The Homosexuals are playing at AS220 tonight.  Not to be confused with The Queers, The Gays, or The Gentlemen Who Are Somewhat Light In The Loafers,* The Homosexuals came out of the UK in the late seventies.  They released a couple of singles and EPs and put their only album in 1984.  Twenty years later they got the fancy deluxe reissue treatment (thanks to Hyped To Death Records) and now they’re back together.

They’ll be at AS220 at 9-ish (soon!) alongside the terribly named Swamp Tease, the possibly even more terribly named Sexy Prison, and SHV, which may or may not be an acronym for something terrible.  It’s six dollars.

AS220
115 Empire St
9 pm tonight (soon!)
$6

(*Okay, I made that one up.  But I’m sure by the end of the year it will be taken, albeit with lots of unnecessary punctuation in the middle.)

Got a little something left in the tank? Then get back out there.

Lupo’s, Joe Jackson, 7pm, $50, $32.50

AS220, Pow!!, Rose Theory, 10pm, $6

Tazza, Infinite Darkness, 10pm

Don White plays the Stone Soup Coffeehouse tonight. With great ad-libs, Don just might be one of the funniest singer/songwriters on the scene, but he balances the funnies with sweet, beautiful ballads and spoken word. From humorous ditties on parenting teens (he’s a musical Mark Patinkin, or maybe a coherent Bill Cosby) to nods to his Massachusetts roots (my fave: “I’m from Lynn, What Can I Say?”), Don always entertains. Warwick’s own Joanne Lurgio opens.

On Stone Soup: OK, it’s a bit weird to attend concerts in a church basement. But it’s a good-sized space with a real stage, encourages local talent through open mics, and if you’re lucky, Stone Soupers will have homemade treats for sale.

St. Paul’s Church, 50 Park Place, Pawtucket / 8 p.m. / $15

Are you looking for somewhere different to watch the election returns? Do you enjoy free pool? Wouldn’t you just love to help out a great Providence youth organization like Youth in Action? Well you can do all three at once next tuesday!

November 4, 6-11PM

Snooker’s Pool Lounge
145 Clifford St
Providence, RI 02903
(401) 351-7665

Stop in for an hour, or less, or more. Bring friends, regardless of who you or they are voting for. The election is going to be intense this year, to say the least, so why sit at home watching it alone when you can be with friends, meet new people, and support a good cause? more »

Tonight at AS220; Badman, Volcano Kings, Peculiar Gentlemen and Alex K. Redfearn and the Siezures spew some halloween insanity, whilst over at Jakes it’s the Figgs, Von Doom and the incredible Mrs. Six Eyes

I know Tim has already covered the details of the Halloween Iron Pour, but this picture is so cool.

$5, doors 6pm, iron starts pouring at 7pm, the Steel Yard, 27 Sims Avenue.

Oh my God, cracked-out old people.  SHUT UP.  So your kids are trampy!  We get it.  You don’t need to tell the whole effing library about it…

Anyway,  David Macaulay’s going to be at the RISD Auditorium at 6:15 tonight.  Get there early if you want an aisle seat (which, if you’re taller than 5′2″, you will.)  I’ve never heard the man speak, but learning a little bit about his meticulous process would surely be worth it.

I’ll keep this brief, because I’m at the library using a computer next to a cracked-out old couple that are noisily spying on their kids’ Myspaces. And, you know, there’s that grumpy woman that keeps telling everybody that their time is up.

But.

Tonight’s Action Speaks focuses on the year 2000, when The US Census first allowed people to identify themselves as mixed-race. Here’s the blurb:

For the first time, citizens of the United States were not asked to define themselves by checking a single ethnic box in the census. In all of the census counts through 1990, an individual’s race was supposed to be indicated by checking only one of the boxes presumed to correspond to the main social racial categories. Thus, there was no allowance made for multiracial identification, although the category “other” was recognized in the 1980 and 1990 census and on many local record-keeping forms. Advocates worked throughout the 1990s to rescind this “one box” policy. This change will lead to a discussion of the demographics of hybridization and the hybridization of demographics at the turn of the 21st century in the U.S. and in the world. We will also look at the concept of race as a construct and the notion of racial purity.

And the guests, including at least one spelling bee champion, are:

more »

Mount Pleasant and Elmhurt folks, take note: Today marks the very last farmer’s market at Rhode Island College (unless, of course, it becomes an annual tradition).   It’s small, it’s cute, it’s fresh, it’s local.  It’s a win-win.

Rhode Island College, 600 Mt. Pleasant Ave, Providence / 4-6 p.m.

The Flobots are back in town tonight, with their Providence-inspired alt-hippity-hop. They’re at Lupo’s, backing up Matisyahu, on whom we’ll reserve comment. Here’s Jerzyk’s Phoenix story about them and his coverage of the Flobots at the Democratic Convention,

And here’s the video for their second single, Rise:

Pub Quiz tonight. Come spend the evening arguing with your friends (who will definitely talk you out of the correct answer about 90% of the time).  Form a team of one to four people — just show up. The rules are explained as you go along. (FYI — the correct answer was ‘Pliny the Elder’.)

8PM, The Wild Colonial Tavern, 250 South Water Street, plenty of free parking, 621.5644

Because nothing says harvest like asphalt, pigeon crap and the Dress Barn (hey, we do have a barn).  Oh well, any excuse to get out of the house and away from the kids. No wait, bring the kids.

2pm — kids costume contest/3pm adult (15+) costume contest

Music, and then ‘Movies on the Block’ continues with Beetlejuice.

Westminster and Union Streets

Looks like the Woolly Fair is on for today.  This is the rescheduled rain-date and sadly it looks as if later tonight it might also get a bit wet.  Judging from the vague accounts of last year’s nutso bacchanal (I only get the sketchiest details, no one can say exactly what happened, but something) a little rain isn’t going to be bothering anyone.  Please note that the venue has shifted up the street a little and the event is no longer affiliated with the Steel Yard. (Jeez, what the hell happened last year?)

Events include the Triage Lounge, Happy Hour Haircuts, Funtanamo Bay Detention Center and Day Spa, the Honey Bunnies and more.

3pm to 3am Sunday, Monohasset Mill, 532 Kinsley Avenue, accessed off of Eagle St. between Monohasset and the Tate Building, $10 (Benefits The Woonasquatucket River Watershed Council)

pvd alleycat bike race! tomorrow (saturday!) october 25th, 1pm, 224 benefit st., $5.
embrace the violence (so sayeth the poster)!
get in it to win it (or just play for fun!).

I got no time for the bloggin today. Here are deets on the JWJ fundraiser, the Phoenix’s party, and more.

Tonight’s Action Speaks will discuss the 1957 publication of Norman Mailer’s “The White Negro: Superficial Reflections on the Hipster,” an essay that seemed really cool when I had to read it in eleventh-grade English class.  (Although that may have had to do with the fact that we had just spent four weeks discussing “The Fall of the House of Usher,” which really.)

In it, if I’m remembering this at all correctly, Mailer calls hipsters philosophical psychopaths, a theory that still resonates today, though the definition of hipster’s changed over the past fifty years from “someone that consciously appropriates things from black culture because it’s cool” to “someone that really likes Daft Punk.”  I guess that would make Kanye West the ultimate time-transcending hipster; maybe Adbusters wasn’t that far off when they called hipsters the Dead End of Western Civilization.

Taking part in the panel discussion this week: local hip-hop artist/producer Joe Beats; essayist and Village Voice writer Greg Tate, and literary critic John Gennari.

AS220
115 Empire Street
5:30-7pm
Free