Cup Check
STRIKE ONE Longtime Pittsburgh Steelers kicker Jeff Reed is a Steeler no more - cut from the team this week after a season-long slump culminated with him botching a 26-yard field goal in an embarrassing, nationally televised Sunday Night Football game against the New England Patriots. Reed was cut the following
Arts
While the City of Tacoma could fight vandalism with a series of electric fences, 24-hour guards or good old-fashioned centurions with cat-o'-nine-tails, the creative people at the Tacoma Arts Commission decided to combine art and community instead. The result was the Tacoma Community Based Mural Program - a project featuring
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For a hell of a lot less than the cost of a plane ticket to Las Vegas, you can see four guys who still have the same enthusiasm as, but decades more experience than, any game show wannabe. Throw in acrobatics and a fair amount of drumstick
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Tracy Letts' psychodrama Bug has enjoyed a squalidly sexy reputation since its 1996 London premiere. It's sometimes viewed as unstageable due to naturalistic technical demands, nudity, foul language, drug use, violence, and a spiraling level of intensity beyond the tolerance of ordinary theatergoers. I attended an
Arts
Imagine a 2,500-square-foot space filled with nearly 40 tables. Now imagine those tables teeming with rare records, lost VHS classics, band merchandise and memorabilia. Imagine you could swap, sell or purchase any of these precious items while listening to kickass bands and mingling with other connoisseurs. Well, quit thinking about it
Features
Let me get one thing straight. I love cheese. Cheesy, cheese, cheese. I like stinky cheese, gooey cheese, hard cheese, soft cheese, goat cheese, sheep cheese; even that crappy nacho cheese in the jar. You name it, I WILL LIKE IT! And what better time of the year than the
Stage
Tracy Letts' psychodrama Bug has enjoyed a squalidly sexy reputation since its 1996 London premiere. It's sometimes viewed as unstageable due to naturalistic technical demands, nudity, foul language, drug use, violence, and a spiraling level of intensity beyond the tolerance of ordinary theatergoers. I attended an early tech rehearsal of
Listings
ACOUSTIC/FOLK/CELTIC O'Blarney's Irish Pub Olympia - Eastside. Irish Sessions. Live traditional Irish music. 7:30 pm. NC. Olympic Club Hotel and Theater Lewis County. Kate Power & Steve Einhorn. All Ages. 7 pm. NC. Tugboat Annies Olympia - Westside. Open Mic Night. 9 pm. NC. BLUES Summit Pub Puyallup. Tim Hall & The Band Real Times.
Listings
ACOUSTIC/FOLK/CELTIC Yenney Music Olympia - Westside. Kate Power and Steve Einhorn Uke & Song. All Ages. 7-8 pm ukuleles and instrument playalong 8-9 pm singalong. NC. BLUES The Swiss Tacoma - Downtown. Abed El Kader. 21+. 8 pm. NC. Sax Restaurant and Lounge Tacoma - Sixth Avenue. Monday Night Blues. Featuring the blues band
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Not only did the powers behind the 27th Annual Olympia Film Festival organize one of the best such events to date, they threw in extra treats like last week's Gossip show and this Saturday's Faun Fables performance at the Capitol Theater. Part performance, part spectacle, all art, and like just
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Atlanta punks Carnivores revel in that kind of lo-fi rumbling that seems so ever-present now, but they bring a vinyl-collector's knowledge and fervor to it. The band has an awareness of and respect for all manner of lost treasures. Led by keyboardist Caitlin Lang, "Salts to Mines" sounds like a
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If you're in the mood to have a butter-voiced elder statesman of soul make sweet, sweet love to your earholes, get thee to the Emerald Queen Casino, because late-'80s/early-'90s phenom Keith Sweat is set to perform there. There's no word on whether or not his enviable wardrobe of "Cosby
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The last time I saw SweetKiss Momma frontman Jeff Hamel I told him he needed a championship belt - something to signify his band's current standing as the reigning champs of Puyallup. He was modest, naturally, brushing the suggestion off, but I stand firm. SweetKiss Momma is far and away
Arts
There are times when it falls on the Weekly Volcano to shatter pop-cultural myths. This, we're sorry to say, is one of those occasions. No matter what the preternaturally effusive judges on America's Got Talent claim, they aren't always the discoverers of brand-new artistic geniuses. Last year, for example, contestants
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If I need to tell you who Amy Schumer is, you must not own a TV. Her Comedy Central series Inside Amy Schumer was nominated for an Emmy. Both Entertainment Weekly and Rolling Stone praised it as one of last year's best series, especially a firecracker of a sketch about
Scene It
It's not too often I wear a tie. Graduations, weddings, funerals and the occasional job interview ... that's about it. But I don a pink tie for my visit to downtown Tacoma's new Encore nightclub. Why a tie, you ask. Well for one, Encore enforces a dress code - slacks and collared
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Fargo, North Dakota native Jonny Lang has had five albums in the Billboard top 50. He recorded his first blues guitar album, Smokin', at the tender age of 14. Two years later came Lie to Me, an album that went multi-platinum and earned raves from major critics. After a Grammy
Food Matters
Gifts for the tongue and beyond This fall I received two favorite gifts (a tin of huckleberry tea and bottle of huckleberry vinaigrette) from Priest Lake, Idaho. Having never been to Priest Lake, it was a fun, sensory way to experience something the area is known for. The folks at the Pacific
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You may not know it yet, but you are going to love Kaitlyn Lusk. She first sang with the Baltimore Symphony at age 14. A year later, she was chosen as featured vocal soloist for composer Howard Shore's Lord of the Rings Symphony suite. If you're a Tolkien geek, her
Listings
ACOUSTIC/FOLK/CELTIC Mandolin Cafe Tacoma - Central. Open Mic, with Denny Foreman & Friends. All Ages. 6 pm. NC. BLUES The Spar Tacoma - Old Town. Becki Sue & Her Big Rockin' Daddies. 21+. 7 pm. NC. Dawson's Bar and Grill Tacoma - South. Blues Jam, hosted by Tim Hall. 21+. 8 pm. Immanuel Presbyterian Church