Down with 2019, all hail 2020! This is the year folks, we’re going to dump Trump AND I’m going to marry Kate Bush. Wow, so much to look forward to! But for real, 2020 is my vision with corrective lenses and is Justin Timberlake’s best album, so we must be in for a treat.
2020 will also see the continuation of my radio show, Love Potion No. 69, on SPACE 101.1FM! 10PM Wednesdays and uploaded to Mixcloud on Thursdays.
Strong start, check it out:
somesuprises // drowse // Fotoform
January 11th, 2020
KAME Hou$e 206
Small/big, fragile/strong, soft/hard, that is often how the trajectory of a somesuprises composition goes. Being sonically brought into yourself to explore the murkier parts of your human emotion just to be expelled back through a slow build that you haven’t noticed creeping up on you until it’s too late and the story has run its course. The soft-focus of Portland’s drowse is the aural equivalent of works by Gerhard Richter; contemplative, slow, timeless. Fotoform’s blissed-out post-punk will perfectly set the mood for KAME Hou$e.
FFO: Cigarettes After Sex, Grouper, Underpass
The Space Lady
January 14th, 2020
Substation
Susan Schneider, aka The Space Lady, a onetime street performer, uses a simple, battery-powered synth, her etherial voice, and that’s it. But with that barebones setup, The Space Lady creates narratives that take us away from planet earth and has us searching for the simple traits that make us all human. Her earnest lyrics, outsider compositions, and her ability to reach across ageist/sexist/economic constructions of the music industry makes The Space Lady an unsung music legend in her own time.
FFO: Anika, Broadcast, Saâda Bonaire
King Khan & BBQ Show // Acid Tongue // Bad Blood
January 18th, 2020
Clock-Out Lounge
Direct disciples of MC5, the gospel according to King Khan & BBQ Show includes heaps of bodily fluids, leather thongs, and lots of love. The duo, now split between Montreal and Berlin, hasn’t toured the US in three years and, as a strict adherent to their liturgy, the boys have a lot to say. Don’t let all the sweat pouring off of their bodies scare you off, understand it as a renewed baptism, one that can’t be washed off no matter how many showers you take. Trying out a new religion won’t hurt any of you sinners, even if it is some whacked out doo-wop-garage-punk-deluxe sermon.
FFO: The Pleasure Seekers, Nobunny, Hunx & His Punx
portrayal of guilt // Street Sects // Haunted Horses
January 18th, 2020
Substation
Austin, Texas is here to punish you. Crushingly uninterested in what you or anyone else has to say about them, portrayal of guilt destroys worlds. Blood-chilling screeches over one of the most interesting rhythm sections in hardcore/metal today; the bass is more akin to Albini-sized noise than anything and the drums are early hardcore sloppy (which is a good sloppy) that leads to a feeling of wanting to open up a pit instead of just standing there and nodding your head. The noise-punk two-piece Street Sects is also here to end you, but only after they make you fall in love with them. Seattle’s Haunted Horses will open the night by setting you on fire.
FFO: Uniform, Bad Breeding, meth.
Love Potion no. 69 w/ DJ Dick’s Deluxe
January 21st, 2020
Bait Shop
I’m back at the fabulous Bait Shop with heaps of new tunes I’ve been diggin’ up for the radio show! Euro-surf-trash-garage-punk-explosions! It’s gonna get wild and sweaty kids, so hold on to yer butts!
Wynonna (Judd)
January 24th, 2020
Clearwater Casino
2019 was the year of the yeehaw but the 2020s are about to be the decade of radically rethinking about how we, as a society, think about women in music. Women such as Dolly Parton, Beyoncé, and FKA twigs are challenging the largely white, straight, cis, males that hold the keys to the pearly gates of artistic success. Sadly, outside of those very few female pop superstars, women’s voices often go unnoticed. But check it out, Wynonna Judd has been going through the wringer in a very public way since the early 80s with tragic family politics, extreme highs and extreme lows in her career, health issues, addiction, etc. all in the realm of country music, a historically misogynistic sector of the music industry. This is a chance to see a woman who has persevered through it all and sing some of country music’s most recognizable bangers.
FFO: Reba McEntire, Dixie Chicks, Shania Twain
Heiress // Witch Ripper // Deadkill
January 24th, 2020
Clock-Out Lounge
Heiress is one of those Seattle-area bands from the mid-00s that heavily defined what I was buying at Sonic Boom at the time. They’ve got the classic setup that produces that frantic wall-of-sound akin to Harkonen or Sumac or Baptists or Roy or Neurosis or House of Low Culture or any number of PNW bands that were heavier-than-thou back in those days. But not heavier than Thou the band, it’s hard to be heavier than Thou the band. Anyways, this show is about to suffocate you with riffs.
FFO: all those bands previously mentioned
Laser Beam // 2 Libras // Shame Banger // Dear Child
January 29th, 2020
Central Saloon
So my uncle is in Shame Banger. When my uncle would smoke me out in high school, he was in a band called A Gun That Shoots Knives. Post AGTSK, I saw my uncle play at Cha Cha with a band called Sperm when I was under 21. My uncle is a real cool guy. In all seriousness, Shame Banger is tight. Big 80s metal/goof-punk energy put through the meatgrinder that is Seattle. It’s also so cool that Lazer Beam and 2 Libras offered to throw an after-party for Shame Banger. It’s going to be hard to keep that energy going tho…
FFO: Murder City Devils, Electric Six, Sperm
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