Last week, instead of Bumbershoot and bars, we stayed in and nerded it up with 'Made In Sheffield,' 2002's long-needed documentary about the post-punk and new wave experiments of bands from Sheffield, England such as The Human League, Cabaret Voltaire, The Extras, Comsat Angels, ABC, and Pulp.

For an interesting, low-key piece of pop-culture propaganda, the core story is actually believable. Sheffield always did have a unique sort of music personality. While the city's aging industrial climate has lead to a claustrophobia for youth frustrated to escape, just like endless others around the world, its people, particularly in the late '70s and early '80s, got away from it all through strangeness and futurism rather than clichés and rage.

Nearly thirty years on, Cabaret Voltaire's The Voice Of America is one of the most harrowing after-drug freakshows of shattered song-structures, nauseously modulated monologues, hostile searches for revolution, and single-tone sonic attacks. The early albums by The Human League are still extraordinary little things that pit unsettling but barely understood synthesizers against bright pop music like new wave Roman emperor-droids of blue-eyed soul.

Sheffield often flies just enough under the radar that you might never connect its bands, who you could've listened to for most of your life, with the same hometown. Which doesn't have to be a bad thing.

It's more than a city just elevating its own fiction. Although removed from the generation and thousands of miles away, you can still hear Sheffield's voice, and how it probably was never more clear as it was then. The city's been less consistent since: for every Moloko or LFO, there's 65daysofstatic and the Arctic Monkeys. But the voice remains there, if you listen. Difficult to define, but easy to enjoy, and yet another ingredient in the overall sound of post-war England just as much as London or Liverpool or Manchester or Leeds.

Don't assume 'Made In Sheffield' will demonstrate any of this.

'Made In Sheffield' is discouraging. It's ropey. It clocks in at only an hour. 'Made In Sheffield' is a documentary in the sense that there are interviews with a handful of the key musicians — mostly Philip Oakey, Chris Watson, and Jarvis Cocker — and ridiculously sparse footage of old riots and album artwork. Considering such a relatively niche subject-matter, it's good that a film on Sheffield's music exists, especially one so well-intentioned. But like John Dower's 2003 Britpop film 'Live Forever' or Lara Lee's 2004 electronic music film 'Modulations: Cinema For The Ear', there's no sense of history or flow and what little you're offered makes it feel more like leftovers from another film. What's there is good, but there's not enough of it. Total wasted opportunity.

For a better glimpse of Sheffield, thanks to Brian Geoghagan, run right over to Damon Fairclough's heroically personal write-ups "Destroyed By Gods," which covers the city's after-punk Year Zero, and "Brain Aided Dancing," which covers the more modern and dance-cultural voices released under the art-directors Designers Republic.

"Destroyed By Gods":

Some bands just had to come from a certain place. Others just happened to be there. The latter are often confused with the former — but it's the former that make city music scenes matter. It's a mysterious thing, but I'm afraid it seems true, that some cities take on a musical form and sing while others just offer up lists of bands that are... well... just lists of bands. Sheffield is a city that does exist in this ephemeral form. Its sound is industry. It's pop. It's electronic. And it's raw. It's a narrative with its feet on the ground and its head in the clouds. Somewhere, without or within, it's glamorous — but like all the best glamour, it only comes out at night.

"Brain Aided Dancing":

This was a Republic with two leaders, two citizens, two workers. Namely, Ian Stirling Anderson and Nicholas Giles Phillips. They had a handful of record sleeve designs to their name, a studio that was barely six months old...and yet, every statement they made was loaded with a palpable sense of destiny. This was no pub-corner chinwag; these weren't the purveyors of idle doodles, designers who just did a few bits for their mates. This interview bore witness to the birth of something self-consciously brilliant. It was part manifesto, part political broadcast, but framed as a gleaming corporate ID. They were giving local indie bands an image that was positively inflammable; but in turn, they were swiping the limelight for themselves.

And hey! Fairclough's made a mix for each.

