MATT DRISCOLL: KGRG THROWS A PARTY >>>

If you’ve followed music in this area â€" especially local music, or off the beaten path rock â€" you know about the importance of KGRG 89.89FM. While it doesn’t always come in so great around these parts, there’s no denying that Green River’s college radio station has influenced a ton of ears â€" from Kent to Auburn to Puyallup and beyond â€" during its time on the air.

And speaking of its time on the air, KGRG 89.9FM will soon be celebrating 20 years of its “Today’s Rock” format.

Here’s a sampling of what it all means from the press release:

PIONEERING RADIO STATION KGRG-FM CELEBRATES 20TH ANNIVERSARY OF “TODAY’S ROCK” FORMAT

Legendary Puget Sound college radio station, 89.9 KGRG-FM, is celebrating the 20th Anniversary of its seminal “Today’s Rock” format with a three-week bash on air, online, and in the clubs.

KGRG-FM, run exclusively by college students over the years, is the only station in the Pacific Northwest to have simultaneously helped launch the careers of major artists as well as the careers of professional radio broadcasters for the past two decades. The station is owned and operated by Green River Community College, Auburn, Washington.

Since early 1989, bands such as Nirvana, Mudhoney, Presidents of the USA, MxPx, Modest Mouse, and a host of others were quickly elevated to national and worldwide status thanks in part to heavy early airplay championed by KGRG-FM. These bands, along with scores of others, performed at Green River’s Lindbloom Student Center at fundraisers for non-commercial KGRG-FM.

The station has been referenced in books about the Seattle music scene such as Loser: The Real Seattle Music Story by Clark Humphrey and in music videos such as “I'm Not Okay (I Promise)” by My Chemical Romance.

Literally hundreds of professional radio broadcasters got their start at Green River’s student station. DJ No Name (KNDD), Marty Riemer (KMTT), Tony Miner (KIRO-FM), Ryan “Big Daddy” Michaels (KMPS), Larry Lomax (KCMS), Julie Pilat and Dave Styles (KIIS-FM/Los Angeles), Derric “Tanner” Hoffman and Matt McCart (KITS/San Francisco), Candy (WLNK/Charlotte), Grant Ruby (KENZ/Salt Lake City), and Trent Edwards (KEDG/Phoenix) are but a few examples of the many who turned their time at KGRG-FM into a radio career.

Alumni Week kicks off the “20th Anniversary of Today’s Rock” celebration as many of the illustrious alumni will return to 89.9FM April 27-May 1, 2009. Alums will take over the airwaves daily from 3pm-midnight. The station also streams at www.kgrg.com. The “20th Anniversary Spring Pledge Drive” begins May 1st and features lots of limited edition 20th Anniversary logoed items and other special treats for listeners.

KGRG-FM presents a day-long “Today’s Rock” concert on Saturday, May 9th. “The Classic Crime” headlines the bill at The Viaduct in Tacoma. Other acts include Brier Rose, Monetta, Open Fire, I Declare War, Mirror the Ghost, James Hunnicutt, the Americommies, and more. The all-ages show begins at 1pm. Tickets are available at the door for $8 before 4pm and $10 after 4pm. The Viaduct is located at 5412 S. Tacoma Way Tacoma, WA 98409.

For more information, view “20th Anniversary of Today’s Rock” info at www.kgrg.com or call 254-833-5004.

Tom Tom Evans Krause
Director of Broadcast Operations KGRG-AM & FM
Green River Community College
12401 SE 320th Street
Auburn, WA 98092
253-833-9111 x2190

MICHAEL SWAN: FRIDAY, APRIL 24, 2009 >>>

1. Walk A Mile In Her Shoes â€" Men strapped on their finest stilettos and slipped into their fanciest to raise money for the Sexual Assault Center of Pierce County beginning at 11:45 a.m. at the Washington State History Museum.

2. Grab a pal and spend a couple of hours in downtown Olympia tonight taking in the mind-bending variety of stuff some people conjure up to express themselves and sell during Olympia Arts Walk XXXVIII. The collective experience â€" bands in alleys, theater on the streets, lumberjacks and punks hugging, the proliferation of hand-painted clothing â€" can be both invigorating and thought provoking.

3. Holly Figueroa O’Reilly plays an all-ages show at The Mandolin Café at 8:30 p.m. This woman is wicked talented.

4. Chicharones combine of the right ingredients, namely Oldominion’s Sleep and Anticon’s Josh Martinez at The China Clipper at 9 p.m.

