As promised on the Tacoma Rock City Twitter page (follow here if you're not already, slackers), I've got footage of Tacoma punk vets I Defy performing last Friday at Hell's Kitchen.

You may notice the guy playing guitar is not Carl Zook, who has gone on to form a new band, called Zook (featured on Grit City Bootleg No. 9 and on the South Sound Mix Tape.) It's another one of their rotating roster of bald guitarists, Shug Lewis, who has been playing with I Defy since March.

But enough with the jibba jabba! Check out the clip!

P.S. You can catch I Defy, live and in the flesh, on Friday (Aug. 28) at Tacoma's Silent Studios Warehouse, near the B & I Mall on South Tacoma Way - that venue's last show, I hear. Details are posted on I Defy's MySpace page.

Ha! The stupid pig flu may have slowed my blog posts down for a minute, but no more.

At least I choose to believe swine flu has been the source my aches and sniffles the last couple of days, even if no fancy shmancy doctor told me so. Call me trendy. But whatever the bug I've had, the Theraflu has been working my white blood cells are giving it a good ol’ fashioned boot party. And since I feel way better, I had let you know about a killer show going on tonight at the New Frontier Lounge.

The lineup features Seattle buzz band, the Girls, which I first witnessed delivering its brash brand of synth-punk last summer at the Comet Tavern. The clips below are from my interview with the Girls’ Shannon Brown (actually a dude.) Among other things, we talked about …

… the band’s influences, from Dada to “Saturday Night Live” and ...

… the odds that he’ll strip down to his tighty whities tonight.

Don’t let that last bit scare you off. The Girls are pretty tight. Listen here. I'm partial to "Dope Disguised as Nuns," myself.

I haven't seen them live yet, but headlining band Hotels sounds pretty sweet, too. Judging by the dramatically sweeping sounds of its new CD, "Where Hearts Go Broke," the Seattle band listens the Smiths and a gang of other post-punk bands from the late ‘70s and early ‘80s. But they put a fresh spin on that sound. "Near the Desert, Near the City" is one of the most lush and compelling tracks I've heard all year. But you can judge for yourself by clicking here.

Just added "Robots vs. Zombies" by Tacoma's Gold Teeth to the ol' Mix Tape player (down and to the right.) And wouldn't that be a killer concept for the next Robert Rodriguez flick? I'd pay money to see it, anyway.

[Note: As pointed out in the comments field, the clip sounds mangled if you listen to it using Internet Explorer, a browser that routinely annoys the @#%@%@ out of me. Sounds fine if you use Mozilla Firefox, though. Try that until I can reload.]

Hey, just noticed the Girls from Seattle are headed to the New Frontier Lounge on May 9. About time they made it down South. The Girls are actually a bunch of dudes who play party hearty punk and new wave anthems. They first piqued my interest when I saw 'em rock the Comet Tavern last summer following the Capitol Hill Block Party. And now I'm totally hooked after surfing to their MySpace page and laughing my @#%@#@ off at that "monkey hate clean" line they drop in "Dope Disguised as Nuns" (a funny hook lifted from "SNL.") With Hotels and Sons of Ivan. Mark it on your calendar, yo!
DEVIL DOLL BOOKING

... or you just want to relive it, I'll be posting something special later this weekend once I clean up some audio. No, really, I think you'll like it. Stay tuned.

Girl Trouble singer K.P. Kendall was in rare form and, of course, eventually shirtless Friday night at the New Frontier Lounge. His popular garage-punk band -- also Bon Von Wheelie, Bill "Kahuna" Henderson and Dale Phillips -- celebrated 25 years of "eluding fame" with three big sets, including the one patterned after Girl Trouble's first gig, on March 9, 1984 at Ft. Steilacoom College (since renamed Pierce College.)
ERNEST JASMIN

As you Stooges fans out there may have already heard or read elsewhere, guitarist Ron Asheton was found dead at his home in Ann Arbor, Michigan last night. Read the Rolling Stone report here.

