TAIST OF IRON

Saturday, June 13

I owe Taist of Iron an apology, or at the very least some accurate press. You see, a long time ago in a more drunken and/or intoxicated place, I covered a show with Taist of Iron on the bill. Like the idiot I am, all soft and trimmed and unleaded, and not a big fan of metal or dudes with manes, I made the mistake of referring to Taist of Iron as an Iron Maiden tribute band. Let it be known once and for all: TAIST OF IRON IS NOT AN IRON MAIDEN TRIBUTE BAND. They just look like one, and kind of sound like one — if Iron Maiden had a bunch of demos from ’83 recorded in Tacoma that got covered in spilled Pabst and forgotten. Or, to put it more succinctly — this band is brutal … and so not an Iron Maiden tribute band. — Matt Driscoll

[The Acme Grub Cage, Taist of Iron with Girl Trouble, the Plastards, 9 p.m., $5, 1310 Tacoma Ave. S., Tacoma, 253.272.1892]

LETTERS BURNING

Sunday, June 14

A Hot Topic tour? Sounds a little cliché doesn’t it? But Letters Burning is making their way up the coast from their home in Southern California by way of a series of shows in local Hot Topics — all booked independently to give the all-ages demographic a “band that they can be a part of and follow,” according to Letters Burning guitarist and lead singer Tal Mir. This desire is what brings Letters Burning to Steele Street and our beloved Tacoma Mall: which Mir referred to as  “the climax of (their) tour.” And it’s free. This looks to be the grassroots movement of pop-punk as the passionate duo, as Mir and his Letters Burning band mate Gabe Kubanda take to the road with some insanely catchy tunes that don’t mesh with the generic and oh-so-typical songs we hear coming from modern-day pop-punk bands. Care to catch fire? — Lauren Napier

[Hot Topic, 5 p.m., all ages, no cover, 4502 S. Steele St., Tacoma, 253.473.4469]

CHURCH OF HATE

Sunday, June 14

The Church of Hate is a Tacoma staple — like Frisco Freeze or Chihuly or bums pulling crack out of their asses. For more than 10 years now the boys in the Church of Hate have been bludgeoning eardrums all over our fair city with Slayer-like riffs, breakneck beats and disparaging and vile lyrical content — to the delight of the metal masses who know better than to take the band too seriously. That’s the beauty of the Church of Hate. They’re louder, meaner, scarier and — to top it all off — more ironic than your hipster mullet and mustache will ever be. A search of my computer database reveals I first wrote about the Church of Hate in 2001 — and I was late to the game. Something tells me the COH will be around with the cockroaches. — MD

[Hell’s Kitchen, Church of Hate with Eterna Nocturna, Utterance, Falling of Ages, Darkness Stole the Sky, Popula, 5 p.m., $7, 3829 Sixth Ave., Tacoma, 253.759.6003]

THEE OH SEES

Tuesday, June 16

When Bobble Tiki first became acquainted with San Francisco’s Thee Oh Sees — they were Thee Ohsees. See the difference? It’s really not much of one — which is why it’s fairly unimportant in the scheme of things. The important thing is the band is still churning out some of the best tunes you’re liable to hear anywhere — and certainly on a Tuesday night in Oly. When Thee Oh Sees classify themselves as pop/folk/psychedelic on MySpace, they mean it. They’re exactly the type of band that Olympia should slurp up like cheap drinks at McCoy’s. They’re arty, but not to a fault. They’re smart, but not to the point of being alienating. They’re definitely indie, but not just because it’s cool. According to Wikipedia, The Oh Sees “began as a way for John Dwyer (of Coachwhips, Pink and Brown, Landed, Yikes, Burmese, The Hospitals, etc.) to release his instrumental, experimental home recordings. However, over the course of five albums it has evolved into a full band.” Thank god. The results are awesome. — Bobble Tiki

[northern, Thee Oh Sees, Christmas, Full Red, 8 p.m., all ages, $6, 21 Fourth Ave., Olympia, www.olympiaallages.org]