The Buttersprites: Japanese pop, Seattle style

Most bands are sloppy. They look like they're frozen in the 10th grade — and proud of it.

Of course, music is the main thing, and as long as a band sounds good, we don't really care what they look like. Then again, a little sense of the visual can go a long way ...

Which is one of the nice things about the Buttersprites. This all-female, Japanese-pop inspired Seattle band has a powerful artistic flair, attempting to entertain the eye as well as ear.

Buttersprite guitarist Elizabeth Jameson is also a visual artist, and her Web site www.ejameson.com offers a glimpse into her quirky art/performance world. Jameson founded the band three years ago — a lark that became a habit.

"I was throwing a birthday party for my husband," she explained, "... and since we have a lot of musician and artist friends, decided to put on a cabaret-style party. I racked my brain thinking about what my performance would be, and I came up with the idea of a Japanese girl band. So I got some friends together, and we each decided what we would play, and started having rehearsals. None of us were musicians, so we had no rules about what we were doing ... "

Though the crowd response was quite favorable, after only two shows members of the band went their separate ways, and the Buttersprites were out of order until Jameson recruited new members a few months ago. The new version of the Buttersprites is fronted by vocalist Haruko Nishimura, a member of the Degenerate Art Ensemble.

With Nishimura singing in Japanese and English, the Buttersprites have a peppy, easygoing pop sound — if you're looking for intricate arrangements, this isn't for you, but the band's self-titled CD is a fun bilingual excursion, with originals such as "Panic Attack" and the instantly catchy "Love Call," and covers of "Happy Birthday" and Iggy Pop's "Dog Food."

The Buttersprites album sounds a bit like a soundtrack to a late-'80s independent flick. If they add just a bit of muscle to their songwriting and playing, this could be another very successful Seattle band.

The Buttersprites — Nishimura, who also plays accordion, Jameson, drummer Jen Gay, keyboardist Julie Grant and bass player Lunarre Omura — have two shows coming up, at Belltown's Rendezvous at 9 tonight ($5) and the Funhouse near Seattle Center on July 21.

For the Rendezvous show, the band will be sporting "Chinese red and black lacquer wear," Jameson says. "The Funhouse show will see the return of the popular ersatz nurse uniforms."

• Idiot Pilot, a duo of 18-year-olds from Bellingham, recently landed a major-label deal (Sire/Warner Bros.), with its promising mix of electronic beats and punk howling. Idiot Pilot plays its second Seattle club show when it visits Chop Suey at 9 p.m. Tuesday ($6).

• Shane Tutmarc, the man behind Seattle's Dolour, plays from his recent pop gem "New Old Friends" at 9 tonight at Graceland ($8). His third album re-interprets Brian Wilson, the Beatles and the Flaming Lips.

• Where would we be without the fuzzy noise-rock of Thurston Moore, Kim Gordon, Lee Ranaldo and company? NYC's Sonic Youth, 23 years into its career, is still one of the most potent bands going, with its latest recording "Sonic Nurse," another screeching, near-chaotic jumble of noise. Once called by Spin magazine "the world's greatest punk-rock jam band," little has changed here. Most songs clock in over 5 minutes; some are stunning, others numbing. Some, surprisingly enough, have a gentle quality.

Sonic Youth often plunges overboard in its triple-guitar aural epics and ear-splitting feedback frenzy, but the Chicago Tribune — "The NYC quintet still whips up a sonic whirlwind, but the band's toned down its experimental tendencies here in order to emphasize strong writing, tight playing and detailed arrangements" — and others are calling this one of the band's most accessible albums.

Said the Times of London, re the new SY album: "The explosions of ugly noise have never sounded so articulate, more artful than the poised tantrums of yore ... the band argues even more convincingly that they are making their best music now."

Sonic Youth blasts off at the Showbox at 8 p.m. Wednesday (all ages, $25). Take earplugs, or leave with damaged hearing.

• The Capitol Hill Arts Center (CHAC) is trying something new over the next three Tuesdays: "Iron Composer," which challenges competing singer-songwriters to write an original song, based on the interview of an audience member. Eddie Spaghetti of the Supersuckers faces off against Joe Reineke of Alien Crime Syndicate at 8:30 p.m. Tuesday ($5).

Get this, according to a press release, "each composer drinks a shot of liquor at the beginning of the show and the beginning of each round, consuming six shots in the course of 50 minutes."

Tom Scanlon: tscanlon@seattletimes.com