Spew

5 Things To Do: Friday

MICHAEL SWAN: FRIDAY, JULY 3, 2009 >>>

1. Since forming in 1990, the Old Blind Dogs have stood on the cutting edge of Scotland’s roots revival. Check them out at 7:30 p.m. inside the Capitol Theater in Olympia.

2. Frost Park Chalk Challenge, Season 2, Episode 14, begins at noon in Frost Park.

3. Local jazz, blues and soul band The Carter Brothers play the new Sax on 6th club at 9 p.m.

4. Three Dead Whores, Civita, Smoke Like Daddy, The Plastards and Watch It Sparkle play The Seafarer’s at 8 pm.

5. Jazz guitarist Michael Powers performs an intimate 8 p.m. concert featuring with special guest opening act The Pamela Carter Band at the Midland Music Hall. Proceeds from this event will help to support the NW Music Mentor's "Share the Music" youth programs.

LINK: Live music and DJs in the South Sound

LINK: Local movie starting times

LINK: South Sound Restaurant Guide

5 Things To Do: Thursday

MICHAEL SWAN: THURSDAY, JULY 2, 2009 >>>

1. Former G-Unit member Young Buck, made infamous for stabbing a man in the chest during an award show in defense of Doctor Dre, will be performing live at The Royal Lounge at 9 p.m.

2. Starstruck and Vicci Martinez will be playing on the Weekly Volcano stage from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the Tacoma Farmers Market on Broadway.

3. LeeAnn Seaburg Peery is a sculptor whose work harkens back to Michelangelo’s  slave sculptures — highly polished figures emerging from rough marble — and similar figures by Rodin. Check her work out and well as others at the Rock Paper Scissors show at Grand Impromptu Gallery from 4-8 p.m.

4. There’s a Pre-4th Of July Show featuring Mr. Sho-Nuff and  Anonymous, plus giveaways and a booty shaking contest at 9 p.m. at the Last Call in Lakewood.

5. Hell’s Kitchen will put away the black for the rainbow love of a Reggae Night featuring Little Big Man, Mighty High, Puget Sound System and Urban Evergreen beginning at 9 p.m.

LINK: Live music and DJs in the South Sound

LINK: Local movie starting times

LINK: South Sound Restaurant Guide

Grouper

LAUREN NAPIER: TONIGHT AT NORTHERN IN OLY >>>

Do you dream in reverb? Grouper certainly does. The ethereal melodies created by Liz Harris echo within the venues and throughout the albums, finding a thought-provoking path to your brainwaves. The music creates an almost suspenseful air and leaves a listener unsure of how to react to the contradictory combination of the spooky and the beautiful. Harris achieved recognition beyond the obscurity of a Xiu Xiu collaboration record when the solo musician toured with and opened for Animal Collective: just another notch in this bedpost of experimental tunage. Grouper promises an undeniably spiritual musical journey as Harris’ songs of pure beauty are found to possess a creepy underlying tone. Don’t we all like to be kept guessing?

[Northern, with Desolation Wilderness, Invisible River, 9 p.m., all ages, $7, 321 Fourth Ave., Olympia, www.olympiaallages.org]

5 things to do: Friday

MICHAEL SWAN: FRIDAY, JUNE 26 >>>

1. The Moonspinners will be at The New Frontier Lounge tonight. Utilizing a ‘60s, swanky, swingy, Brill Building-esque sound, the Moonspinners are well dressed throwbacks to a simpler time – a time of Nancy Sinatra boots and smoke filled rooms. Though they’re a band of today, they’re also a band of yesterday. Tonight's show starts at 9 p.m.

2. Spindrift, a troupe of spaghetti western buffs - not to mention top rate musicians - will mosey on up to Bob's Java Jive tonight. Go Fever and Electric Sun are also on the bill. Learn about it here.

3. Who the hell is Hank, the band? Well, you can find out tonight at Jazzbones. Rumor has it that Hank is former Who Cares stalwarts Paul Wilkinson, Rod Rothin and Joshua Jackson, along with a couple of new guitarists. But while Hank the band is rumored to include three former members of Who Cares, don’t expect joke songs about feminine hygiene and boffing Robert Conrad. No, it seems Hank the band is a fairly serious venture, with a sound — at least according to first hand accounts — that’s nothing to scoff at. See for yourself tonight when Hank opens for Delhi 2 Dublin at Jazzbones.

4. Chris Blivens’ latest show is called CHROMA because each piece is identifiable by color (Chroma defined in dictionary.com as “intensity of distinctive hue; saturation of a color”). His pieces are fetishistic dolls or sculptures made of carved wood or cloth with twigs for arms and wooden dowels for legs and strange markings and ritualistic jewelry and other accoutrements added to or carved into the bodies. The show is on display currently at Two Vaults. Thursday through Saturday Two Vaults is open noon to 8 p.m.

5. Check out the Crystal Saloon in Enumclaw for '80s Prom Night with DJ Dirty White, a couples mechanical bull riding competition, Prom King & Queen prizes and backyard BBQ. The trashy action starts at 9 p.m.

Junior Reid in Oly tonight

JOSE S. GUTIERREZ JR.: LIVE FROM I-5: HIP-HOP IN THE 25360 >>>

The ageless icon and master vocalist of the reggae music scene Junior Reid is scheduled to hit The Royal Lounge stage tonight.

