The Bacon and Beer Classic, First Thursday, A Performance on a Metro Bus, And More Picks For May 2-8
by Stranger Things To Do Staff
This week, our arts critics have recommended the best events in every genre—from the Bacon and Beer Classic to a performance set on a Metro bus to the First Thursday Art Walk. See them all below, and find even more events on our complete Things To Do calendar.
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MONDAY
FILM
Project Fukushima
My former fellow editor at Alternative Press Jason Pettigrew used to worship Otomo Yoshihide, but I foolishly never really explored the Japanese experimental musician’s extensive discography. It’s hard to summarize Yoshihide’s long career, but you should know that he’s exhibited incredible range and bold nerve over the last 27 years as an unorthodox turntablist, noise-rock guitarist, anything-goes improviser, and J-pop producer—and as a prolific collaborator and member of groups like Ground Zero and Filament. He’s in Seattle to host a free screening of the film documentary Project Fukushima, which follows a group of Japanese artists and musicians (including Yoshihide) putting on an arts festival in the city of Fukushima a few months after the earthquake and tsunami in 2011. DAVE SEGAL
FOOD & DRINK
Yalla Pop-Up
Chef Taylor Cheney has an impressive resume, 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
THEATER
The Things Are Against Us
Washington Ensemble Theatre will present the world premiere of Susan Soon He Stanton’s The Things Are Against Us, a surreal comedy/horror/romance about two sisters trying find each other and, in a larger way, a sense of home. The problem: the home is haunted. The other problem: the sisters’ romantic entanglements with men extend across at least three time periods and different planes of existence, and all of that ends up slowing down and derailing the familial reunion. Spanish poet and playwright Federico García Lorca figures heavily, as does Yusef, a Lebanese man who believes his life is fated by the writings of his grandfather. Liberating yourself from the expectation of linear storytelling will grant you access to unexpected moments of poignancy and humor, all of which are ample in the script. RICH SMITH (Also Thurs-Sun)
ART
Unknown Landscapes
In Zack Bent's subtle video Heavy Matter, the figures in their raincoats in the forest sometimes appear to be entirely still. To the sounds of the rain, they appear to consider the place around them, and the question of being alone or together. This understated, photo-based show of Seattle artists—also including Max Cleary, Serrah Russell, Candice Price, Hongzhe Liang, and curated by Erin Elyse Burns—captures the spellbinding way that the Pacific Northwest landscape draws a person outdoors only to send her back inside herself again. Megumi Shauna Arai's installation depicts her undergoing a body ritual whose nature only she knows. She titled the piece Osore, the Japanese mountain nicknamed "the gateway to hell." JEN GRAVES (Closes Fri)
TUESDAY
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? Why are we even in a theater right now watching someone ask these questions? 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 Sun)
MUSIC
Joey DeFrancesco Trio
It was in an early American Splendor anthology, as I recall, where legendary crank and jazz fanatic Harvey Pekar spat out that DownBeat had sent him another organ record to review. And organ records were just beneath contempt. Not worthy of a single breath or keystroke. Pekar died before I could ask him about Joey DeFrancesco, who (among others) redeems the organ, if it needed redemption. Mr. D has got the chops, intuition, rich phrasing, a deep understanding of what his Hammond B3 can accomplish if pushed, and for sprinkles on top, he might break out a trumpet or break into song. He was 17 when he joined Miles Davis’s group. He won’t be here forever—just like Harvey Pekar. ANDREW HAMLIN (Through Wed)
Floating Points with Idris Ackamoor, The Pyramids, and DJ Explorateur
People are going nuts over Elaenia, the debut album by British producer Floating Points (aka Sam Shepherd). It’s certainly a beautiful record, full of spine-tingling keyboard textures, sumptuous melodies, soulful interludes, and insidious, subliminal rhythms. But it also sounds like a lot of the stuff Ninja Tune was releasing in the late 1990s and ’00s (see Cinematic Orchestra, Jaga Jazzist)—or the fusion gods who inspired them, like Lonnie Liston Smith and Herbie Hancock… or indeed, billmates the Pyramids. If you missed that soul-jazz-funky moment the first time or are nostalgic for it now, Elaenia will thoroughly sate you. DAVE SEGAL
WEDNESDAY
READINGS & TALKS
Writing for a Cause
There are lots of reasons to be fed up right now. Everything from Mayor Ed Murray's regressive plan for bike infrastructure to police brutality to LGBTQ discrimination to the inhumane treatment of Syrian refugees. One response to all the pain and injustice in the world is to curl up in a ball and fall down brain-numbing rabbit holes on YouTube. Another much more powerful response is to pick one of those injustices and write really, really well about it. But that's hard to do, especially if you feel like you're alone and writing in a vacuum. At Writing for a Cause, you won't feel that way. You'll get to hear how great local writers write about causes that are important to them, and also have time to start working on your own stuff. RICH SMITH
Silent Reading Party
Invented by our own Christopher Frizzelle, the reading party is every first Wednesday of the month at 6 p.m. That's when the Fireside Room at the Sorrento Hotel goes quiet and fills with people with books tucked under their arms. (And, occasionally, a Kindle or two.) By 7 p.m., you often can't get a seat. And there's always free music from 6 to 8 pm. Lately the resident musician is pianist Paul Matthew Moore. He's amazing.
