DANIEL BLUE: MEET BRANDON HUGHES >>>

Brandon Hughes is a scholar and a poet. He also can sing like a fucking angel. 

A graduate of the Tacoma School of The Arts, Brandon is one of 11 founding members of the fancy fancy Dear Records. 

His current musical project is called Freeze & Fur Coat, they are soft and medium hard at the same time.

Brandon has recently taken an interest in two-wheeled transport, having purchased a Honda Spree 50cc motor scooter. It is black, and so is his helmet, and when he is riding he keeps his hat against his chest with the power of the wind. 

A mutual friend, who told him that I had demonic control over his mind, made Brandon suspicious of me for a short time. I do not think that is true, but I started to be afraid of demons for a little while. 

Brandon and I met at urbanXchange where we became coworkers for a few months.

We became friends over music last summer when the Warehouse was the spot.  Brandon is fighting the good fight for musicians everywhere by undermining the management of the industry, cutting out the middle man and making music without compromising heart.

EVENT
McChord Air Expo
If you live in Lakewood, this might not be the weekend to begin your meditation program. The Thunderbirds, the Air Force's precision flying team, will be in the skies over McChord Air Force Base this weekend as the McChord Air Expo is back! Five hours of flying shows are scheduled Saturday and Sunday, when more than 100 aircraft and other military hardware will be on display. Access to the base, usually restricted, will be open to the public. â€" Michael Swan
[McChord Air Force Base, July 19-20, 8 a.m. gates, 11 a.m. show, free, 150th St. S.W. and Military Road, Lakewood, www.mcchordairexpo.com]

EVENT
MLK/Historic K Street Guided Walking Tour
Join the MLK/Historic K Street Guided Walking Tour and discover the plethora of untapped history lurking behind this infamous district’s buildings and streets. Your informative guides from the Historic Tacoma organization will discuss past, present and future with an emphasis on historic neighborhood identity and what the community is doing to preserve itself. This includes areas such as: Historic K Street Business District, Johnson Candy Company, historic churches and meeting halls, and Tacoma Medical Center. â€" Steph DeRosa
[People’s Park, 10:30 a.m. and 1 p.m., free, People’s Park, South Ninth and Martin Luther King Jr. Way, Tacoma, 253.761.9349]

EVENT
Tacoma Food Co-op
The people behind the Tacoma Food Co-op program are invading People’s Park on Hilltop from 4-9 p.m. For those five hours YOU people can find out what OTHER people are talking about when you hear those crazy words “Food Co-op.” Since 2006 this group of urban go-getters has embraced the need area Tacomans have had for an affordable, organic, local, and natural food market. Finally, their actions and persistence have brought everyone a sense of accomplishment as they become legitimate and incorporated as a business. Entertainment, refreshments and enthralling food co-op information will be at the people’s fingertips in People’s Park Saturday. â€" SD
[People’s Park, 4-9 p.m., free, People’s Park, South Ninth and Martin Luther King Jr. Way, Tacoma, 253.272.8819]

BLUES
Tinsley Ellis
When it comes to modern blues, Tinsley Ellis is the bomb. Rarely doesn’t the guitar virtuoso play a shuffle. With influences by ‘60s British invasion bands such as the Stones and Cream as well as the Kings â€" BB, Albert and Freddie â€" he smokes in Albert Collins style of funky grooves and heavy rock tempos. Ellis posses a rough and road-tested voice that compliments his intense licks giving him authenticity. As a live performer, one would be hard-pressed to find anyone more energetic than Ellis. Rather than playing his tunes note for note, he leaves room for off-the-cuff jamming and improvisation making the live Ellis experience one you’ll remember and cherish long after he’s gone. â€" Tony Engelhart
[Jazzbones, 9:30 p.m., $12, 2803 Sixth Ave., Tacoma, 253.396.9169]

ROCK
The Centre Cannot Hold
Things fall apart, as is evident by the Centre Cannot Hold’s show with Stauffer (a solo project of Aaron Stauffer of Seaweed), Basic Radio and Raylazer tonight at Hell’s Kitchen. The performance will be the Centre’s last, after a brief but promising two year career here in T-town.
For anyone not familiar with the Centre Cannot Hold’s aggressive but new school brand of punk, a helpful reference point is At the Drive-In. â€" Matt Driscoll
[Hell’s Kitchen, The Centre Cannot Hold, Stauffer, Basic Radio and Raylazer, 9 p.m., $5, 3829 Sixth Ave., Tacoma, 253.759.6003]

LINK: Loose Gravel & The Quarry and others in the clubs tonight.
LINK: Viva South South arts and entertainment guide.
LINK: Movie times
LINK: Restaurant guide

DANIEL BLUE: MEET DYLAN TRELEVEN >>>

Dylan Treleven looks like a policeman that lived across the street from me when I was a teenager. 
A Tacoma School of the Arts graduate and a student at Brown college in Mendota Heights, Minn., Dylan is home for the summer and still actively perusing the musical mastery that sets him apart in my mind as an artist of the string.