Sad news for sure, but I'm glad that I at least had the privilege of catching up with Ron before the Stooges' comeback tour brought the infamous and highly influential outfit to Seattle in 2007. Click here to listen to what he had to say on that day about his band's legacy, being a musical outsider and hooking back up with Iggy Pop and brother, Scott, for the tour in '07.

Whenever I run into guitarist Ron Heathman at the Parkway or his own (coffee) watering hole, Satellite Coffee, I bug him about when the new Supersuckers album will see the light of day. And now I can leave him alone since the latest 'Suckers e-newsletter revealed all:

Supersuckers have confirmed the long awaited, long overdue release of their brand new full-length album, "Get It Together" for November 25, 2008. This will be the tenth recording released by the band's self-owned label, Mid Fi Recordings. The November release date also coincides with the band's 20th Anniversary.

In addition to the audio CD, Get It Together will include a bonus DVD featuring 90 minutes of exclusive archival live footage featuring classic Supersuckers songs, as well as a few from the new album. The DVD was filmed during a Southern California performance in September 2007. Click here to check out the tracklist from the DVD.

This week I watched “The Future is Unwritten,” an insightful and sometimes moving documentary on the late Joe Strummer. And as a result, it’s been all Clash all the time for me this week. Here are three songs that you should download now if they’re not already in your collection.

From back when the Clash was more of a conventional punk band, this anthem has really been stuck in my head this week.

“The Future is Unwritten” features a cool scene with Topper Headon describing the day he came up with the piano riff for one of the great pop tracks of our time – you know, right before his band mates kicked him to the curb.

This is a lesser known Clash gem. But some of you young'uns may still recognize this as source material for M.I.A.’s “Paper Planes” (which you can hear on my "essential 2007 mix tape" here.)

The Briefs are officially on hiatus. But the bad news for the Seattle punk band’s fans is that it may be of the permanent variety. At least that’s how it sounded recently when I caught up with singer-guitarist Steve E. Nix.

“The Briefs just aren’t doing anything,” he said. “Maybe we’ve broken up. There’s just no plans. Some members moved away, and I’m concentrating on the Cute Lepers. So you never know. We may play again, or we might not. Bands aren’t supposed to go on forever.”

The good news is that “Cute Lepers” thing he mentioned. That’s the name of his new band, which will headline Hell’s Kitchen’s all-ages show, set to kick off at 6 p.m. Friday (Aug. 1). Click the link below to hear clips from my interview with Nix and snippets of "It's Summertime, Baby," "The News Is Always the Same," "The Day After the End of the World" and "Terminal Boredom" from the band's debut "Can't Stand Modern Music," which Joan Jett's Blackheart Records released last month.

Steve E. Nix (the blonde guy in the middle) will bring his new punk outfit, the Cute Leppers to Hell's Kitchen on Friday.
ELIE GORAL

"Are you here because you're a fan of the music or because you're doing a story," a graying hipster asked, a hint of accusation in his voice, moments after I stepped into Hell's Kitchen last night. So I admit it. I am something of a newbie when it comes to Flipper. And just to annoy the hipsterati even more -- yes, it wasn't until Nirvana bassist Krist Novoselic joined the influential Bay Area punk band that I was encouraged to dig a little deeper and get my hands on more of the bands music. But cut me some slack, y'all. I don't think Flipper ever made it to my old stomping grounds in Louisville, Ky., back in the day. They were inactive for over a decade before reuniting for a couple of CBGB’s benefit shows in 2005. And it’s not like their albums are easy to come by, iTunes available live set “Blow N’ Chunks” being the notable exception. (That'll change with a bunch of reissues for the band's 30th anniversary, drummer Steve DePace told me recently.) But if more people tune in to a cool cult band because a rock star the band influenced has joined ranks, all the better. At least Flipper might get their due this time around. And having been caught up to speed, I had a blast at Saturday night’s show at Hell’s Kitchen. Led by the magnetic front man Bruce Loose (above) Flipper rocked, especially on messy proto-grunge anthems “Way of the World” and “Ha Ha Ha.”
ERNEST JASMIN

