Spew

Drop of Water in July

MICHAEL SWAN: ANOTHER ELEMENT THEMED ART AND MUSIC PARTY >>>>

Synapse overload.

Many visions and ethereal moments and luminous images, experiences and connections and fragile sensory remnants went down during South Sound Collective’s first two Tacoma element themed art and music parties — Playing With Fire and Fresh Air.

Drop of Water, the third in a series, will flow into the Foss Waterway Seaport Museum Saturday, July 18 with two stages of sound, several visual performances, drinks, dancing, aquatic art show, throwback swimwear fashion show and more.

Dig Dug, Kassette, Jimmy Hoffa, Big Chuck, Mr. Clean are just a few of the DJs that will be spinning that night. 

Tickets are $15 at the door. You can save $5 if you buy them before the show through Brown Paper Tickets.

Morning Spew

NEWS TEAM: GOOD MORNING SOUTH SOUND >>>

Seeds Of Change: A gonzo adventure through one of Tacoma’s most misunderstood schools.

Ganging Up Again: Tacoma Police officials will Increase efforts to tackle gang problem.

Muri And Pabst: Important people said stuff this week.

Numbered Spaces: Weekly Volcano’s quality of life meter for Pierce County tips positive.

Teacher's Lounge Refrigerators To Have More Room: Tacoma school officials might cut 100 jobs.

Oh. My. Gawd.: Even fashion houses aren’t safe from the clutches of the recession.

Space Monkeys: Happy anniversary Able and Baker.

What the duck?

Weekly Volcano editorial

MATT DRISCOLL: HAD TOO MUCH TO THINK LAST NIGHT >>>

Situated in the middle of my face, directly below my bottom lip, there’s a longstanding friend of mine simply hanging out. Been there since 2000.

My soul patch.

Over the last nine years, my soul patch and I have become inseparable. We go everywhere together, and are never pictured without one another. It’s a beautiful relationship.

So you can imagine my panic when I got word from Michael Swan — the Weekly Volcano’s staff writer — that I wasn’t the only person in love with the soul patch. Apparently, Billy Ray Cyrus feels the same way.

Quite naturally, this revelation led me down a path of self-examination. After careful consideration, I realized my soul patch and poll voting in Pierce County have quite a bit in common.

Skeptical? Click here to read this week’s Volcano editorial.

5 Things To Do: Thursday

MICHAEL SWAN: THURSDAY, MAY 7, 2009 >>>

1. If you love the churning, sludgy warmth of the ’90s, grunge-built music scene and a fondness for wearing thermal undershirts, then catch The Vile Red Falcons at The New Frontier Lounge

2. Marilyn Frasca’s show at Childhood’s End Gallery is one of the better shows they’ve had in a long time. Her drawings are wonderful.

3. The Proctor Business District hosts Puttin' On The Pink, a night of Shopping, eating, drinking to benefit the Breast Cancer Resource Center of Tacoma. The festivities run 5-9 p.m. Admission is $10-$15.

4. Doyle’s Public House’s “On The House” series features acoustic roots reggae with Zachary Lujan and Zachary Taimanglo from 7-9 p.m. with no cover.

5. For six weeks 11 students from The Academy of Burlesque have studied. Their graduation performances will be held tonight at 7 and 9 p.m. at Jake’s on 4th.

LINK: Live music and DJ in the South Sound

5 Things To Do: Sunday

MICHAEL SWAN: SUNDAY, APRIL 26, 2009 >>>

1. Kareem Kandi Band plays an all-ages show at The Mandolin Café beginning at 3 p.m.

2. Tacoma is for Lovers hosts its second Artist Craft Fair from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. at Black Water Café’s new location on St. Helens Avenue in downtown Tacoma.

3. Maia Santell & House Blend fill Johnny's Dock with blues and jazz beginning at 5 p.m.

4. The Blues Vespers show is back featuring Kim Field & The Mighty Titans Of Tone at the Immanuel Presbyterian Church at 5 p.m.

5. Sea Jayne Trip plays The Swiss at 8 p.m.

The Dream: Cupcakes & Coutoure

JENNIFER JOHNSON: OH PLEASE ANSWER MY DREAMS >>>

I’m being teased with the promise of two of my very favorite things in the same place. Is it sweets and skirts, frosting and frocks, cakes and coats, jelly and jewelry? It’s better than all of that, it’s Cupcakes & Coutoure — what I can only imagine will be a divine experience.

You laugh, but a huge sign bearing those very words has been looming over Proctor Street since last year. When I first saw the gigantic sign resting in what I had presumed was someone’s front yard, I almost caused an accident (driving while gawking is bad). The boldly swirling, cursive black lettering jumped off the stark white 6-foot by 4-foot wooden placard. Pink cupcakes adorned opposite corners. The ultimate tease of lettering spelling out Spring ’09 at the bottom has long since been burned into my fashion-greedy heart (that was a bit dramatic, I know). Each time I have driven by over the past three months, I have grinded my teeth thinking its spring right now! There’s been no noticeable change to the ordinary looking house that should be a fabulous boutique already.

