Evangelista ~ Wednesday, December 9
Lissa Ivy
Carla Bozulich’s new project, Evangelista.
Courtesy of Windish Agency
Elvis? No, it’s El Vez!
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One of the most important yet unsung women in rock 'n' roll, Carla Bozulich, is back with her umpteenth project, Evangelista, a masterful experiment in heavy, edgy wonder. Having proven herself as frontwoman for some of the most influential underground bands around—i.e., pioneering electro-noise combo Ethyl Meatplow, the twisted gothic twang of the Geraldine Fibbers, and her Northwest conceptual work as Scarnella—Bozulich has also taken on balls-of-steel solo projects like a song-for-song cover of Willie Nelson's Red Headed Stranger (to which Nelson himself contributed some vocals) and fostered collaborations with the likes of Mike Watt, Lydia Lunch, and Thurston Moore. By remaining fearless and unpredictable and never allowing herself to be pigeonholed, Bozulich is one of those rare working musicians who makes art for the sake of art—commercial viability be damned. With Thrones, Two Ton Boa, Resistor. El Corazon, 109 Eastlake Ave. E., 381-3094. 8 p.m. $10. MA'CHELL DUMA LAVASSAR
Grave Babies ~ Thursday, December 10
Everytime I gear up to hit Seattle, I put together a short list of the bands I've got to check out while I'm there. This week, a crazy, sinister little rock duo called Grave Babies has crept to the top of my list. Identifying themselves only as Evil Danny and Evil Tyler, these spooky dudes meld metal, punk, and edgy electro riffs into a beautiful mess of crazed darkness that makes your hands instantaneously form devil horns. One of those upstart bands you're always happy to stumble across on MySpace, Grave Babies perform twice this month with fantastically like-minded purveyors of hard noise, Arbitron. You can throw on your blackest T-shirt and catch them tonight at the Comet, or on Dec. 29 with me at the Funhouse. If you like them, keep an eye out for their debut Deathface online or soon at Sonic Boom. With Prison, Cat Band. Comet Tavern, 922 E. Pike St., 322-9272. 9 p.m. $6. MA'CHELL DUMA LAVASSAR
Mew ~ Thursday, December 10
Denmark's Mew gives prog rock a good name—their 2005 release, And the Glass Handed Kite, a critical success, was atmospheric and moody in a beautifully spacey way. Despite its melancholy poem of a title, this year's No More Stories/Are Told Today/I'm Sorry/They Washed Away//No More Stories/The World Is Grey/I'm Tired/Let's Wash Away is actually brighter, lighter, and even more earnest than previous efforts. On "Sometimes Life Isn't Easy," frontman Jonas Bjerre accurately sings, "Don't you know sometimes/When it feels like someone put a hex on you?"—and the music that accompanies his words is in fact spellbinding. Backed by springy synths, clean dance beats, and the occasional hard-rock riff, songs like "Beach" and "Repeaterbeater" have a simplicity that makes them engaging—the songs are ardent but avoid being bombastic. Mew is definitely a band that takes itself very seriously—a fact that could be annoying if its songs weren't so huge and so cinematic. Neumos, 925 Pike St., 709-9467. 8 p.m. $14 adv. E. THOMPSON
J. Tillman ~ Friday, December 11
The musical sensibilities of the two Tillman brothers have one clear thing in common: an understanding of both silence and stillness. J. Tillman, both a guitar player and drummer (with Fleet Foxes), seldom clutters his songs with heavy instrumentation. Instead he just sort of croons in his deep, breathy voice, letting a small-sounding guitar or brushed drums play behind him. When he's not singing—in those seconds between lines, or even between words—he lets the sound fall away, creating pockets of quiet in his songs. But for all his folk influences, there's a subtle pop sensibility in the title track of this year's Year in the Kingdom. You can almost hear where a little more electric guitar and a tambourine would fit in—and you can tell J. Tillman chooses not to fill that space. Zach Tillman, the creative force behind Pearly Gate Music (opening the show), is like the Neutral Milk Hotel to his brother's Neil Young. His recorded songs jangle and shake at times, rounded out by sounds like whistling and hand-claps layered among his voice and instrumentation. He fills in the gaps where his brother wouldn't. Crocodile, 2200 Second Ave., 441-7416. 8 p.m. $10. PAIGE RICHMOND
The Dandy Warhols ~ Friday, December 11
Chances are the last Dandy Warhols album you bought was Welcome to the Monkey House. Maybe you were surprised by it, especially if the only Dandy Warhols song you had really liked was "Bohemian Like You" on the earlier Thirteen Tales from Urban Bohemia. "Bohemian" is filled with Velvet Underground–style guitars and lead singer Courtney Taylor-Taylor's apathetic vocals, but Monkey House is less garage and way more synth-pop. Taylor-Taylor says, according to the band's Web site, that 2003's Monkey House did so poorly (the lone single, "We Used to Be Friends," failed to chart) and sounded so different because the band's label, Capitol, remixed the songs all on their own. Damn those major labels, right? So six years later Taylor-Taylor and crew have re-released the album, in the original mix by soul engineer Russell Elevado, as The Dandy Warhols Are Sound. But maybe Capitol was onto something: Monkey House was unique and experimental, but Sound is stripped down, all the electricity and energy removed; it sounds exactly like any other Warhols record. And if you haven't bought one in six years, you're not going to buy this one either. Neumos, 925 Pike St., 709-9467. 8 p.m. $20. PAIGE RICHMOND
