by Stranger Things To Do Staff
If you happen to survive what has been drummed up to be the storm of the century this weekend, then you'll have plenty of concerts to attend next week to celebrate your continued existence. We've got everything from an earnest harkening back to the golden age of public transportation, to pot-addled aliens hanging in the balance, to three women who should have just bitten the bullet and toured together in a fit of Lilith Fair bacchanalia. Check out these shows and more in our music calendar.
OCTOBER 17
Lvl Up, Great Grandpa, Trashlord, Whitney Ballen
Most of my workday (and life) is spent ignoring indie-rock bands. Rock and roll has the capacity to be the most boring and uninspired of genres, and when some deeply entitled dude is demanding you give him your time when his pet project sounds like everything that has come before it (and each that will follow), it can be difficult to get excited about certain qualities. LVL UP don’t necessarily break this barrier, but they definitely insert a spring into the genre’s step. They harness their earnestness as a sort of doom-saddled-yet-youthful surge that powers each of their tracks. This is contemplative indie rock, but it shreds, with a growing-pains energy that rings true without shrugging into sophomoric feats. KIM SELLING
Purity Ring with HANA
In case you missed the memo, trashy is the new classy, and the music of ice-pop purveyors Purity Ring skillfully walks the line between club conquering and heartrending in a sonic strategy that can only be called “schlock and gloss.” KYLE FLECK
Rachael Yamagata with Pressing Strings
Invoking the spirit of Fiona Apple, Rachael Yamagata uses her lilting husky tones to conjure lush romantic moods within pristine piano ballads.
OCTOBER 18
Carolyn Wonderland
Blues singer and guitarist Carolyn Wonderland has fielded comparisons to Janis Joplin and Stevie Ray, and she will showcase that talent with a two-day performance stint that promises to focus on Texas blues tradition with soul and R&B classics. (Through October 19)
An Evening with Terry Bozzio
Had a Facebook friend unfriend me (again) over whether a melodic drum solo is possible. This guy hates drum solos, and he’s not alone. He doesn’t believe melodicism is possible on the drums, and he’s not alone. Against this dogma comes Terry Bozzio, who lasted longer than most with Frank Zappa (who was murder on his drummers) and played with Missing Persons—where his now-ex-wife Dale Bozzio gave Lady Gaga most of the Gaga playbook. Now he’s got the World’s Biggest Drum Set, which must weigh several tons (look at his web page for the specs), and he’s going to play an entire evening of solo drums on this behemoth. I’m going to see if he can hold down an entire evening with drums. And just maybe—gasp—melodicism? ANDREW HAMLIN
Temples with Triptides
Neo-psych outfit Temples journey from the Midlands to bring their sunshine warp to this rain-soaked land. They'll be joined by Triptides.
OCTOBER 19
Alejandro Escovedo with Guests
I’m steeling myself for a Trump presidency. All rational and caring Americans must do so. I’m figuring what I’ll need to get through and help others get through. I’m reading H. P. Lovecraft’s “Till A’ the Seas,” the testimony of the last (hu)man left alive. Closing time. Alejandro Escovedo started out as an angry punk rocker, but he remembered that punks have passion. He infuses passion into everything he’s done since, from country-punk to country to singer-songwriter stuff. Remembering always that as long as we have passion, and compassion, and the big, wet, ugly thing called conscience, we’ll have hope. We’ll be worth saving. Big Orange and his disciples can’t reckon something that complicated. For the rest of us, it only takes courage. That simple. That scary. ANDREW HAMLIN
An Evening with Paula Cole
Relive the top-charted Lilith Fair heyday of the '90s with Grammy-certified songstress Paula Cole. Make sure she plays "Where Have all the Cowboys Gone."
Christine and the Queens
Tiny French firecracker Christine brings her Queens on the road to the Showbox for a night of clashing Euro dance-pop.
