1. It's Wednesday, which means it's time for another Wednesday Session at Jazzbones. Tonight, Roman Holiday takes to the stage, promising to rock like few things will this Hump Day.
2. The real appeal of Puget Sound Pizza's karaoke is its inimitable host, the Reverend Colin. A tall, bearded man who always sports a utilikilt, Rev. Colin possesses a wealth of oddball musical knowledge and a disarming ease for calling everyone "baby." Having hosted karaoke for a little more than 12 years, Rev. Colin conducts karaoke with a sure hand and a sense of fairness with who gets to sing and how often; he once told me that he prides himself on not accepting bribes from people to be moved to the top of the singing rotation. See for yourself tonight at Puget Sound Pizza, when Karaoke with Colin kicks off at 9 p.m.
3. It gets dark at, like, 3:30 p.m. every afternoon these days. It's cold, wet and growingly miserable outside. The time is right for a movie. May we recommend heading to the Grand Cinema for a warm bag of popcorn and a great flick. Offerings like The Way, Martha Marcy May Marlene, Margin Call, Lost Airmen of Buchenwald and Being Elmo all seem worthy.
4. Get your bingo on and win fabulous prizes tonight at Pints & Quarts on Olympia's Westside. The fun starts at 8:30 p.m. and it's free to play.
5. 2. Holy crap! Hump Day already? That must mean it's time again for Masa College Night. Expect flesh.
Place: Market Street Coffee (1122 Market St., Tacoma)
Located next to: Smooth & Juicy
Associated with: Embellish Multi-Space Salon
They all totally want you to:GO LOCAL
As do: I
Especially when: There's free shit
Like: Drip coffee samples
At: Market Street Coffee
Every damn: Day
Who doesn't love: Free shit?
I know: I do!
David Williams' mother, Linda Fiscus, is either extremely intelligent or just really, really nice. Fiscus is about to make her son, David Williams, co-owner of Market Street Coffee and give him the biggest and best thing he's ever claimed ownership of ... besides his life.
"I've never owned anything, so that would be pretty cool," Williams tells me.
I call bullshit. We've all owned stuff. It doesn't have to be expensive cars, fancy houses or an expansive field of marijuana plants. It could be anything. I quickly ask him to think of the item he's owned the longest.
To read his reply and the rest of my interview with Williams, click here.
I was introduced to rock climbing in the mid-'80s. David Lee Roth was singing and swinging from a rock during one of his lame MTV videos. I had the hair; all I needed was the skills. However, TV sports broadcasts portrayed climbers as unbalanced rock-hermits who feasted on vertigo. As an impressionable youth, I received the message: Just say no to rock climbing.
But I said yes, and by the mid-'90s, I was swinging, but not singing.
Having rock climbed many times, I must pass on a bit of wisdom: Don't climb unless you're willing to accept the risks. Rock climbing involves inherent risks, risks that define the sport's character. Remove these attributes, and you're left with a staircase. If you crater (fall to the ground), you'll be fodder for the naysayers who thrive on heralding this sport as the pastime of lunatics. Be smart: Seek professional instruction, exercise good judgment and know when to back down - the rock will be there another day.
Once you mastered the skills, you need to know where to climb.
Fred Beckey knows. He's climbed the hell out of the Cascade Range Wilderness. He wrote about his adventures in such books as Mountains of North America, The Range of Glaciers: Exploration and Survey of the North Cascades and a personal narrative titled Challenge of the North Cascades.
Beckey will speak Friday night at the Kilworth Memorial Chapel on the northern end of the University of Puget Sound campus. Yes, it was originally scheduled to take place at the Tacoma Mountaineers Club. Folks went nuts for the tickets, so it's been moved to a large venue.
How fast and furious is the world changing before our eyes? We learned police in New York were preparing to clear Zuccotti Park of the two-month old Occupy Wall Street protest late Monday night via-Twitter ... by following Questlove of the Roots. He was tweeting about cops prepping to march in a full hour before the news hit mainstream outlets.
