In other words

There’s a couple of things in the hopper today, items I will illuminate with bright words and active verbs to better capture the nearly unfathomable scale of their awesomeness, and then fed, as all things placed into a hopper are, into that thresher we keep out back. Watch your hair and mind your hands.

The End Times has, through backchannel deals, been selected as tonight’s King of the Mountain, KMTT’s focus spot on local music. Proof. Which means, at 9:20pm tonight, we’ll officially be co-opted by the man, held tenderly by him, and then dropped on a corner in our neighborhood, our clothes askew and a Djarum shoved halfway between our lips. You gotta light?

Back at my flat, I’ll collect some vinyl and hoof it down the street to Hollow Earth Radio, where I’ll bring you Blues & Bluster from 11pm – 1am. There’ll be a lot of horns tonight, a few covers, and several gems from upcoming Seattle shows, mixed with whatever requests you or others bother me with. My friend Yas will be joining me, so I must assume he’ll provide some direction as well. We’re men, we’ll figure it out.

Something is probably happening on Friday, but I’ll be buggered if I know what.

Saturday, though, sees me in Olympia, where The End Times will infiltrate Le Voyeur with a sassy ploy stolen straight from a 50s screwball comedy: we got booked. Last year, Le Voyeur treated (u(s)o) nicely that we had to do it again. If you’re in the area, and reading this, you belong to an unlikely populace and should join us.

Summer gave me Fragile Things, a collection of Neil Gaiman’s short stories, a week or so ago, and I read to the end: woody, opaque, with a bittersweet finish. Gaiman’s one of those names I know, but never read anything by, which I realize now was a mistake. Like any good book, I’m loathe to let it go, but now I have 20 years of his output to work my way through. Right after I finish the shelves of sheafs of manuscripts and letters in my possession and still now unread.

Right after.

TONIGHT

With friends Hurricane Chaser and Justin Roeser. With enemies too, if you're looking.

@Mars Bar
9 p.m. $6.

Definitions: Need a Napkin

Need a Napkin (V. phrase):

1) To realize you need something just before it is brought to you.
2) To give off the air of an unspeakable request.

Here ya are, you looked like you needed a napkin. Those ribs are messy. Can I get you anything else?

Hey there, baby. You need a napkin? You're drooling. Come on in the backroom. Sugah knows what you want.

Blues & Bluster

Up in Everett, in a modified doublewide curiously placed downtown, was the last time I was on the radio proper. The format was poor, but inoffensive: local artists mixed with world music, with heavy doses of BBC canned programming. It was run by a sweaty mess of a person I didn't care for much and his underling, who I liked only by comparison.

But I loved it all the same, being sequestered in a closet, surrounded by antiquated equipment, pushing buttons and talking to no one. Missle defense with music.

It's been nearly four years since that gig, so I'm inordinately excited for tonight.

The best of the Sound, older and ill-remembered performers, and readings from poets of all stripes, tied together with the straight truth and good-natured fibbing. Revering the familiar and rescuing the rest, it's Blues&Bluster.

Is it necessary to say I host? I do. Tonight we're gonna get into some XTC, Touabab Krewe, new Antony and the Johnsons, and The Stooges, among many others.

Live from 11pm - 1am on Hollow Earth Radio