Playing with Fire

MICHAEL SWAN: HUGE PARTY TONIGHT >>>

When people think of hotspots for house music, drum 'n' bass and its followers, a few joints come to mind. Turnmills. The Warehouse. The Haçienda. Paradise Garage. But Freighthouse Square?

Yes, at least tonight.

Matt Eklund of Pacific Fusion Productions and Dave Curtis of South Sound Collective — the maestros who brought the element-based party “Fresh Air” at the Robert Daniel Gallery in January — will light a spark under the Freighthouse Square when they present “Playing With Fire” tonight. Held in the Rainier Room, the two producers will synchronize visuals with music — 10 DJs, 15 local artists, fire dancing, jugglers, stilt walkers and a fashion show — for full fiery, sensory stimulation.

Read an interview with the two producers here.

Discover more about the fashion show and visuals here.

[Freighthouse Square, Saturday, April 4, 9:30 p.m., 18+, bar with ID, $7-$10, Rainier Room, 430 E. 25th St., Tacoma]

Play with fire Saturday

RON SWARNER: A HOT TIME COMING TO THE FREIGHTHOUSE SQUARE >>>

Can't decide whether to stay home and hazily puzzle over your iTunes visualizer or immerse yourself in the sweaty thumping crowd of a DJ/art happening? No need to deliberate any longer. Matt Eklund of Pacific Fusion Productions and Dave Curtis of South Sound Collective — the maestros who brought the element-based party “Fresh Air” at the Robert Daniel Gallery in January — will light a spark under the Freighthouse Square when they present “Playing With Fire” Saturday night. Held in the Rainier Room, the two producers will synchronize visuals with music — 10 DJs, 15 local artists, fire dancing, jugglers, stilt walkers and a fashion show — for full fiery, sensory stimulation. So whether your idea of a good night involves cheap beer and zoning out or drinking good beer and jumping up and down to beats, here's a damn good bet.

I caught up with Curtis and Eklund to light a fire until their asses for the scoop on Saturday’s show.

WEEKLY VOLCANO: Why the title “Playing With Fire”?

DAVE CURTIS: “Playing with Fire” is the second in a series of four events depicting the elements. In January we held "Fresh Air" at the Robert Daniel Gallery. The fresh air must have fueled the fire for this Saturday because many great ideas and tons of energy and community participation have melted together to bring what we expect to be a night of utter amazement and pure sensory overload. We are planning our "Water" event for July and have “Earth” on our minds for later this year.

Genius: Kulture Lab

RON SWARNER: CHAT WITH JAMES HUME >>>

You may have found yourself ... staring at a naked belly dancer painted green. You may have found yourself ... in a confessional booth unaware that the entire party is watching you on video. You may have found yourself ... hypnotized by the naked baby swimming toward a dead president on a projection television. You may have found yourself ... shaking your groove thing to the sounds of Tacoma’s hottest bands. You may have found yourself ... drinking like a fish in the company of fashion models and drag queens.

And you may have asked yourself ... why must it end?

Because James Hume believes its run its course. With 10 surrealist extravaganzas under his belt, the maestro behind Kulture Lab, Hume, is ready to pack it in after one more show: his magnum opus — the Penalty for Removal Redux — which will include 20 burners from some of the Pacific Northwest’s premier graffiti artists, live performances by Can-U and Josh Rizeberg, and a rotating cast of amazing DJs this Saturday at The Warehouse in downtown Tacoma.

What Hume and his cohorts — Jeff Olson, James Bender, Jim Price, Dave Davidson and Rob Anderson and others — created was genius. They grabbed “culture,” shook it until the “C” fell off, replaced it with a K, paired it with a lab and introduced Tacoma to a new medium in which to view visual art, live performance art, music, fashion and film. One, long, thrilling experiment, if you will.

I caught up with Hume for his thoughts, random as they may, on the Kulture Lab series.

WEEKLY VOLCANO: What was the first thing you thought about when you woke up this morning?

JAMES HUME: Why is Houston S. Wimberly lll Esquire Jr. laying next to me?

VOLCANO: What do you have for breakfast?

HUME: Jack on the Rocks and a fistful of Saltpeter.

Morning Spew

BOBBLE TIKI: BREAKFAST WITH BOBBLE TIKI >>>

Kids will take time off from their most painful and gawky and self-exploratory years of their short little lives to take a test — for the last time?

The Tacoma Police will chase bad guys in girly little hybrids.

Red Cross says torture took place at secret C.I.A. prisons.

Hmm, where did Bobble Tiki hear this before? White House says the fundamentals of the economy are “sound.”…

Perhaps you already know. Perhaps you're already one of the converts. Perhaps you have had one since you were 4 and got your first domain name at 10 and you can't even spell Led Zeppelin properly, but for those who don't know, iPhone 3.0 software will be unveiled tomorrow.

Auditions for America’s Next Top Model 13 in New York City were closed after models stampeded and injured each other, freaking out over a smoking car they thought was a bomb. Besides those treated at the scene, two people were hospitalized, three were arrested for inciting a riot and one is believed to have passed out due to starvation.