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Red Heart Alarm

Published 7:00 am Wednesday, July 21, 2010

Red Heart Alarm

Last Saturday, the Dusty 45s headlined an impressive local lineup at the PBRBQ (i.e, a barbecue sponsored by Pabst) at Slim’s Last Chance. If Seattle had its own search engine, and you typed in “reliably crowd-pleasing, highly competent, traditional rockabilly band,” the Dustys would be the very first return. But to some, their refusal to deviate much from the rockabilly purist’s canon can be a bit boring. The same cannot be said of Red Heart Alarm, who play Slim’s this Friday, a gig that serves as a release party for the band’s debut LP, White Elephants. They describe themselves as “gruntry”—grunge meets country, as if that wasn’t instantly obvious. And as awful as that label sounds, their music is anything but. Creatively, they’re the type of band the Dusty 45s should aspire to be. With Scrubjays, The Boxcar Rebellion. MIKE SEELY

Fri., July 23, 9 p.m., 2010