Permanent Lipstick by Ginger Knoxx
Coming up on my birthday weekend again this year, Sea Jayne Trip will play Sept. 2 at Hell's Kitchen. Surfing off the Oregon coast, dining on freshly caught crab and beach bonfires are hard to pass up, so unfortunately I'll miss the show.
I have to say WTF to the Bumbershoot lineup. Is anyone else disappointed this year? Why is Kanye West the main headliner? That guy rubs me the wrong way. Something's so wrong about West's name being before Blondie. Deborah Harry is one of the only acts I'd wade through thousands of people to see Saturday afternoon. After all, her record was the first record I owned. On Monday at 1 p.m. Macklemore's hip-hop lyrical stylings will be intelligent and well planned. Daylight Basement, which is the newest project of BreEllen Loughlin most recently of Seattle's goth-rock-pop band Kuma, will perform a very girlie version of Kuma's sound Saturday afternoon. While I like her general vocal style, I have to say "eh" to this offering. I'm not going this year, so that's the end of the blah blah blah about that.

Thursday, Aug. 24
Not something you see all the time or exactly expect from Jazzbones, hip-hop funk-rock jazz act Pyrx, who had just played Seattle's Hempest, rolled into town around 1 p.m. to quickly unload and take over the Boneyard. My source there tells me the guys were pretty cool as, like, 12 of them plus their girls filed out of the sponsor slogan covered tour bus.  They held traffic while trying to coax the full-size bus onto Anderson Street right in front of a cop car. Ballsy. Apparently the fuzz didn't see them as a threat and rolled on by. Later in the evening, the guys of Pyrx set up a glassblowing station near the stage and set about creating some beautiful pieces for sale. The live stage show wasn't as interesting as the warm-up involving a lot of sweet brass action. This show being at that club definitely stirred things up a bit as regulars started coming by, but it was a welcome divergence from the usual. At the bar The Italian and I gobbled down scrumptious dill salmon and an avocado burger prepared by Chef Nolan. The drunk guy next to us kept trying to give me his money and talking about his awesome Goldwing (what?).

2005 birthday flashback
Can I top my last year's birthday celebration?  Doubtful.
("Wayne's World" flashback music) Spent all day slugging back vodka straight to the dome with Handsome roaming around The Palace and halfheartedly offering fashion assistance as I tried on everything I owned while dipping out to the patio to smoke between wardrobe changes. Vodka gone and finally dressed, we headed for the Seattle Center to meet up with Smooth. Sick to death of the crowd before we even got inside, we talked Smooth into abandoning Bumbershoot after a brief tour and began what would become a six- or seven-hour spin through bars all over Seattle. The receipts in my handbag told the tale of three visits to the ATM inside Medusa in 37 minutes for $60 a pop. What was I doing, buying snow in the bathroom? Nope, just rounds and rounds of shots. I wished death on a suit-wearing mutha sucka at Tini Bigs, fell in love with Asian band Hi-Vox, breathlessly ran from the Funhouse after trying to work a harmless, funny scam on a guy with crutches, called my new flame a million times, dumped my entire purse on the floor of a convenience store, cursed my friends for not letting me drive (God bless you both).  Needless to say, I did not drive back to T-town that night, which made for a very painful morning trying to con someone into ferrying my hungover booty back to Seattle to get my car. Oh yeah, much fun.

DJ Jason LeMaitre
Last Monday marked the beginning of DJ Jason LeMaitre's solo residency
at The Factory in Tacoma. This night sounds like a new hang for bartenders and servers on their night off, and you know what that means - serious craziness because nobody throws it back like the folks who serve it up. LeMaitre spins trance, groove, a splash of jungle, mixing current favs with nostalgic hits and keeping it fresh. He works the crowd, pumping adrenaline into your face even if you don't want it - and want it you will. He delivers all of this without train-wrecking (train-wrecking being a term coined by former Shoboat nightclub proprietor Joe Rosati to explain the painful noise and sensation that occurs when a DJ does not fluidly shift or mix from one record to another). Every Monday, 9 p.m., The Factory, 5602 S. Washington, Tacoma.

Give me a wink and a kiss here.  Knoxx knows.