It's an interesting world we live in.
As a society, it seems (and to put it lightly), we've got some things to talk about.
As a community we can start tomorrow with a public forum at the University of Washington Tacoma titled "What is the Occupy Wall Street Movement? (And where is it going?)." Both Occupy Tacoma and Jobs with Justice will have representatives in the discussion.
According to the press release, "This event includes panel presentations, an open forum, and exploration of the goals of the current movement as well as its historical roots and potential political consequences."
[UWT-William Philip Hall, Thursday, Nov. 17, 7-9 p.m., 1900 Commerce St., Tacoma, for information contact Cynthia Howson at chowson@uw.edu]
Today's comment of the day comes from "Olys finest" in response to our little blurb we wrote a while back on the new 1230 Room club in downtown Olympia.
Olys finest writes,
Super nice place clean, music was like every other club. Buff Guys trying to be like jersey shore pretty sure they were all high on something or way to drunk. so I left and went to another called the royal. More up beat and a lot better service hot ladies dancing every place I will go back there again.
Through Rain And Wind Today: U.S. Postal Service hosts a public meetings tonight on its proposal to close its mail-processing center by the Tacoma Mall. (News Tribune)
Now With More Daffodils: City of Puyallup annexes farmlands. (News Tribune)
Because It's So Huge: Help design wayfinding signs for downtown Tacoma. (News Tribune)
Stick Up, Stick Up: Puyallup police are searching for a man who held up a Little Caesars Pizza last night. (News Tribune)
Wow: Ricky Gervais to return as Golden Globes host. (Coming soon)
Super Mad: PETA has turned its wrath on classic video-game character Mario, who wears a Tanooki raccoon suit in Nintendo's new 3DS game Super Mario 3D Land. (Time)
We Finally Will See What They Look Like:Wait Wait...Don't Tell Me is coming to television. (Yahoo)
Darn! Darn! Darn!:The Munsters is getting a reboot at NBC. (Zap 2 It)
1. Blues legend B.B. King visits the Little Creek Casino tonight - the kind of musical opportunity you rarely have on a Thursday. Take advantage of it. Find details on the show here.
2. As a society, it seems (and to put it lightly), we've got some things to talk about. As a community we can start tomorrow with a public forum at the University of Washington Tacoma titled "What is the Occupy Wall Street Movement? (And where is it going?)." Both Occupy Tacoma and Jobs with Justice will have representatives in the discussion. According to the press release, "This event includes panel presentations, an open forum, and exploration of the goals of the current movement as well as its historical roots and potential political consequences."
3. There's all sorts of cultural to be had today, including a free performance of WaT is DaDa? - described as "an original Dada Theatre Cabaret, conceived by Neo-Dadaist Marilyn Bennett and University of Puget Sound theatre arts students." Tonight (and tomorrow's) performance starts at 8 p.m. at Norton Clapp Theater on the UPS Campus. You can also catch WaT is DaDa? Saturday at Toy Boat Theatre (1314 Martin Luther King Jr. Way, Tacoma) at 8 and 10 p.m. All the performances are free.
4. Drive Thru Junkies, Pizzacat, Silent Planet, Murder Wizardz and Superpro will play an all-ages show tonight at The Red Room in Tacoma. It starts at 6:30 p.m. and cover runs $5.
5. Catch the Seattle Comedy Competition semifinals tonight at the Washington Center of the Arts in Olympia. Hosted by Jim Short, the night of laughs is part of Washington Center's Comedy in the Box series, even though ticket demand has been so intense festivities have been moved to the main stage theater.
The Weekly Volcano never sleeps. It's true ... or very close to true. We average only a few hours of shut-eye a night, be it because we're compulsive insomniacs who can't stop rehashing the last season of Breaking Bad (Rev. Adam), or simply because there's just so much to do.
Included in all this doing? As always, another shining installment of the Weekly Volcano music section.
