THE DONETTES
Rockabilly has always been one of the secret ingredients in punk rock; Charlie Feathers' pedal-to-the-metal summer hymns were the hillbilly kissing cousins to Chuck Berry's suburban blues. The key is not speed but the Big Beat: a reminder of a time when rock and roll was actually, y'know, dance music, rather than something to contemplate your pierced navel to. The Donnettessinger Rebecca Kemberling, upright bassist Kirsten Ballweg, rhythm guitarist Sarah Bratsch, lead guitarist Jonathan Stuart, and drummer Tom Forsternever forget that "rock and roll" was a euphemism not just for sex but for dancing, too. (And anyway, since when have the two ever been separate?) They're a mixture of the old standbysrockabilly, rock and roll, rhythm and blues, and both kinds of Southern music, country and western. 9 p.m. Country/Rockabilly
OLD TIMERS CAFɼ/B>
620 First Ave., 206-623-9800
ROBB BENSON
Through 11 years and seven albums, singer-songwriter Robb Benson has become something like Seattle's
Bob Seger, a perennial hometown favorite on the verge of greater success. Both solo and with his two bandsthe Nevada Bachelors and the Dear John LettersBenson marries lo-fi introspection with big, bright '70s chords and hooks. So maybe he's Seattle's
Alex Chilton then, except without the creepy subtext and classic-rock baggage. Over the last few years, he's opened for artists such as the
Posies,
Fountains of Wayne, Death Cab for Cutie,
Pedro the Lion, and
Harvey Danger, which may be the best gauge of his sound and range. Tongue-in-cheek but not so far that it's lapping the shoreline; retro-leaning but without the specter of irony.
4 p.m. Singer/Songwriter
WILLOW
What is it with preternatural musical savants and the dark side? Willow, like Jad Fair and Jandek before her, picked up a guitar one day in 1992 and started to write, formal training be damned. But instead of Fair's childhood-imp-of-the-perverse or Jandek's just plain creepiness, Willow belongs to a more formalist goth lineage, like a female Nick Cave (or at least the one who isn't PJ Harvey). Daughter of a preacher man and former hard-core Bible student, she also brings to mind Sixteen Horsepower's David Eugene Edwards, the son of a minister, who likewise straddles the line between sin and redemption, reveling in the fire-and-brimstone of it all. But unlike both Cave and Edwards, Willow's music is imbued with a gentle lyricismfull of swirling strings alternating with hushed moments of pure voicethat suggests redemption might be possible after all. 5 pm. Singer/Songwriter
ALICE STUART
They say it's not polite to mention a lady's age, but here it makes sense. Alice Stuart is 60 years old this year. Big dealso are millions of people, right? But few of them have been making music since 1961: fronting bands, playing guitar, and sharing the stage with some of the biggest rock, blues, and folk names of the decades that made those sounds important, like Lightning Hopkins, Joan Baez, and Jerry Garcia. It hasn't been a continuous journey; like a lot of musicians (the Velvet Underground's Moe Tucker comes to mind), she dropped out of sight in 1978 to raise her family before returning in 1992. Since then, she's released three CDs, the latest of which produced a song that was picked up by Miramax for inclusion in a forthcoming feature film. But Stuart's music remains the same down-to-earth combination of blues, country, and rock. 6 p.m. Blues
RADIO NATIONALS
With a name that somehow manages to conflate wishful pop superstardom with old, broken-down little red wagons, you'd be forgiven for guessing that Radio Nationals are an alt-country band. They've been compared to Wilco, but their love for crackling distortion and overdriven amps marks them closer to Jeff Tweedy's old band, Uncle Tupelo. But while there's a definite aggression to the Radio Nationals' attack (reminding us that Black Flag were once as important as Loretta Lynn in the alt-country canon), they just as easily slip into a tear-in-my-beer heartbreak mode, reminding us that Hank Williams was tuffer than Henry Rollins ever was. 7 p.m. Americana/Roots
MEMPHIS RADIO KINGS
The Memphis Radio Kings hearken back to a time when "new music from Minneapolis" was something to look forward to whenever it wasn't Prince or industrial disco. Basically this means "the Replacements," but also early Soul Asylum, Jayhawks, even Hsker D when they had the distortion turned down. Sprightly indie pop with a twang then, but before the twang took over and turned into alt-country. The band themselves state that "writing songs that first pleased [us], then eventually [our] friends and fans was, and remains, [our] only goal." Which is sound advice for anyone. 8 p.m. Americana/Roots
THE SWAINS
Is there a sound in music that evokes orange soda down the back of your throat on a hot, dusty summer's day better than pedal steel guitar? (That is, when it's not evoking luaus.) The Swains' endless summer is on some old honky-tonk shit, as easy to swoon to as jump and wail. This is music for a time when they called bars "saloons" without irony and 50 cents could buy you more than . . . wait, can 50 cents actually buy you anything today? The Swains should know, since they also bring that old-school work ethic, "the gigging band," at a time when guys in Stetsons make millions of dollars parading around behind giant Coke ads 15 times a year. While still too close to the verities of the old sounds to be "country" in the nu-Nashville sense, they're nonetheless more Dwight Yokam than Ryan Adams. 9 p.m. Country/Rockabilly
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