It's a new week, which means it's time for a new installment of Bobble Tiki's South Sound music news and notes column. Without further ado, let's get rolling ...

Whew! What a couple of weeks! Bobble Tiki tells you what! After squeezing into his skinny jeans for the Squeak and Squawk Festival, and staying sober enough last weekend to catch a decent chunk of the Grit City Fest, Bobble Tiki is just about as fried, frazzled and fatigued as a Tiki could be.

But it was so worth it.

This week, however, Bobble Tiki is looking forward to getting back into the swing of singular shows. Being a Tiki chronically afraid of commitment, singular shows work better for Bobble Tiki anyway. If they're good, well, then - awesome. If they're bad, well, Bobble Tiki can just bounce back home to the familiar divot in the couch, Kent cigarettes and coffee mug full of boxed wine.

But Bobble Tiki gets it. When it comes to this column, you want surefire bets - musical happening guaranteed to tickle you right. That's understandable, and Bobble Tiki does his best to oblige.

Friday, Seattle's Red Jacket Mine, led by the venerable Lincoln Barr, will be back in town playing The New Frontier Lounge. Luckily for Bobble Tiki's research department, this isn't the first time Barr and Co have headed south, and many of the superlatives this rag has lavished on the band in the past still hold indelibly true.

For instance, from the keyboard of the Volcano's Chuck Dula 15 months ago:

It isn't often that you can go to a show and see a band at the genesis of a fairly prolific career. That is what awaits you at The New Frontier. Red Jacket Mine, fronted by the silky smooth vocals of Lincoln Barr, has created a darker American sound that they describe as twilit pop. Complete with steel guitars, crunchy drums, and a guitar that often soars into beauteous oblivion, this band will satisfy the country-pop hipster post-rock scallywag in anyone.

That passage came from a March '09 issue of the Weekly Volcano. You know what's changed since then?

Not much. Red Jacket Mine is still sure to satisfy.

However, at least one thing has changed recently for the band, and Bobble Tiki wouldn't be doing his journalistic duty if he didn't mention it. Though Red Jacket Mine trudges on, with goal and sound unchanged, bassist Ryan Chapman left the band in May. According to all parties involved, the split was completely amicable - so those looking for blood or juicy gossip seem shit out of luck. Though details are fuzzy, it seems Chapman left - at least in part - to spend more time with Rhubarb Jackson, a bizarre music/art project. Or, at the very least, Red Jacket Mine's Web site says to "keep an ear tuned to Rhubarb Jackson" when discussing Chapman's departure. Bassist Brian Saunders is apparently filling in on bass until a permanent lineup can be ironed out.

If you're looking for something a bit harder (and no, Bobble Tiki isn't talking about drugs or booze, though he supposes he could be ...), head to Hell's Kitchen Friday for a show dubbed "Tacoma Death Metal Fest 2010" - featuring all sorts of scary sounding bands like Drawn & Quartered, Terra Morta, Salo and Devils of Loudon. In total, expect eight pummeling death metal acts, sure to leave your ears ringing and begging for more. Bobble Tiki's hands are clenching into devil horns just thinking about it, which - among other things - makes it a little difficult to type.

Of particular interest is Drawn & Quartered, a Seattle-based, heavy-as-fuck metal outfit heading to T-Town for Tacoma Death Metal Fest 2010 - which will mark the band's first show in over two years. According to MySpace, the band is "polishing up our act and ready to unleash HELL!"

That should go over exquisitely.

Finally, while we're on the subject of heavy-as-fuck, the incomparable Iron Lung will be plugging in at Northern in Olympia this week, for a rare Monday show with tour-mates Slices. Currently out on the road with Slices as part of the 2010 Punishment West Coast Tour, the 206's Iron Lung will be making stops in Oakland, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Bakersfield, Long Beach, Reno, Sacramento, Portland - and naturally Seattle.

Of course, Iron Lung is from Seattle - these days - but seeing as the band started in Reno, and spent significant time in Oakland as well, really - the 2010 Punishment West Coast Tour is something of an extended, all-out-assault of a homecoming for the band. Influenced by "power, violence and grindcore," according to the horse's mouth, the two-piece furry of Jensen Ward and Jon Kortland - together Iron Lung - is not to be missed.

Bobble Tiki will see you next week.