A profile of Jamie Spiess of Husbands, Love Your Wives:

At a recent show at the Tractor Tavern, Jamie Spiess—the young woman who performs under the name Husbands, Love Your Wives—arrived just moments before her set was scheduled to start, spent its first few minutes tuning up onstage in front of the small crowd, and then introduced her first songs thusly: "I've never played this song in public before, but I'm sure you've all had a similar experience.... The last time I played the Tractor, I had just gotten out of the hospital." The room shifted from polite to nervous silence. "And last night, I just got out again. So... cheers. You can buy me a drink later."

And an online-only extended interview with Spiess:

"I surprisingly am [comfortable playing live]. My first few times I was horrified, but I really like to do it, if the people are listening. You know, I get heckled a lot, playing at, like, the Comet—the most inappropriate place for me to play ever. But I've come to really enjoy it, in a way that, like, it's healthy for me to do. It's really important to have some work that's separate from me, 'cause now it's like all of these things that have happened are turning into this separate thing. Like, that's Husbands, Love Your Wives, and I'm Jamie, you know what I mean? That's why I don't play under my own name."

David Schmader on the phenomenon of multiple personalities in pop music, as perfected by Kool Keith (aka Doctor Dooom, Doctor Octagon, Black Elvis, etc, etc, ad nauseam):

In the end, the richest motive for creating an alter ego remains the basest: to fuck with people's heads. And in this regard, Kool Keith is the eternal master. After introducing himself on Ultramagnetic MC's classic Critical Beatdown, Keith Thornton set about amassing a stable of alter egos now numbering in the dozens, among which reside a small handful of "major" characters—Dr. Octagon, Black Elvis, Dr. Dooom—who routinely fight and kill and resurrect each other, existing primarily to illustrate what a uniquely insane bad-ass Kool Keith is. Major characters come with bios ("Dr. Octagon is an extraterrestrial time-traveling gynecologist and surgeon from the planet Jupiter") and give interviews. As Reverend Tom—Kool Keith's alter ego in Thee Undatakerz—he told a journalist in 2003, "It's better to morph than to stay who and what I am, because if I was to stay that way, then your government wouldn't allow me to be here any longer."

Dave Segal on beat-seeking punks (and ex-Black Eyes) Mi Ami:

Watersports bears similarities to postmodern dance-floor agitators like fellow San Franciscans Tussle and !!!, but Mi Ami have also been influenced by some of the funkier post-punk bands of the early '80s (the Pop Group, 23 Skidoo, Bush Tetras, etc.). They've slightly toned down the guitar onslaught of Black Eyes and opted for a more spacious approach that's danceable and also texturally fascinating. The disc's seven tracks reveal Mi Ami's mastery of tension-and-release song structure. Dominating the foreground, Martin-McCormick alternates between fragile falsetto and primal-scream theatrics (think Ian Svenonius at his most unhinged).

And on infernally noisy Seattle ex-pat Filastine's Dirty Bomb:

The follow-up to 2006's similarly promiscuous, beat-mongering effort Burn It, Filastine's Dirty Bomb (Soot/Post World Industries) is a bounty of ethnic-music hybridizing. Thankfully, Filastine operates several kilometers away from the Putumayo's domesticated style of world-music branding.

On Dirty Bomb, the sonic equation is eclecticism minus dilettantism plus profligate rhythm collision, equaling an often disorienting, sometimes beautiful sound-clash that speaks in a riot of tongues.

Larry Mizzell Jr. on "one of Seattle's most bizarre/incredible individuals, the incomparable Murder Dice":

Dice's hook on "Wu-Tang Breath" off of Sol's album The Ride (get at that) convinced me that he and Sonny Bonoho should just cut the shit and form a Beyond Thunderdome R&B supergroup. FYI, I will not be making any Chris Brown jokes at this time.

Casey Catherwood on upcoming all-ages shows at Cairo gallery:

On Saturday, February 21, Seattle's Love Tan crash into the joint like a boulder through a pane of glass, their hazy, echoing punk sound riding a line between glossy and jagged. On songs like the druggy haunt "Fuzzy Grave," the duo—featuring ex-members of the Intelligence, another band known for their foggy sound—thrash on drums and wail on thick, surfy guitars, all while moaning and wailing like zombies afraid to get a little wet at high tide. Their songs rise and fall like wicked rip curls, making for a wild ride reminiscent of the gnarly noise of fellow weirdo rippers A-Frames.

Christopher Delaurenti on Arnold Schoenberg's Erwartung and Bela Bartók's Bluebeard's Castle::

The other half of Seattle Opera's program, Bluebeard's Castle, might be the only opera ready to be remade into a torture-porn splatter film. The aging Duke Bluebeard, who has just eloped with the lovely Judith, yields to his young wife's insistent demand to see what lurks behind seven closed doors inside his dark, dank castle. After each door opens, the rooms—a torture chamber, an armory, the treasury, and so forth—reveal more about the enigmatic duke. Bleak and quiet, trembling woodwinds, discreet strings, and an occasional burst of brute percussion accentuate the doomed couple's escalating torment.

Michaelangelo Matos on new remixes from the Juan Maclean:

Last spring, the Juan MacLean issued "Happy House," an E-shiver of a tune that made 12:40 go by so swiftly I figured an hour of variations on that sunshine-disco tract wouldn't be too much to ask. I was wrong two ways: MacLean's The Future Will Come (out on DFA in April) is more of a grower than the in-your-face "Happy House," and even that 12-inch's tinny keyboards rising into the mix halfway through didn't prepare me for how synthy this prime new remix from MacLean sounds. His reworking of Brazilian electronic duo the Twelves' "Be My Crush" sets a half-dozen or so glowing synths spritzing side by side, shooting off tiny sparks together.

Plus: Album reviews of the Music Tapes, Andrew Bird, Mountains and Pan-American; our Up & Coming show picks; Party Crasher; Poster of the Week; and as always our complete, searchable Music Calendar Listings.