"Destroyed By Gods"
[Pulp, The Human League, Sweet Exorcist, All Seeing I, Cabaret Voltaire, etc.]

"Brain Aided Dancing"
[Moloko, Age Of Chance, Sun Electric, Pop Will Eat Itself, Subsonic, etc.]

At least we know who should do the sequel.

Normally I don't promote shows that I'm personally involved with on Line Out, but this one gets a pass because none of the profit is going to the musicians. All proceeds from the show go to locally-based New Beginnings, an organization whose mission is to provide shelter, advocacy and support for battered women and their children; and to change attitudes and social institutions that foster and perpetuate violence.

So let's try this again with gusto (and without disclaimers): Thursday August 20th at the Triple Door! CD Release Party for the Love/No Love Compilation!

Love/No Love is a two-disc compilation benefitting New Beginnings, the previously-mentioned organization working against domestic violence. The compilaton is the brainchild of a local artist-support project called The Levee Breaking, and it features the likes of Thao & the Get Down Stay Down, Ani DiFranco and Karl Blau. The show tonight, on the other hand, features the likes of Your Heart Breaks, wunderkind Sage Redman and, well, me.

And since you probably always think about volunteering for an organization that matters to you, but chances are you haven't gotten around to it quite yet, remember the "good cause" angle when looking at the $15 cover charge. Here's a chance to donate to a deserving local charity and get the swanky-as-you-wanna-be atmosphere of the Triple Door in return. Advance tickets are available at thetripledoor.com

MCs Terry Radjaw of Mad Rad and Sir Thomas Gray of Champagne Champagne are notorious for a few things: drunken debauchery, wild live performances, and their beards. Both men will enter the patio-side basketball court at the Funhouse, but only one will leave with his facial hair intact.

Both contestants are confident they will walk away with an unmolested growth to stroke in manly triumph, but here's some straight from the goat's mouth:

Sir Thomas Gray: "If i get the ball first, he's going to lose by the hard 15. He reminds me of the little fat dude from Teen Wolf who thinks he can hoop."

Terry Radjaw: "I'm shaving his face off. I'm playing both Nicholas Cage and John Travolta. From what I know he hasn't even got off of work yet."

Do you maybe remember that, some almost 8 years ago, The Stranger briefly had a 10-year old film and theatre reviewer on the payroll- a Mr. Sam Lachow? Anyone? OK. well he recently popped up on the 206proof.com forums- not to mention the newly minted Game of Rap blog- with his rap group Shankbone- claiming an old chestnut: to be the Future Of Seattle Hiphop. (Also acceptable: "putting Seattle on the map".) As such- and as a former employee of The Stranger, it's only fair that homie clocks his due shine. Tunes come after the skit.

(Epilogue: later, the real (?) Mr. Lachow popped up on The Proof afterwards admitting that "Blaow" was "corny", a "dumb, catchy, happy song about everything finally going right for a teenage white boy in seattle. It is supposed to appeal to mainly high school kids and I could totally see getting pissed off by this song if you are older." He went on to add that the first Lachow who initially posted the video to be a fake, a fugazi, a fraud. Do we all have evil-spirited dopplegangers out there? Heavy shit.)

With Joey Casio, DJ Fucking in the Streets, and Sam Rousso Soundsystem at Lo-Fi, 429 Eastlake Ave E, 254-2824, 9 pm-2 am, $5, 21+.

Didn't see this mentioned before.

A bit of history, a bit of PTSD, and probably something sort of sad, but Happy Mondays are going on a North American tour, promoting, we assume, 2007's Uncle Dysfunktional, and they're doing it with The Psychedelic Furs.

What.

Still, hurrah! Never caught them at their height.

Bez better have a visa. The more of a shambles the better.

Shaun Ryder says, "This is the first time I've ever been out in this business -- and I've been in this business since I was 18 -- that I've done it straight, not using crack or heroin or whatever. It's fucking terrifying."

When was the last time Happy Mondays played a proper bunch of U.S. shows?

