By Jake Weller
Tuesday, April 10th
To look at the hulking, menacing, bearding, metal scene veteran who embodies the persona, King Dude, you might imagine something far more disturbing coming out of him than the darkly lush beauty he effuses when he performs. You wouldn’t be silly to do so, of course; his other projects include Book of Black Earth and Cross. Perhaps you would therefore imagine him stepping on stage only to devour a live goat and then return to his dressing room to await the encore chants – no one could blame you. Fortunately, this project is much more digestable than that, and he will be closing an incredible night of not-quite-quiet introspection at the Josephine on Tuesday. Geist & The Sacred Ensemble, [A] Story of Rats, and the indomitable Demian Johnston will provide the rest of the night’s moving sounds.
Sage-burning and self-serious, the doomy Portland black metal outfit, Atriarch, may be a little off-putting to the uninitiated, but given a chance, they will have you at their behest, kneeling, staring creepily and grinning, ready and willing to open a vein in gleeful sacrifice to the darkness by the end of their set. They are headlining The Highline Bar, also on Tuesday, along with Alaric, the doom-mongering Bell Witch, and Countdown to Armageddon.
Thursday, April 12th
If you have a Facebook account and are between the ages of 15 and 80, there’s a good chance that you are at least online friends with Sir Adam Bass. For those of you who currently enjoy a cave-dwelling lifestyle: Adam’s unending devotion to heavy music—as well as his hilariously chatty, extroverted stoner dynamism—has made his production company, Ladies’ Choice, a sure bet when scanning the weekly rags for loud entertainment. This night kicks off Choicefest (or rather, CHOICEFEST) – a four-night marathon of some of his favorite bands from around the region. The one stipulation for all bands performing is that they need to contain at least one female. While the existence of a sexist tinge to this requirement could be argued at length in the undergraduate classrooms at any number of liberal institutions around the US, it most assuredly was employed merely as a creative parameter for booking, and really points out the greatly increased participation and acceptance of women in the heavy music community today. The fact that the quality of the lineup on any given night hasn’t suffered one iota by limiting the pool of bands able to play it has rendered the limitation almost completely unremarkable.
Princess officially start the broiling process at The Comet on Thursday, supporting a tour-launching ubik, along with the always fantastic Kinski and Elk Rider. If you have not been fondled or hugged by Princess frontman/teddy bear, Andrew Chapman, at least once in your life, then you have never truly lost your virginity. His spastic dancing, screaming, climbing, and crowd-interacting have been producing grins since his days in the sorely-missed orc warrior troupe, The Keeper. Equally-impressive is the pedigree of the musicians behind him, plowing through their angular, groovy riffs like you just wrote them in your own head and decided they were amazing.
Friday, April 13th
Tacoma’s tight drum/guitar (and sometimes, drum/drum) duo, Lozen, headline The Highline for the second night of the LC Choicefest, and are always a highpoint on any bill they share. This one happens to give them some strong competition in Portland’s Fist Fite, as well as Sioux City Pete & The Beggars, Swayze, and Broxa. The string-playing half of Lozen, Hozoji Matheson-Margullis, divides her time with her other band, Helms Alee, and plays through a burly custom Verellen Meat Smoke amplifier called Jizz Toke. There really should be no other reason needed than that to find yourself at the Highline on Friday.
Saturday, April 14th
LC Choicefest carries on like Baby Huey, crushing competing shows in its path, by bringing the guitarless Portland (via Olympia) icons, Two Ton Boa, to The Funhouse to drive the audience down into pounding, danky dark sweetness with the Bay Area’s Amber Asylum, The Family Curse, Eight Bells (also PDX), and Luminol.
As much fun as Choicefest is looking to be, many folks may have a hard time turning down the chance to see the raw and driving Angelinos, Totimoshi, actually playing a smaller venue. The Comet Tavern, which fits the explosively dynamic trio perfectly, is hosting them on Saturday, along with the sarcastic and fun noisy punks in Android Hero, and the brilliant, head-ripping upstarts, Brokaw and Serial Hawk. There is no conceivable dead spot on this bill, and judging by the hoodie statements some of these bands’ members make, the good vibes and excitement of having them all play together should help blanket the crowd in cracktasmic ecstacy and beer foam.
Sunday, April 15th
Thus concludes LC Choicefest’s chokehold on the attention of Seattle’s heavy music hounds with a spectacular lineup at everyone’s favorite Eastlake cavern, The Black Lodge, featuring a trifecta of killer Portland bands, Black Pussy, Witch Mountain, and Transient. The misfits in this acclaimed batch of heaviness are Black Pussy, but that couldn’t make for a finer turn of events. Their soothing stoner psyche brings to mind what Fu Manchu would sound like if they wrote their songs during the part of a mushroom trip where everything is hilarious and fun, but nobody knows what the hell is going on. A blissed-out end to a long, wonderful night and weekend. Rounding out the set are local thundermuffins Don Peyote and everyone’s favorite neighborinos from the Great White North, Mendozza. This bill couldn’t be more awesome if it ate awesome for breakfast, then took an awesome dump, threw on some cologne called Awesome (for Bills), and walked around all day with no pants and a shirt that simply read “Awesome.”
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