BOBBLE TIKI: RONTROSE QUITS; KRISTIN CONNELL OPENS THE SPEAKEASY >>>

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. Check out my column in today's Weekly Volcano on the streets or online for news regarding Ron “Rontrose” Heathman leaving The Supersuckers; the Speakeasy Art Co-op opening featuring Kristin Connell; and Blame it on the Girl at Bob’s Java Jive.

MICHAEL SWAN: SO UP TACOMA'S ALLEY >>>
 
The Pabst Blue Ribbon’s fourth annual “PB-Arts Contest” is on folks.
 
The contest invites PBR drinkers to create unique works of art inspired by the historic can.  Works will be accepted in four categories â€" photography, painting, sculpture and poetry â€" through January 15, 2010. PBR will select one grand prize winner and one runner-up in each category.  

As in past years, the winning artwork will be honored and displayed in cities across the United States in various ways â€" wallscapes, alternative weeklies, building projections, newspaper racks, bus benches, store displays and other visual outlets.
 
Grand prize winners will receive $1,893 in cash, symbolic to the year 1893 when PBR won their famous blue ribbon, and a one-year supply of the inspiring brew. The runners-up in each category will receive exactly one third of the Grand Prize: $631 in cash and a four-month supply of Pabst.  In addition, PBR will showcase the winning artwork throughout the U.S.
 
For further submission and contest details, shotgun a PBR and go here.

MICHAEL SWAN: SOMETHING TO KNOW >>>

MICHAEL SWAN: TODAY’S HAPPY HOUR DISCUSSION TOPIC >>>

Discuss the above video over happy hour at:

Ale House Pub & Eatery
2122 Mildred St. W., Tacoma, 253.565.9367
Happy Hours: 3-7 p.m., 10 p.m. to close daily
Drink Specials: $2 domestic pints, $2.50 E9 pints, $3 micros/ imports, $2.50 wells
Food specials: Half off appetizers

LINK: Other South Sound Happy Hours

MICHAEL SWAN: FRIDAY, OCT. 16, 2009 >>>

1. Viva Oz Vegas, the Vegas-style floor show extravaganza, hits Olympia’s Capitol Theater stage at 8 p.m.

2. The Gig Harbor Film Festival with more than 60 features, documentaries, shorts, and foreign films begins its three-day run today.

3. Tacoma mayoral candidates Jim Merritt and Marilyn Strickland will discuss questions posed by the public and CIVITAS, a student group, about urban issues facing Tacoma at The University of Washington Tacoma in the William W. Philip Hall’s Milgard Assembly Room from 5-6:30 p.m.

4. The Heroes of Improv Comedy performs at 7:30 and 9:30 p.m. at the Midnight Sun Performance Space in Olympia.

5. Andrew Vait & The Lonesome Pioneers and Danny Godinez play an 8 p.m. gig at Krickett’s Family Restaurant in Parkland.

LINK: Live music and DJs in the South Sound

LINK: Local movie starting times

LINK: South Sound Restaurant Guide

JAKE DE PAUL: FOOD MATTERS >>>

New Menu:  Asado released its new menu yesterday. Drop by the Argentine style roast house for new items such as chorizo corn dogs, burger dip, fried veggies, roasted corn and poblano hummus with grilled pita.

A Gourd-Geous Night: Bayview Thriftway in Olympia celebrates the afterglow of a harvest evening with indoor and outdoor gourd festivities such as cooking and carving demos, harvest cookies, apple cider and hay bales next to space heaters tonight from 5-8 p.m.

Plan Ahead: The Red Hot hosts Elysian Brewing Wednesday, Oct. 21 for a night of pumpkin beers.

Food For Thought: Have a headache? Eat chocolate.

