HBD Dick Van Dyke!

Harmony: A ticket to see Dustbowl Revival last Sunday also got you a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity: the chance to sing “Happy Birthday” to Dick Van Dyke, and have him actually hear it. He’s buds with Dustbowl Revival, and the Los Angeles band needed to make up for the fact that they were missing his 90th birthday. Hopefully Van Dyke likes iPhone videos of lots of people screaming out of tune.

Regardless, Dustbowl put on its usual rollicking good time, with doses of time travel to the 1940s, playful stories told with a wink and kazoo vs. trumpet battles.

The Wild Reeds stole the show, however, with a powerful folk set, which sometimes veered into alt-country and alt-rock territories. What set the Los Angeles quintet apart were its leaders Sharon Silva, Kinsey Lee and Mackenzie Howe, who sing with equal strength, beauty and distinct personality. Their harmonies create instant anthems and seem to soar to new heights again and again and again—just when you think it can’t get bigger, louder or more gut wrenching, it does. Then, they soften into intense vulnerability. By the end of their first song, every person in the room had fallen silent in awe. They stayed that way until the Wild Reeds finished, and then they called for an encore.

—Janelle Bitker

A happy gloom: One of doom metal’s most depressing bands hit Starlite Lounge and everybody was very happy to see them.

Seattle’s Bell Witch came down last Tuesday and delivered a two-song set that lasted a good 40 minutes, using just a six-string bass and drum kit—along with extremely tortured vocals—to convey an all-encompassing sense of suffocating misery.

In April, the band released one of the best funeral doom albums of 2015, Four Phantoms, and the duo of Dylan Desmond and Jesse Shreibman keeps rising in profile. And with good reason—not only is their latest album absolutely devastating in its choking atmosphere and moments of airy grace, but the passion and ferocity on display when they play is its own spectacle.

It’s worth noting that the crowd was sufficiently tenderized by Wrekmeister Harmonies before Bell Witch took the stage. Wrekmeister, the pastoral doom project masterminded by J.R. Robinson, started slow and beautiful—sweeping strings, gentle ringing of bells—and then built and built until Desmond and Shreibman took up the rhythm section to pulse out overwhelmingly bleak, droning tones. The careful, thought-inspiring heaviness, coupled with trippy home videos projected over the proceedings, made for an entrancing trip through a certain kind of hell.

—Anthony Siino

Loud vibrations: Fans of the 2004 rockumentary Dig got a special treat with a performance by psych-pop rockers the Dandy Warhols last week. And while the Brian Jonestown Massacre wasn’t also on the bill, its tambourine player Joel Gion was—with a band of his own.

Gion played a solid set of psych-rock tunes. He’s not the best singer, but his band was top-notch. Hell, he even has his own tambourine player now.

The Dandy Warhols’ songs sounded muddy and washed out and literally vibrated one’s insides. This was a good thing. The four-piece ran through several songs from its two-decade long career, applying a universal blown-out rock riff meets hushed low-end singing sound to all its tunes. Even familiar songs were barely recognizable. The crowd loved it, and why not? The Dandy Warhols have not released much new music lately, but they still come armed and ready.

—Aaron Carnes

Sammies are go: A heads up: SN&R just kicked off the nominations process for the 2016 Sammies award show, scheduled to take place Wednesday, March 24, at Ace of Spades.

But first you have to tell SN&R which local musicians and artists you think are worthy of consideration. Nominate your favorite acts to be included on the ballot across a spectrum of categories. The nominations period ends at midnight on Thursday, January 7, and voting will commence Thursday, January 21.

All categories are subject to change. Happy nominating! Learn more at www.sammies.com.

—Rachel Leibrock