5. “Smilin’“ Andrew Foard and Durango 95, having survived a coma and an uncertain hiatus, respectively, are back tonight at Hell’s Kitchen â€" ready to remind us all why we fell in love with them in the first place.

LINK: Live music and DJs tonight in the South Sound

JAKE DE PAUL: FRIDAY FOOD LINKS >>>

Sonic opens Monday.

The details are in on the new wine bistro, Minoela.

SunChips has announced that that by Earth Day 2010, they plan to introduce the world’s first fully compostable chip bag.

The culinary quirks of Lou Reed and Keith Richards

Today’s South Sound Specials

New Italian Wines tasting, 3-6 p.m., complimentary, Water to Wine, 9014 Peacock Hill Ave., Gig Harbor, 253.853.9463.

Fridays Uncorked, 5-7:30 p.m., $12, Bayview School of Cooking, 516 Fourth Ave. W., Olympia, 360.754.1448.

Wine tasting, 6-8 p.m., $7.50-$10, WineStyles Wine & Gifts, 2665 N. Pearl St., Tacoma, 253.756.1922.

LINK: South Sound Restaurant Guide

FRANCOIS TWITTER: ZEE BEECH AIN'T ONE >>>

FIGHTING: Small-town keed combatz in underground matchez.

THE BLACK BALLOON: Bright Auzzee filmmaker Elissa Down brings a pizz-and-vineegar approach to zee story of a famille dealing with zee mood swingz of an autistic son.

THE CROSS: True movee of L.A. preacher Arthur Blessitt who, on Noel 1969, walked around zee world carrying a 12-foot wooden crozz to spread zee word of Jésus.

THE INFORMERS: '80s rewind sleazee-fest eez set with rich movee-biz peeplez in Los Angelez. It eez empty as zee characters the movee eez supposed to portray.

OBSESSED: Ali Larter wants Beyonce’s homme but she should know zee beech ain’t one.

THE SOLOIST: Upleefting, based-on-a-true-storee tale of ordinaree madness eez trés bon for you â€" and maybee a trés bon film, no.

LINK: Movee timez here

Photo: Rogue Pictures

NEWS TEAMS: GOOD MORNING SOUTH SOUND >>>

Lesson: These are tough times we live in.

Drunk Friday: It didn’t work.

Road plan: Federal Way City Council rejected plan to ease chronic traffic congestion (then probably couldn’t decide which of the thousand food franchises gracing their city to host their post discussion).

Legislature: Doubt we’ll see them at the Olympia Arts Walk this weekend.

Blood in Iraq: Sixty people die in more suicide bombings.

Future humans will be used as energy cells for massive robot cities built under acid rain skies: Artificial intelligence cracks a 4,000 year-old archeological mystery.
http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/04/indusscript.html

Leaks in Moscow causes trouble

NEWS TEAM: WANKERS OF THE DAY >>>

Weldon Marc Gilbert

Madoff Mess

Saturday Night Fever Wannabe

Land Shark

We like the original Land Shark better

Watch more SPIKE videos on AOL Video

TAMMY ROBACKER: OLD TOWN’S PAGE TURNER >>>

Kevin Miller just put Old Town Tacoma on America’s literary map. A local poet and dedicated educator, Miller recently published his third poetry book: Home & Away: The Old Town Poems. Released last fall through generous funding from the 2007/2008 TAIP award grant and the City of Tacoma, the poems in Miller’s latest collection cover a decade of his work since moving to Old Town Tacoma. The poems are not a collection speaking to the history of Old Town, rather they are works inspired by and rooted in his personal sense of home, family, and place here in Tacoma and beyond.

The works in the section “Home,” focus on the people and places near home for him. The “Away” poems are written to address the distances in our lives. “(The) poems address places and friends in other parts of the state, the country, the world; for example, Denmark where we lived for a year or Wenatchee where my wife’s people live,” says Miller.

A high school English teacher for 30 years turned assistant principal for four years, Miller returned to the classroom to teach special education at Olympia High School. Currently, he teaches special education to sixth graders at Washington Middle School in Olympia. To encourage the creative spirit in his students, Miller gets them to say it with words. “I have my students write every day, some days it’s poetry. They never cease to astound me.”

