Ledger

Issue date: 11/2/06 Section: Arts & Entertainment

Photo by Nick Przybyciel

The thought of another night in front of "Law and Order" reruns has you weeping into your chocolate milk. You wish you could go to places of energy, live music, and people over thirteen years old.

The good news is, you can.

A number of local coffee shops play live music. Notable among them, Shakabrah Java (2618 Sixth Ave (253) 572-2787 see www.shakabrahjava.com for acts), Cutter's Point (1936 Pacific Ave. (253) 272-7101) and Mandolin Café (3923 S 12th (253) 761-3482 go to www.themandolinecafe.com for their calendar) set moods to live music. While not, strictly speaking, a coffee shop, The Antique Sandwich Company (5102 N Pearl (253) 752-4069) hosts open-mic live music on Tuesday nights. These venues typically play to a mellow crowd, with acoustic and folk acts prominent on their bills.

Local businesses also host live music with an indie, local edge during free festivals and special events such as 100th Monkey and Night on the Town events. The shows hosted by urban Xchange (1934 Pacific Ave (253) 572-2280, go to www. urbanexchangeonline.com for events and info), though not always free, can be great places to see up and coming local acts.

And then there are the clubs. Club Impact (754 Pacific Ave, go to www.clubimpact.org for a calendar of acts) is one of the few strictly underage clubs locally, though after a shooting last spring left one youth dead, its fate seemed uncertain. But on paper it seems the club is here to stay with a calendar of acts going through December.

Club Friday, an all-ages hip-hop venue which shared the Brick City space with Club Impact, is on hiatus after the shooting incident, but is looking to come back on the scene.

Past the all-ages venues lay two venues that play their music loud and hard, and invite younger crowds, at least to a point.

Hell's Kitchen (3829 Sixth Ave (253) 759-6003, see www.hellskitchenonline.com for info on dates and acts) runs frequent all-ages shows, which generally start around 5 p.m. Under-21s are shown the door before the later show begins, and a raucous good time is had by all.

Ever so slightly mellower, and possible a hair more young-crowd friendly, Jazzbones (2803 Sixth Ave (253) 396-9169, go to www.jazzbones.com for calendar and info) offers live music, comedy, Rockaraoke, and a chance to jam onstage for those in the younger set. This club's only stipulation is that under-21s leave by 11 pm.

At that point, you can watch all the bad reruns you want, and still get to bed in time for a few hours of sleep before your 8 a.m. classes.

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