Spurred by their somewhat surprising ascension to popularity by an association with the snide hipsters at Vice Records, the Black Lips have toured relentlessly for the past year and change. Despite the fact that the band has been playing for around seven years and released three albums before landing with Vice, fame had not found them. Regarded as one of the most exciting live rock acts touring shite bars, the band persevered and has found an ever expanding audience since the live Los Valientes del Mundo Nuevo. The recent release of Good Bad Not Evil, which is numbingly void of punctuation, has spurred the band to continue on their relentless route back and forth across the country and across the ocean for a visit to Israel. A successful appearance between their two releases this year at SXSW probably didn’t hurt either. Unfortunately for them, a trip to Seattle found the Black Lips sharing a bill that included Dirtnap’s the Girls and Seattle’s finest robot punk, the Spits.

It was easy, after passing the faded tattooed face of the bouncer, who seemingly relished the ability to frisk, confiscate and harass, to over hear whispers of eagerness directed towards the Spits more so than the Lips. The Spits, who took their summer vacation across Europe have been absent from bills in the Seattle area for the past several months. This show seemed as opportune as any for them to restate their avowed Ramones come cough syrup style on Seattleites.

This town can barely contain the hipster swagger and the occasional idiocy that accompanies it. For this reason, firecrackers are an unwelcome mainstay at innumerable shows, this being one of them. While the culprit and his compadres no doubt found explosives amusing, setting them off in a confined and rather crowded venue doesn’t seem conducive to sustaining shows. This was again exemplified by the appearance of a not all too happy looking, muscled, behavioral specialist who mounted the stage and remained there for nearly two-thirds of the Spits set to remove the possibility of another tiny and insignificant, yet obnoxious explosion.

Drawing equally from all of their Self-Titled albums, the meticulous timing and unison found in the Spits’ performance was staggering. Even though each song sported roughly the same tempo, they were each greeted with something just short of overwhelming glee from the audience, who was on the verge of pogoing from moment to moment, but instead employed the hipster-lean.

During the rendition of “Black Kar”, surreptitiously a clearing sprung up on the dance floor. Soon enough the space was filled. But like any good show, the presence of puke, momentarily in that empty dance hall space, signaled what kind of evening it was. If that wasn’t enough, perhaps the puke in the sink that florally greeted each trip to the pisser was.

Even without the swampy fragrances emanating from the Crocodile, the Spits commanded attention, playing “Bring”, from the Dirtnap Self-Titled album, with lines about sniffing glue and blood filling the space between them and the crowd. This song, even with the similarities to others, seemed to further animate the crowd finding a great number in attendance mouthing along. With this heightened excitement, the crowd demanded an encore, was obliged and then obliged again, the band finally exiting when they were satisfied.

The following day, a bit too early for the quartet, the Black Lips appeared at the Ballard location of Sonic Boom Records. Despite the rousting time, the band seemed prepared if not overtly enthused to perform. The singular perspective that this event lent to the band’s life presented itself in the fact that it was acoustic. The drummer, Joe Bradley, performed encased in sunglasses and worked with only a snare drum, single drum stick and tambourine to more than adequate effect. This performance, as opposed to the previous evenings’ set, focused on songs from the past. “Hippie, Hippie, Hoorah”, replete with off time and dissonant eastern lead guitar figure, forced even those cramped into isles between discs to bob and shake a bit. The free booze probably didn’t hurt either.

If drinking wasn’t an idea to suite musical voyagers, sugary cereal and toaster pastries could sustain them while the band, with lead vocalist Cole Alexander coughing between songs, swilling alternately an adult beverage and water, traversed more of Let It Bloom. Flashes from cameras of enthusiastic fans didn’t seem to affect the performers as the bizarre vocals included in “Dirty Hands”, which is garage to ‘50s pop in a way that Zappa’s Cruising with Rueben and the Jets had been. The abbreviated set ended with an offering from Black Lips! as Bradley vocalized in only a fashion that these Southerners are able.