According to here, at least, the last time in Seattle was at the Moore on April Fool's Day in 1991.

Nineteen. Ninety. One.

09/08/09 Chicago, IL House Of Blues
09/09/09 Milwaukee, WI Pabst Theater
09/11/09 Boulder, CO Boulder Theater
09/12/09 Salt Lake City, UT In The Venue
09/14/09 Seattle, WA Moore Theatre
09/15/09 Portland, OR McMenamins Crystal Ballroom
09/17/09 San Francisco, CA The Regency Ballroom
09/18/09 Los Angeles, CA Club Nokia
09/19/09 Anaheim, CA House Of Blues
09/20/09 San Diego, CA House Of Blues
09/22/09 Las Vegas, NV House Of Blues
09/24/09 Austin, TX Stubb's Bar-B-Q / Waller Creek Amph.
09/25/09 Dallas, TX House Of Blues
09/26/09 Houston, TX House Of Blues
09/28/09 Tampa, FL The Ritz
09/29/09 Fort Lauderdale, FL Revolution
09/30/09 Lake Buena Vista, FL House Of Blues
10/02/09 Atlanta, GA The Masquerade
10/03/09 Charlotte, NC Amos' SouthEnd
10/04/09 Norfolk, VA NorVa
10/06/09 Washington, DC 9:30 Club
10/07/09 Philadelphia, PA Trocadero Theatre
10/09/09 New York, NY Roseland Ballroom
10/10/09 Boston, MA House Of Blues
10/12/09 Columbus, OH Newport Music Hall
10/13/09 Royal Oak, MI Royal Oak Music Theatre

A new track from local hiphop cartoons They Live!, aka Dro Boy (Gatsby of Cancer Rising/the Stranger's Larry Mizzell Jr.) and Bruce Illest (DJ BlesOne). All conflict of interest aside, these guys are just tearing shit the fuck up right now. This track, "Whitney," comes from their forthcoming EP, They LA Soul, and it's a perfect intersection of cracked humor, iced-out, reverby production, and playfully aggro rapping. "I be smoking that Whitney/so come and get with me":

They Live! - "Whitney

They Live! play the Capitol Hill Block Party, Friday July 24th.

Well my sister called my bluff. She said that I couldn't even listen to the song once every hour that I was awake for a week, let alone forever. Now I could've said "You're right, Sister, I can't." But instead, being the stubborn (and weird) person that I am, I've dedicated this week to proving her wrong (and I'm tracking my progress for evidence too).

I know. It's ridiculous. But I'm doing it anyway. And as of today, I'm halfway through the week. (I started Monday, my last day is Sunday.)

I'm not that tired of the song itself, really. It's the process of documenting each listen that's getting old. Still, I'm totally going to win. So it's worth it.

I'm just really glad I didn't say anything about "In the Air Tonight" or "Sussudio." That'd be impossible.

This year marks her fourth centennial. Being four hundred years old, she is celebrating at The Crescent Tavern (1413 East Olive Way), which is singularly appropriate, and still smells like total ass. (Take care of it people—the charm is GONE!) Not that I'd ever insinuate that Jackie smells like ass, of course. Especially not on her birthday.

There's a Jackie Hell look-alike contest at midnight! The event goes from 9 PM-till-2 fucking AM!

Won't you join her?

Oh, and, um, Jackie Hell is totally completely biographied here, by the way. Ahem. Order it gift-wrapped!

Happy birthday, you hideous, glorious freak!

I'll air a selection or two from the Source set along with work by Jani Christou who recorded a piece for Source that never appeared in the magazine. Also in the mix: Lissom, field recordings by Seattle sound artist Doug Haire, and a duo percussion set by Chris Cogburn and Jeffrey Allport.

Catch the on-line stream or tune in to KBCS 91.3 FM from 10 pm to midnight.

Part two! Of sort of a series.

A DJ and producer from Montreal, Tiga is usually irritating.