We met last year at the Warehouse when it was the center of our downtown social universe. 

Always kind and mild mannered, Dylan worked for me as a model in a show Joel Meyers and I put on for the third annual Urban Arts Festival. Dylan was always on time and didn't miss a single rehearsal, which is practically unheard of in the world of volunteer modeling. 

I had dinner at his parent's house on the North Slope, and everyone in his family is seemingly as pleasant, attractive and strangely calm as he is.

There is no question in my mind about his success in this world. He is the kind of candidate that you want to vote for, the kind of proposal you want to say yes to, and the kind of potential you want to hire. 

Soft spoken and clear minded; I hope Dylan decides to make Tacoma his home when he is finished sharpening his mind at Brown.

DANIEL BLUE: MEET CARSON CHURCHILL >>>

Carson Churchill is a young activist. He is passionate about the injustice he sees in the world. He is angry with our immigration laws and the way we treat people who are not Americans on our soil and on theirs.  I have seen him on more than one occasion with a sign in his hand and message on his lips, attempting to make people pay attention to something outside of their own yard.

Carson is a man of good taste and a student at the Tacoma School of the Arts. He has exposed me to film and music alike that is both artful and sophisticated. When I was his age, I had no idea they let people make music unless they planned to play it on the radio.

When Carson went to China with the tips he earned working at the Mad Hat Tea Company's Farmers Market booth, I asked him to bring me back a throwing star. He brought me a fighter pilot helmet instead. I have no idea how he got it out of the country. He is a magic little crafty bastard.

Pictured above at Frost Park in downtown Tacoma, long before the Chalk Challenge was made popular, he knows he is the champion of the fountain.

DANIEL BLUE: MEET BEN PARIS >>>

Ben Paris no longer lives in Tacoma, and he did not grow up in Tacoma.  Despite these things, the mark he has left on our funny bones and our metronomes will not be lost even if he stays away for a time and a half.   

This is truly the strangest man. Once in my kitchen he placed a colander on his head and said, "I am the queen of France."  He then began to wave his arms like tentacles to the rhythm of a Latin-type beat boxing blurting forth from his beard-bordered lips.   

I spent quite a bit of time with him heckling customers from behind the counter at urbanXchange, where we worked together for more than a year. "Um, you don't want to buy that?" he would ask with disgust to teenage girls simply trying to get on with their day. 

I was the good cop,

"Hey man, let the girls buy what they want." 

Usually our argument would escalate into a slapping frenzy, to the giggling pleasure of the bewildered and now ignored store patron. 

Ben's weirdo factor is only surpassed by his genuine love for the well being of those who have adopted him as their beloved comic relief.  He will be missed, until he returns, when he will no longer be missed.

LINK: The Tacoma Files archive

STEPH DEROSA: PLEASE TO MEET YOU >>>

I'm typically happy to meet and see pretty much anyone I know when I'm out and about in the community. Whether I'm shopping with the babe, or sipping coffee with Bandito Betty, or cruisin the local weekend festivals with Carmen and The KAke; it's always assumed I will run into people I know. It's Tacoma, after all. Right?

I wish I could take a public poll: How many people feel the need to duck and hide sometimes in order to avoid the ol stop and chat? Is it wrong to feel that way sometimes? What are the laws of public conversation and how do we know our boundaries?

Perched upon my barstool at everyone's favorite, Parkway Tavern, I was there to accomplish two things: Catch up with Bandito and have a damn beer. I had no intention of hanging out with anyone else, but I go into any social situation with the assumption that I will spot a familiar face. What if I see someone I know, but don't feel like talking? What if they don't feel like talking to me? When is conversation necessary?

When the beer hit my bladder and it was time to break the seal, my time inside the bathroom gave me opportunity to calculate public conversation appropriateness.

1. If it's a crowded venue and you make eye contact with someone you know, a smile and wave is mandatory. If there is nothing important to say, keep moving. Very rarely do I pretend I don't see the person, but I have done so on small occasions, I'll admit it. This rule of thumb goes mainly when you are in a place where everyone is standing. Like a grocery store or concert.

2. At bars and restaurants I always say hi to people I know. If they are at another table, I will always stop to say hi, but I will never stay and chat. I think it's rude to leave without personally saying hi, but it's even ruder to interrupt their company for too long.

3. Now let's say I saw someone I recognized but had never met. I'm talking anyone from a mutual friend, all the way to a celebrity. This is a hard call. I suppose it depends on how I recognized the person.

• First example:You know my cousin Angie, and I just wanted to introduce myself¬" that is an easy one.
• Second example: A celebrity. In my heart of hearts, I say in no way would I bother them by showing up and fawning over them. If I'm introduced, then that's cool. I've stood next to celebrities being yelled at from afar, and it always bothered me that people were so intrusive. That being said, lately I've had some eye-opening experiences that confuse me on what stand I should take on all this social etiquette bullshit. Please see next note:
• Let me start out by saying that by no means do I view myself as a celebrity, by ANY stretch of the imagination. But it is a fact that I, amongst many other amazing people, write for the Weekly Volcano. Lately I've begun to meet people who recognize me and know me from this lil alternative weekly we have going on here¬" and I love it! It sincerely makes me so happy to hear that people read, how they feel about reading it, and what they have to say. Just typing this out makes me smile; it's genuinely nice to meet people who read the Weekly Volcano.

