Kikagaku Moyo will be at Neumo’s this Friday – October 5, 2018 (tickets / show info). The linguist in me wants to relate Kikagaku Moyo’s name to its English translation (“geometric patterns,” or so says Wikipedia and bandcamp). That impulse notwithstanding, geometry wanders into the Tokyo-based band’s guitar forestry – not in a face-peeling blaze […]
Show Date: April 26, 2018
A Saturday morning setting: NPR’s on the box, and the rain is back, maybe vengefully. Just after a story on one of Trump’s toadies, Khruangbin’s “Two Fish and an Elephant” (or was it “Dern Kala”?) peeks out as NPR’s between-story bumper music. Lo and behold: I was making coffee, booting up to write about the […]
Recommended Show: The Moondoggies at the Neptune Theater this Friday – April 13, 2018 with special guests: Grand Hallway, Le Sang Song {more info} The Moondoggies come from a layered place. Marine air gathers over Everett, and the clouds pile up. They might on occasion roll in off the water, weaving with air masses captured […]
Show Date: November 29, 2017
A dozen years ago, when I first caught The National at the Crocodile, Alligator had just come out. Matt Berninger’s drowsy, chesty voice seemed like the draw. Joy Division had been reborn as Interpol. Stuart Staples had gone from head Tinderstick to a solo artist. Everyone was going at least an octave lower, and some […]
King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard will be at the Neptune Theatre on October 10, 2017 with special guests Tropical Fuck Storm starting off the show (more info and tickets). So, assume you’re in a band. You get high a lot. (It’s Australia). You have a bunch of friends with guitars and a couple pals […]
Seun Kuti & The Egypt 80 will be at the Neptune Theatre on October 3, 2017 (more information and tickets). The lowest of low ends, the longest of grooves, and a smoldering mix of frontward horns and laconic, slinking guitar riffs: This is Seun Kuti and Egypt 80. And for Seun, it must be weighty […]
Marshall Crenshaw y Los Straitjackets will play at the Tractor Tavern on Saturday, September 16, 2017 with Kim Virant and Friends opening {tickets and more info}. Nary a band in lucha libre masks can match Los Straitjackets. Always an enigma wrapped in a (wrestling) mask, they’ve bent strings and chugged along for decades, and now […]
Show Date: August 15, 2017
Back in 1987, being the music editor on the University of San Diego’s newspaper was a sweet gig. Think of springtime ’87, and the sheer tonnage of tunes blurs the mind: My most-loved promos included Dinosaur Jr.’s “Little Fury Things,” Sonic Youth’s Sister, the Leaving Trains’ Fuck … and that’s just the SST Records stuff. […]
Amadou & Mariam will be at the Triple Door on August 9 and 10, 2017. The Wednesday (August 9th) show will have Smokey Brights opening. The Thursday (August 10th) show will have Shovelman opening (more info). At an unlikely intersection of desert blues, the Scissor Sisters, Manu Chao, Blur, TV on the Radio, Santigold, and […]
Animal Collective will be at the Neptune Theatre in Seattle, WA this Thursday, June 29, 2017. Opening the show will be special guests: Eyvind Kang and Jessika Kenney. Doors at 7pm (get tickets / more info). Never quite raconteurs – more like your sound-drenching lysergist pa!s that make you sleep late after they’ve hung out […]