ART
Complex Exchange: Media | Representation
SAM hosts the final event in Complex Exchange, a series dealing with race, power, and the politics of representation as they relate to artistic depictions like those at SAM (Kehinde Wiley) and NAAM (The Harmon & Harriet Kelley Collection). The guests, organizer Elmer Dixon and Stranger Genius Award-winning artist C. Davida Ingram, will focus their discussion on issues of media and representation.
Kehinde Wiley: A New Republic
Kehinde Wiley has a strong take on appropriating and subverting the old masters. A New Republic comes to Seattle via Texas from the Brooklyn Museum, and delves deep into ideas about portraiture. By putting young, black men and women into the poses and styles of 18th century European rulers and aristocrats, he makes deft observations about culture and presentation, as well as art and appropriation. (Closes Sun)
Six Weeks, in Time
Artists in the "time-based arts" will show pieces that transform and move, so that inside the gallery, the shifting artwork (ranging from live performance to performative sculpture) will replace the rigidity of a numbered clock in marking and measuring the moment. (Closes Sun)
THEATER
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 (Closes Sun)
COMEDY
The Gay Uncle Time
It's an avuncular variety show starring Santa-esque comedian Jeffrey Robert and a rotating cavalcade of local stars, drag queens, storytellers, and weirdos. Get a healthy dose of history, comedy, and song from the gay uncle you always wished you had and his friends you always suspected were up to no good. Get there early if you want a seat—their shows are often filled to capacity, with latecomers turned away. Hey, a room can fit only so many nieces and nephews. MATT BAUME
THURSDAY
ART
First Thursday Art Walk
Look forward to exhibit openings, people watching, and (generally) free wine at the city's central and oldest art walk. Don't miss Andrea Joyce Heimer and Justin Duffus' show at Linda Hodges Gallery, Klara Glosova's Caddy Shack at Glass Box Gallery, and Nathan DiPietro's Artificial Worlds at Woodside/Braseth Gallery.
FOOD & DRINK
Guest Chef Night: Brian Gojdics
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, Brian Gojdics of Tutta Bella Neapolitan Pizzeria will serve a menu of arugula salad, entree choices of swordfish or mushroom and pomodoro ragu, and cannoli.
