New faces, Death and rebirth
Favorite Seattle concerts of 2013
Death at Chop Suey, November 2
There wasn’t a better story this year than Detroit’s Death. The proto-punk family band was immortalized in the rock-doc A Band Called Death, which screened at June’s Seattle International Film Festival. In November, they celebrated with a sold-out tour of towns they’d never played, the Emerald City among them. The trio’s blistering set at Chop Suey mixed old songs like the government shutdown-appropriate “Politicians In My Eyes” with new ones like 2012 single “Relief.” Tough and tight, their enthusiasm was contagious. Who would have guessed a band called Death could be so life-affirming?
My Bloody Valentine at Showbox SoDo, August 21
In late summer, Irish-English shoegaze kings My Bloody Valentine brought their million-dollar sound system to Showbox SoDo, where they delivered a clinic on effects-pedal wizardry for a reverent audience. New material off this year’s M B V held its own with classics from 1991’s Loveless, and though they only played set closer “You Made Me Realise” for seven minutes rather than the customary 45, the capacity crowd didn’t mind, swooning and sighing as the band rained down its beautiful noise.
Yo La Tengo at Easy Street Records, January 18
There’s a memorable Onion article titled “37 Record-Store Clerks Feared Dead In Yo La Tengo Concert Disaster.” Thankfully, no one died at the New Jersey indie-rockers’ January in-store at Easy Street. But plenty cried, as it was the venerable Queen Anne vinyl emporium’s final night of operation. And the place looked wrecked, grubby-handed showgoers sifting through piles upon haphazard piles of discounted LPs, CDs and cassettes. As a send-off, the husband-and-wife career band played material from its exquisite new Fade alongside selections from its extensive catalog. Its set was shorter and mellower than a formal gig; still, the perfect medicine on a heavy day for Seattle’s music community.
Low at The Crocodile, April 6
It was a big year for Sub Pop in general, but especially for Low, another veteran group with a married core duo. While the Minnesotans’ tenth album The Invisible Way was one of their most popular to date, over the summer they made news for different reasons. Headlining a high-profile Minneapolis festival, the trio’s “set” was a droning half-hourlong version of one of its back catalog’s most experimental tracks, sparking a spirited debate about the social contracts artists enter into when playing shows for profit. Low’s spring gig at the Crocodile was comparatively by-the-book, but lovely just the same — a pitch-perfect performance of heart-melting slowcore for a rapt, attentive audience.
METZ at Neumos, May 4
METZ, a more recent Sub Pop signing, hearkens back to the days when grunge was more than just something you found under the sink. In pictures, the Toronto trio’s leader Alex Edkins looks meek and bookish, but onstage at Neumos in May, he was a madman, convulsing wildly, veins popping, appearing possessed by the massive sounds coming out of his amplifier. Though the band’s utilitarian noise-rock shoutalongs don’t break new ground, they’re surprisingly catchy. METZ returned in July for a spirited encore performance at the label’s 25th anniversary festival in Georgetown. Experimental popster Chad VanGaalen and indie dad-rockers Built to Spill also impressed, but that day belonged to…
Pissed Jeans at Sub Pop’s Silver Jubilee, July 13
With the mid-afternoon sun beating down, the Philadelphia foursome’s wisecracking frontman Matt Korvette writhed and yowled through ten honest, brutally funny missives from the emasculated male psyche, as his bandmates laid down tight, powerful tunes, equal parts speed and heft.
Gag at Barboza, March 21
Olympia’s Gag is a cult band. Not necessarily a band with a cult following — well, maybe that too — but a cult of a band, enamored with its own inside jokes. Its 2013 debut is called This Punk Shit Is Cool But I Hope I’m Rob Zombie When I’m 28, the cover art is a banana covered in metal spikes, and the inner sleeve lists “Clown Farm, Olympia WA” as the group’s mailing address. Gag was down a member for its March show at Barboza, yet still freaked out the squares and upstaged highly-touted headliners Iceage with ten manic, menacing minutes of feedback-drenched riffs and horror-show cackling — unhinged and unpredictable, how hardcore should be.
Diarrhea Planet at Barboza, September 14
Theoretically, Diarrhea Planet sounds like a gimmick, with its uncouth moniker and quadruple-guitar arsenal — but with energy, charm and talent, makes it work. On its fall tour, the young Nashville sextet treated Barboza like a stadium, blazing through lively originals off its recent I’m Rich Beyond Your Wildest Dreams, even faithfully covering The Beastie Boys‘ “Fight For Your Right” as an encore.
Haim at Neumos, October 23
The women of L.A.’s Haim, who played Neumos in October, have a nonchalance about them — carefree, colorful and friendly. But they’re serious about songwriting and arranging, taking ’70s folk-rock and ’90s R&B influences and crafting them into a sound all their own. Live, the sisters — bassist Este, guitarist Danielle and multi-instrumentalist Alana, plus drummer Dash Hutton — inverted the glossy sonics of their hit debut Days Are Gone for a surprisingly rock-oriented show that not only justified all the hype they’ve received, but proved they’re just getting started.
Savages at Neumos, September 23
Savages’ Silence Yourself was one of the year’s more divisive records. Some called the U.K. foursome — which melodramatically decries “a world full of distractions” on its album-cover manifesto, and prefers not to be photographed — uptight, unfun post-punk revivalism. But the crowd at the its sold-out September show at Neumos disagreed, hanging on every second of its razor-sharp performance. Onstage, Savages is a study in contrasts, from drummer Fay Milton, who can’t sit still, to frontwoman Jehnny Beth, with her piercing vibrato and thousand-yard stare. The band’s ace-in-the-hole, however, is guitarist Gemma Thompson, who plays with stoic precision and uses an array of effects pedals to emit alternately fierce, atmospheric sounds. Besides the album tracks, the early-20s group also played some hair-raising new material that showed it still has lots left to say.
