What’s Not Weak This Week – a local show roundup
By Jake Weller
Tuesday, April 17th
Absolute Monarchs are having their coming out party this week. Tonight’s regatta gala will be held at the Easy Street Records in Lower Queen Anne as an in-store performance. Come live the dream and witness these brash and bouncy post-punkers launch the audience into glittery fantasia with songs off their stellar debut full-length, 1. The formal cotillion is scheduled for Saturday; see below for details.
Later in the evening, it’s time get all warm and cozy at the Tractor Tavern on Ballard Ave. with Japanese collective Acid Mothers Temple & Melting Paradiso U.F.O., whose oft-improvised collaboration has the power to firmly tuck you into a psychedelic envelope and ship you to a separate location from your mental faculties. Joining them will be The Phantom Family Halo. All in all, a good excuse to go on a little vacation between your ears.
Wednesday, April 18th
The edgy, yet danceable, space rock quartet, Battle Stations, play The Funhouse tonight. They have been getting quite the good buzz around town, mostly due to the dearth of bands that sound anything like them. If Devo and Hint Hint got it on and pooed out baby named Spencer Moody, he would probably grow up to be a Battle Stations fan. Take that however you like. The Botherations and Chad Cook fill out the rest of this strong bill.
Blue Ridge, VA’s stony throwbacks, Pontiak, will bring their dynamic live set to The Comet tonight for an extremely rare treat. Supporting them will be the dark and heavy psychedelic moods of Midday Veil, as well as Scriptures, and The Midget (The Midget? really?! They had better be really awesome to overcome that name…or an actual midget…ideally both). Pontiak sound like the really good shit from the ‘70s that was way ahead of its time and is just now becoming relevant, and you are just now discovering and wondered how the hell it slipped past you over the last few decades. You know, it’s like when your friend holds up the album and looks at you incredulously, as if to say, “How have you not heard of these guys? They just seem so much like something you would have been into from way back when!” And you feel really dumb and unhip, and also a little scared, like you had a section of your brain that SHOULD HAVE FUCKING KNOWN BETTER removed by aliens… They’re kind of like that.
Saturday, April 21st
Hey, it’s Record Store Day!! Enjoy lurking outside a local record store in the early hours of the morning alongside fellow drooling music geeks, flask in hand, waiting for the doors to unlock. Help support everything music fans love, and get some great exclusive albums by one of the brazillion (or even, Brazilian, perhaps?) artists who contributed to the mayhem. Get drunk by lunch and yell at children passing by, as you drop your cellophane-wrapped collectables into a puddle that swiftly flows towards an open storm drain and on out to sea… Good times.
Resident busy beavers, The Absolute Monarchs, are at it again for the second time this week. Their new album, 1, has finally finished its arduous journey towards completion and release on Good To Die Records. They will be whipping it out tonight and exposing it to the audience at The Comet Tavern on Capitol Hill with support from Constant Lovers, Deadkill, and Murmurs. Considering the (well-deserved) hype and support they have been getting from the radio stations and rags around town, it could be a rarity in the near future to see them play venues as small as the Comet. And seeing as how they are likely best enjoyed in tighter, sweatier confines, this would be a good time to expose yourself to them as well.
Tacoma has itself quite a lineup at The New Frontier tonight as well. Seattle’s own Smooth Sailing and Grenades have been practicing their competitive cartwheeling skills and are marching Fifeward to rock the fuck out with a bunch of T-town metal junkies in Bloodhunger and the duo Tummler and Solomon. Expect the three Bs: Brutality, Bruising, and Baby Wipes. Oh, and Blistering! There will definitely be some blistering involved.
Sunday, April 22nd
The Cha Cha Lounge has been playing host to a number of great bands on a few special Sundays of late. Even though it’s a school night, a free show is hard to turn down, especially one that features Thinking Thieves, Haunted Horses, and Crime Wave. Having spent the last ten years cutting their teeth (as well as two instantly classic albums) in the highly competitive and creative artist stewpot that is Brooklyn, NY, Thinking Thieves have their finger on the pulse of outsider America’s desired sound, and yet, have still managed to retain their underground mystique and DIY ethics. All this, despite a near constant demand from major labels to forego self-releasing and sign for ungodly sums to their soul-less industry meatgrinder. This night marks their first time bringing their acclaimed fiery and frenetic live show to a Seattle audience, and their demand that it remain a free show is worthy of respect and attendance.
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