How to Dress Well with Ex Reyes
How to Dress Well (Chicago producer/vocalist Tom Krell) is another of those well-groomed electronic-music crooners winning the hearts and minds of America’s sensitive yoof. The eternal struggles of young folks’ tentative stabs at romance stir swirling drama in How to Dress Well’s intimately spacey songs. Like a more extroverted and less bass-loving James Blake, Krell began his odyssey in a lo-fi R&B vein, reveling in hazy production techniques like “an Aaliyah-worshipping Ariel Pink,” as Kyle Fleck once wrote in these pages. With his new album, Care, How to Dress Well enlists highly evolved ambient and experimental musicians like Kara-Lis Coverdale and CFCF to produce some tracks. They’ve helped to make his music pop with more high-def timbres and swell with more expansive atmospheres while goosing his falsetto to flutter higher than ever. Care proves that How to Dress Well is big-outdoor-festival ready. DAVE SEGAL
Kanye West
The last time Kanye came to Seattle was for the maiden voyage of the Yeezus Tour, and despite some major hiccups (starting—and running—late, dancers stumbling, Kanye threatening to fire somebody from the stage), it was a totally engrossing materialization of that album’s jagged, glaciers-of-steel abrasiveness, with a heavy pour of Jesus Juice–flavored Sno-Cone syrup on top. (It was also rather weakly attended.) The Saint Pablo Tour features Kanye atop a moving, floating stage, tethered like a high-altitude construction worker, performing his endlessly tinkered-with eighth album. The Life of Pablo is a near-perfect synthesis of every phase West has gone through, and possibly my favorite record by him. This show will be an ideal place to find a fashion-forward mate, a young entrepreneur, and a thrilling, high-production-value concert. It will also be a good place to not run into your annoying officemate whose unbidden anti-Kanye rants verge on racist, supporters of the GOP nominee, and music snobs, in general. LARRY MIZELL JR.
Norah Jones with Valerie June
Husky-toned Shankar daughter Norah Jones takes on a myriad of genres, notably jazz and blues, in her new album, Day Breaks.
Tomten, Scarves, A. Francis Vilendrel
Tomten are still killin' it with their dreamy yet razor-sharp ’60s pop (sike). I LOVED their first record, Wednesday's Children, and their latest LP, The Farewell Party, has a bit more of a lysergic atmosphere. Tho’ Tomten are self-described as “baroque pop,” their baroque-ness, while ’60s-infused, isn't reliant on the period's thick harmonies and harpsichord. MIKE NIPPER
OCTOBER 20
Alice Cooper
Just in time for a Halloween wind-up, Alice Cooper is bringing his nightmare of a live show to Tacoma’s Emerald Queen. The set list is looking to be a sprinkling of original Alice Cooper Group’s ’70s jams and some of his later, solo ’80s MTV rock, surely to soundtrack his theater of beheading by guillotines, giant papier-mâché doll fights, straitjackets, and dead babies. Oh, and, as we’re careening toward a presidential election, there will be a bit of his “Make America Sick Again” show, as well; Alice Cooper Group’s song “Elected” has proven timeless! Though, now that I think about it, we might be smart to vote for Alice, ’cause the kids today would be better off with him as the Yankee Doodle Dandy in a gold Rolls-Royce! MIKE NIPPER
Death From Above 1979 + Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, Deap Vally
I honestly think Deap Vally’s got more going on than most folks talk about—although I haven’t ignored, in fairness, that they run around in very cut-off cut-offs. But the new album is called Femejism, and they no longer sound like two; they sound like a whole hall full of folks, confused, but passionate about being confused, unafraid of confusion. Bold. And one of the new videos has a pink yeti in it, or something. Black Rebel Motorcycle Club are critic’s darlings and probably need no introduction. Death from Above 1979 decided not to be a band after a while, but then changed their minds and I’m glad. You’ve heard of heavy metal? This is heavy rubber. Low as the bass goes, it always bounces. ANDREW HAMLIN
Faculty Recital: Stephen Stubbs, Tekla Cunningham — Stylus Fantasticus
The pillars of the ensemble-in-residence Pacific Musicworks—UW faculty artists Stephen Stubbs on lute and baroque guitar and Tekla Cunningham on violin—will exhibit a program of music performed in the style of the free-form violin music of the 17th century. They'll be joined by colleague Maxine Eilander on harp, with featured music by Farina, Fontana, Schmelzer, and Biber.