Tiga's the one that re-cooks middle-of-the-road dance and disco to inexplicably grateful audiences while stuffing his first full-length, 2006's Sexor, with four whole covers, including Talking Heads, Public Enemy, and Nine Inch Nails and then overkills it even more with an album sleeve recreating the one for Bryan Ferry's In Your Mind.

Ah, imagination.

But the worst is his version of Altern-8's "Infiltrate 202". It's been everywhere for the last few years and we can't stand the thing. A sin of being both too similar to the original and lukewarm and ordinary in itself, the song misunderstands one of rave's grandest moments and tries to get away with it with cheese and inverted-quotes irony.

On the other hand, there's "Shoes".

What's that?

I'd love to comb your hair,
Your hair is such a mess,
Now just take off that dress.

Good!

The shoes stay on my feet,
The shoes stay on my feet,
The shoes stay on my feet,
The shoes stay on my feet.

Better!

What's that sound?
I like that sound,
I love that sound,
It's the sound of my shoes.

Best.

Also in the mix: vintage electronic music by Ton Bruynel, Mark Riener's notorious "Phlegethon," and the Tom Baker Quartet as well as field recordings by Isabel Clouter (the "booming" desert sands heard in Western China, depicted above), Doug Haire, Colin Turnbull, and Gordon Hempton, whose upcoming reading I previewed in The Score this week.

Catch the on-line stream or tune in to KBCS 91.3 FM from 10 pm to midnight.

Shouts to all the places 206 heads cop 'em, from Sneaker City to Champs (ha) to all the fly boutiques like Goods, Rock Paper Scissors, Winner's Circle, and my folks over at Triple Crown, formerly known as Laced Up. TC is throwing a shindig at the Lo-Fi on March 27 called Shoe Shine, featuring a custom shoe installation from Emmanuel Labor and sets from DJs Fever One and blesOne, plus They Live! and TC fam B-Awake. B-Awake just dropped his debut album, Classic Material, a promising collection of the young MC's sober ruminations on self-elevation, greed, and poverty.

...and to the Rendezvous for the Corner:

That same night (March 27), starting late (it's a party, y'all), is the first-anniversary edition of The Corner at the Rendezvous, featuring Corner founder Candidt, JFK of Grayskul, Silent Lambs Project with Felicia Loud (the killer combo known as Black Stax), Rudy and the Rhetoric, and Mr. Hill.

Also, there's some gay thing up at Chop Suey.

More events here and here.

There’s a conflict of interest in my reviewing the debut full-length from Bellingham band Crossfox. It should be noted that I used to be in a band with two of the members back in 2005, before I moved down to Seattle. I really enjoyed playing in that band, and I was pretty steamed when they lost interest and broke it up right as people were starting to pay attention to us. So yes, there is a conflict of interest in that I know these dudes personally, even though I haven’t spoken more than ten words to either of them in the last couple years. But there is also the small part of me that will always be pissed off at them for breaking up our sweet band, and would relish the opportunity to crap on their new project in a very public domain. And I might have done that, if their record deserved it. But it doesn’t.

Crossfox’s self-titled debut is impressive on several fronts. They recorded it themselves over the course of 2008, and for a self-produced record it sounds incredible. Since the band has been together for three years and this is their first proper release, it’s clear they’ve put a lot of thought and effort into honing every cut to its final state. The songs that they’ve re-recorded from their 2006 demo are now fully realized, specifically “Bristol,” which could easily find a home on either 107.7 or KEXP. Crossfox are an indie rock band that flirt successfully with a mainstream rock sound, and though they come off miffed on their Myspace that people would compare them to Minus the Bear and Kings of Leon, neither of those comparisons are too far off the mark. What makes Crossfox interesting to listen to is the fact that it’s so hard to pin down exactly which bands they're influenced by. One moment they’ll sound like the Foo Fighters or Pearl Jam, and the next they’ll rip out a lead guitar line that sounds like something from Sleeping People. Crossfox are able to pull off the mainstream/indie juxtaposition because under it all they know how to write a good hook. And on top of that, they excel at crafting interesting lead guitar lines to accompany their hooks. This is especially clear in the instantly anthemic chorus of “Part of You,” and the twisting, climaxing builds on “Douglas.” If “Bristol” or “Part of You” made their way on to the airwaves it's not hard to imagine this band amassing a lot of fans.

