MUSICALLY SPEAKING >>>

Sure, I'm heading to Austin tomorrow for SXSW - but that doesn't mean I've been given the go-ahead to blow the whole week off. On the contrary, a situation like this actually requires much MORE work - as I'm frantically trying to get all the Volcano's ducks in a row before taking off.

On that note, here's a look at what you can expect this week, musically speaking, from the Volcano:

Tune-Yards: The Volcano's Rev. Adam McKinney talks with Merrill Garbus, the women behind Tune-Yards, who will play Northern in Olympia next Tuesday, March 23, with Xiu Xiu.

McKinney sums up the band thusly:

All the same, I still find myself caught off guard by Tune-Yards, AKA Merrill Garbus. She's a true original, and an apparent master of her medium: tape music. She's one of those people, like Hendrix was with the guitar, who can take her tool and bend it, stretch it, distort it, and reform it anew. Listening to her debut full-length, Bird-Brains, for the first time was legitimately exciting for me.

Check out McKinney's full article in Thursday's edition of the Volcano.

GREEN APPLE QUICK STEP: It's not often that Ty Willman gets the band back together - but he's doing it on Saturday, March 27 at Hell's Kitchen. The band in question, of course, is the venerable Green Apple Quick Step - perhaps the poster act for post-grunge, hype-pumped Seattle. Although GAQS disbanded in the mid-90s, the band retains a strong following to this day - a following only inflamed by the knowledge of an unreleased album, New Disaster, that Willman has serious designs on finally making available.

Originally from Tacoma, and the band Inspector Luv and the Ride Me Babys, Willman took time to speak with the Volcano by phone this week from L.A.

"You'd be pretty amazed of how you jump back on the ball," says Willman of playing with Green Apple Quick Step - which these days includes Geoff Reading (of Volcano fame), Dana Turner, Mike Squires and Christa Wells.

"I grew up in Tacoma, went to high school in Tacoma. It seemed like the first place to play a show."

Check out the rest of the Volcano's interview with Willman in Thursday's paper.

PLUS: Manhammer, Basemint, Catcher, Post Stardom Depression and Womberang