WEEKLY VOLCANO: BETTER UPDATE YOUR CALENDAR FIRST >>>
This just in, T-Town rockers: AC/DC has rescheduled their upcoming show at the Tacoma Dome. Originally, the show was scheduled to go down on Sunday, August 30, but has now been moved to Monday, August 31. Tickets purchased for the original date will be honored on the new night - and, apparently, there are still tickets available.
WEEKLY VOLCANO: COHEED AND CAMBRIA, BRAND NEW, JAGUAR LOVE, NE-YO TO DO THE PUYALLUP >>>
We just received word here at Weekly Volcano World Headquarters that Coheed and Cambria, Brand New and the super cool Jaguar Love will do the Puyallup Fair on September 16. Tickets are $25-$37 and go on sale through Ticketmaster this Saturday at 10 a.m.
Also, Ne-Yo will do the Puyallup on September 18. Tickets for that show are $20-$45 and also go on sale Saturday at 10 a.m.
MICHAEL SWAN: CONCERT ALERT! >>>
On sale this morning at 10 a.m.
LINK: Concerts this week in Western Washington
SECRET TICKET CODE
TM = Ticketmaster, 253.627.TIXS, www.ticketmaster.com
TW = TicketsWest, 800.325.SEAT, www.ticketswest.com
MATT DRISCOLL: GABY MORENO PLAYS DOYLE'S TOMORROW >>>
How’d you learn to speak English? Probably the usual, American boring way, huh? Your parents probably repeated words like potty, diaper and teddy bear over and over and over — and eventually you caught on. One day you put the bear on the potty and said something remarkable like “Bear potty!” and you’re parents had never been prouder. Well, not to make you feel average, but Gaby Moreno — originally from Guatemala —learned to speak English by taking in the timeless blues of luminaries like BB King and Robert Johnson.
If you don’t already feel a little inadequate, perhaps this is the time to mention that Moreno also plays a mean axe, and since moving to L.A. in 2001 to attend The Musician’s Institute, Moreno’s one-of-a-kind songwriting and captivating presence have had her on the fast track to, well, whatever it is that musicians strive for in the age of the Internet. (The cover of the Rolling Stone is sooo outdated, no?)
Check out Moreno and Tacoma’s Vicci Martinez tomorrow night at Doyle’s in what can only be considered a perfect pairing.
[Doyle’s Public House, with Vicci Martinez, 7 p.m., no cover, 208 St. Helens Ave., Tacoma, 253.272.7468]
CHUCK DULA: HELMS ALEE AT THE NEW FRONTIER LOUNGE TONIGHT >>>
Synesthesia is a condition in which one type of stimulation evokes the sensation of another, as when the hearing of a sound produces the visualization of a color. It’s within the sludgy math-rock, distorted guitars, and vicious wails of Helms Alee frontman Ben Verellen that you’ll see black. Helms Alee has taken the post-hardcore sound of Verellen’s former band, Harkonen, and tamed it just slightly to create one of Verellen’s best projects to date. Verellen sung-tunes like “Borrowed Wind” slowly infiltrate your head space and leave you hypnotized and a tad more dangerous.
Whether singing for Harkonen, playing drums in These Arms Are Snakes, playing in Roy, or watching his older brother destroy people in former hardcore pioneers Botch, Ben Verellen has always had an influence on the local hardcore community.
Do not miss this show.
[The New Frontier Lounge, with Prize Country, With a Bullet, Friday, May 9 p.m., $5, 301 E. 25th St., Tacoma, 253.572.4020]
LAUREN NAPIER: RAIN FEST OPENS AT THE VIADUCT >>>
Three days of brutality: that is what the annual Rain Fest promises to give Tacoma, and the entire Pacific Northwest, in fact, Friday through Sunday at The Viaduct. With more than 30 bands and counting, the all-ages hardcore festival doesn’t even give an attendee time to rest — not that you are going to want it. Some of the bands include Sabertooth Zombie, Killing the Dream, Comeback Kid, Trash Talk, The Warriors, and many more that will drench your shorts in perspiration before you even hit the pit. Read the full details here.
[The Viaduct, Rain Fest, May 22-24, $20-$25, 3 day passes available for $57.57 at www.brownpaper tickets.com, 5412 S Tacoma Way, Tacoma, 253.472. 1948, www.myspace.com/rainfest]
BOBBLE TIKI: THIS BLINDING LIGHT AT THE NEW FRONTIER >>>
Bobble Tiki is a big magic buff. If there’s a top hat and a rabbit involved, chances are Bobble Tiki’s into it.
So, this week, when Bobble Tiki heard that This Blinding Light — who will be at The New Frontier Lounge tonight — were into magic too, well, Bobble Tiki figured it’d be a match made in heaven.