The record isn’t flawless by any means — the way they pronounce the word “feel” like “fjord” in the chorus of “Imitation” drives me nuts, “Della and Jim” lingers for three and a half minutes without ever really going anywhere, and there are a small handful of flat/questionable vocals — but overall this is strong debut from an obviously talented band. The record is out now on upstart imprint Modern Alchemy. Listen to their tracks on Myspace. Also, it must be noted how much their drummer Tim Tucker looks like Murderface, because seriously, that shit is crazy.

I’ll be bringing a diverse mix of old and new electronic releases, and maybe a couple of deep astral-jazz cuts, to keep you off-balance. I’m hoping to keep it unpredictable and baffling. I hope you can tune in at 90.3 FM or www.kexp.org.

None of this, though, changes another fact—that Red Sea Sharks create quite a glorious racket. I'm hearing vague traces of Pavement and Velvet Underground in their songs, and while the musicianship can get loose at times, it only adds to the appeal. Seriously, just listen to "Elvis Christ", and deny its greatness.

Here is what Charles had to say last September:

Yes, my brother, Kudzai Mudede, is the lead singer of Red Sea Sharks. My brother and I do not, however, share the same musical world. He likes rock; I like hiphop. He likes punk; I like dub. His fave band is Blur; mine is not even a band: Basic Channel. My brother believes in live music; I live in processed music. My brother is much younger than I am, and the music he makes is hard for me to grasp. It has lots of guitars, vigorous drumming, and loud singing about existential matters. His is a spare and raw rock. And when he sings or screams into the microphone, I’m amazed that we were raised by the same parents. CHARLES MUDEDE

Anyway, the band plays the Wildrose tonight with Isms and the Lights. I'll be there.

Aaron Edge, that is. He’s the new drummer of the Tad Doyle-led Seattle group Brothers of the Sonic Cloth, replacing Eric Akre. (Edge—who was Himsa's founding guitarist—also toils as an editorial designer for the publication you’re reading right this instant. He also plays in these groups: Requin (bass), Hellvetika (all music/vox), and Tsuga (all music/vox). Feeling lazy yet?)

I haven’t heard much of Brothers of the Sonic Cloth, but what I have caught bears resemblance to the de-tuned, speared-Mastodon guitar groan of early Earth with beats that hit you like slow-motion punches thrown in Hollywood thrillers. It’s kind of like delayed mortification, and it feels really good. Sometimes they let up on the gloom/doom and psych out on a more ethereal plane. But it still carries that patented Tad heaviness.

Forever is a long time, Brothers of the Sonic Cloth imply, and they’re just getting warmed up to provide the soundtrack for infinity’s gradual disintegration. (Hey, it's Friday and I have a wicked headache.)

There’s a lot of good stuff going on tonight, and in the swarm of shows it can be easy to forget about Studio Seven. I do it virtually every day. But tonight I’ve got their back, as they are hosting a top notch bill – Baroness and Genghis Tron. I missed Baroness in May because I didn’t want to go to a Coheed and Cambria show, and couldn’t justify spending the gas money to get to Portland for their show with Genghis Tron, Converge and the Red Chord. But both of their most recent albums are quite good, and since Baroness has been touring on their Red Album for over a year now they might be playing some new material. So tonight’s my big chance to see both acts for the first time, right? Big excitement? Nope. I can’t go. I double booked. The forces of the universe desire to keep me from witnessing these bands in person. But if you go to the Funhouse for the Steel Tigers of Death / Rad Touch / Reptilian Civilian / Therapist show you can hear me scream in desperation about how my band isn’t nearly as good as the ones who are playing a few miles south. Or, better yet, just go see Trent's band at Neumos.