Pink Martini

Thursday, Oct. 8
I remember one evening I popped out of the car in the grocery store parking lot. A vivid rainbow towered above the building. There are some who would most enjoy a private moment with a rainbow; I’m not one of them. Sixty-five percent of my delight in a cool thing comes from sharing it. I noticed a young woman getting ready to walk from the supermarket to the parking lot. At 15 or 20 feet away I said to her “there’s a rainbow up there.” I pointed. “I don’t see it,” she said. I backed up a few feet and pointed again. “Oh” she said and smiled “thank you.” This experience reminds me of a vivid Pink Martini concert. The Portland band’s blend of American swing, Latin rhythms and chamber arrangements, along with vocals in five languages, give the group’s largely original material mass appeal — meaning the audiences consist of people who normally don’t sit next to each other. Pink Martini has become a genre unto itself. I adore the band’s cosmopolitan mix of Disneyfied Latin rhythms, cabaret Orientalia and Arabic tunes kissed with carnival atmospherics and ragtime horns. — Suzy Stump
[Pantages Theater, 7:30 p.m., $48-$88, 901 Broadway, Tacoma, 253.591.5894]

Drumandbasselectrodubstep

Saturday, Oct. 10
Dubstep — U .K. garage and grime’s more forlorn, less MC-oriented cousin — has been incubating since 2000, but despite greater awareness via blogs and Internet forums, it’s unlikely to blow up; most people just don’t want to experience cranium-clamping bass pressure, entropic beats, and austerely melancholy melodies. Nevertheless, seekers of innovative low-end music should keep tabs on what Matt Eklund’s Pacific Fusion Productions has in store for two October nights at the Tempest Lounge. Eklund and partnering company Lotus Inc. will blaze a path into the dubstep realm by adding drum ‘n’ bass and electro into the dub zombies’ world Saturday night, then will follow it up with Night of the Living Dub Oct. 30. Saturday, DJs dAb, Habit, Suga Jones and D:FI will take the London-centric genre’s stark, haunted mutations of dub and slap it with some fun. — Suzy Stump
[Tempest Lounge, 9 p.m. to 2 a.m., no cover, 913 Martin Luther King Jr. Way, Tacoma, 253.272.4904]

The Color of East

Saturday, Oct. 10
I just spent five minutes trying to figure out what a Coloro Feast was. Apparently, it’s The Color of East, which is apparently a band from Tacoma.  They’ll be at the New Frontier on Saturday celebrating their debut EP In the House of Endless Light with Bandolier and Battersea. “We’ve shared the music with a lot of people the last few months,” says lead singer Patrick Smyth. “It’s always a little scary to put something new out there. We’ve been very happy with the response, it’s been wonderful. We want to get it in the hands of anyone who wants to hear it.” Color of East characterizes itself as psychedelic-garage-pop, and delivers something that sounds like emo-Iggy-Pop-on-Quaaludes. It’s way cooler than it sounds. — Paul Schrag
[New Frontier Lounge, with Bandolier, Battersea, 9 p.m., $5, 301 E. 25th St., Tacoma, 253.651.1513]

Allan Boothe

Monday, Oct. 12
It’s exciting to promote a new band, but a certain satisfaction comes from the continuing promotion of a Tacoma fixture that fights and thrives and ultimately seems to stand the test of time. Allan Boothe is a more or less ubiquitous Tacoma performer, and I’m totally cool with that. He plays mostly sunny indie rock, but with creaky, strained vocals that kind of resemble a tenor Neil Young, or a more robust Marty Anderson. The most appealing aspect of his fairly minimalist songs is his unique voice. It carries the ramshackle melodies to their final resting place in the three-minute mark. Allan Boothe continues to bring his unique rock stamp to Tacoma audiences, and we in turn will soak it in. — Rev. Adam McKinney
[The Den@urbanXchange, with Lake, Karl Blau, 7 p.m., $5, all ages, 1932 Pacific Ave., Tacoma, 253.572.2280]