On their MySpace page, Seattle foursome Eastern Grip refer to their music simply as messed-up pop songs. What do they do to mess up the straightforward melodies they come up with? They poke, pull, twist, and pummel them with guitars that sometimes twang country-like, and other times crunch angularly in an early 90s indie-rock kinda way, and still other times feed back with vigor. Then they kinda bash them around with clattering rhythms, and sing and yelp in ways that will never get you onto American Idol. Other times, they hardly mess em up at all like Boots On, a classic slab of rollicking power-pop with a Pavement-ish edge that only has a little bit of weird noise in the choruses. This show celebrates the release of the quartets new full-length, Griptheria, which Im sure they hope you purchase at the show before you spend all your money buying beer and getting messed up yourself.
Thu., Dec. 18, 9 p.m., 2008
