Seattleites and other west-of-the-mountains people, you have a couple of chances to hear great live music to round out your summer.

Star Anna and the Laughing Dogs play the Triple Door on Saturday, August 27. Their new album, Alone in This Together (local638records.com)  is stunning… amazing… incredible… well, you pick the superlative you like best and insert it here. (There is a bit of a contest on their Facebook page – so far my favourite suggests Star’s voice is like “Joe Cocker and Janis Joplin had a baby and it grew up to be a t-rex…”)

For those of you a little farther north, Avolition’s on the bill at what looks like a great family event, Rawkstock, held on a farm outside La Conner, also on August 27. The guys in Avolition bill themselves as “pre-geriatric” folk/pop/rock, but in reality they’re just a great band, powered by superb songwriting. If you haven’t been keeping up with Avolition’s release of a song a week through their Demolition 2011 project, shame on you. It’s the best free music out there; I dare you not to find something you like in their first 33 releases.

While you’re deciding which concert to attend on the 27th, and buying Alone in This Together from the band’s website or your local independent music store, take a listen to a tune from Avolition that I love, released a few weeks ago: “It’s All Mine.” With vocals that recall the best of Dwight Yoakam or even Warren Zevon when he got a little country, this song is an anthem for all of us who feel like “the only one who knows that this is happening… and I don’t even know what it is.”