MUSIC
Abdullah Ibrahim and Ekaya
Back in the 1980s, Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation (ZBC) only operated between five in the afternoon and midnight, and in the hour or so before programing started, their station would accompany the transmission test pattern with music. Often this music was by Abdullah Ibrahim (who in the deep past of Cape Town, South Africa, was known as Dollar Brand), and often the tunes that flowed from the TV’s speakers were either Ibrahim’s exquisitely affirmative “Zimbabwe” or his masterpiece of jazz-jive “Mannenberg.” What Ibrahim accomplished as an artist was to end the split between lyrical sensitivity and aggressive percussiveness. He is one of the giants of Africa. (Through Sun)
The Body, The Rita, WORKDEATH, Gordon Ashworth, Anteinferno
No One Deserves Happiness—and no one gets it, at least for very long—on the tellingly-titled latest album from self-flagellating Portland-way-of-Providence noise duo the Body. “What is hell?” asks singer/guitarist Chip King on “Starving Deserter,” his pained screech suggestive of a man only parting with his words because they’re being tortured out of him. “A drive to perish / To feel nothing… To close a coffin lid with no remorse.” Well, we’d argue hell is a world without kittens, but we get your point, dude. Still, Happiness isn’t devoid of hope: There are, dare we say, some pretty stirring moments here when Assembly of Light singer Chrissy Wolpert contributes gorgeous, ghostly vocals that float above riffs as thick and sticky as wet cement, and by album’s end, King is inviting a special someone into his heart. Hey, there’s plenty of room in there. JASON BRACELIN
Medical Records Presents: Ian Hicks, Roladex, and QOQO ROBOQS
Since 2010, Medical Records has been reissuing crucial old synth-based records and championing new electronic acts that work in the minimal-wave/synth-pop/industrial veins. (Disclosure: I’ve written liner notes for Medical.) Label boss Dr. Troy is also an accomplished DJ, and now he’s branching out into show promotion with this event. Roladex—Seattle-via-Texas synthesist/vocalists Elyssa Dianne and Tyler Jacobsen—are adept acolytes of the sort of bleak, ice-water-in-veins synth pop that made the early 1980s such a vitally grim time to be alive... Ian Hicks was half of Portland synth-pop charmers Soft Metals, whose two albums on Captured Tracks from 2011 and 2013 possess the sort of sweeping, suavely percolating compositions that make you feel about 10 times more cosmopolitan and romantic than you actually are. DAVE SEGAL
Spyn Reset, Klozd Sirkut, SAMPO
Seattle’s Spyn Reset consist of three monstrously talented players who forge a maximalist agglomeration of electronic funk, prog rock, and space jazz that ideally would be heard after midnight, outdoors, in a remote location, and on powerful stimulants. Think Bonnaroo, going on right before Medeski Martin & Wood or STS9—that kinetic, complex vibe with a high “wow” factor. Klozd Sirkut are funk-electronic fusionists whose wide-lapelled, rayon-textured songs skew harder toward Red Hot Chili Peppers than to Funkadelic or Zapp. Yes, they cover Lipps Inc.’s “Funkytown,” and at a slower tempo. DAVE SEGAL
READINGS & TALKS
Seattle StorySLAM
A live amateur storytelling competition, hosted by Lindy West, in which audience members who put their names in a hat are randomly chosen to tell stories on a theme. Local comedians tend to show up, but lots of nonperformers get in on the action as well. This week's theme is "siblings."
THEATER
Behind the Wheel: Life on the Metro Bus
Stokley Towles's work is all about the humanity and complexity of Seattle's municipal systems. In the last several years, he's done performances about the sewer system, the garbage system, and the water system. This year, he's turned his attention to the bus system. Set on an actual (but stationary) Metro bus, Towles presents a sort of anti–TED Talk (unpretentious, low-tech, and actually meaningful) full of stories from the perspective of several Metro bus drivers he interviewed. The stories are incredible, and they reveal these bus drivers to be sages, tricksters, and masters of social interaction. RICH SMITH (Through Sat)
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. New Century Theatre Company members Amy Thone, Bradford Farewell, and Conner Neddresen will perform under Sheila Daniels's direction. RICH SMITH (Through Mon)
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 Sat)
FRIDAY
READINGS & TALKS
Brian Christian
Science writer and poet Brian Christian is the author of The Most Human Human, a book that The New Yorker called "terrific" and "one of the rare successful literary offspring of 'Gödel, Escher, Bach,' where art and science meet an engaged mind and the friction produces real fire." Tonight, he'll speak about his new book, Algorithms to Live By: The Computer Science of Human Decisions.
