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Friday night, I bar hopped around Tacoma with my camera. It was a full-meal deal of live music and audiences wackiness.

The first course of the night was a family set at C.I. Shenanigans along the Ruston Way waterfront. Gina Belliveau and Cottonwood Cutups were in the Fireplace Room, performing before date couples, families and old dudes snapping their fingers to the down beat. A kid or two played games on cell phones as the music blasted the room. Belliveau packed a lot of power into a spritely frame while Cottonwood did ... well, what Cottonwood does ... brought the thunder. See more photos from the Shenanigans show in the Weekly Volcano's Photo Hot Spot.

The next morsel came with The Front featuring RJ Medeiros playing at Rock the Dock Pub & Grill. The band brought out the power ballads for a mix of over 50 rockers and those who love them. The jam proved that age is just a number - some of those folks can cut a rug with the best of them. See more photos from the Rock the Dock show in the Weekly Volcano's Photo Hot Spot.

My main entrée was a delicious set by the Kim Archer Band at Jazzbones. The band brought its signature soul and energy to the stage with a tight set of classic R&B covers. See more photos of the Jazzbones show in the Weekly Volcano's Photo Hot Spot.

For dessert, I went for the weird. After the KAB show, the Jazzbones crowd was well lubricated for BZ Productions' Mardi Gras Costume Contest, complete with full-on bead craving hotties. With $100 for best Mardi Gras outfit on the line, and DJ Switch behind the deck, BZ asked the Jazzbones crowd to stay away from the trashy look. It got trashy. Fast. See more photos from the Mardi Gras Party in the Weekly Volcano's Photo Hot Spot.

LINK: Weekly Volcano Photo Hot Spot

I walked past Golden Oldies record store, past Farrelli's Pizza's outside fireplace window and into the warm glow of Metronome Coffee. It was around 9 p.m. on a Saturday night. It was packed. A smile cracked my face in anticipation of witnessing one of Tacoma School of the Arts' most exciting and hyped new bands, Bat Police. While the band was jamming, I stood stage side next to the band's frontman Levi Ratliff's girlfriend - and part time muse - Molly. Strange, she's wasn't dancing.  Typically a dancey person at SOTA shows, Molly was not in the dancing mood. "I think I have a fever," she claimed and left it at that.

Thankfully, Molly's unusual lack of dance and energy seemed to be the antithesis of the mood of the crowd that night. Bat Police encouraged a sort of energy and reaction that I had not been in the presence of since I saw the band Roswell in the dead of winter. Bat Police burned through their set list in little over an hour and left the crowd wanting more of the signature SOTA rock band sound that has been absent since the departure of both Roswell and Makeup Monsters.

Bat Police is a quartet, composed of singer songwriter and guitar player Levi Ratliff, bassist David Pierce, keyboardist Austin Milner and drummer Alex Williams. The group members met at SOTA and became fast friends, bonding over a shared love of Weezer and garage rock. The group's original lineup consisted of Ratliff, Pierce, Williams and Mitchell Babington under the name The Okays, which they thought sounded humble. Babington backed out of the band taking more of a managerial role. After a few failed attempts to find a replacement drummer, Williams became the permanent drummer. The Okays performed its first song, "Deep End," at a SOTA showcase, which was met with positive reactions. Ratliff remembers the show as being "pretty okay." Over the next year, the four friends worked to develop their sound, taking key influences from bands such as Weezer, Vampire Weekend, The Smith Westerns, Phoenix and Roswell. They also renamed themselves Bat Police.

In terms of both style and sound,

Bat Police's sound could be compared to Weezer circa 1994. Ratliff and his fellow band members appear awkward on stage, which lends the band a sort of nervous charm. Its focus on guitar-heavy indie rock makes the group easily identifiable, yet keeps its influences on its sleeves.

Over the summer of 2012, Bat Police continued to write and develop, culminating in its first show at The Den, which it played alongside prominent SOTA songwriter Evan Main. The success of the show inspired the band to perform again - this time at SOTA's summer camp showcase. Everyone left with Bat Police on the brain, clinging to one of the few surviving SOTA bands.

Aside from a recent show in the garage of The Trasholes' frontman Ian Call, Bat Police has taken time away from performing to write songs and improve its sound. With the addition of Austin Milner on keyboards, the band is currently at its best, proven at the post Valentine's Day show at Metronome.

Like all young bands, Bat Police seeks a label. In the meantime, catch the band Saturday, Feb. 23 at Anthem Coffee in downtown Tacoma.

I'm always amazed when a band can energize a crowd as the Bat Police did that Saturday night at Metronome. I don't witness such energy too often. Bat Police are in flight, and currently, it seems the sky is the limit.

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It grew larger and larger in my vision. I was being pushed closer to the "Crash 20" logo on Mos Generator drummer Shawn Johnson's Paiste cymbal. I took it as a personal warning - I was going to crash into the whole fucking drum set if I got moshed another 20 inches. My hair was drenched with beer. I'm pretty sure my elbow played a couple bass lines. And I was about to play the drums with my ass.

No stage. Bare light bulbs. And what seemed like 600 people crammed into the Track House's 12 by 12 room.

So. Fucking. Good.  

This was the scene at a house show Friday night in Olympia with Ancient Warlocks, Black Pussy and Mos Generator. It was a true house show. The kind of house show that changes an under-ager's life and validates a grown-up's one.The kind of house show that make you wonder, "Who the hell lives in this beer-trodden rock palace?"  I vaguely remember smelling something burning - pizza, I think someone said - and had a brief paranoid driven fantasy of a house fire, how everyone would be trapped in burning wasteland of rock 'n' roll. It was a beautiful vision, in an emo way.

But I digress. What was most beautiful was the heat of the moment, the truth of the music, the two new songs played Mos Generator played, and the way guitarist and vocalist Tony Reed kept nursing a bottle of Jager, calling the roomful of rockers "Freaks," and the crowd responding with deafening cheers.

Want to see an dhear Mos Generator? Below is the first video from the band's album NOMADS that dropped Oct. 23, 2012 on Ripple Music.