Looking For Sizzle In This Year's Fat

THE FAT FRONT WAS COLD and a little quiet Wednesday night, at least out on the streets of Pioneer Square, where there weren't any waiting lines to get inside participating Fat Tuesday clubs and the mounted police were treated politely by stumbling celebrators.

Inside the many music rooms, however, it was a much toastier matter. Business is expected to pick up dramatically with the weekend and - it's hoped - warmer weather.

Fat-tivities aren't limited only to the Square. At RKCNDY tonight, Inflatable Soule - along with Kristen Barry and Katie's Dimple - do their part for Seattle's Mardi Gras. Madonna's new label signatories, Candlebox, play there tomorrow with Sage. And next Tuesday - almost direct from Meeker's - it's Metal Church!

Incidentally, CBS News showed up to shoot last Saturday's sold-out performance of The Melvins at RKCNDY, obstensibly to capture a little Seattle style. It's reported they (CBS) survived. No word yet on an air date.

Also this weekend for F.T., The Squirrels at The Swan tonight, the sister/daughter bill of Sister Double Happiness and Somebody's Daughter at the Fenix Underground Saturday, Sam Andrew, Tom McFarland, Fat James and Guitar Slim in Occidental Park at 4 p.m. Sunday (free), the Bluestars with Merrilee Rush at New Orleans Monday and on Fat Tuesday itself, Jr. Cadillac at Doc Maynard's, Gruntruck at the Colourbox, Grateful Dead lyricist Robert Hunter at the Weathered Wall with a mess of other mad poets, and Sway, Native and The Coachmen at The Croc.

WHEN TEMPEST last blew through town, hardly anyone noticed. The band's appearance wasn't well-advanced, and only a few had the pleasure of experiencing the San Fran' band's stormy, raucous brand of Celtic rock. This is fast-forward, infectious, fiddle-driven music. The band has a new recording, "Serrated Edge," and plays the New Melody in Ballard next Thursday with Micki Fisher.

THE NUBILE THANGS, out of trendy North Carolina by way of Chicago, are a two-fisted, three-headed threat. The band performs as its real self - an edgy, somewhat sarcastic bass/drums/guitar-fueled trio - at The Off Ramp next Tuesday night. But on Thursday they don their other guise as Buddy Holly and the Cricketts in the musical "Buddy," playing one night only at Tacoma's Temple Theatre. Curtain goes up at 8.

Bassist Lindsay Jones says the band is doing the Holly show as part of a yearlong nationwide tour and picking up side gigs like the Ramp one along the way. Guitarist Chris Eudy plays Buddy - in the musical - and drummer John Noyes fills out the group. The Nubile Thangs also has an independently released recording, "Kill Bootie," and have appeared on the nation's favorite crime-stopping television show, "America's Most Wanted." They played a circa-'60s lounge band whose lead singer was murdered by her schizophrenic brother. Versatility is everything in show business.

BACKSTAGE BLOCK: The Backstage has a varied and intriguing lineup over the next week, starting tonight with Uncle Tupelo and Freedy Johnston .

Tomorrow night Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown brings his Texas-tinged American music to the 'stage. Brown is a staggering multi-intrumentalist - chiefly guitar and fiddle - who's been rocking and rolling around the world for nearly half a century.

Singer/songwriter/poet/pianist Gil Scott-Heron, often called the "Godfather of Rap" because of his early merger of words and rhythm with powerful political polemics, does it solo and unplugged on piano Tuesday night. Scott-Heron instigated the word/music trend with his recording of the very influential "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised" (although we suspect it may become a "Game Boy" program).

SADHAPPY, fresh from its record release party, has broken up. Needless to say, we have mixed emotions.