MUSIC
Aesop Rock with Homeboy Sandman
Ian Bavitz, aka Aesop Rock, might not be the best rapper of all time, but he certainly has the biggest vocabulary. A quantitative study of hiphop lyrics at poly-graph.co (check out that site, seriously) found his word bank so big that it broke their scale. Aesop has substance behind his syllables as well—as a cornerstone of the Definitive Jux roster, he explored the plight of the working class on albums like Labor Days. That label went bust, but Aes still tours and records constantly. He’s playing in support of his new album, The Impossible Kid, with up-and-coming MC Homeboy Sandman as direct support. JOSEPH SCHAFER
DUG with Psychic Mirrors
With its funk, hiphop, uh… kids’ records, and boogie, DUG is one of my fave DJ nights in town and an all-around kickass night of dancing. But when the DUG collective also chooses to feature a live act, you can guarantee the action will be dialed in tight. And tonight they’ve sorted Miami’s fabulous Psychic Mirrors, a fittingly ’80s-style boogie/funk group known for their racy synths and sexy groovin’ beats. MIKE NIPPER
Radar: Slumber, Eugene Fauntleroy, Justin Collins
San Francisco/Berlin producers Amber Cox and Oona Dahl (aka Slumber) create deep, funky house music that will spur you to coolly lose your inhibitions in the club. Eschewing over-the-top diva emoting and pulse-accelerating bpms, Slumber opt for a slyer, more understated approach to dance-floor seduction. And lordy, do they excel at this important task. Seattle DJ Eugene Fauntleroy (aka Michito Iwata, one of the forces behind Nacho Borracho’s essential Weird Room techno night) has been pushing this sort of subtle house for many years, and his selections should serve as the ideal mood-setter for Slumber’s cushiony groove techniques. Tonight is the debut of his and Justin Collins’s Radar event at Kremwerk. DAVE SEGAL
THEATER
Spin the Bottle
This is Seattle's longest-running cabaret and has seen just about everything—dance, theater, comedy, paper airplanes, tears, stunts, music, romance—from just about everyone.
SATURDAY
FOOD & DRINK
Bacon and Beer Classic
It's time to indulge your evolutionarily ordained preferences for the finer things in life: bacon and beer. Enjoy over 50 different bacon-inspired dishes from local restaurants, sip on local brews, and enjoy live music, photo booths, and more.
Oyster Rama
Oyster Rama promises a wide variety of events for the scientist, the foodie, and the moody child, including tours with "intertidal ecologists" and oyster growers, an oyster-sports competition called the Shuckathalon, and oysters and clams to pick yourself. It's okay to bring along the little ones (there will be kids' activities), but there's also a beer and wine garden and live music promised. Tickets are sold out online, but the Hama Hama Company says they reserve a few tickets for same-day sales.
FILM
Puget Soundtrack: Erin Jorgensen presents Daisies
The young and beautiful stars of the 1966 surrealist Czech film Daisies, Jitka Cerhová (Marie I) and Ivana Karbanová (Marie II), date and dump older men, giggle a lot, eat a lot, walk around the city, get drunk and rowdy, play with each other in bed, and get philosophical about life and desire. They came from nowhere; they are going nowhere. They are happy to be here forever. What a lovely movie. Erin Jorgensen, who will provide a live soundtrack for Daisies tonight, says it is like a page from her diary. CHARLES MUDEDE
BOOKS
Huge Book Sale
The Friends of the Seattle Public Library's book sale (which also includes CDs, DVDs, and records) has a new location at the Seattle Center Exhibition Hall. If you don't have plenty of space in your home for tons of goodies, make some, because they always have a gigantic selection of titles at prices made for media hoarding. ($1 for CDs, DVDs, and paperbacks, $2 for hardbacks, audio books, and records, and $3 for old/rare books.) Leave a couple hours to browse the shelves—and if you just can't wait, members of Friends of the Seattle Public Library get a head start at Friday's preview night. (Through Sun)
QUEER
Kentucky Derby Fundraiser
There's only one way to watch the Kentucky Derby, and that's with a giant frilly hat like you're Audrey freakin' Hepburn in My Fair Lady. CHEER Seattle is throwing a big old-fashioned down-home country-fancy fundraiser to benefit the Sparkle Effect, which provides cheerleading opportunities to kids with disabilities. Arrive early for happy hour (noon to 1 pm), and then stick around for the race, a silent auction, a baked-goods sale, a bourbon drawing, appetizers described as "heavy," and a hat contest, all accompanied by the talented fingers of DJ Sean the Shaman. MATT BAUME
ARTHAUS: Un-Natural Disasters
ArtHaus 2.0 returns for their semi-final competition, which will determine who moves on to the finals in their year-long haus vs. haus drag-off. This round's theme is "Un-Natural Disasters" so each queen will be bringing their saddest, their baddest, their worst possible nightmare scenarios to life on the stage. Semi-finalists The Haus Fantastic, Jesus Christ and the Haus of Latter Day Taints, and MEGA QUEEN of the Haus of MEGAQUEVEN will be cranking out the tears, and hostesses Hellen Tragedy and Little Hellen will make sure you get home safe. Expect free-flowing booze, dollar bills everywhere, and music all night from house DJ Robosex Homosex.
