THURSDAY, JULY 4, 2013 >>>

1. Well, in Tacoma there's Freedom Fair. Duh. Find details right here. 

2. Then there's a huge celebration at Joint Base Lewis-McChord. Click here for details.

3. What's that? You live in Tumwater. Well, they really know how to celebrate the Fourth of July in style with the Artesian Family Festival and Thunder Valley Fireworks show.

4. The picturesque town of Steilacoom also knows how to party on the Fourth of July. Here's a link to Steilacoom's Fourth of July celebration. 

5. Honestly, you should just check in with our Fourth of July Command Center for all the goods.

6. You could blow your fingers off ... but that kind of sucks.

LINK: Thursday, July 4 arts and entertainment events in the greater Tacoma and Olympia area

It's often a highlight of the summer Olympic Games - a team of flexible, coordinated and impossibly strong young gymnasts who put aside pressure and leap, flip and swing their way into history and our hearts.

But they gotta start somewhere - and that somewhere is often the local Y.

Last week, more than 2,000 gymnasts from 107 YMCA gymnastics teams around the country - including 30 from the Lakewood Family YMCA - converged on Savannah, Ga., for the annual YMCA National Gymnastics Championship and Invitational.

Read more...

WEDNESDAY, JULY 3 2013 >>>

1. Titus-Will Ford is hosting the Ford Food Truck Challenge from 4-7 p.m. with three objectives: eat, drive and vote. After you roll onto its lot at 36th and South Sprague in your crappy car, Titus, Will and crew ask you to chow down on samples from two competing food trucks, Crisp Creperie (Seattle) and Waffle Wagon (Kirkland), both parked on the lot. After you clean your hands, you'll be asked to test drive competing vehicles: Ford Fusion vs. Toyota Camry, Ford Fusion Hybrid vs. Toyota Camry Hybrid, Ford Escape vs. Subaru Forester and Ford C-MAX vs. Toyota Prius V. Finally, because you live in America, you can vote for your choice for the "Best Bite" and "Best Ride." Afterward, you can hop back in your crappy car and seek out more objects to judge. Suggestions?

2. Stone Brewing Co. will drop in on Pint Defiance 5-7 p.m. to chat beer while you drink your favorite Stone brews, including the Ruination RuinTen Anniversary Imperial IPA and the Espresso Imperial Russian Stout. Founded in 1996 by Greg Koch and Steve Wagner in San Marcos, Calif., Stone Brewing Co. has become almost synonymous with the craft brewing movement. Makers of some of the most highly sought-after beers, they are not afraid to experiment or break boundaries.

3. Pub trivia nights can either ignite the party or stifle the mood. McNamara's Pub & Eatery in DuPont does everything possible to avoid being a major buzz kill. Every Wednesday McNamara's Pub starts team trivia at 7 p.m. Irish-inspired food helps trivia players stock up on brainpower before the trivia starts. Beer and drink specials happen at trivia intermission. Because everyone knows a good buzz makes trivia that much easier. What's the capital of Kazakhstan? Take a drink and think.

4. Coke Bust is going down at 9 p.m. inside Le Voyeur.

5. In our youth, we were under the impression that "hump day" was the day that, you know, you humped. Having outgrown much of our Catholic school misleadings, we now know that hump day is really the day you dance your pants off at Jazzbones. Featuring DJ Timbo on the turntables mixing top 40 hits all night, and no cover charge, hump day can still be fun without the intercourse.

LINK: Wednesday, July 3 arts and entertainment events in the greater Tacoma and Olympia area

SATURDAY, JUNE 29 2013 >>>

1. An almost too obvious entry point for the kind of satirical Americana of Shotgun Kitchen would be their spiritual forefather, John Prine. Just as Prine had a tendency to almost undermine salient points in his songs by making stoned-out, hallucinatory jokes about chasing rainbows down the street and nonchalantly tossing off non sequiturs about having a sister who's a nun, Shotgun Kitchen's perfectly legitimate satire is given a winking treatment that lets the medicine go down nice and easy.Catch them tonight at 9 p.m. at The New Frontier Lounge.

2. Be irresponsible. Take a day off from smartphones and the Internet, video games and televisions, Go fly a kite at the annual Kite Festival at Chambers Bay from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Besides people craning their necks upward the free, fun-filled day will feature kite vendors, food, face-painting and a free concert with the saxophone quartet from the Tacoma Concert Band. The first 250 kids can make their own kite, compliments of Pierce County KiteFliers Association.

