Live Music Roundup: Monday, June 1
Also, one of my favorite local party bands, the Coconut Coolouts, play a show at the Sunset Tavern tonight with Dreamdate, So Cow, and Sandy City at 9 p.m. for $6.
Peaches, Drums of Death at Showbox at the Market, 8 p.m., $20, all ages
Berlin-based electroclash artist Peaches (Merrill Nisker, pictured) was working the whole sans panties shtick light years before Lady GaGa picked up her disco stick. The former elementary school teacher achieved international success in 2000 with her sharp-witted dance track "Fuck the Pain Away," which spawned countless covers, including a hilarious YouTube parody starring Miss Piggy. Since then, Peaches' sexually provocative material and androgynous appearance have inspired countless dance artists and fashion spreads. Her new album, I Feel Cream, is in the same vein as her previous work, infused with sexy rasps, screeching guitar rifts, and pulsating beats. The wild songstress is known to make security guards' jobs difficult by refusing to stay onstage, ensuring that tonight's show should be entertaining as hell. ERIKA HOBART
Mount Eerie, Clues, Aqueduct at Neumos, 8 p.m., $15
Phil Elverum has gone by any number of different aliases during his 10-plus years of making music. A few years ago, he even changed the spelling of his last name. (It used to be "Elvrum.") He was known as the Microphones until 2003, when he released an album titled Mount Eerie. Since then, he's been using that album name as his moniker. When Elverum released a 7-inch in 2007 and credited it to Microphones, rumors started floating that he'd again drop the Mount Eerie handle. He's unpredictable in other ways, too: A prolific songwriter, he's known for recording short-run singles that are only available for purchase at his live shows.
A few years ago, he performed five shows in one day in Portland, Ore., at a number of mystery locations around town. But whatever he calls himself -- and no matter how unusual his musical career -- Elverum's music has remained the same. On some compositions, there are electronic drumkits keeping a tinkling beat; on others, it's just the Anacortes native and his guitar. But every song is identified by Elverum's slightly off-key half-singing, half-talking vocals. "What I am going to do with my life/Now that you're gone?" he sings on "Who," a Mount Eerie tune. These are haunting compositions about unbearable weight of life, and there's no better musician than Elverum to carry that load. PAIGE RICHMOND
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