So I suppose that's where my confusion lies¬" I feel like I don't want to bother anyone, but I don't want to be rude by not saying hi, but then I don't mind being bothered when people want to say hi to me. Leave it to me to take something so insignificant, and put it in a Petri dish for closer analysis. 

Regardless, to everyone new I have met in the past few months it was certainly a pleasure to make your acquaintance. And of the 67,999,999,999 blogs out there on the Web to chose from, thank you for reading this one.

LINK: Toilet Tales archive
LINK: Steph DeRosa likes dive bars
LINK: Steph hangs in the Forum

DANIEL BLUE: MEET BEN MEERSMAN >>>

Ben Meersman no longer lives in Tacoma, but he is a genuine product of our pleasant village.   

I met Ben through our mutual friend Joel Meyers, who was a fellow ballet dancer and emotional magician. 

Ben is the strongest human male I know. His physique is nothing short of epic, lifting young women and young men all over the stage in statuesque animation.   How is that possible, to be static and dynamic in the same moment?  I do not know, but it is pleasurable to view. 

Ben falls no measure short of being described as sweet.  His character is mature and his tolerance is high.  Patient and kind, his soft voice soothes one into a trance of sorts, wherein a body desires to simply find companionship with the source of utterance. 

Ben now dances in a cabaret in an underground bar aptly named the Can Can at the entrance to Pike Place Market.  His apartment deck looks down on the Seattle Art Museum's Hammering Man.  He has become a metropolitan ballet demigod, but as I teasingly called him a traitor he seemed genuinely hurt and said, "Daniel, I love this town."    

Your love is good enough for now.

DANIEL BLUE: MEET BEN ROTH >>>

Ben Roth has little time for gazing into the camera.  He is busy with multiple projects such as co-founding Dear Records and being one of the best guitar players in Tacoma.  His main squeeze Banners is pretty much a mathy mix of Anthony and the Johnsons and Minus the Bear.   

Ben is most always smiling, very little seems to affect his joy.  He often works as a stagehand for the Local 15 stage hand's union, which means I walk downstairs in the warehouse and find him whistling away as he loads boxes of speakers and stuff through my kitchen. He is very nice to my cats, and for that has won my loyalty for life. I will bite anyone's arms off if they mess with my Roth. 

Ben is a recent product of the Tacoma School of the Arts, and has been studying at Tacoma Community College for the past year.   Like many SOTA kids, Ben is smarter and more knowledgeable than I am about most things related to music and the art world.  Though he did not grow up weeping to Nirvana as I did, he can play most any song that was on the radio in 1992, or any other grungy year for that matter.  His music ability is downright creepy, but I'm not sure he has signed any contracts with the devil; perhaps he is a child of David Lee.

DANIEL BLUE: MEET ELI HANSEN >>>

Eli Hansen is a roper.  Newly famous in cities such as Orlando and Seattle, his collaborative work with his brother Oscar was recently shown at the Seattle Art Museum. Initially inspired by glass blowing, Eli's work has grown to encompass metal sculpture and domestic artifice.

Everyone seems to want what this man has, and that my friends is pure Hansen magic.  Like the band of the same name, young women coo and flock to adore our gruff south Tacoma-based artist, but few find him to be the man they imagined. 

Uncle Eli, as I was introduced to him as a DJ at The Monsoon Room a few years ago, is a scoundrel.  Wild piercing eyes slay your heart from behind his mane of primal huntsman hair.   

"YEAHAW!" he screams as he rides away from the grocery with a child buggy full of "rescued" vegetables.   

"HOOT! WHOOT!" he proclaims, beer held high above his head as a muscular dog violently bites clean through branches it has just ripped from the tree in his front yard.   

Intelligent as a badger, Eli is sure to become a legend in this town.

DANIEL BLUE: MEET BRITTANY BAAB >>>

Brittany Baab is also known as Banana Klip, which is her name when she is rapping.   

Freshly moved here from Chicago, Brit is an easy pick in a bar full of normal conversations. Everything she has to say is interesting, and not just because it comes in a cute East Coast accent, it is interesting because she says it with power. I think her power comes from her hair; her hair is rich with complex geometry that must channel power right out of the air.   

Extremely personable, she took me to Seattle after only having lived her a few weeks and introduced me to the friends she had made the last time she visited.   We danced like club kids at the War Room and still made it home before the sun rose.   

Klip is in more than one rap group and wears a life-size golden banana around her neck when she performs.  She is also an accomplished country style singer songwriter and reminds me of a mix between Jack White and Dolly Pardon.   

There are few people in Tacoma as interesting and eclectic as our newfound Brit.