The Stranger

After two years of brokering drunken dance-floor diplomacy between Capitol Hill's indigenous hipsters and the War Room's hiphop clientele, Rags to Riches is calling it quits. Tonight's final blowout party will celebrate the night's long, successful run while also ushering in the War Room's new Friday-night weekly, Ring the Alarm. DJs D-Double, Kuttin Kandi, and Babu are flying in from around the country to ensure a properly banging sendoff/kickoff. (War Room, 722 E Pike St, 328-7666. 9 pm, $5 before 11 pm/$10 after, 21+.) by Eric Grandy

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Ah, Sound Off!—the annual underage battle of the bands that has been at least partially responsible for the early discovery of now-glamorous music-scene veterans such as the Schoolyard Heroes, the Lonely H, the Lonely Forest, Mon Frere, Idiot Pilot, and the Hollowpoints. Now in its sixth year, Sound Off! ups the ante by choosing 12 finalists instead of 8. Tonight's first round of semifinals features Don't Tell Sophie, For Years Blue, Halfbreed, and the Oregon Donor. One of them could very well be the next great thing. (EMP, 325 Fifth Ave N, 877-EMP-LIVE. 8 pm, $7/$10, all ages.) by Megan Seling

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Ex-local boy and perennial local favorite Mike Daisey returns for a one-night-only performance at CHAC. Like all of Daisey's solo storytelling works, Stories from the Atlantic Night Cafe is created without a script. Unlike his other works, SFTANC involves a subject chosen by Daisey an hour before curtain, upon which he extemporaneously pontificates during that evening's show. Every show is a world premiere, never to be repeated again. Go. (Capitol Hill Arts Center, 1621 12th Ave, www.brownpapertickets.com. 7pm, $20/$25.) by David Schmader

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This amazing documentary uses miles of archival footage to tell the frightening story of an apparently progressive, racially integrated church that ended in the largest mass suicide in the history of the world. The rise of the Peoples Temple cult and the transformation of a kook with sunglasses into a barbiturate-addicted sadist mirror, almost too perfectly, the way the revolutionary fever of the 1960s morphed into the panic and decline of the '70s. (Varsity, Search for Movie Times. by Annie Wagner

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Two years ago at Hugo House, a petulant lady asked Sherman Alexie a question about poetry and he tore the lady apart. Kicked her head in. It was awesome. The guy knows a lot about poetry. Tonight, he's the star of "a roundtable discussion and reading of formal poetry"—you know, poetry that rhymes, the only kind that's fun to hear aloud. Also on the panel are Chelsea Rathburn, Richard Wakefield, and Eric McHenry. No telling whose head Alexie will kick in this time. Therein lies the suspense. (Richard Hugo House, 1634 11th Ave, 322-7030. 7 pm, free.) by Christopher Frizzelle

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