I would be a very bad Italian-Cranstonian if I didn’t pass along the word that St. Mary’s Feast is taking place in Knightsville this weekend, roughly around the area where Cranston Street meets Park Avenue.  St Mary’s Feast is the place to go if you have any interest in sausage and pepper sandwiches, doughboys, or twelve-year old guidos and guidettas who think they’re tough because they’re out alone after dark.

The feast started on Thursday, but after Sunday’s 10am Mass at St. Mary’s Church–that’s the Catholic church that’s right next door to the other Catholic church–there’s a parade through the streets of Knightsville.  Topping it all off, there’s fireworks tomorrow night at 10pm.*  Mostly red, white, and green fireworks, because that’s how the Italian-Cranstonians roll.  If you show up early enough you can lay down in the swampy baseball field to watch them, but if you’re tardy you may have to settle for sitting on the hood of your car in the parking lot of Rite Aid (formerly Brooks, formerly Douglas Drug.)

(*That’s what the Journal says.  Channel 10 is reporting them as being at 8, although that makes no sense.  But you should really get there early in any event.)

Slight change in the SoundSession schedule:  headlining artist Fat Joe, sneaker peddler and self-proclaimed Prince King of Africa, won’t be making it to Kennedy Plaza tomorrow evening because he’s too busy, um, hanging out in Albania.  N.O.R.E. and Ron Browz, also scheduled to perform, have been moved from the skating center Black Rep’s backlot.

In other news, the En Vogue show is still on at Twin River tomorrow, so holding on* won’t be necessary.  The four ladies in the group have been reuniting on and off for a couple of years now and plan to give us something we can feel** with a new album later this year.  You can let them free your mind*** for $25 in advance or $30 at the door.  Since Funky Divas is still one of my favorite albums ever, I’m actually kind of excited about the show, even if it does mean having to travel to the freaking dog track to see them.

*Ha!
**Ha ha!
***Ha ha ha! (I slay me.)

Just eleven days to go until IndieArts Festival downtown.  For the second year in a row, I’ll be judging the General Burnside Facial Hair Contest.  We’ll be filling you in with details as we get closer to the event, unless we forget to like with SoundSession, but this is just a heads-up in case you needed the time to grow something special.

As you may or may not know by now*, Providence is currently in the throes of SoundSession, the annual music festival based in and around the Black Rep on Westminster Street.  It always claims to be genre-defying, but this year they’ve taken an extra step towards wackytown. (Ween! The Trachtenberg Family Slideshow Players! En Vogue!) There’s also a lot of jazz and gospel and spoken word and other stuff that I know nothing about.  But I will say that in previous years I’ve discovered a lot of awesome music I had never heard of before.  (This year, my musical tastes being what they are, I’m holding out hope for No Means Yes, a quartet who could be described as the United Colors of Pussycat Doll.)

The complete line-up is available at providencesoundsession.com.  I’m skipping out on tonight’s events, though, because there’s karaoke happening at Mama Teresa’s/Whatever They’re Calling Remy’s Now, and I need to redeem myself after my really awful rendition of Miss You Much at Muldowney’s the other night.

(*You may if you’ve seen the ads if you get out a lot; you may not have heard if we are your only source of local news coverage.)

Those of you that have been reading this blog since last year may remember my consternation that the Pride people spent probably an ungodly amount of money booking 80’s teen starlet Tiffany, a woman who twenty years ago made a name for herself singing songs that other people had previously done much better.

This year, it seems, they’ve heeded my advice, sort of. The entertainment, at least according to this one dude’s unsourced Tumblr page, is going to be Debbie Gibson.

This is a step in the right direction, sort of. Debbie wrote her own songs, and they actually weren’t horrible. To this day I put Only In My Dreams on mixtapes, and Out Of The Blue, while it doesn’t necessarily work with a coffeehouse tabla arrangement, is pretty catchy. On the other hand, the star of Mega Shark vs Giant Octopus was last musically relevant in 1991.* Why can we not celebrate our identities with music from after the first Bush presidency? Really, now. There are people of voting age who were not alive yet the last time Debbie Gibson was in the top 40.

(*Well, she actually had a minor adult contemporary hit just three years ago, with a duet on Jordan Knight’s solo album. But I don’t consider that relevant, because I’ve never heard of it before just now.)

While block parties at the Dark Lady are generally the bane of my gay summer existence, this year the DL is kicking off their outdoor festivities with an all-day all-night bang that might actually be more entertaining than the typical bunch of drunk forty-year olds dressed in head-to-toe Hollister.*  On the musical front: LANDED, MADE IN MEXICO, BJ SNOWDEN, TRIANGLE FOREST, I, DESTROYER, WHAT CHEER? BRIGADE, BRONHARD/GOING/PUBLIC, BONESTORM, J.A.C.K., CELLAR DOVES, DJ E P ZIOTOMY, DJ DISCIPLINE, and MORE!  (No idea who this MORE! fellow is…)

There’s also draggy stuff from Ms. DEE DEE LUXE, Miss ADA ADORE, Miss ELLE DAVENPORT, Miss SARAH BEYERS, and Miss PARRYS HAMPTON!

It’s tomorrow and starts at 2 pm.  I just closed the window with the info about it and I’m too lazy to reopen it, so I’m not sure how much it costs.  But proceeds, oddly, go to New Urban Arts.  And there’s something about The Gender Project Photo Series, about which I know nothing.

(*Nothing against being forty, being drunk, or shopping at Hollister.  But all three together are seriously not acceptable.)