Goapele
Though music writers took a moratorium on using the word “chanteuse,” one must break rank for Goapele. This neo-soul chanteuse has been plying her brand of smoky, slow-burn beauty since the turn of the millennium, occupying the space between Sade, Jill Scott, and classic Erykah Badu. Her profile’s risen considerably in the past five years, with the crossover success of albums like Break of Dawn and Strong as Glass, and it’s not hard to hear why. Their addictive blends of aqueous keyboards and subtly stoned funkiness show a big-budget attention to detail, and Goapele’s strong yet silky come-ons sound better than ever gliding over the top. Her strongest track to date remains 2011’s superb “Play,” though. It’s like the classiest adult-contemporary you’ve ever heard, the midnight soundtrack to a high-speed train ride through Neo Tokyo to meet your lover across town. KYLE FLECK (Through October 23)
Golden Gardens, Surrealized, Eastern Souvenirs
Golden Gardens are in the business of conjuring—washing you from your natural state and manipulating this world into an atmospheric darkness of alchemical confusion and ensorcellment. The issue herein is their ability to convince you that what you’re hearing from them is more worthy than the world you were in prior to their influence. In moments of weightlessness, Golden Gardens can evoke the purest of Julee Cruise vocal intentions, with the strident reach of a more orchestral Sisters of Mercy, or Chelsea Wolfe. But rather than adults cornering the market of their subgenre, Golden Gardens feel more like Victorian schoolchildren playing at the macabre. KIM SELLING
Jacuzzi Boys, Boyfriends, Stallion
Though they formed almost a decade ago, Miami trio Jacuzzi Boys bash out their tunes as if they don’t have a second to waste. Not every song hurtles down the tracks like a runaway train, but most are short and to the point. It’s not that their music—a transistor-ready blend of glam, punk, and garage—is plain or simple. It’s just streamlined for maximum impact, like Cheap Trick by way of the Ramones. After a three-year stint on Seattle’s Hardly Art, they formed their own label, Mag Mag, and this year, they release their fourth album, the punchy Ping Pong. What fan Iggy Pop said about them in 2010 remains just as true today: “It’s a stupid name, but they’ve got a good spirit.” KATHY FENNESSY
of Montreal with TEEN
Of Montreal have been out-“of Montreal”ing all of you quirky jerks for years, so listen up. With a catalog that stretches back almost 20 years, and spawned from the sweet, chiming bosom of the Elephant 6 collective, of Montreal, anchored by songwriter and mystical thesaurus Kevin Barnes, has been shape-shifting for years without missing a beat. He’s cited influences like Sylvia Plath and the psychedelic movement of the ’60s for past records, and the 2015 studio release Aureate Gloom draws directly from the CBGB heyday, with Patti Smith and Television at the helm. Live shows with Barnes dolled up like David Bowie, and bacchanalian onstage dance shows promise to leave you wondering where the hell you are and why the hell you would ever want to leave. KATHLEEN TARRANT
Tom Odell with Barns Courtney
English singer-songwriter Tom Odell tours North America promoting his latest album, Wrong Crowd. He'll be joined by Barns Courtney.
OCTOBER 21
Billy Bragg & Joe Henry
More than 30 years ago, British working-class folk/punk songwriter Billy Bragg toured the UK by British Rail. Now joined by American songwriter Joe Henry, the two recreate old railroad classics, all whiskey-guzzling and lonesome whistles, on Shine a Light. Harmonizing with the pained zeal of dirt-caked, sun-stained, 19th-century railroad workers, Henry and Bragg allow the timelessness of the songwriting to shine. With the seasoned panache of a “protest singer,” Bragg tackles the shackles of this once-booming capitalist industry, and both singers capture feelings of workers’ oppression and the landscape’s physical vastness. Recorded at train stations on platforms and waiting areas, Shine a Light feels very genuine and alive, and is even currently high in the UK Americana charts. Fans of rugged old-school country, toothless-yet-golden-voiced buskers, and finicky finger-picking should manifest a ticket for their Friday night destiny. BRITTNIE FULLER
Earshot Jazz: Rudresh Mahanthappa Bird Calls
If you like your music fast, avant-garde, and swinging, you won't want to miss Mahanthappa's superlative band and their tribute to Charlie Parker. Bird Calls was named number one jazz album of 2015 by NPR and Downbeat; Earshot offers the chance to hear this dazzling homage live.
