Thursday, May 7
They Might Be Giants
After 33 years together, TMBG remains a quintessential cult band that never made it big (and perhaps never sought such fame). John Flansburgh and John Linnell have had flashes of commercial success, like “Birdhouse in Your Soul,” “Boss of Me” (which became the opening theme to Malcolm in the Middle), and the Austin Powers theme song “Dr. Evil,” but who needs the the mainstream? Two guys with two million quirky song ideas, Flansburgh and Linnell always been slaves to their own whimsy—rather than the marketplace. Deploying their angular, power-pop nerd-rock sound, they’ve made albums for kids, albums about concert venues, and albums about science. This year the band revived its Dial-A-Song concept, releasing one song a week via dialasong.com (rather than the old telephone-answering machine of the ’80s). Their new album, Glean, released last month, documents the first several weeks of new songs, with two more albums slated to follow. Tonight the duo will play two full sets of music, with no opening act. That means the faithful will be rewarded with both new tracks and old favorites dating back to the vinyl era when TMBG got its Brooklyn start. The Neptune, 1303 N.E. 45th St., 877-784-4849, stgpresents.org. $27 and up. 8 p.m.
DAVE LAKE
Gilbert Gottfried
He became famous for partly the wrong reasons: the scrunched brow, the growling joke delivery, the whining and cringing and kvetching connective material, the pure shtick of it. Emerging from the comedy clubs of the ’70s, he never aspired to be Seinfeld-smooth or Letterman-regular. He put ethnicity and idiosyncrasy in your face, daring you to like him and, eventually, finding a national audience on SNL and MTV. Yet Gottfried was then and is now a traditionalist, despite the odd delivery. He’s a product of the Borscht Belt—or rather, an inheritor of that lineage, an epigone. An antic schlemiel onstage, he’s also the consummate professional, a voiceover veteran of Disney cartoons and the old Aflac duck. (He was fired from that gig for a Japanese tsunami tweet, which actually gives him more cyber-cred.) Forty years back, he might’ve seemed a novelty act—an anti-comedian, like Billy Crystal’s foul-mouthed id unleashed. Today he’s a venerable elder of stand-up. (Through Sat.) The Parlor Live, 1522 Sixth Ave., 602-1441, parlorlive.com. $25–$35. 7:30 p.m.
BRIAN MILLER
Friday, May 8
The Triplets of Belleville
Who needs modern CGI animation? This charming 2003 French throwback takes its cues from the past. Sylvain Chomet’s warm, wiggy first feature boasts great line drawings with offbeat, collectible sounds and music: part Django Reinhardt, part scat-singing, part Stomp. Blissfully, there’s no dialogue. Set in ’50s France, Triplets centers around a cyclist’s kidnapping by Mafiosi, who transport him across the ocean to Belleville, tracked by his grandmother and faithful dog in a rescue mission rather like Finding Nemo. Belleville looks suspiciously like a Frenchman’s view of Manhattan. It has a Botero-sized Statue of Liberty clutching a hamburger, an entirely overweight populace, and the Triplets—three old crones who were once music-hall stars of the ’30s. There’s never quite time enough to absorb Triplets’ decor, allusions, and sumptuous drawing, which Chomet is too cool to underline. The result is a fabulous melange of a movie. (Through Tues.) Central Cinema, 1411 21st Ave., 686-6684, central-cinema.com. $7–$11. 7 p.m.
SHEILA BENSON
Marc Maron
Always one of our favorite comics, Maron rescued himself from post-millennial depression and career doldrums with his garage-brewed WTF podcasts—now a must-do for his comedy cohort—and his newer cable show Maron, now in its second season on IFC. You can’t separate his braininess from his self-disgust; loathing the laziness of the world, the failure to put more thought into things, is a constant in his humor. He’s known for being cranky, if not quite a misanthrope. There’s a difference between expecting other people to let him down and being surprised by it; Maron belongs in the latter camp. You have to be an idealist before pessimism hardens your soul. Interviewed in the recent documentary Misery Loves Comedy, he told director Kevin Pollak that he got into the trade during the late ’80s because his comedy mentors “seemed to be in control of this horrendous hurricane of bullshit that comes to us every day.” A good joke, with an intelligent point behind it, is a way of making sense of that hurricane—even if it comes from within. (Ashley Barnhill opens.) The Neptune, $28. 7:30 & 10 p.m.
BRIAN MILLER
Sunday, May 10
Neil Diamond
When he tells you you’ll be a woman soon, you’ll be a woman soon. When he says Caroline is sweet, you sing along in agreement. When he declares that he’s coming to America, you travel with him. His name is Diamond, but you already knew that. Tonight, on Mother’s Day, the legendary crooner—74 years young—will pack the Key with a very particular demo: women from the baby boom (second husbands or boyfriends reluctantly in tow), raised on jukebox pop and AM radio, their ears transporting them back to teenhood at the first few bars of “Cherry, Cherry.” The man got his start penning songs in the Brill Building and placed early hits on The Monkees. He’s a part of musical and pop-cultural history, a complete egotist and ham, and utterly beloved by his fans. Lower Queen Anne will be ablaze with rhinestones tonight, and the tip jars will be full at Keys on Main during the preshow festivities. KeyArena (Seattle Center), 800-745-3000, keyarena.com. $61 and up. 8 p.m.
T. BOND
Monday, May 11
Music of Today: Harry Partch Instruments Presentation
As an aspiring composer growing up in America’s stiflingly Eurocentric classical-music world, Partch’s dissatisfactions were many. First among them were the parochial limitations of equal-temperament tuning, the standard 12-note scale you’ll find on any piano—which of course is not how the human voice works. “He wanted to find a way to accurately notate what the human voice does naturally,” says UW research associate Charles Corey, which led Partch (1901–1974) to invent his own instruments to accommodate alternate tuning systems and, ultimately, his personal vision of Greek- and Japanese-inspired music drama. Corey became the curator of that instrument collection, formerly housed at Montclair State University in New Jersey, and brought it to UW last December. Partch tinkered with the innards of a reed organ to create his microtonal Chromelodeon; other instruments of his are even more found-object-y, like an array of light bulbs played like a xylophone and gongs made from airplane nose-cones. Corey will explain and demonstrate all these and many more tonight, in preparation for two concerts of Partch’s music on May 26 and 27. Meany Hall, UW campus, music.washington.edu. Free. 7:30 p.m.
The Triplets of Belleville
IFC