3. In its 19th year, the Olympia Experimental Music Festival features bands from near and far who favor experimentalism, texture, ambience, improvisation and psychedelia over straight-up rock 'n' roll.  The three-day ordeal will take over all-ages venue Northern in Olympia June 28-30. The festival will feature 18 different acts - many from Olympia, and the rest mostly spanning from Seattle to Portland. Today brings Denver band Thinking Plague to Olympia. Founded in 1982, the Colorado-based band's unpredictable melodies and instrumentation will be right at home the South Sound. For the other bands performing today, click here.

4. As the most successful girl band, The Supremes further extended their longevity with their renaming to "Diana Ross & The Supremes." If only future girl bands had learned the lesson, we might still be graced by the melodious tunes of "Jordan Knight & The New Kids On The Block." But we disgress. At 8 p.m. Centerstage Theatre pays tribute to the iconic American girl-group featuring Seattle-based entertainers Nique Haggerty, LaNita Hudson and Amy van Mechcelen, backed by the six-piece Purple Phoenix Band. The concert will be staged in the 1960s style of the Las Vegas/Atlantic City showrooms in their heyday.

5. Professional storytelller Elizabeth Lord's original The Swimsuit Area stage play "explores reproduction in today's modern age.  What it means to be a parent, and more importantly what it means to choose not to be a parent." In an encore performance, Lord will explore the hard issues such as deciding not to have a child - and what someone does about that - and the finality of hysterectomy surgery which results in never being able to conceive a child - all with her trademark humor lined glow. The show starts at 8 p.m. inside The Midnight Sun Performance Space.

LINK: Saturday, June 29 arts and entertainment events in the greater Tacoma and Olympia area

If you search Brown Paper Tickets for show going down today, you'll find tickets for the World's Quickest Theater Festival, Architectural Walking Tour, Le Faux female celebrity impersonation show, the opening ceremony of the honorary consulate for the Czech Republic and more.

If you're a veteran, you might be able to free score tickets to these events, and the thousands of music festivals, comic book conventions, sporting events, comedy shows, farm-to-table dinners, cooking classes, plays, concerts, burlesque, roller derby and more offered through the ticket agency. Brown Paper Tickets has made it easy for anyone to donate tickets to the men and women of the U.S. armed services through a crowdfunding program called "Brown Paper Tickets Salutes." An integration with the Veteran Tickets Foundation, also known as Vet Tix, allows anyone creating event registration and ticketing through Brown Paper Tickets to donate tickets to veterans with just one click, and to allow ticket buyers to purchase extra tickets that are donated to veterans.

For the scoop on this program, and to get in on the party, click here.

SATURDAY, JUNE 22 2013 >>>

1. With the combination of local food vendors, blues bands and more than 35 Washington craft brewers, Brew Five Three is one not to miss. This inaugural event, put on by Broadway Center for the Performing Arts, takes place from 1 to 10 p.m. on Broadway in downtown Tacoma. The $30 tickets include eight tasting tokens and a collectible tasting glass, and additional tasting tokens can be purchased at the event. A designated driver ticket - which includes admission to the event, music and food vendors - is available for $5. There will be a half hour break when no beer will be poured from 5-5:30 p.m. Music schedule can be viewed here.

2. Drag queens Marlayna, Deeva and Flirticia will be in the Capital City Pride parade "in face" and will perform on stage at Sylvester Park and again tonight at Jake's on 4th in downtown Olympia. The parade down Capitol Way from the Capitol campus to Sylvester Park is Saturday, June 22, beginning at noon, and the festivities in the park with speeches, food and information booths, entertainment headlined by the Kim Archer Band and emceed by Gregory Conn, will be from 1 to 5 p.m. Conn and drag queen Kimber Lee will also be parade announcers from their booth atop the Governor's House Hotel. Read Alec Clayton's full feature on the Capital City Pride Festival in Northwest Military's Music & Culture section.

