STEPH DEROSA: SLOW BURN >>>

The Rock Wood Fired Pizza and Spirits
Fire and Rain pizza 
Price: $15.79 (Small) $20.99 (Large)
Burn Factor: Three out of four Molotov cocktails

I was already full from last week’s Tossing Salad indulge at The Rock Wood Fired Pizza and Spirits when I searched the menu again, finding their new Fire and Rain pizza.  I HAD to try it.  I couldn’t eat more than one piece, didn’t want to purchase the whole pie, so what did I do?  I waited for a nearby table to order it, and then I made my move.  All it took was a little innocent eyelash batting, a polite “please,” and a shot of Crown Royal for the nice gentleman at the bar to hand over a slice of hot-wings-on-a-pizza-crust heaven.  Hot and spicy success!

A simple glance at the ingredients sent my belly afire: mozzarella, garlic, buffalo chicken, shredded carrots, celery and bleu cheese dressing.  The combination alone was enough to get my blood pumpin’ for the party about to happen upon my taste buds.  The toppings laid flawlessly atop the wood fired thin crust that just happened to hold it all together, without overpowering the perfectly paired menagerie of hot sauce, chicken, and veggies. 

Omit the finger-lickin’ mess next time you get a hankering for some hot wings and roll up your sleeves for this original feast of fire.  Oh, and don’t forget the beer, your mouth is going to need it.

[The Rock Wood Fired Pizza and Spirits, 1920 Jefferson Ave., Tacoma, 253.272.1221]

JAKE DE PAUL: LOCAL PORK >>>

Look what Primo Grill sent me:

I’m in.

[Primo Grill, 601 S. Pine St., Tacoma, 253.383.7000]

MICHAEL SWAN: PAPPI SWARNER’S JUKEBOX >>>

It’s Friday afternoon at the Weekly Volcano World Headquarters. The editorial staff is off to some happy hour. I suspect the sales staff, too. I can hear knitting needles in The Steno Pool. The production staff receives the shaft once again, buried in a pile of work. I’m manning the phones. And our fearless leader Pappi Swarner is, as he does every Friday afternoon, hole up in his office blaring some ‘70s pop tune dreaming of the good old days of leisure suits, gas lines, Jonathan Livingston Seagull, geodesic domes, exploding Ford Pintos, fears of overpopulation, streaking, and pet rocks.

Pappi always argues that the '70s were a time of fundamental change: Women's liberation, gay rights, and alternative spiritual paths may have all gained traction in the ‘60s, but they didn't fuse into the zeitgeist until the '70s. He's right, but we play dumb.

Speaking of change, Pappi seems to be in a good mood today, illustrated by the fact that The Steno Pool is in the house. He’s down with the funk. His jukebox rattles with Rare Earth’s “Hey Big Brother,” yeah, yeah, yeah.

Oh, no. He’s headed toward The Steno Pool with platform shoes. This is not good.

TONY ENGELHART: HATES COMPARISONS ... OR SO HE SAYS >>>

I truly hate comparisons, but it’s the only way to effectively describe this band. A bit on the same wavelength as the Flaming Lips, the Harvey Girls pride themselves on experimentation. With a synth-heavy sound, they maintain a New Wave ’80s timbre, but are in step with the times. A bit Dead Can Dance, a bit Portishead and a bit Human League, the Harvey Girls are all over the map. Singer Hiram Locke’s Jim Morison-esque, deadpan vocals are complimented nicely by harmonies provided by Melissa Rodenbeek. However, when she steps up to the microphone, the band takes on a completely different identity as they morph into a strange culmination of the Cocteau Twins and Kate Bush. OK, enough of the associations, but I can say for certain this band will give Radiohead fans a raging hard-on.

[Le Voyeur, with Cars and Trains, Jenny Jenkins, Saturday, Jan. 31, 10 p.m., no cover, 404 E Fourth Ave., Olympia, 360.943. 5710]

BOBBLE TIKI: PREPARING HIS GROOVE THING FOR SHAKING >>>

Bobble Tiki enjoys many things, but two of his favorite are dancing and pretending he’s smarter than he actually is. Don’t ask how things got to be this way, just accept Bobble Tiki for who he is â€" a very complicated, yet simple little Tiki.