LINK: Weekly Volcano’s Eat & Drink section

LINK: South Sound Restaurant Guide

LINK: South Sound Happy Hours

LINK: South Sound Dive Bars

PAUL SCHRAG: WEHRMACHT â€" FUN TO SAY, FUN TO WATCH >>>

Portland-based beer-core metal maniacs Wehrmacht will be at Hell’s Kitchen tonight, with a solid line-up following a series of band re-organizations. The remnants of the band’s original line up went on to form bands like Spazztic Blurr, Cryptic Slaughter, Drumattica and Tri-polar, and have played with rock luminaries such as Sweaty Nipples, Everclear, Nervous Christians and Bastard Children of the Roman Empire. Drummer Brian Lehfeldt became a criminal defense attorney. The band, named after military defense forces in pre-WWII-Germany, was formed in Portland, Ore., and is known for creating the shortest metal song ever â€" “Micro-E!”, which lasts all of 0.1 seconds.

They have recently reformed with the original, 1985 line-up, and have taken to the road again, spreading their message of drunken horror to a new generation. Awesome.

[Hell’s Kitchen, Heaven and Hell Ball with Wehrmacht, De-Krep-It, Drown Mary, .50 Caliber Nightmare, Friday, Oct. 16, $7, $5 with costume, 3829 Sixth Ave., Tacoma, 253.759.6003]

SUZY STUMP: ANNIE WILL ASK IF YOU ARE OK >>>

There’s really not much we can say about this one, because usually when the word sex is included that’s all people need or want to hear. Come, rid yourself of your all-consuming urge to talk about this not-so-forbidden-yet-somehow-ever-more-enticing subject in a constructive manner at The Evergreen State College next week.

Annie Sprinkle, Ph.D., prostitute/porn star turned sexologist/performance artist will be visiting The Evergreen State College for a two-day series of lectures, workshops and clinics Oct. 20-21. Highlights include the Oct. 21 Free Sidewalk Sex Clinic at noon and the Oct. 21 screening of Sprinkle’s Amazing World of Orgasm at 7 p.m.

Sponsored by the Women’s Resource Center, these upcoming events are all free except, of course, for the lecture/performance piece, My Big Fat Queer Sexy Artist Activist Life, in the college’s Experimental Theater Oct. 20 at 7:30 pm. Tickets for this event are $10, $7 for students and are available online at BuyOlympia.com, at the Evergreen bookstore, the Communications Lab Box Office from 12-3 pm Mon-Fri. or by calling 360.867.6833 for phone orders. It should be noted that students may be admitted free with a donation of tampons, pads or pregnancy tests at the door.
 
For more information, check our Sprinkle’s Web site or Love Art Lab.

MICHAEL SWAN: TACOMA OWNS THE WEB >>>

Graffiti artists are the definitive visionaries â€" they were blogging even before Al Gore invented the Internet.

No lie.

What's the difference between painting on a public wall and putting writing, artwork, or pictures of your wanger on a virtual, even more public one? Screen names replace tag names, but the risky allure of anonymous exhibitionism remains the same.

The brain trust behind Tacoma's 253hiphop.com have invented a Web site for the Northwest graffiti community. The new site â€" nwgraffiti.com â€" is user generated providing privacy and community for graffiti artists to share and discuss their work.

Right now our circulation guy is passed out on the cafeteria couch and we’re drawing on his forehead. We should have it posted on the new graffiti site soon.

MICHAEL SWAN: SATURDAY, OCT. 17, 2009 >>>

1. Artist Fulgencio Lazo and assistants will create an elaborate “tapete” sand painting in the Tacoma Art Museum’s  lobby and community groups will assemble altars in remembrance of their deceased loved ones to kick off the museum’s Día de los Muertos celebration.

2. The Grand Cinema presents a free screening of Charlott’e Web at 10:30 a.m.
 
3. Pacific Lutheran University's MediaLab presents a student produced documentary Point of Entry: Migrating to North America, which examines immigration policy between Canada and the U.S., followed by a panel discussion, at 2 p.m. inside the Washington State History Museum.

4. So’Just 2009 â€" the all-volunteer organized festival of art, music, and dance â€" runs from 2-6 p.m. at the Tacoma campus of The Evergreen State College.
 
5. S.E.S. presents an all-ages show featuring Red White & Die, Cody Foster’s Army, Bully, and South 11th at 7 p.m. inside the Viaduct.

LINK: Live music and DJs in the South Sound

LINK: Local movie starting times

LINK: South Sound Restaurant Guide