3. Hot off his work as illustrator for the South Sound User's Guide, Sean Alexander put down his tiny line making pens and explores Hilltop Tacoma though found objects. According to pre-show hype, "These found objects were collected and considered before artworks were made from them. Interactions with residents of the neighborhood also served to create work, especially those with the mysterious drifter and neighborhood staple Henry Lee Walls." Titled "Life is OOD," a play off the slogan "life is good" as well as rapper Nas' most recent album, Life is Good, Alexander and Walls offer their inspirations for public viewing at Fulcrum Gallery. At 1 p.m. Alexander and Wall discuss the work in Life is OOD. The talk will cover the process of creating while providing back story for this seemingly random grouping of objects and ideas.

4. At 8 p.m. in the Capitol Theater, the ever-creative ladies of TUSH! burlesque will present a night of naughty Vegas delights. The hype alludes to "gambling, shows, games, rides, girls - whatever your pleasure, Sin City will provide." Read Nikki McCoy's full feature on the Tush! burlesque show in Northwest Military's Music & Culture section.

5. Say kids, do you like the band Heart? A pretty damn good Heart tribute band, Heartless, will rock Jazzbones at 8 p.m.

LINK: Saturday, June 22 arts and entertainment events in the greater Tacoma and Olympia area

FRIDAY, JUNE 21, 2013 >>>

1. Typically, we at the Volcano don't like to travel farther on our skateboards than Best Burgers down the street, but we may have to make an exception for this unique challenge: the Go Skate Tacoma Sk8venger Hunt. Presented by the wacky scavenger-hunt enthusiasts over at Go Skate Tacoma, in conjunction with the opening of the new Spaceworks Tacoma skateboard shop Grit City Grindhouse, this "rad" event has teams of two to five people skating throughout Tacoma (10 a.m. to 5 p.m.) gathering pictures of the solutions to clues presented at Grindhouse, which is owned by Taylor Woodruff and Robert Boyle. From 7-10 p.m. the winners will be celebrated over pizza and music.

2. The concept of the Broadway Center's Cathedral series is simplistic to the point of perfection: get some beautiful-sounding artists to perform in beautiful spaces designed to bounce around beautiful sounds. These are not raucous events, but rather contemplative experiences that take exploit churches' natural abilities to heighten and highlight negative space. This time around, our money is on Denver's Paper Bird as the band most likely to fill in those empty spaces. A baroque art-folk-pop seven-piece, there's never a moment wasted or tossed away without being occupied by some lively instruments or flatly gorgeous harmonies. Shenandoah Davis and Elk & Boar join Paper Bird at 7:30 p.m. in Tacoma's Immanuel Presbyterian Church.

3. Sometimes you desperately need something to bring a laugh or distract you enough to allow you to let go of whatever has been troubling you, even if only for a couple hours. Lakewood Playhouse's production of The Importance of Being Earnest does all of that. Oscar Wilde's 118-year-old script is as smart and fresh now as when it debuted in London. While director Marilyn Bennett had a fantastic play to work with, her direction of the cast and crew of the quick paced, witty script was flawless. It hits the stage at 8 p.m.

4. At 8 p.m. inside B2 Fine Arts Gallery, the ‘Til Midnight Poetry Series launches for the summer featuring the poetry and hybrid art of Travis Anderson and his presentation, "Bathers of the Sun, Bathers of the Moon." Anderson will perform his unique brand of poetry/gospel/hip-hop inspired by fellow artists Leonardo Lanzolla, Jennifer Kuhns and Mary Pacios. Anderson's performance begins at 8:40 p.m. followed by an open mic and open studio, where the community is invited to participate.

5. If you're a celluloid lovin' madman and you needed a sendoff film before jumping on your zombie horse and riding off to Austin, Texas, the late Lucio Fulci's flick The Beyond would do the trick. The Italian director upped the gore quotient in this blood-soaked, surrealistic nightmare of hell on earth film. Sadly, this scenario will indeed play out as Grindhouse Theater host Justin Giallo is outta here, but not before screening The Beyond, bustin' out trivia, passing out creepy prizes and biting a few necks. The acariness begins at 9 p.m. in The Grand Cinema.

LINK: Friday, June 21 arts and entertainment events in the greater Tacoma and Olympia area

Fifteen years ago, a newbie Tacoma resident ventured onto Sixth Avenue to see what "Art on the Ave" was all about.

"I saw, like, four tables and a couple of people walking around," Claudia Riedener previously told the Weekly Volcano with a chuckle.

This year, as she pokes her head out onto Sixth Avenue, she's likely to see art. Tons of art. And wackiness.

