As the Weekly Volcano Music Awards blare inside Jazzbones right now, I, being the top-notch reporter, left my drink and now sit across the street at Starbucks reporting on said show.  This Starbucks on Tacoma's Sixth Avenue has always been a wonderful spot to grab a pastry and a cuppa joe, then sit in the east corner by the window and watch my buddies do their shopping at the liquor store across the street.

Tonight Jazzbones is an epic of scenester-ism with everyone from James Hume to Go Music getting their cards punched. Which may be like saying, "From the living room all the way to the kitchen," but still, the fact remains that we are, by nature, a fractious city. The neighborhoods are segregated/gentrified on a block-by-block basis: A system of hard-knocks rock clubs and insular scenemaking pretty much assures that Your Crowd will absolutely not ever hang out with My Crowd, and the only logical Tacoma responses to ambition and chutzpah are the surly green fangs of jealousy. If you don't know this already, you better get your ass over to Yahoo! Groups pronto, Duran Duran.

However at Jazzbones right now, Your Crowd hangs with My Crowd.  Blues and Indie hold hands at the bar.  Funk and Alt-country kiss in the corner.  It's a firing of collective aesthetic synapses of music joy and inspiration. Tacoma's weird little music bubble, with more backbiting and smack-talk and, perversely, genuine talent, is blossoming into a pus-filled cyst that, hopefully one day, someone outside the city will know.

Winning the experimental category Waves and Radiation starting the evening off in quiet fashion by destroying every ear drum in the joint. Though experimental is often a recipe for some tedious, pot-brownie-addled musical noodling, Waves and Radiation is able to transcend such trappings by expanding its sound into the electronic sphere and emphasizing its melodic, rockin' and experimental elements.
They also expand the comedic element.

"We feel like we won prom queen," said Waves guitarist Tristan .  Please don't pour blood on us."

After receiving their award medallions and lava lamps, they thanked their significant others, and well, most of the crowd.

Rodeo Kill is about to hit the stage.  Blog ya later.