Home & Away: The Old Town Poems is available locally at King’s Books in Tacoma. It is also available online and through the publisher here. One of the published poets collected in the anthology In Tahoma’s Shadow, Miller will be reading his Tacoma-inspired poetry at one of the upcoming ITS readings scheduled for May. You won’t want to miss him.

Three Bridges Building
By Kevin Miller

Give me a building
with the right name,
a wooden store front
with an apartment upstairs,
gold leaf letters on glass
over the entry door
understated, like a scarf
perfectly tied.
I leave you a note:
Meet at Three Bridges Building. 
The single concrete bridge
will keep us counting ways
over the gully where stolen bicycles
and city deer lie in silence.

We will rendezvous
like pals after paper routes,
measure time by daylight,
by what we do and when it’s done.
No one will be late,
first to arrive waits at the rail
to watch the gully trail twist
through black berry and alder
descending three miles north
to Old Town and sea level.

I'll bring you more poetry ditties Monday. Check out the Poem-A-Tacoma archives.

Poem-A-Tacoma is sponsored by Embellish Multispace Salon in downtown Tacoma.

TAMMY ROBACKER is a poet and writer living, breathing, typing and spitting words in Tacoma. She owns a freelance writing and marketing communications company called Pearle Publications. Her poetry has appeared in Plazm, Women's Work, The Wild Goose Poetry Review, and the Allegheny Review. A recent recipient of the 2009/10 TAIP grant, she will be publishing her first book of poetry, The Vicissitudes, through the generous support of this funding made possible by the City of Tacoma and the Tacoma Arts Commission.

NIKKI TALOTTA: CAPITAL CITY GUITARS IS WHERE IT'S AT >>>

Hooray! It’s time for Spring Arts Walk in downtown Olympia! The bars are full, the art abundant, and my fave: Capital City Guitars has a tradition of hosting outstanding local musicians in front of the store. Hell Yeah! More head bangin’ and booty shakin’ in the streets! Capital City Guitars should be crowned number one bad-ass for participation. (Don’t be mad, Procession of the Species â€" you have your own category.) Throughout the last 13 years, this little guitar shop has held steadfast to providing a place for musicians to plug in, be loud and entertain the masses for free. Tonight headliners are the heavy Bacchus and old-school metal band, Christian Mistress â€" a relatively new Oly band getting hype for its ’80s metal vibe. For easier listeners, relatively speaking, Saturday’s lineup includes the Siderailers and Brian Feist Blues Band. See you there.

[Capital City Guitars, Bacchus, Christian Mistress, the Siderailers, Brian Feist Blues Band, others, April 24-25. 5 p.m., no cover, 108 Fourth Ave., Olympia, 360.956.7097]

PHOTO: www.capitalcityguitars.com

WEEKLY VOLCANO: THE MAKEUP MONSTERS ARE COMING UP >>>

The Makeup Monsters are a two-piece, guitar and drum outfit from Tacoma. Their music is smartly written vintage indie rock with great vocal melodies and catchy lyrics. Shayne Weeks and Isaac Solverson are the young artists, yet they write with the experience of grownups.

They're also way more talented than Chuck Dula, who interviewed the band this week in preparation for their show tonight at Hell's Kitchen.

To read that article, click here.

OWEN TAYLOR: THE CHICHARONES ARE IN OLY TONIGHT >>>

Pork products are amazing. I realize this watching my Jimmy Dean Vermont Maple Syrup flavored breakfast sausages sizzle in the pan at breakfast. There they lay, my pretty little pig fingers, dancing back and forth as the pan’s heat sears through the casing and cooks the little blobs of ground-up fat and meat. It’s that surreal blend of savory and sweet aromas emanating from the pan that gets the salivary glands going â€" anticipating the greatness that will come. It’s kind of like seeing the Chicharones flyers all over downtown Olympia. Having tasted the Chicharones’ high-powered show before, an experience that only comes from the combination of the right ingredients, namely Oldominion’s Sleep and Anticon’s Josh Martinez, we can but wait in a drooling stupor for the flavor to arrive in our ears and satisfy our hunger for dope hip-hop â€" which will happen Friday at the Clipper. Like I said, pork products are amazing.

[The China Clipper, Chicharones with Language Arts Crew, Junkyard Gang, the Elements, DJ Deadbeat 9 p.m., $5, 402 E. Fourth Ave., Olympia, 360.943.6300]

PHOTO: Myspace/Arian Stevens