The theme this year is "Back to Art!" And it's truly back. Art on the Ave producer Angela Jossy sent the scoop to the Weekly Volcano World Headquarters. Read up and plan your Sunday, July 14:

Read more...

Comment On This Post

SUNDAY, JUNE 9 2013 >>>

1. The Tacoma Comedy Club presents Comics Under The Influence where five comics perform a set each sober, and then while the other comics are performing they pound booze and return to the stage wasted to do another set. Jubal Flagg from Movin 95.5 FM tries to keep the thing flowing, beginning at 8 p.m.

2. From 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. the Pacific Avenue Community Street Fair and Car Show will consume Stewart Middle School with vendors, food, classic cars, skateboarders and entertainment.

3. Author Richard Blumenthal will discuss his new book, Maritime Place Names: Inland Washington Waters, at 2 p.m. in Quarters 2 at Historic Fort Steilacoom in Lakewood.

4. Saxophonist Kareem Kandi's sound derives from the classic, free, often enthusiastic tradition of Joshua Redman as filtered through Dexter Gordon and Sonny Stitt, all of whose shadows can be traced-Redman in Kandi's funky organicism, Gordon in his dynamic harmonics, Stitt in the intensity that coats his every note with a Gritty City finish. Kandi has been hanging with organist Delvon Lamarr and drummer Adam Kessler, which has added groovy innovation to Kandi's sound. Catch Kandi's trio with three Northwest jazz legends will guest appear:  Bill Ramsay on sax, Jay Thomas on trumpet and Julian Priester on trombone at 5 p.m. as part of the Jazz Live at Marine View series in the Marine View Church.

5. Professional storytelller Elizabeth Lord's original The Swimsuit Area stage play "explores reproduction in today's modern age.  What it means to be a parent, and more importantly what it means to choose not to be a parent." Apparently Lord will explore the hard issues such as deciding not to have a child - and what someone does about that - and the finality of hysterectomy surgery which results in never being able to conceive a child - all with her trademark humor lined glow. The show hits the Midnight Sun stage at 8 p.m. through June 9.

LINK: Sunday, June 9 arts and entertainment events in the greater Tacoma and Olympia area

SATURDAY, JUNE 8 2013 >>>

1. If Arrington de Dionyso's Malaikat Dan Singa is a mouthful of a name, then his music does well to invade every other one of your senses. For years, de Dionyso has been making a name for himself as one of the premier practitioners of experimental music in the Northwest. Unlike other experimental artists, whose work consists of beauty in chaos, de Dionyso is conceptual and thought-through in the extreme. Catch Malaikat Dan Singa with MTNS, DJ Urine and the Nadines at 8 p.m. in 2nd Cycle on Tacoma's Hilltop. Read Rev. Adam McKinney's full feature on Arrington de Dionyso's Malaikat Dan Singa in Northwest Military's Music & Culture section.

2. Older homes are typically loaded with character, and some people love nothing better than to stroll through a neighborhood and check out the architecture. For them, there is the Steilacoom Historical Home Tour. The outing, which is hosted by the Steilacoom Historical Museum Association and hasn't happened in almost 40 years, features six privately owned historic homes dating from 1858 through 1895, including five built when Washington was still a territory. The tour runs 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.

If there's one thing we know, it's Tacoma like to run, and drink. The Tacoma Runners prove it every Thursday night. Metro Parks knows this fact too. At 6 p.m. in Wright Park it will host its Sneakers to Suds - the first of four 5k events in its Pub Run Series. Each 5k is open to ages 21 and older and includes post-race festivities, which means drinking in local watering holes. Participate in trivia contests and post-race fun at Parkway, Tap Room and Amocat Café.

4. Shyan Selah & The Republic of Sound will headline a night of live music featuring Northwest hip hop legend Xola Malik, aka Kid Sensation, rock and blues act Monica-Crystal & The Beat Bandits and local acoustic songstress Stephanie Anne Johnson at 8:30 p.m. in Stonegate Pizza.

5. Future Bass dance party brings a little dub, some Dirty South bounce, some mini-backpack drum 'n' bass, sassy house, badass soul, squiggly squeaks, breaky beats, distorted hip-hop samples and wobbling bass lines - like pathological gamblers through paychecks - at 9:30 p.m. in The New Frontier Lounge.

LINK: Saturday, June 8 arts and entertainment events in the greater Tacoma and Olympia area