One of the places Bobble Tiki really enjoys acting smarter than he actually is â€" nodding appreciatively like he knows the difference between absolute and veristic surrealism â€" is at art galleries. On any given Third Thursday Bobble Tiki can be found doing just this throughout downtown Tacoma. If you see him, please don’t call Bobble Tiki out on this fact. It would be horribly embarrassing, you know?

Anyway, tonight there’s an event at The Robert Daniel Gallery in Tacoma that won’t even require Bobble Tiki to pretend to be something he’s not â€" but just might call on him to shake his booty. This is an activity Bobble Tiki will engage in without embarrassment.

To read Bobble Tiki's full article on the South Sound Collective and Pacific Fusion's Fresh Air event tonight at the Robert Daniel Gallery, click here.

OWEN TAYLOR: ALL-OUT ASSAULT ON THE VIRGINITY OF YOR PRECIOUS LITTLE NOTIONS >>>

Recently I was able to catch up with Sex Vid frontman and Olympia luminary Judd Taylor on his way to the gym to workout. Upon meeting Taylor, most would assume his simple, unkempt appearance and wispy receding hairs swaying in the breeze make him appear more like Wallace Shawn of Princess Bride fame or a Trekkie on a bender, and less like the avatar of hardcore that he is. The founder and former proprietor of Phantom City Records in downtown Olympia recently sold the business to focus more on touring and writing with the band, which has steadily built a massive international following due to its ultra-vicious sound, which many in the scene have likened to the formidable Void. Their newest LP, Communal Living, has come out to mostly favorable reviews, save for the internet haters whose profoundly useless existence will eventually be null and void much the same as all of our nuclear fates. But I digress.

Taylor says that physical fitness is paramount to his job performance. “Every band that isn’t on the show is pissed at us because they’re not playing, and they’ll be at the show. So ya know, that’ll be fun to see.” He then went on to describe an array of upper body strength-building exercises he partakes in, though I was having trouble envisioning the former record clerk posted on two dumbbells.

Then I saw a Sex Vid show.

Dig if you will this picture: A four-cornered room barely big enough for a twin bed that would rent for $750 on Capitol Hill in Seattle. A four piece hardcore band in the corner. Throngs of girls with half-shaved heads and loosely layered flannels and torn American Apparel stretch pants veering in every direction all at once â€" a phalanx of rapture and disgust, sexy spiny pufferfish whose spikes are bedazzled with anger and orgasmic wrath. More sweaty shirtless men rubbing on each other than a Ricky Martin fantasy chamber, except that they don’t really like each other, or anything for that matter, but smashing and flailing and singing every lyric like they know it â€" because they do. Off in the corner, a huge beard and glasses swimming in a swami’s trance, meditating on the pit he’s about to enter by swallowing the guitar tones whole until he drowns and falls in. It’s salvation for the lost tribes of restless youth ...

Tonight at Old School Pizzeria, Taylor and Sex Vid will pummel Olympia’s senses with a hardcore show that can only be classified as epic. The band will be supporting role Extortion â€" who are in the midst of a West Coast tour. Expect an all-out assault on the virginity of your precious little notions of what you thought you knew.

[Old School Pizzeria, with Extortion and Iron Lung, Saturday, Jan. 31, 10 p.m., $5, 108 Franklin St. N.E., Olympia, 360.786.9640]

MICHAEL SWAN: FLIGHT OF THE CONCHORDS >>>

Kiwi comic-folkies Flight of the Conchords are coming to the Puget Sound! Paramount Theatre, to be exact, on May 11 and May 12. If manager Murray doesn't screw up the tour, that is. ...

Tickets go on sale Feb. 7 at 10 a.m. Details here.

Here's a taste of their “Sugar Lumps”: