“Timing is everything.” Of all the clichés I frequent, it’s certainly my favorite.

As you have probably picked up on, I don’t work very far in advance. Deadline here at the Weekly Volcano is Tuesday night, and I typically turn in my columns at the last possible moment. Usually this approach leads to headaches and frenzied stints in front of the computer, bringing on premature ulcers with gallons of coffee and pulling sentences out of my ass so Pappi Swarner doesn’t have my head. This time, however, pushing things to the last minute played to my advantage.

Perusing the Weekly Volcano’s blog last night, or the Spew as we like to say, I couldn’t help but swallow hard when I read the headline: “The Garage Closes.”

Son of a bitch!

Only hours earlier, as he made his way home from two shows in Idaho, I spoke with Jefferson Angell, who Tacoma knows as the skin and bones leader of Post Stardom Depression but whose side project, the Missionary Position, also has the ability to make the knees of every chick in town with questionable morals quiver but packs a more organic, longwinded, dare I say socially conscious punch than the band that put him on the map. The Missionary Position was supposed to play the South Sound Garage this weekend.

But timing is everything. The Garage is closed, and it appears the show is off. Jeff Angell and the Missionary Position do have shows coming up in Seattle, Bremerton, and Tacoma — on July 6th at Hell’s Kitchen. More info can be found at www.myspace.com/themissionarypostion. 

Normally, when a show’s been cancelled it means I need a new column idea. My editors like a show preview, and if there’s no show there’s obviously no preview. As I sat in disbelief over the closure of another Tacoma club Monday night, I feared this was the case.  Interviews with Jeff Angell always go well, and you’re always left with a bevy of very rock and roll, very useable quotes. My interview with Angell earlier in the day was no exception. With news to spread about his side project and Post Stardom Depression’s inactivity, two things I assume Tacoma cares about more than any half-assed, last minute, just trying to fill the space column I could muster up, I decided to roll on.

Though there’s no show, this week’s column is still about the Missionary Position. I’ll send my editors a text that says “whateva.”

“Post Stardom can’t keep me busy enough,” says Angell through the speakerphone, his hip bones and sex appeal making my wife flutter even though she’s in the other room.

“In (the Missionary Position) I get to play guitar. You know, in that other band I don’t play guitar, so I like that aspect of it. I’ve just got lots of songs that I want to get out. With (Post Stardom Depression) I’ve recorded a couple records. Now we’re on a break. I’ve got to do something. I’ve got to have something to do.”

Angell indicated that while, initially, he had to be sold on the idea of a Post Stardom vacation, he’s now embracing it. While you can tell he’d love to get back in the studio with guitarist Kyong and company, and he claims to have more than enough tunes up his sleeve for a new PSD record, he says he wants the troops “hungry” when they return to action, and now sees the vacation time as a blessing — a blessing he’s using to collaborate with Benjamin Anderson and Kennedy James, otherwise known as the gentleman behind the Missionary Position — the bluesy but big, slow-grind rock ‘n’ roll dry hump that backs Angell with epic sounding drumming and a keyboard replacing the bass — think the Doors.

“All three of us have the names of presidents, so that’s cool, right?” says Angell of his band mates in the Missionary Position.

(After checking into it, he’s right. Jefferson and Kennedy are obvious, but I wasn’t sure about Benjamin. Of course, I was forgetting our 23rd president, Benjamin Harrison).

“With the Post Stardom, it was kind of like the art of that band was to be simple and kind of tongue in cheek. Some of the songs are kind of slutty and this and that, and we kind of set out to be that kind of band. At that time we didn’t want it to be all super serious. Relationships, love and getting’ loaded. That’s the kind of thing we wanted to write,” continued Angell.

“I want the (Missionary Position) songs to make a difference. You know, I want people to hear these songs because a lot of these songs are more, I don’t want to say political, but more like sociological. They deal with society and capitalism, and stuff like that. I think now I’m getting older I can’t ignore that. I’ll just be writing shit down and that’s the kind of stuff that’ll frustrate me so I’ll put it into the songs where I used to spend a lot of time being frustrated about girls and hangovers. It’s just like it’s a part of growing up and in a weird way I think that this stuff’s more important.”

In a weird way I think he’s right.

If anything, the Missionary Position shows Jeff Angell is more than an ill-groomed, hip-shaking, average rock ‘n’ roll centerpiece just looking for the keys to your car or the key to your pants (depending on the song). He’s all of that and more. Taking nothing away from Post Stardom Depression, the Missionary Position may be Angell’s most inspiring work yet.