Sound Advice

by Inlander Staff & r & & r & The Greatest Flattery & r & Holy crap, have you heard the Atomic Outlaws? They're like the world's best Van Halen imitators. I mean, they don't actually play any VH songs or anything -- they just sound totally like them and perfectly evoke that hard-livin', hard-lovin' feel that died out when Eddie and Co. finally woke up sober that one morning. Laugh along with (or at) them Saturday at the Spread.





Good for Axe Grinding & r & The police have weighed in on the Big Easy/Rock Coffee dustup, in a way. We put in a request for information on violence, lewdness, grifting, general flim-flammery -- anything nefarious that might be tied to the crowds around Rock Coffee. Bravo contended that there had been complaints by the city, but Cpl. Tom Lee of the Spokane P.D. suggests otherwise. "There have been no complaints that I can find against Rock Coffee ... If there's a problem that neighbors are concerned about, I'm guessing it's coming from the Big Easy," the officer says. "Sometimes [the Big Easy's] crowd comes out and causes a little ruckus on the sidewalk up and down the street, but there have been no calls against Rock Coffee." He apologized for not having what we were looking for: "It's either someone with an axe to grind or spillover from the Big Easy." We'd say it's a little of both.





Far From Tennessee & r & Kudos to Kevin Brown, host of KPBX's Front Porch Bluegrass, for a phenomenal Blue Waters Bluegrass Festival. We didn't know what to expect when we rolled in to Medical Lake on Saturday afternoon. Coulda been just a lot of wannabes singing about Appalachia, but each act just kept getting better. The South Hill Ramblers were OK. Missoula-based Broken Valley Road Show was off the hook. The Biscuit Burners -- featuring North Carolina's state flat-picking champion -- had our jaws in the grass. Even the quiet, husband-and-wife duet of Anne and Pete Sibley knocked us out. We left the joint feeling high, but in no way lonesome.