The only trouble is, upon further review, Bobble Tiki now realizes This Blinding Light is thinking a little deeper than hocus pocus and handkerchiefs when the band says it loves magic.
In fact, it’s magick they love, actually — and there’s quite a difference.
“To put it simply, we’re combining Magick and Music. I’m not talking about any Harry Potter shit here,” says This Blinding Light’s sparkplug, Lance Watkins — who people may recognize from Hypatia Lake, an equally boundary-busting band that Watkins also fronts. This Blinding Light was started as a side project between Watkins and Michael Sterling of Joy Wants Eternity. The current lineup also includes Shane Browning of Hypatia Lake on bass and Mary Genova of Waves and Mars Accelerator on drums.
“Michael and I are both Adepts in the Mystery School, and we wanted to use those tools we’ve gained in Esoteric Ritual to help us in our music. To the audience, it looks like performance art, but to anyone versed in Esoteric Teachings, it would appear as ritual,” says Watkins.
Even though it’s now clear there’ll be no rabbits and no hats when it comes to This Blinding Light, that’s not to say Bobble Tiki is disappointed. While the band may have a different definition and spelling of magic, they understand one thing close to Bobble Tiki’s heart: how to turn up to 11 and rock — albeit in slightly unorthodox fashion.
“You have to enjoy loud rock and roll or it’s just gonna not be your bag,” says Watkins.
[The New Frontier, This Blinding Light with The Variety Hour, Friday, May 22, 9 p.m., $5, 301 E. 25th Street, Tacoma, 253.572.4020]
MICHAEL SWAN: KING OF THE SURF GUITAR >>>
In September 2007, when Dick Dale played Hell’s Kitchen, the show was easily one of the highlights of the year. It’s not everyday that the man who invented surf guitar plugs in at the Kitchen, and it’s not every day you get a chance to stand only feet away from his amps.
Dale is coming back to Hell’s Kitchen Saturday, June 27 with Forever Came Calling (featuring Dick's son Jimmy) and Girl Trouble.
Tickets are $20 and available now at TwicketWeb.com.
LAUREN NAPIER: AIDEN KICKS OFF TOUR AT HELL'S KITCHEN >>>
As my phone rang and a number with a 666 area code popped up, I wasn’t surprised when it turned out to be my conference call with Victory Records’ artist Aiden. A post-hardcore band with strong goth tones — vampires, death, and anything slightly macabre are often associated with Aiden in a plethora of ways: lyrics, images, photos, even their fashion choices. Inspired by tragedy, wiL Francis, the band’s front man, vocalizes that he simply hopes to let the kids know that “anybody in the world can play guitar and be in a band.” This message is further driven home when one watches Aiden on stage and realizes that behind the heavy eyeliner and deathly props, the four members of the band are nothing too out of the ordinary.
Aiden is embarking this spring on the “Ticket to Hell Tour” — and tonight South Sound fans will get a chance to catch the band at Hell’s Kitchen for only $6.66. Does that send shivers down your spine? It should. Read more in my Rockin’ The Cradle column. — Lauren Napier
[Hell’s Kitchen, Aiden with Kane Hodder, Black Houses, Starstruck, Saturday, May 9, 5 p.m., all-ages, $6.66, 3829 Sixth Ave., Tacoma, 253.759.6003
MATT DRISCOLL: HOTELS AT YOUR SERVICE TONIGHT >>>
Travel. Romance. Solitude. Rest.
While, as a former hotel employee (I lasted seven months until I quit that shit, yo!), I can professionally attest the above semi-slogan sounds like a marketing department-created mantra you’d see on a pillow placard at the Holiday Inn, for Hotels — a hype-propelled Seattle band scheduled to take the stage at the New Frontier this Saturday — the meaning is slightly different.
Which makes sense, actually, since Hotels crafted the expression as a way to describe the band. Where the Chili Peppers are blood, sex, sugar, magic, and tube socks, Hotels are travel, romance, solitude and rest.
Or something like that … It’s really not important.
Perhaps you’ve heard of Hotels? If your radio dial ever stops on KEXP, at least within the past few months, anyway, there’s a good chance you have. Powered by the airplay success of the band’s sophomore effort, Where Hearts Go Broke — which officially “dropped” on Valentine’s Day and features a startling mix of New Wave and post punk, up and down, dance and melancholic circumstance — Hotels, as a band, is finding itself in a world that seems more ready than ever to digest it.
Read the rest of this story here.
To hear the Hotels hang out at The New Frontier Lounge tonight.
[The New Frontier Lounge, with the Girls, Sons of Ivan, Saturday, May 9, 9 p.m., $5, 301 E. 25th St., Tacoma, 253.572.4020]
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