Loose was pleasantly buzzed (finishing a fan-bought Guinness in a single gulp at one point) and hilariously sarcastic as he pretended to berate a gal down front. “Stop giving me attention! He’s the rock star,” he said, pointing to his buddy, Novoselic (above right). "It's not like I've been busting my ass in this band all these years." Other times, Loose joked about “Behind the Music” moments his band has gone through over the years. Starting with the death of bassist Will Shatter in the '80s, the band has had more than its share of the sorts of tragic moments that the VH1 series was built on. So you thought he meant it when he encouraged fans to "be happy! That's all we got." And towards the end of the set, Loose called out a couple of lusty fans engaged in premature foreplay at his feet. “Yeah! Lick her neck some more. She likes that!” Guitarist Ted Falconi and drummer Steve DePace (bottom) were comparatively subdued.
ERNEST JASMIN

The set list included a few new numbers, “Night Falls Like Dirt Rocks,” “Why Cant You See?” and “Triple Mass Murder Suicide” from a new album the boys are finishing up in Seattle. As a matter of fact, Rocket Records owner Steve Gaydich (whose finger holds this set list in place) tells me that a couple of the Flipper guys dropped by his store yesterday with producer Jack Endino.
ERNEST JASMIN

Many forces conspired against finishing my Flipper podcast: Two days of fallout from that crazy "Tim McBrawl" incident; the dying battery in my laptop; the need to sleep at some point last night. But here it is, y'all – just in time to pump you up even more for the resurgent Bay Area punk band’s shows at the Funhouse in Seattle tonight and Tacoma's Hell’s Kitchen Saturday.

Flipper podcast: “Way of the World”; Nirvana's Krist Novoselic talks Flipper's impact on grunge; “Ha Ha Ha”; drummer Steve DePace on Novoselic; “The Light, the Sound”; DePace talks new album; “Shed No Tears” (outro)

Last night, I went back to see the X at Showbox at the Market for the second night in a row. And, frankly, I thought this time was even better. Maybe it was because I was standing on Billy Zoom’s side of the stage watching him flirt with all the girls up front, letting them tickle the fret board as he played. Or maybe the last encore put this show over the top. It started with Exene Cervenka and John Doe delivering a poignant, unplugged “See How We Are” (absent from the previous night’s set.) And then they hit it out of the park with “Beyond and Back,” my favorite X song at the moment. Then and there, this show topped my best concerts of 2008 list. For now, at least. And at one point, Doe even gave us another get out and vote PSA, followed by what I can only assume was a shout out to Eddie Vedder, who I'd been trying to spot all night since X and Pearl Jam are homies and all. (Doe even made a cameo last time I saw Pearl Jam on that very same stage.)

“You know who I’m voting for, and it’s not the crappy white guy,” Doe said. “This is for our friend Eddie who would have been here, but he’s sick.” The song he dedicated was "The New World."

And I don’t know what it was, but I enjoyed the Skybombers a lot more the second time around. Maybe it was just my mood, since their tour manager thought they were better the previous night. The Australian punk band, which has been on the road with X, plays raucous, no frills punk (think Against Me) delivered with infectious, over the top energy. Hugh (who is the singer, according to their My Space page) is quite the showman; though he did get booed by a few aging punkers after quipping “I wasn’t even born in 1984” in response to something or other. Later, I met guitarist Sam and drummer Scottie, who seemed like nice chaps. Bought their CD, too, which I like so far. Maybe a clip will wind up on Critic’s iPod.

X is (top photo, from far side of the stage) John Doe, Exene Cervenka, Billy Zoom and DJBonebrake (not picture); the flirtations Mr. Zoom; and a kinda sorta accurate set list. See encore description above.
ERNEST A. JASMIN

I did a little research on opening act the Skybombers (you know, I found their My Space page) and learned that the lineup is (from far side of stage) Sam, Hugh and Ravi, with Scottie (obscured) on drums. And why does it have to be so hard to get a decent drummer photo, anyway? Is it that they move so much? They're stuck back in the shadows? You be the judge.
ERNEST A. JASMIN