Ambulance/Wednesday, January 25
Listening to Ambulance, it’s easy to play a game of “spot the post-punk signifiers”: The local trio’s most recent album, 2010’s People in Places, features taut guitar lines, lockstep drumming, and brooding baritone vocals from singer/guitarist Sam Peterson. Combine these traits with the tucked-in button-downs and leather jackets the band dons in its press photos, and comparisons to Factory Records practically write themselves. However, Ambulance isn’t trying to put on some sort of elaborate Joy Division impersonation. Though People in Places was recorded while drummer Dillon Christopher and bassist Spencer Miller were still in high school, it confidently melds post-punk with modern influences —think the Strokes or Interpol—in a way that amounts to far more than pastiche. Live, these churning, driving songs should translate into nothing less than a raucous rock show. With The West, Us on Roofs. Comet Tavern, 922 E. Pike St., 322-9272. 9 p.m. $6. ANDREW GOSPE
Avicii/Wednesday, January 25
Of late, radio’s mercilessly been beating the Flo Rida smash single “Good Feeling” into our brains. Like many Flo Rida songs, it’s annoying. But behind his gratingly shouty rapping, there’s a great sample—21-year-old Swedish DJ Avicii’s “Levels,” an aqueous, uplifting house track that in turn samples the brilliant opening lines of Etta James’ 1962 hit “Something’s Got a Hold on Me.” “Levels” has become enough of a hit in its own right to chart on iTunes and the Billboard Hot 100. Avicii’s taking advantage of the fact that nothing’s more in vogue right now than dance music—two or three months ago you hadn’t heard of him, but now he hosts a popular monthly podcast called LE7ELS; his collaboration with David Guetta, “Sunshine,” is currently nominated for a Grammy for Best Dance Recording; and his “House for Hunger” tour is taking him around the globe. Paramount Theatre, 911 Pine St., 467-5510. 8 p.m. $40 adv./$45 DOS. All ages. ERIN K. THOMPSON
Monogamy Party/Thursday, January 26
Recent Good to Die Records signees Monogamy Party are a riotous, punk- driven three-piece fronted by a man called “Kennedy” with more photos of his partially clothed body—nearly naked and drenched in sweat, usually—on the Internet than Channing Tatum. The group’s Facebook profile says they’re about “3 dudes getting weird, getting heavy,” and everything from their lambasting live show to their debut EP Pus City—produced by Chris Proff (Strong Killings, Mercy Ties, Ravenna Woods)— confirms this very claim. The music is driving and expansive—for example, “Hard Feelings” with its percolating bass line, metal distortion, and lyrical barrage. Sensitive indie rockers beware: You will be sweated on, pushed, shoved, and possibly crowd-surfed over. All other hard-rock lovers: Rejoice. With Dog Shredder, Great Falls, Serial Hawk. Comet Tavern, 922 E. Pike, 322-9272. 9 p.m. $7. GWENDOLYN ELLIOTT
NoRey/Thursday, January 26
An international ensemble culled from more continents than a hand has fingers, NoRey plays deeply lyrical, rangy music which defies easy—or even hard—classification. Its lead singer, Colombian expat Alejandro Garcia, is a Javier Bardem soundalike who melts panties in three words or less, and was kind enough to play the fictitious role of bloodthirsty, coke-snorting chef Lou Kohl on a Seattle Weekly cover last year. If NoRey had existed in Malibu in the ’70s, they’d have been the house band at Margot Kidder’s pad, covering “Pusherman” every time Jack Nicholson or James Taylor showed up with a few grams and passing out on shag carpets and chaises longues at the end of the night (or morning). With Tiny Messengers, Henry at War. JewelBox/Rendezvous, 2322 Second Ave, 441-5823. 9 p.m. $5. MIKE SEELY
Fujiya & Miyagi/Friday, January 27
When Fujiya & Miyagi emerged in the mid-’00s, they seemed, along with bands like Hot Chip, to be part of a minor wave of stiffly funky British music nerds, mixing up cold, motorik grooves, electro-pop playfulness, and the sort of self-aware awkwardness that gets BBC comedies remade in America. But while Hot Chip evolved and enlarged their sound through house and indie rock, Fujiya & Miyagi have largely stuck to their winking minimalist guns, right on through to last year’s Ventriloquizzing, another predictably taut and deadpan batch of lock-groove funk. It can get to be a bit too much of a single good idea, but the band still shines in live settings, where their precise rhythms demand extreme control and musicianship, and where frontman David Best’s understated delivery packs a fun, subtle punch. With Yuni in Taxco, Glitterbang. Neumos, 925 E. Pike St., 709-9442. 8 p.m. $13. ERIC GRANDY
***EDITOR’S PICK
Naomi Punk/Saturday, January 28
This local rock trio—two members live in Olympia, one in Seattle—can be difficult to research, discuss, or write about, partly because one of the band’s aesthetic goals is to keep an enigmatic distance from marketing and media-based hype machines. They have an obscure website, stopandrewinddd.com, that links to some of their friends’ bands (M. Women, Milk Music), and have posted only one song, “The Spell,” on Bandcamp. The only thing to really talk about, then, is Naomi Punk’s music (and that’s exactly what they want), which chugs with heavy guitar riffs backing wispy but spirited vocals. The band spent the past 14 months recording a full-length, out this spring, which guitarist Travis Coster inscrutably described to me as being “about waves of feelings.” With Dana Jewell & The Hungry Heart, Dude York. Cairo, 507 E. Mercer St. 8 p.m. $5. All ages. ERIN K. THOMPSON
Filastine/Saturday, January 28
All music is “world music,” of course, and only typically Anglophilic/U.S.-centric mindsets make Orientalist curiosities out of sounds imported from other lands. But does that make world-sampling electronic acts like the Burning Man–rooted Beats Antique and Seattle expat (and Infernal Noise Brigadier) Filastine loving ambassadors, cagey appropriators, or something in between? Without guessing about anyone’s genuineness or multicultural credentials (although I know Filastine has traveled widely and well), it’s safe to say that the two acts present their globally informed beats in radically different ways. Filastine pushes polyglot bass music from a dirty, DIY rig that frequently includes him banging on a borrowed shopping cart, while Beats Antique bring traditionally higher production values, along with belly dancing. Me, I prefer the shopping cart. Showbox SoDo, 1700 First Ave. S., 652-0444. 8 p.m. $20 adv./$25 DOS. All ages. ERIC GRANDY
Gift of Gab/Sunday, January 29
Peerless lyricist Gift of Gab—real name, Timothy Parker—has seen his share of highs and lows. From surgery, rehab, and diabetes to highly acclaimed independent hip-hop albums as one half of Blackalicious—albums that cemented his reputation as one of the most lyrically dexterous MCs in underground hip-hop—Parker is no stranger to the twisting road of fortune. His fans have never lost their taste for his quick-lipped rhymes, and he recently posted a video to his website thanking the supporters who contributed financially to the making of the video for his upcoming single “Everything Is Fine.” The video is nearing completion, and his third solo release, Next Logical Progression—his smoothest, most positive work to date—is slated to drop in March. In spite of life’s ups and downs, things seem to be going just fine for Gift of Gab. With Th3rdz, Luke Rain, the Nightcaps. Nectar, 412 N. 36th St., 632-2020. 8 p.m. $12. GWENDOLYN ELLIOTT
