What: SW's Reverb Showcase Featuring Thee Emergency
When: 8 p.m.
Where: Queen Anne's Easy Street Records (20 West Mercer Street)

That's right. Thee Emergency + Free Show = Happy Friday, kids! Can You Dig IT!?

The line-up at Sasquatch this year was certainly solid, but full of bands I've seen a zillion times before, so missing the trek to the Gorge was not something I was too concerned about (especially since I'm getting my festival fixes here and here later this year). However, I really hope I get another opportunity to see the New Pornographers cover ELO, because choosing "Don't Bring Me Down" is pretty much a stroke of brilliance:

The photo is proof (is Gene trying to look down her shirt?!?) -- Condoleeza Rice apparently had a late-night hotel rendezvous in Sweden on Thursday with the four members of KISS. Actually, as it turns out, both the band and the Secretary of State were sharing the same digs (she was in town for an international conference on Iraq, they were in town to do a concert, or maybe it was the other way around), and Gene, Paul, Tommy (Thayer), and Eric (Singer) signed autographs and gave Rice and her staff, ahem, backstage passes for tonight's show.

As reported by the Associated Press: "It was really fun to meet KISS and Gene Simmons," she told reporters, noting that they seemed well-informed about current events. The band had asked if she could stop by after she finished dinner with the Swedish foreign minister and Rice readily agreed, she said...[adding] her favorite KISS tune is "Rock and Roll All Nite."

No word if she specifically asked to see Simmons' tongue, or if she's thinking about asking the KISS Army to help fight the war in Iraq.

Thin Lizzy's "Whiskey in the Jar" has been stuck in my head since yesterday morning. And I, somewhat unfortunately, can't think of Thin Lizzy's cover of said Irish romp without thinking of Metallica's. But since "Whiskey in the Jar" has been covered by everybody and his great-grandmother, who do you think did the best version of it...

Metallica?

The Dubliners?

Or Thin Fuckin' Lizzy?

Of course, they all rule in their own special way (I hold a special place for Metallica's simply because of time and place), but I prefer Thin Lizzy's above all others.

Get hungry watching this while milk from your cereal dribbles down your chin:

Whenever I am in the office of Showbox booker Chad Queirlo, I have to resist the urge to swipe his Iron Maiden Eddie statue (quite similar to the one pictured above). I can't help it; as I wrote in my column this week, it's an obsession that goes way, way back for me.

Maiden will play the White RIver Amphitheater next Monday, and their agent just send me a retrospective CD designed with this tour's set list in mind (thank God they are sticking to the classics, though I think we could all do without hearing "Can I Play WIth Maddness?" ever again). Consequently, I've been listening to Hallowed Be Thy Name all week long. It's still the shit:

From Skerik's new Maelstrom Trio tonight at the Tractor. The band features keyboardist Brian Coogan, from Skerik's second (spiritual) home of New Orleans, and young Baton Rouge drummer Simon Lott, both crazy creative players like Skerik himself. Opening is the wonderful Steven Moore, who's going by Stebmo these days, who got some love from the NYT last month for his wonderful new self-titled record. He'll be bringing his Casio CTK-611 and Wurlitzer.

As you probably know by now, SW contributer Nicolae White just came out this week. Yep, he's an African-American/Filipino male with a huge crush on RUSH, quite possibly the whitest rock band of all time. Yeah, we're talking about a band with a complete inability to be funky, and a fascination with both J.R.R. Tolkien and Ayn Rand (eee gads!). But, as it was just pointed out by my colleague John Lomax at the Houston Press, Nicolae is not alone. Click here to read more.

And congrats again to Nicolae for a great piece of confessional journalism!

T.I.

Three-day passes to the Aug. 30 to Sept. 1 festival are currently going for $80. $2 offsets the carbon footprint you'll leave getting from your door to the Seattle Center. As previously reported, Beck, STP, Neko Case, and M. Ward are also on the bill. From now until the end of time, everything you need to know about Bumbershoot 2008 will be available on this Reverb thread.

This list of recently-added acts comes courtesy of the good people at Bumbershoot.com.

T.I. / Keyshia Cole / Adele / Minus the Bear / Battles / Aiden / Unearth / Sondre Lerche / The Whigs / Thao with The Get Down Stay Down / Langhorne Slim & The War Eagles / These Arms Are Snakes / The Blakes / Mark Pickerel & His Praying Hands / Barcelona / Kinski / Throw Me The Statue / J-Boogie

Minneapolis quartet Tapes 'n Tapes was one of the first examples of both the "blog buzz" and "Pitchfork effect" phenomena -- widespread online fawning made their 2005 debut, The Loon, an indie-rock success story. Now the band is back with the follow-up, Walk It Off. Over the phone from a tour stop in Florida, congenial frontman Josh Grier cheerfully commented on some recent reviews of the album:

Small combinations of songs seem like a mixtape mistake, clashing like plaid and polka dots . . . still, the album as a whole finds a strange homogeny, and Tapes 'n Tapes keep exploring hip, leaving everyone guessing as to whether they meant to make such a confusing outfit or the pieces were just on sale. (Billboard)

Well, it sounds to me like they don't necessarily vibe with albums where there's different styles going on. I have seen a few reviews where people say that, where people say we're basically ADD . . . I am kinda ADD in that I like to try a lot of different things, and if that means our albums come off as lacking direction, I dunno -- it's just a personal preference. I'm not in any way trying to compare us to this, but look at [The Beatles'] the "White Album" -- that album makes no sense if you're looking at it as, "What do these guys stand for?" But that's a record I love.