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..
Honestly, Bobble Tiki is too old for this kind of thing ... this kind of weekend. When he was younger, a youthful Tiki full of plenty of piss and vigor (mainly piss, from the mass wine cooler consumption that almost singlehandedly ruined the '80s - DAMN YOU BARTELLS & JAMES!) he could have withstood such an itinerary, such an onslaught. But, at this Tiki age, it's just ridiculous. Olympia Arts Walk is tomorrow, always an event worth catching. And then there's the Tacoma Craft Beer Festival. Not to mention the fact The New Frontier is celebrating a birthday. ...
And top of it all (and plenty of other things Bobble Tiki is surely forgetting about and/or too hung-over to remember) you have the first ever 253Heart Music and Arts Festival.
Organized in large part by China Davis' Ben Fuller (along with help from too many Tacoma faces to name, as is one of the points of the whole shebang - bringing Tacoma together to help) - the 253Heart Music and Arts Festival, which includes multiple events and will benefit the American Heart Association as well as the Pierce County AIDS Association, is yet another outgrowth of the Music Giving Back organization, a local enterprise that's been busting out the musician driven benefits for the better part of a year, and which Fuller is also a co-founder. The list of causes it has helped is getting staggering, and neither fuller nor Music Giving Back show signs of letting up.
But Bobble Tiki will get back to the real point of this column - the music lined up at the 253Heart Music and Arts Festival. Throughout the weekend, Friday, Saturday and Sunday - and filling The Swiss, the Harmon Tap Room and the Peabody Waldorf Boutique and Gallery at various times - the entertainment in store is a good representation of almost everything this area (And maybe a hipper town to the north. Here's looking at you, Eddie Spaghetti Saturday at the Swiss!) has to offer. Highlights will undoubtedly include the rock stage Saturday afternoon at the Harmon Tap Room, where Deborah Page, Big Wheel Stunt Show, Brotherhood of the Black Squirrel and the Legend of Bigfoot will do what they do best, along with the show later that night at the Swiss with (Puyallup's best band) SweetKiss Momma, Blanco Bronco, Midnight Salvage Co., and the aforementioned Mr. Spaghetti.
Oh, but it doesn't stop there, boys and girls. Sunday night's closeout show at The Swiss (and, let's be honest, Sunday night is the new Tuesday afternoon) includes Painkillers, Kim Archer, Jerry Miller, Fuller's China Davis, and Missionary Position (to name but a few).
The 253Heart Music and Arts Festival truly offers a whole weekend's worth of action. It has the potential of providing nonstop action all by itself, and amazingly it's only one of several things a South Sound go-getter has to choose from over the next few days.
Of particular excitement to Bobble Tiki was the addition of the Joshua Cain Band to Saturday's lineup at the Harmon Tap Room. There was a time, not long ago, when Bobble Tiki had a mancrush the size of Parkland on the Joshua Cain Band. But time has carried on, and the band has become less active, and, well, Bobble Tiki has gone on to establish new mancrushes ... on Don Draper, and Q13's David Rose, and the KFC Double Down ... never forgetting his love for Joshua Cain, but not taking much time to feed it either.
Saturday's show at the Tap Room offers a chance for Bobble Tiki to remember his love, and it may do the same for other members of the Volcano's staff. As you may recall, editor Matt Driscoll went all in and named the Joshua Cain Band "Best Band" in the Volcano's 2008 Best of Tacoma Issue.
To refresh your memory...
The best new rock band I've seen in quite some time is the Joshua Cain Band. Laying down a bluesed-up, fuzzed-out rock that recalls dusty ideals from the past and a time when music fought oppression and had meaning, the gentleman of the Joshua Cain Band have quickly established themselves as one of Tacoma's most exciting musical attractions. Or, for the sake of our Best Of issue, let's say the most exciting. The Joshua Cain Band - swampy, gospel coated Grit City rock at its best - certainly has the sound. And the band's '60s civil rights bent is certainly one of a kind.
In all, it may be way too much for Bobble Tiki to handle in one weekend - Joshua Cain, Eddie Spaghetti, the whole ball of wax. ...
But the 253Heart Music and Arts Festival, with all its offerings, is a nice problem to be faced with.
Bobble Tiki will see you next week.