MONDAY 1/5
Take The Stranger’s Sex Survey
(SHAMELESS PROMOTION) There ain’t shit going on in town today. It’s the first Monday of the new year, and it’s grey and drizzly. Everyone is partied out. People are still holding tight to their resolutions to drink less or save more. There is literally no better day to spend 10 minutes of your time taking The Stranger’s annual sex survey! Last year's sex survey results proved very interesting. Fisting/getting fisted fantasies skyrocketed, H.E.R. was by far the music people listened to most when getting busy, and people were only medium-horny for Luigi Mangione. What will we learn about the sex lives of Seattleites this year? There's only one way to find out! Grab a drink, get comfortable, and tell us everything. It’s free, it’s anonymous, and it’s fun! Click here to start. The results will appear in our Love & Sex issue, on stands February 4. MEGAN SELING
TUESDAY 1/6
(MUSIC) Tommy Oeffling makes meandering, unassuming indie rock out of his bedroom in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, that he refers to as a ripoff of his favorite artists, like MJ Lenderman, Mk.gee, and Pavement. His recent lo-fi album Picture of Health tells stories of life as a 20-year-old through echoing vocals and driving guitar. Oeffling's parents gave him a drum kit at the age of four and inspired his current studies to become a teacher—and while he admits that music isn't his main focus, the honesty and musical skill displayed in his slacker rock tunes have earned him a dedicated following. I'm looking forward to hearing him play "Love in the Time of Trump," which is more about daily life and relationships than politics. (Neumos, 7 pm, all ages) SHANNON LUBETICH
WEDNESDAY 1/7
2025 Sundance Film Festival Short Film Tour
(FILM) Always wanted to experience Sundance, but aren’t into flying out to Park City to do so? Then the fest’s 2025 Short Film Tour should be at the top of your January events list. Sundance distills its notoriously strong shorts program into a tight, 100-minute theatrical showcase of seven standout films, including two jury award winners, that’ll screen for an 11-day run during the Seattle stop. Presented by Vimeo, the event features fiction, documentary, animation, and more, offering up a holistic snapshot of the trajectory of independent filmmaking. I won't blame you for not wanting to spend time in Utah, but if you call yourself a Seattle cinephile, this one’s hard to skip. (Northwest Film Forum, all ages) LANGSTON THOMAS
THURSDAY 1/8
(VISUAL ART) Dan Webb is a woodcarver—the old-fashioned kind who chips away slowly at a tree, through sap and heart and bark, to draw things out. His melting chairs and busts draped in luxurious fabric-y folds speak to a mastery of the medium, as well as a playful sensibility that coaxes unexpected meaning from a blank block. Despite the trompe l’oeil playfulness, the wood-ness of Webb’s sculptures is always felt; the tree is present. Like Michelangelo’s non finito Prisoners emerging from their stone, Webb’s subjects feel as though they’ve willed themselves into being, emerging from the raw pith of the earth. In Yespalier (a portmanteau of yes and espalier—the ancient horticultural technique in which fruit trees are trained along a frame to direct their growth) Webb has created a body of work that is less planned, more improvisational and sketchy. How does one “sketch” with wood? By starting with a simple square frame and carving inward. The resulting sculptures are delightfully meandering, surreal, and all over the place in the best way. (Greg Kucera Gallery) AMANDA MANITACH
FRIDAY 1/9
Panic Room: Jeju Island Artist Collective
(VISUAL ART) “What to do when the end of the world arrives?” That’s the theme behind this pseudo-scientific performance project by the Jeju Island Artist Collective. This show runs the full month of January and plays out like a mockumentary, following a group of hyper-rational “nerds” as they navigate the end of the world from inside a hybrid lab/studio/survival pod. While the outside world collapses, the performers obsessively devise systems and inventions to guard against the unknown, revealing the absurdity and vulnerability baked into our reliance on data and control. Created by South Korean immigrant artists Kyung-Jin Kim, Eunsun Choi, and Yeon Jin Kim, Panic Room blends satire, speculative fiction, and performance art into a reflection on how we cope when certainty disappears. The opening reception is January 10, 3–5 p.m. (The Vestibule, Fri–Sat through Jan 31, free) LANGSTON THOMAS
SATURDAY 1/10
(MUSIC) California-based singer-songwriter Madison Cunningham has sung with Mumford & Sons, played guitar for Lucy Dacus, and released a joint album with Andrew Bird called Cunningham Bird that covers the iconic 1973 Buckingham Nicks record. Similar to Bird, Cunningham makes expansive orchestral music with a folk-rock slant. She won the Grammy for Best Folk Album for her 2022 album Revealer, following it up with her fourth full-length this year. Ace plays with the duality of being the strongest and the weakest at the same time, exploring her identity as an eldest daughter and her experience recovering from the end of a relationship to find love again. Check out her impeccable guitar skills in a stripped-down version of the track "Wake"—the album version features Fleet Foxes—and get ready to be transported by her show at a storied cathedral with support from Native American folk artist Ken Pomeroy. (St. Mark's Cathedral, 7:30 pm, all ages) SHANNON LUBETICH
SUNDAY 1/11
(MUSIC) Filipino American rapper Nueve Lio was born in Southern California, spent large parts of his childhood in Japan and Guam as the son of a Navy contractor, and then moved back to Riverside to kick off his musical career. The hip-hop artist comes to Seattle in support of his fourth album HERTURN (released last September), which blends smooth R&B with electronic influences. The video for the lead single "RUN IT BACK" is simultaneously epic and extremely cheesy—it plays with reflections, shadows, slow motion, and includes a cinematic rain scene with a love interest who appears to be some sort of bird-controlling sorceress. (Neumos, 7 pm, all ages) SHANNON LUBETICH