MUSIC
Touch Conference: Phillip Jeck, Mark Van Hoen, Daniel Menche
UK label Touch has been releasing an eclectic array of fascinating experimental and electronic music in exceptionally designed packaging since 1982, and tonight’s event offers a rare opportunity to hear some of its artists in person. Maverick English turntablist Philip Jeck has been one of Touch’s most reliable presences. DAVE SEGAL
SUNDAY
MOTHER'S DAY
Mimosas with Mama Special Mother’s Day Show
Typically delightful Mimosas with Mama is putting on a special Mother's Day show, complete with stacked brunch buffet, mimosas aplenty, and a line-up of local talent, including Tipsy Rose Lee, Sabella Extynn, Ruby Bouche, Sparkle Leigh, and Mama Tits herself.
Mommie Dearest in Hecklevision
Central Cinema will screen the cult classic Mommie Dearest, which David Schmader described as "the 1981 biopic that made Joan Crawford a child-abuse icon, ruined Faye Dunaway’s career, and thrived in infamy. Make no mistake: Mommie Dearest sucks. But Ms. Dunaway’s fearless exertions elevate overacting to the status of an Olympic event." On Sunday night, the film will be screened in "Hecklevision," which as you might guess, requires a little bit of audience participation—but they'll provide the props!
Wine Shots: Comedy's Happiest Hour
This all-female comedy variety show comes complete with an all-female Michael Bolton cover band, Lightning Bolton. Organized by the very funny Elicia Sanchez, it’s every second Sunday of the month in the Grotto at the Rendezvous, and every audience member gets a free shot of wine. For this Mother's Day show, they'll celebrate motherhood, moscato, and daytime talk shows.
MUSIC
Kid Congo Powers and the Pink Monkeybirds, Bread and Butter
We oughta feel lucky to get to see Kid Congo Powers and the Pink Monkey Birds—who are touring in support of their most recent LP, La Araña Es La Vida—because they are ALWAYS such a good goddamn time. At this point in the game, Powers should be considered a rock-and-roll godhead. Over the course of his career, he’s played with heavy groups like the Gun Club, the Cramps, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, and, well, I reckon he may be the last of the ancients who is still active AND still knowingly nodding to the 1960s. And if that ain’t enough, Kid Congo Powers and company are paired up with sweet local power-pop group Bread and Butter. Stay sick, y’all. MIKE NIPPER
Deicide, Season of Suffering, Devilation, A Flourishing Scourge, Antitheus
There’s no shortage of musicians with bones to pick with organized religion, but perhaps none so much as Glen Benton, singer and guitarist of Deicide. The man burned an upside-down cross into his forehead, just to express his consternation. If that sounds over the top, well, so is his music. Deicide are one of the original Floridian death-metal bands, and while Cannibal Corpse have aged a little better, Deicide’s self-titled LP and their sophomore joint Legion remain classics of the genre. Dethklok this ain’t. Expect warp-speed drums, hurly-burly guitar riffs, and a whole lot of heresy. In a world where Ted Cruz might be president, maybe we could use a few more Glen Bentons around. JOSEPH SCHAFER
Primal Fear and Luka Turilli's Rhapsody with Substratum and Children of Seraph
No metal band has more kickass tunes about how kickass it is to be in a metal band than Primal Fear. These fist-pumpin’ German power metallers are more self-referential than a Rickey Henderson postgame interview. Sample jams: “In Metal We Trust,” “Metal Is Forever,” “In Metal,” “Metal Nation,” etc. All of them kick subtlety right in the nuts with upper-register vocals powerful enough to shatter the windshield of an earthmover, incessant dual-guitar peacockery, and totally non-wimpy keyboards. Seriously, the number of sprained vertebrae left in the wake of a Primal Fear gig makes us wonder if their current tour isn’t sponsored by the American Chiropractic Association. As far as guilty pleasures go, these dudes will get you 25 to life. Get an attorney—and a neck brace. JASON BRACELIN