Given the amount of mutual admiration between Olympia and the Bay Area's respective rock scenes, it's a little surprising that Christmas and Bare Wires - tourmates on a three-night Pacific Northwest jaunt that includes a stop at Northern Friday - only just met last month. The Olympia foursome and Oakland trio became acquainted down in Austin, Texas, at the 25th Annual SXSW music conference. Ty Ziskis, co-founder of Seattle label CMRTYZ (who co-released Christmas' phenomenal self-titled full-length), prompted the encounter. "Ty made some T-shirts for us," Bare Wires founding member Matthew Melton explains. When Melton and bandmates Fletcher Johnson and Nathan Price, garage rockers with a fuzz-soaked spin on vintage pop and rock, went to pick up their custom silk-screened swag, they bumped into Christmas, co-performers at the SiiickXSW mini-fest at Cheer Up Charlie's. "They seemed like cool fellas, so we were like, 'Hey, let's put something on,'" says Melton. 

[Northern, Bar Wires with Christmas, The Maxines, 8 p.m., all ages, 321 Fourth Ave., Olympia, northernolympia.org]