Jason Dodson, Naomi Wachira, Patrick Dethlefs
Maldives frontman Jason Dodson headlines this evening of lush Northwest folk talents, with vibrant songwriter Naomi Wachira, and stripped-down American enthusiast Patrick Dethlefs.
NadaFest
Welcome another local festival into the fray; this time it's NadaFest, thanks to the brains behind Ballard's Substation. Get ready for a whole weekend of PNW thrashers, including native hiphop queen DoNormaal, high-energy freaks Wild Powwers, and folkstars Hell Mary, the respective headliners for each day. (Through October 23)
Punk the Vote: BUTTS, Night Boss, Spray Tan, Corey J Brewer
Rachel Ratner of Wimps has taken our impending doom as a country to heart and started the Punk the Vote series, corralling local rock and punk bands to play charity shows intended to stir a social awareness that impels to action, and suck Trump down into the wasteland caverns of Hell where he belongs. The crown jewel of this series is the reunion of Butts, a totally-joking-but-kinda-serious punk duo that covered topics like their love of booze, struggles with money, and what you do when you run out of toilet paper. With loud irreverence and debilitating social anxiety, Ratner and Shannon Perry (of Gazebos) shredded through my shitty college student psyche back in 2010, and they’ll do it again to you for one night only. Joining them at this all-ages, Kill Rock Stars– and KEXP-sponsored spread will be Night Boss, Spray Tan, and Corey J. Brewer, with all show proceeds going to the Downtown Emergency Service Center. Show up, grab a free stamp for your ballot, and get active about saving our country from the discolored sociopathic blow-up doll that is Donald Trump. KIM SELLING
ScHoolboy Q with Joey Bada$$
One of Top Dawg's strongest assets has long been Quincy "ScHoolboy Q" Hanley. ScHoolboy (the "H" always capitalized in honor of his set, the Hoover Crips) has an instantly recognizable voice and flow, somewhere between Kanye's balls-out throat-clearing and Tha Dogg Pound's balance of lyricism with Funkadelic psycho-alpha hootin-and-hollering. He's not claiming to be a Good Kid, he's an unrepentant gangbanger, hardly believing that he's "finally the illest Crip" in the rap game. He's also startlingly upfront in his best moments, detailing his own pill addiction, and staying grateful for what he has. LARRY MIZELL JR
OCTOBER 22
Beat Connection, Brothers From Another, Sassyblack
Seattle electronic-pop quartet Beat Connection’s hard work over the last few years has resulted in a deal with the huge indie label Anti- (home of Tom Waits, Neko Case, Simian Mobile Disco, etc.). Their vocal-centric 2012 album, The Palace Garden, exudes a glowing optimism, with melodies that glisten and go down easy and beats that politely coax you to groove. The apotheosis of this style is “Further Out,” which seems destined to appear in an inspirational youth-oriented film, TV show, or advertisement any minute now. Their Anti- debut full-length, Product 3, boasts more rigorous, danceable beats and even hints of tropical funk. Sounding more melodically mature and rhythmically confident and lubricious, Beat Connection seem poised to climb to a higher level on the mainstream dance-music food chain. DAVE SEGAL
Fly Moon Royalty, Iron Eyes, Phnk, Peace & Red Velvet
If you know anyone who's still whining about how "Waaaaah, no one ever dances in Seattle," then you need to shut them up by getting their ass to a Fly Moon Royalty show, stat. Not only does the duo—Adra Boo and Action Jackson—sometimes come equipped with their own back-up dancers, but their smooth and sexy electro-flavored R&B tunes gets just about every butt shaking. Even me, a person who always says "I don't dance! I'm a terrible dancer!" It's true, I am, but when it comes to Fly Moon Royalty, all bets are off—I will shake my ass proudly and, as Boo sings, "If you don't like me, then tough titty." MEGAN SELING
Ingrid Michaelson
Sassy bespectacled singer-songwriter Ingrid Michaelson shows her piano chops and decades of charting experience at the Moore on her Hell No Tour.
