, exposing his rotting organs. Brutal. This San Diego–based quartet is the sonic equivalent of this very image—fast, frantic, and always chaotic hardcore punk with blasts of gnarly grind mixed in. Don’t go expecting a quiet evening with a chill touring band, unless your idea of chill is a hammer to the eardrums and a punch in the neck. KEVIN DIERS
SATURDAY
Jump to: Food & Drink | Readings & Talks | Theater | Queer | Music
FOOD & DRINK
Green Lake Food Walk
Think of this as an art walk—but instead of art, they're offering food from a dozen restaurants and businesses, wrapping up the afternoon with a beer garden at Green Lake's Shelter Lounge.
READINGS & TALKS
Intruder #19 Release Party
Celebrate the latest (and the next to last!) release of the Intruder, a free comic newspaper, with the artists who created it.
THEATER
The Things Are Against Us
12th Avenue Arts will play host to the world premiere of a dark twisted tale of two sisters, a hottie with an axe, and Federico Garcia Lorca, written by Susan Soon He Stanton and directed by Bobbin Ramsey. (Through May 16)
QUEER
Boylesque 101 Graduation Recital
After the Maine Event and Teaser Party of the Boylesque Festival, performers from Miss Indigo Blue's Academy of Burlesque who have been training under Waxie Moon and Ernie Von Schmaltz will perform a new routine.
MUSIC
Fear Factory, Soilwork, and Guests
On their Orwellian, soothsaying 1995 sophomore album Demanufacture, which Fear Factory are performing in its entirety on their current tour, they paired resonant, cleanly sung vocals—then as much of a no-no in extreme metal as pastel stage garb and smiling in promo shots—with mechanistic thrash rhythms and sub-industrial electronics, resulting in a fierce, futuristic sound. Though the band got perplexingly lumped in with the lunkheaded nü-metal boom shortly thereafter, they remain an important, albeit often overlooked, influence on the melodic death-metal ranks, something that their tourmates, Sweden’s equally heavy and harmony-laden Soilwork, can surely attest to. JASON BRACELIN
Erik Blood, Wall of Ears, and Fruit Juice
If you were “lost in slow motion,” would you be ambling directionless at an unnaturally low speed? Or would you simply find yourself overcome by the beauty in detail allowed by slowed-down movement? Seattle’s Erik Blood seems to like to play with the ambiguity, but his new album, Lost in Slow Motion, which celebrates its freedom tonight, houses 10 songs with stretched tempos that illuminate the nuance of texture and complexity of emotion contained in each elongated moment. TODD HAMM
Sheer Mag, Lysol, Mysterious Skin, and Ubu Roi
Philly-based punk-garage-soul outfit Sheer Mag have been making waves beyond the DIY circuit recently with their hyperactive power-pop hooks and gruesomely catchy Joe-Jackson-meets-Jackson-5 vibe. With absurdly melodic, big guitars and Christina Halladay’s endearingly retro, bubbly soul vocals, Sheer Mag should get even the biggest cross-armed curmudgeon singing along. Local openers Lysol are three-fourths of swamp-punk ghouls Freak Vibe playing hard-hitting, no-frills punk. While Mysterious Skin also provide excellent local support with their blazing and artfully damaged hardcore. Seattle punk stalwarts Ubu Roi are calling it quits, so take advantage of this chance to see their pleasantly frenzied garage punk live. BRITTNIE FULLER
Moral Crux, Die Nasty, Terman Shanks, and Fallopia
For you punks who missed Zumba this morning and need to get your “sweat on,” here’s your chance to get wet pogoing to locals Die Nasty, a driving, lady-led, sing-along street-punk trio; Terman Shanks, who kick out some late-’80s style, Midwestern punk jams; and Bellingham punks Fallopia, who are self-described as “party femme/glitter punk.” Headliners Moral Crux have been going three goddamn decades—and the entire time, the Seattle punk group has remained relevant, never conceding to any of the tragic music trends that gripped the scene. MIKE NIPPER
Tacos!, Great Goddamn, Old Iron, and Post/Boredom
Tacos!, a two-piece who are a perfect matched pair—think left and right fists—of metal fury, are playing, supported by locals Great Goddamn, Old Iron, AND Post/Boredom. All three of them “support” groups are deep studies of the 1990s AmRep school of heavy, dirgey noise rock. MIKE NIPPER
SUNDAY
Jump to: Food & Drink | Art | Comedy | Queer | Music
FOOD & DRINK
Taco Libre Truck Showdown
Along the Canal in Fremont, the third annual Taco Libre Truck Showdown promises more than 40 food trucks and booths competing for your affection with tacos, beer, margaritas, and mariachi bands.
Seattle Bike-n-Brews
Take a bike ride along the Duwamish and Green River trails (via your choice of a 15- or 35-mile route) with a fun twist: beer tickets for the mid-point and finish line. Combine bikes and brews, and at the end of the night, drink to your accomplishments at Schooner Exact.
ART
Backstreet Bazaar
On the first Sunday of every month, Hillman City Collaboratory throws a little street festival, featuring live music, food, and local artists. HCC is an energetic new place worth visiting.
COMEDY
Weird and Awesome with Emmett Montgomery
On the first Sunday of each month, comedy, variety, and "a parade of wonder and awkward sharing" are hosted by the self-proclaimed "mustache wizard" Emmett Montgomery.
QUEER
Mimosas with Mama
Good morning, Baltimore/Seattle. Mama's new show, "30 Minute-ish Hairspray," features all your favorite songs from the Broadway show plus some elaborate quick-change drag-queen magic. They've mushed together the best of the original film and the Travolta travesty for a whirlwind of big-boned euphoria. But that's not all. The musical is just the culmination of the experience: The first half of the two-ish hour experience is a delightful drag cabaret/brunch buffet, with singing, dancing, comedy, and more naughty entendres than you can shake a stick at. MATT BAUME
MUSIC
Napalm Death, Melvins, and Melt-Banana
Back in 1987, no one suspected that a £50 recording by a bunch of teenage punks from the Midlands would help lay the template for a new crossbreed of metal and hardcore, nor did anyone anticipate that one of the most pivotal heavy bands of the last three decades would come from deliberately uncool misfits in a small town on the Olympic Peninsula. Yet Napalm Death’s inhuman speed and dead-serious politics set a new standard of brutality, while Melvins’ viscous crawl and smarter-than-thou prankery were an affront to punk’s monotonic pulse and self-righteousness. In 2016, all three bands are still leveling crowds and fucking with the audiences’ expectations, so why would you be anywhere else tonight? BRIAN COOK
Kvelertak, Torche, Wild Throne, and Serial Hawk
Do you love the electric guitar? Okay, let me ask you this: Were you disappointed the first time you heard Electric Warrior because it wasn’t as heavy as the album art implied? If the answer is yes, then this show should be on your to-do list. Openers Wild Throne demonstrate the kind of frantic kitchen-sink guitar style that typified the early Mars Volta albums. On the opposite end of the spectrum, Torche bask in the hammering weight of minimalist riffs cranked through dimed amps. The three guitarists in Kvelertak hover somewhere in the middle—mining from both the rudimentary heft of punk and black metal while showcasing their Thin Lizzy–esque chops. It may not be the G3 Tour in terms of guitar technique, but it’s a helluva lot more fun. BRIAN COOK