We wouldn't lie. You better believe we managed to pump out another stellar Weekly Volcano music section - your every Thursday chance at the best in local music coverage.
Here's a look at the sonic goodness coming at you in print and online in this week's Volcano ...
In addition to the Big Star influence that infects just about every power pop song ever produced, the Hunting Accident has its own internal power pop lineage to draw from. Hunting Accident members Nate Greely, Aaron Stuart and Travis Shettel cut their teeth in the mid-'90s in the bands Arlo and Piebald. Both incorporated the era's tendency to make songs that were revealing and personal, while at the same time being goofy and almost tossed-off. Arlo's career culminated in the release of two albums through Sub Pop in the early 2000s, while Piebald hung around for a while longer. Both bands eventually came to a close. ... -- Rev. Adam McKinney
Another new crew to the scene making good music is D4MK - a duo that consists of Ghetto and Mista Mac. These cousins have been making some serious street bangers the last couple months. Ghetto was a key lyrical component to the now defunct super-crew The Academy. His standout lyricism, displayed through The Academy, helped him hit the ground running with this new project. ... -- Josh Rizeberg
First it was Mickey Avalon. This week, Jazzbones welcomes "rapper" Dirt Nasty to Tacoma, founder of the Dyslexic Speedreaders (of which Avalon and Andre Legacy were also a part of), and - more importantly - Simon fucking Rex from former MTV fame. That's right. Dirt Nasty is Simon Rex, and these days his gig revolves around producing ridiculously funny hip-hop tracks pertaining to drugs, the '80s, cocaine, sex, even more drugs and the inability to dance ... not necessarily in that order. ... -- Matt Driscoll
It's not an easy feat to stand out in the buzzing colony that is the South By Southwest music festival in Austin, Texas. There is constant activity, constant sound being emitted from frequently amazing bands, and it can sometimes blend into one collective hum. That I still fondly remember Strange Vine after catching the band in a parking lot in Austin, and later on a rooftop at midnight, speaks volumes of both the novel aspect of this band as well as the in-your-face musicianship that defines it. ... -- Rev. AM
At this point it goes without saying. If you're looking for coverage of local arts in Tacoma, Olympia, and all points in between, the Weekly Volcano is THE place to find it. Our goal is to consistently provide the best local arts coverage possible to our fantastic readers -- always be on the lookout for ways to shine a light on all the awesome creativity we see around us.
Here's a look at the Volcano arts coverage waiting for you this week in print and online.
Peter Serko's photography exhibition at the Museum of Glass artistically documents the brief history of the museum since 2006. It also shows different aspects of the building, and of the adjacent Chihuly Bridge of Glass, taken during different times of day throughout the seasons. Plus there's a video montage featuring pictures by other local photographers.
While putting the exhibition together, Serko discovered some interesting facts about the museum.
"Former Tacoma mayor Karen Vialle told me how controversial the purchase of the land where MOG sits was and how it subsequently led to her reelection defeat," Serko says. "I discovered that at various stages many different groups and individuals came forward to put all the pieces together, often with great difficulty and considerable controversy." ... -- Alec Clayton
This exhibition of collaborative work by John Miller and a dozen or so friends is cute and well crafted. Some of the pieces - all giant goblets - are beautiful, most are inventive, and a lot of them are funny. The exhibit, Gathering: John Miller and Friends, combines traditional glass art with a wide variety of art genres such as Pop Art and Color Field painting and Surrealism.
The sheer size is impressive. I'm told most of the pieces are around four to five feet tall, which is an astounding feat for glass blowing. ... -- Alec Clayton
Tacoma's Ron Lagman nears completion of his film Tapat Sa Pangako (Committed), and though it doesn't fit as a Hitchcockian mystery, I still feel like a detective as I watch. The writer-director provides no dialogue, none of that exposition to spell (spill) out the story. Composer Kevin Rolstad's subtly expressive piano score is the only thing doing any talking in this silent movie. ... -- Christopher Wood
Read Comments