SUNDAY, NOV. 23 2014 >>>

1. Alice Cooper, born Vincent Furnier, pretty much invented live heavy metal spectacle. Long before Britney Spears draped a serpent awkwardly about her neck, Cooper was welcoming us to his nightmare by tossing a live chicken (not, as press reports claimed the next day, biting its head off), purporting to electrocute a guy on stage, and incorporating drag elements from Barbarella and What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? No less a scribe than Bob Dylan called him "an overlooked songwriter," and it's hard to argue his assessment given such singles as "School's Out," "No More Mr. Nice Guy" and the ballad "You and Me." Of course, Cooper was also slamming a bottle of whiskey and up to two cases of beer a day at the time, so it's probably a good thing he traded that addiction for golfing with Pat Boone. Don't think the Godfather of Shock Rock has mellowed out too much, though - his last single was called "I'll Bite Your Face Off."  Catch him at 7 p.m. in the Emerald Queen Casino.

2. Erivan and Helga Haub donated 295 Western American works of art from their private collection to the Tacoma Art Museum, along with endowment funds for the future care and educational opportunities related to the collection. The collection spans 200 years, from famed early artists/explorers to notable present day masters. Read Alec Clayton's full story on the Haub Fally Collection wing at the Tacoma Art Museum in the Music & Culture Section, then see the exhibit from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.

3. Johannes Brahms (1833-1897) was a German Romantic composer who, all his life, aspired to be a Classicist in the Beethoven mold - to the extent that he refused to allow titles tacked onto any of his instrumental-genre works: symphonies, concertos, string quartets and quintets, piano trios and quartets, piano sonatas, etc. (though Beethoven himself apparently had fewer objections). Any one of them is simply known as "genre" number N in "some" key, opus "some number": no subtitles and thus no allusions to a mood, no literary ties and certainly no program to "follow." You listen for sound only and savor whatever mood it evokes for you. And that is exactly what you can expect at 2:30 when the Tacoma Symphony Orchestra performs Brahms' Symphony No. 2 withSarahIoannides conducting and young Charlie Albright on piano in the Pantages Theater. Also expect to hear Beethoven'sFidelio Overture and Tchaikovsky'sPiano Concerto No. 1.

4. Accompanied by talented cantaores and musicians, the explosive dances of Mariana Collado and Carlos Chamorro lead us into the mysterious world of flamenco - with an allusion to metallurgy, in which primitive elements are extracted, refined and fused to new strengths and grandeur - at 7 p.m. in the Washington Center.

5. Coming from New York, Pampers bring a sonic onslaught that rarely, if ever, lets up. Listening to the art-punk band is something like trying to restrain a maniac on speed - there's just no getting out of there with cuts, bruises and hair getting ripped out of your head. It's all thrashing and wailing, with the occasional sonic oddity thrown into the mix to make everything just a little bit more disorienting. See the band with OBN IIIs and Nudity at 8 p.m. in Northern.

LINK: Sunday, Nov. 23 arts and entertainment events in the greater Tacoma and Olympia area