You may remember the prophet-esque vocalist’s haunting hymns lacing tracks like MIM’s “This Is Why I’m Hot” remix and the penetrating bang-down track “One Blood” from The Game’s sophomore album, The Doctor’s Advocate. True reggae heads will know the chocolate skinned MC’s words and verse from a more than two decade-long career. It is rare to see legends breathe on the microphone. Catch him tonight, if you can.

Read the rest of my weekly hip-hop column here.

[The Royal Lounge, Thursday, June 25, 9 p.m., 311 Capital way, Olympia]

5 Things To Do: Thursday

MICHAEL SWAN: THURSDAY, JUNE 25, 2009 >>>

1. The 40-foot long Permibus Permaculture demonstration bus with solar power, grey water systems, a composting toilet, two dogs, and several chickens will park outside King’s Books from 4:30- 7 p.m.

2. A Room Called Remember will rock the downtown Tacoma Farmers Market from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.

3. Lynda Mapes will lecture from her book, Breaking Ground: The Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe and the Unearthing of Tse-whit-zen Village, at 6 p.m. inside Orca Books in Olympia.

4. Matt Coughlin performs a free show from 7-9 p.m. at Doyle’s Public House.

5. Junior Reid, XP, Lebowski and Luvva J lay it down at The Royal in Olympia beginning at 9 p.m.

LINK: Live music and DJs in the South Sound

LINK: Local movie starting times

LINK: South Sound Restaurant Guide

LINK: Wine and beer events

5 Things To Do: Wednesday

MICHAEL SWAN: WEDNESDAY, JUNE 24, 2009 >>>

1. The 100th Monkey art community party invades Old City Hall from 7:30-9:30 p.m.

2. ACCTFest community theater festival offers four plays today — two at 1:30 and two at 7:30 p.m. inside the Pantages Theater.

3. Max Power (awesome name), former senior policy advisor in the Nuclear Waste Program of the Washington State Department of Ecology, will drop by Orca Books to discuss his book, America’s Nuclear Wastelands: Power, Accountability and Clean-up at 6 p.m.

4. The VZ Valley Boys will lay down some bluegrass at 7 p.m. A Rhapsody In Bloom’s indoor porch.

5. Matt Coughlin, James Coates and The Black Sails play The Swiss at 8 p.m.

LINK: Live music and DJs in the South Sound

LINK: Local movie starting times

LINK: South Sound Restaurant Guide

LINK: Wine and beer events

Cool story

SUZY STUMP: MEET LYNDA MAPES >>>

Sometimes you just want to kick humanity. Collectively. All of ’em. Stupid humans. Sometimes you just want to travel back in time and collectively kick your ancestors, too.

Lest you think this is nothing more than a whole lot of misdirected rage, attend Lynda Mapes’ lecture on her book, Breaking Ground: The Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe and the Unearthing of Tse-whit-zen Village Thursday night at Orca Books. Listen to the incredible tale of the discovery of the largest and oldest Indian village site during construction of a Port Angeles waterfront project.

Guess what the state workers working on the project did after discovering the village?

They kept backhoeing.

Now guess what the Native Americans did?

They forced the project to stop!

Discover how Thursday night.

[Orca Books, 6 p.m., free, 509 E. Fourth Ave., Olympia, 360.352.0123]

5 Things To Do: Monday

MICHAEL SWAN: MONDAY, JUNE 22, 2009 >>>

1. The Proposal is a movie about a couple who start out hating each other and end up liking each other. It’s a funny thing about that. Roger Ebert started out hating the movie and ended up liking it. Check showtimes here.

2. DJ Jason Diamond spins roots reggae during The New Frontier Lounge's Rebel Monday at 9 p.m.

3. DJ Doll Hands spins vintage lady country music at The Brotherhood Lounge around 9 p.m.

4, Jay Mabin and Hip Bone fill The Swiss with jazz beginning at 8 p.m.

5. Tonight is the Poor Man’s Club & Open Mic at Shakabrah Java beginning at 5 p.m.

LINK: Live music and DJs in the South Sound

LINK: Local movie starting times

LINK: South Sound Restaurant Guide

LINK: Wine and beer events

Oly Experimental Music Fest

MATT DRISCOLL: THE CRAZINESS STARTS TODAY >>>

At a point in history when absolutely nothing seems certain and normally dependable things are disappearing every day, the Olympia Experimental Music Festival is an anomaly. This weekend’s influx of strange sound — bleeps, bloops, crashes, tinkers, squeals and hisses — in Olympia will mark the 15th year the Oly Experimental Music Festival has wrapped its unorthodox arms around Washington’s most liberal bastion and embraced the city in audio bizarreness — in such a good way. Utilizing the newly christened northern all-ages venue this year, performers at the 15th annual Olympia Experimental Music Festival will include Tacoma’s LA Lungs and Lapuda, Portland’s Pulse Emitter and Death Worth Living, and Oly’s KnotPineBox, Cymtrymanx and Big Tom the Lithuanian. Seattle is also represented heavily in a weekend lineup that’s over 20 strong. If you feel comfortable outside the genre box, take a trip south this weekend.

[northern, 6 p.m., all ages, 321 Fourth Ave, downtown Olympia, www.myspace.com/olystrange music]