Putzes and Pretties

Coming up is a benefit show for some great people--the members of Plan B and DJ Griesse--that will feature performances by great bands such as IQU, the Dalmations, Scape, NKO, Sientific American, and Parskid. But it's all because of some really shitty people: lame-ass jerks in San Francisco who stole every lick of Plan B's and DJ Mat Griesse's equipment out of their van on the last night of their tour. And along with all the equipment that's now gone comes extra heartache: the loss of James van Leuven's backup hard drive with all the Plan B songs he'd ever made to date on it, as well as the new, unreleased ones. Plan B's Leigh Gable lost a borrowed digital camera and five cassettes containing the band's film/video that had taken a month to shoot at various locations around Seattle. Among software, client info, and expensive drawing pens, B's Michael Evans lost irreplaceable drawings. And Griesse's super-rare collection of funk and soul 45s is gone, too. Nothing has turned up, and Plan B and Griesse estimate that their total loss, not including the masses of intellectual property, is at least $10,000. And this might just be the most heartbreaking passage I've ever read, written to me in an e-mail from Gable: "In a sea of fools' errands, this last Plan B tour was more doomed than most. Our tour van came shuddering out of a wrecking yard the day before we left, we were all broke, and if it hadn't been for the SXSW showcase we wouldn't have had the gas money anyway." Ugh. And another came from Griesse: "I lost a few hundy in tools but I could really give a fuck about them. My records were my babies and I really want them back. I have been a compulsive 45 junkie for over 10 years and that box represented the cream of the crop--thousands of hours flipping through dusty sleeves and thousands of dollars spent... gone." Ugh. So come out to CoCA (410 Dexter Ave N) on Friday, April 16, and see the aforementioned as well as the desolated Plan B Mini Orchestra (live drums, cello, violin, trumpet, and keys) while NKO and Parskid create live murals. Doors open at 7:30 p.m., show starts at 8:00 p.m., and admission is $10. Aptly stated by Gable in that woeful e-mail, "We must have passed that patch of broken glass on the sidewalk 10 times. To borrow a phrase from our friend Pedro Beas in Tijuana, 'It's the most anti-poetic thing you'll ever see.'" Let's all pause and cry a little for that.

Former Northwest resident Sam Jayne, he of Lync and Love as Laughter, will play a show in Olympia, also on April 16, at Caffe Vita with Amy Blaschke, Miguel Mendez, and TK Webb (touring with Jayne from NYC) also on the bill. The venue is located in downtown Oly at 124 Fourth Avenue. Donations are accepted, but the show is free.

So what about how fancy everyone looked at the 2004 Northwest Impact Awards held last Friday night at the Westin Hotel's Grand Ballroom? Several hot boys were in swank variations of suits, including Dave Meinert and my date, Dior model (and former Catheters & Stagger Lee member) Lars Swenson, and the always-naughty Kerri Harrop looked lovely in her pink spring dress. Dapper Andrew McKeag and Mark Arm were in attendance, too, and everyone had to give a hand to emcee El Vez, whose outfit outdid everyone in the room. Along with speeches by/about and performances by honorees James DePreist (conductor, who could not attend) and One Reel founder Norm Langill was a tear-jerking acceptance speech from jazz vocalist Ernestine Anderson, whose two-song set brought down the house and overshadowed even that of Pearl Jam. The after-party, held in the hotel's Presidential Suite, was aptly bursting with debaucheries, complete with semi crashers like members of the Vells and Cobra High, and really, should it have been any other way? I had a blast all gussied up and Vicodin-ed to the gills (yes, I am the most accident-prone columnist you'll ever read--I fell a week earlier IN MY OWN HOUSE and cracked a rib), but c'mon, the Ace bandages just wouldn't have looked classy under the dress I'd been waiting for an event like the Impact Awards to, well, debut.

kathleen@thestranger.com