Tonight’s pick:
1. Three popular bands are collaborating for a unique show tonight: Truckasaurus, with their hipster electronica, Fresh Espresso, with their psychedelic hipster-hop, and Head Like a Kite and their psychotronic electro-rock are going to play individual sets and then jam out on-stage, in different configurations and all together.
It’s gonna work.
Truckasaurus and their 1980s schtick and the waist-deep irony are the perfect match for Fresh Espresso’s Weather Report samples.
Tonight, at Neumos (925 E Pike Street), at 8 pm. Tickets are $10.
On Saturday’s Calendar:
1. Back in the ’70s and ’80s, Gahan Wilson did his best work—surreal and scary cartoons for the New Yorker and Playboy that, 90 percent of the time, didn’t make any sense at all. Cartoons that remind you how wacked out the generation that gave us After Hours and Oingo Boingo was.
Wilson is in town tomorrow night, at Fantagraphics, to do a signing and promote the absolutely awesome-looking three-edition Wilson collection that Fantagraphics is putting out. Fantagraphics will also be unveiling a giant statue of R. Crumb’s head.
Saturday night from 6 pm to 9 pm, at Fantagraphics Bookstore (1201 S. Vale Street)
2. All-girl garage-rockers the Vivian Girls are, unfortunately, usually aligned with ’90s feminist punk acts like Sleater-Kinney and Bikini Kill, and it’s not really fair. They’re more Ronettes than riot grrrl. Their songs are lo-fi, but they’re certainly more concerned about making pop music than they are about being angry.
But they’ve got the whole Brooklyn chic thing that’s been making everyone crazy for years. It’s making me crazy. Pretty-girl hipsters with a pocketful of great songs. I totally get it.
With Best Coast, TacocaT. Tomorrow night at 9:30 pm, at the High Dive (513 N. 36th Street). Tickets are $10.
3. Yesterday, we were offering a couple tickets to the Sound Off music festival (somebody won ‘em), which is really an epic, underage battle of bands. It starts this Saturday (with semi-finals round #1) and continues through the following two Saturdays.
The bands have names like A Cozy Kitchen, Sea Fever, and The Cat from Hue. They’re from places like Camano Island, Wenatchee, Kennewick, and Tacoma. The first place winner gets to play at Bumbershoot.
Saturday night at 7 pm, at the Experience Music Project (325 5th Ave N.). $7 for students, $10 for general public.
4. Valentines Day seems to either make you feel burdened and stressed about doing it right, or spiteful and angry about being alone. Some fucking holiday. On the Boards (the awesome Queen Anne-based arts non profit) is hating (and loving) on Valentines Day in their own way on Sunday, with a dance-revue mix up that reportedly features both the music of the Violent Femmes and something about Greek mythology.
Saturday and Sunday at 8:00 pm, at On the Boards 100 (W. Roy Street). Tickets are $18.
