Sofie Tucker
Thurs March 6 at the Central.

First, an apology: Publication of One-Night Stand has been sporadic/near-nonexistent over the past year, and for that this asinine publication is sincerely sorry. We promise not to abandon this column (i.e., a feeble attempt to silence our "You only write about your friends' bands!" critics) again, as yours truly will dutifully be scribbling it out each and every week from here on out.

That is, unless we get bumped. Like last week.

Speaking of: Intelligent readers will notice that the little blurb near the top of the column informing you of the who/where topics for the week (it doesn't really have a name that I know of, so I shall call it a "designooper"--which, it should be noted, is not really a word at all) is a week behind. This is due to the aforementioned bumping the column received last week Again, sorry.

But enough throat-clearing, for One-Night Stand is about bands, and the band chosen for this week (er... last week) is (was) none other than Sofie Tucker. Who is Sofie Tucker? Originally she was a rather risqué vaudeville star in the 1920s (and she spelled her name Sophie Tucker). But that's for another column. The Sofie Tucker I saw at the Central on March 6 was a tight, poppy three-piece composed of Aaron Mannino (guitar/vocals), Jimmy Carroll (bass), and Kirk Stanford (drums). Define tight and poppy? Casting aside the usual lame music-writing wordplay, the band is tight due to countless hours of apparent practice (as in, no fuck-ups), and poppy due to choruses like "Buba buba buba bu-da-da buba!" And though this rather inane description does not do the group justice (especially since it hints at some sort of pseudo-Weezer concoction, when in fact Sofie Tucker is nothing like Weezer), it should be noted that Sofie Tucker is, indeed, a good, noisy little band--polished, with heartfelt songs about the typical love and longing, and nearly able to pull off a cover of Radiohead's "Creep." I say "nearly" because points must always be subtracted from a band even attempting a Radiohead cover.

Sofie Tucker plays March 21 at the Old Fire House in Redmond.