Leyla McCalla, Dom Flemons (Carolina Chocolate Drops)
Leyla McCalla combines her New York roots with her classical cello background and Creole and Haitian musical traditions into a folk-infused rendering of many varied beauties played on cello, guitar, and banjo. She'll be joined by her partner, string-band style virtuoso and founding member of the Carolina Chocolate Drops Dom Flemons, and opening guests.
M Ward with Lemolo
In addition to the old-world tone of his guitar and the beamed-in-from-afar blast of his voice, most of M. Ward's songs are about distance, or the past, or other fable-big spans of time and space. M. Ward has been writing songs in this mode since he began writing songs. CHRISTOPHER FRIZZELLE
Uncle Acid & the Deadbeats, Danava, The Shrine
Place them in a time machine, and UK-based quartet Uncle Acid and the Deadbeats would fit right alongside Black Sabbath or Blue Cheer, with a blues-based sound heavy on the psychedelia. Uncle Acid’s name perfectly suits them. Take a quick glance at one of their albums and you can easily imagine the sound—druggy, heavy, creepy. Over the course of four albums, Uncle Acid have channeled an eerie 1960s-pop sensibility that complements their Tony Iommi worship quite well. Whatever you want to label them—“cult rock,” “horror rock,” “proto metal,” or “stoner rock”—Uncle Acid’s riffs and melodies are infectious, and just might control your mind. KEVIN DIERS
Yonatan Gat, Maszer
Heavy Israeli garage rockers Monotonix burned briefly but brightly during their tenure on Drag City, causing ruckuses on the live circuit with their incendiary, crowd-invading shows. After Monotonix split in 2011, guitarist Yonatan Gat—now based in New York City—scaled down the aggression and noise and ramped up the florid beauty and dream-logic songwriting of South American psych-rock groups like Traffic Sound and Os Mutantes while occasionally veering off on Afrobeat and Sonny Sharrock–ian avant-jazz tangents. As his 2015 album, Director, proves, Gat refuses to confine himself to any one style, while excelling at several. DAVE SEGAL
OCTOBER 23
Bad Luck, Conference Call
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
Black Marble, Ritual Howls, False Prophet
Black Marble’s 2012 debut LP for Hardly Art, A Different Arrangement, slotted all too neatly into streamlined, ’80s-synth-band revivalism. Granted, Chris Stewart (aka Black Marble) had mastered the lugubrious, deadpan delivery of Stephin Merritt, albeit not as magnetically as that famous grump. But there was little about the music that made it stand out. On the new It’s Immaterial album for Ghostly International, Black Marble has brought a more vivid production style, greater rhythmic variety, and perhaps a slightly jauntier mood to his songs while maintaining an overall downer vibe that will resonate with fans of New Order’s first two albums. So, progress. Ritual Howls brood with a brawnier, darker, electronic-rock attack that splits the difference between Sisters of Mercy and King Dude. DAVE SEGAL
Sleep with Helen Money
According to legend, San Jose stoner-metal gods Sleep delivered the master tapes for their beloved (and nearly unreleased) album Dopesmoker inside a human skull. The band denies this story, but it does underline everything about Sleep: morbidly funny and grandiose. Submitted as evidence: The aforementioned Dopesmoker is a single hour-long tower of Black Sabbath–worshipping power about aliens who live off marijuana smoke. That the band played a benefit show for victims from the Pulse nightclub shooting shows there’s more to their personalities than weed and metal. Opening act Helen Money plays heavy experimental music with one cello and a loop pedal, making the night overall something strange and mystifying. JOSEPH SCHAFER
Zakir Hussain & Niladri Kumar
Few things in life surpass the pleasure of exalted tabla players and sitarists dueting, and tonight Seattle is blessed by world-class Indian musicians Zakir Hussain and Niladri Kumar. The son of tabla great Alla Rakha, Hussain caressed the small Indian drums with Shakti, Grateful Dead’s Mickey Hart, and Diga Rhythm Band while Kumar has worked with genius fusion guitarist John McLaughlin and A. R. Rahman. Hussain and Kumar’s byzantine structures and chakra-aligning tonalities—a bulbous woodiness and a sparkling twang, respectively—intertwine in cosmic synchronicity and proceed with quicksilver fluidity. Prepare to spend most of the night with your mouth agape as your mind reels to two of the most enchanting instruments humanity has ever conceived. DAVE SEGAL