POP MUSIC

Saturday, August 5, 2006

Sleater-Kinney

"We're very glad to be here in Washington, D.C., for the second time in three days," Sleater-Kinney's Corin Tucker announced to a sweltering crowd at the 9:30 club on Thursday.

That's two times but only one show: The staff evacuated the sold-out house on Tuesday at the fire marshal's request -- before the band took the stage -- because of electrical problems. But everything was cool (so to speak) on Thursday, and if the band, on its farewell tour, suffered from the detour, the members were too professional to let it show.

"Could I turn this place inside down / And shake you and your fossils out?" Tucker wailed on the opening song, "One Beat," before breaking into one of her fetching "oh-ohs." Yes, she could -- and subtly.

Sleater-Kinney's sound is raw yet accessible, passionate yet mindful of the audience. The band directed its energy outward, pulling audience emotions up and down. "Rollercoaster" demanded -- and got -- spinning green lights. "Modern Girl," sung with a tough sweetness by Carrie Brownstein, offered the unexpected counterpoint of percussionist Janet Weiss on harmonica. And "Steep Air" began with a contemplative guitar intro -- reminiscent of, of all things, Shawn Colvin's "Sunny Came Home" -- that was overtaken by the building thunder of Weiss's drums and the ominous lyrics that signaled the escape of the desperate.

Thursday's songs built slowly but didn't succumb to self-indulgent, drawn-out endings; they just slammed the door with a furious bang, ready to move on to the next thing. In other words, Sleater-Kinney knows how to say goodbye.

-- Pamela Murray Winters

Jimmy McGriff

During his long and distinguished career, 70-year-old blues organist Jimmy McGriff has infused countless opening sets with the kind of freewheeling spirit associated with an after-hours jam session. Alas, at Blues Alley on Thursday night, the early show had more in common with a haphazardly paced sound check.

McGriff, looking frail and moving very slowly, was assisted onstage by his band mates. After sliding into position behind a Hammond organ console, the great keyboardist played a secondary role during the performance, leaving most of the solo work to tenor saxophonist Jerry Weldon and guitarist Chris Vitarello. The good news is that both musicians are well worth hearing. Weldon, who's been playing with McGriff for 15 years, was in typically robust form on tenor. He displayed a full-bore tone and plenty of rhythmic vitality while shaking the dust off the Sonny Rollins calypso "St. Thomas" and the swing theme "Tuxedo Junction." Vitarello, a recent band recruit, has an obvious affinity for blues and funk, plus a sophisticated harmonic vocabulary that served the quartet well.

With some prodding from his longtime drummer Don Williams, McGriff tentatively moved through a series of familiar blues progressions and jazz themes, relying mostly on his right hand to create a rippling assortment of triplets, trills, turnarounds and sustained notes. His left hand occasionally compensated for the absence of foot-pedal generated bass tones, but more often Vitarello tended to the bottom line by introducing walking bass lines or employing chordal motion that accented the root note.

The engagement runs through tomorrow.

-- Mike Joyce

Tim Fite

Tim Fite considers himself as much a visual artist as a musical one. That much was obvious on the Black Cat's Backstage on Thursday, when a series of his drawings flashed on a screen between songs. And despite the partner onstage with him (triggering samples and electronic drums), Fite underscored that he alone played the instruments the crowd was hearing. Film of him doing it -- while in a wheelchair -- accompanied each tune.

Fite isn't disabled -- he boinged around the diminutive stage like a jack-in-the-box. He is clearly a postmodern trickster, though. A former leader of joke-rappers Little T & One-Track Mike, the Brooklyn-based Fite is a compulsive scourer of bargain record and CD bins. Many of the samples on his wide-ranging 2005 Anti Records debut, "Gone Aint Gone," undoubtedly came from forgotten recordings, but the results scanned like pop vertigo. He evoked Beck, Eminem, Lynyrd Skynyrd, the Beach Boys and even, during "No Good Here," D.C. indie-rock heroes Unrest. All of which might be no different from what any bedroom-Phil Spector might conjure, but Fite's awkwardly affecting lyrics and halting rapping style turned "I Hope Yer There," "A Little Bit" and "Forty-Five Remedies" into affecting bits of pop-culture trash, evocative wads of melody bumping down a windy street.

The closing "Away From the Snakes" was even better. The year's best I-been-stomped-on-too-long song, its pinched folk melody is enough to make a case for Fite's being signed to a major deal -- with a bonus of all the bargain-bin discs he can carry.

-- Patrick Foster