BEAT THE HEAT >>>

Air conditioning is defined as the dehumidification of indoor air for thermal comfort.

This is important.

Not as important as, say, making the best pizza in all of Washington but it's still important.

It's 85 degrees outside and I'm waiting inside Puget Sound Pizza for Peter Tjetjan from the electro-kitsch Umber Sleeping, Trevor Dickson from indie darlings the Nightgowns and Jason Freet from the stoney and hypnotic Drug Purse. It is, at the very least, exactly the same temperature inside PSP as it is outside.

Drenched in sweat and the smell of delicious Italian food I think of Job Carr. After building a cabin, which would later become Tacoma's first Post Office, and basically creating what we now know as Tacoma, Carr spent numerous summers without air conditioning - sweating.

Peter Tjetjan walks into the delicious-smelling sauna a bit frantically. "I need to go to the post office," he plainly states. It's an eerie coincidence.

Instead of asking why, I ask both Tjetjan and Dickson (who has also shown up) what it is about Tacoma that makes so many bands err on the side of psychedelic or revival music?

Tjetjan - visibly distracted by the current prices of stamps - says he thinks it's because Tacoma isn't a metropolis and a lot of bands don't really care if they "hit it big." Dickson, touching on a similar theme, tells me, "The hipster circuit in Tacoma isn't as large as the other big cities, so there really isn't a scene where everybody is trying to do the same thing. A lot of kids that live in Tacoma now came from the suburbs. I know, for me, I listened to a lot of old music growing up."

As for the show Saturday night that will see Umber Sleeping, the Nightgowns, the Drug Purse and The Midnight Sun share a bill at Bob's Java Jive, Dickson and Tjetjan tell me it was Freet who put it together.

Outside and inside, it's still hot.

"Yeah, it's funny because I was just talking to Cody (Jones) about wanting to do something at the Java Jive this summer and maybe a week or two after that Jason called me with the idea," says Dickson of his bandmate in the Nightgowns and their similar desires. "There is a certain kind of magic that is captured when a good crowd shows up ... and they used to have monkeys."

Tjetjan then hurries away to the post office.

The Tacoma music scene is as rich as it has been since the Ventures made surf rock the most popular form of music in Japan, and this excites me, as it did on during the ill-fated, post-office themed interview at PSP. Sadly, Freet (predictably) never showed up, and my elevated heart rate made the heat inside Tacoma's best pizza joint more closely resemble a sunspot than a cool summer day.

If you live in Tacoma, care about Tacoma or have any interest in music you simply must go to this show. Air-conditioning or not, there's no doubt Job Carr would agree.

Bob's Java Jive

Featuring The Drug Purse, Umber Sleeping, The Nightgowns, The Midnight Sun, Saturday, July 24, 9 p.m., cover TBA
2102 S. Tacoma Way, Tacoma
253.475.9843