Icepack

Let's go out. Like we used to: breast pockets stuffed with eight balls, flasks full of Grey Goose, Roofies, flyers. No room for Nanos. Be fun. More than what I gathered possible from the Nightclub & Bar Convention in AC. That's where your saloon operators were last week, looking at Karaoke World Series packages, Smirnoff James Bond tie-ins, yakking about "Don't You Want Me Baby" burgers for Alfa's '80s Happy Hours. It would've been nice if they could've promoted bathroom sinks to accommodate big butts so to be more thick-rump-hump friendly (hello, Sal's) or how to stop PBR from cheapening the boozing process and furthering beer-fart excess (I smell you from here). It would've also been nice if the convention offered a course on how to deal with crepe-hanging pricks like those who called L&I Friday da 13th and slimed the former Skyline Pizza, now known as Level, for no DJ license/out-of-date electrical permits thwarting Level's grand opening jawn. Tommy Up, who has a nize partnership for Level Saturdays with building owner Pete No-last-Name-Required-or-Pronounc-able (Pete has landlordly interests in Tragos and Bamboo), called it "standard hater behavior." Personally, I think it's because Level shockingly offers bottle-bar service. I love being served. But some peeps loathe VIP bottle-bar stuff. Up guesstimates Oct. 28 for Level's pre-Hallereen blowout/opening.

► Bamboo you? Bamboo Lounge is a dark swanky joint on 20th and Arch's corner that sent out large stalks of the titular plant as its invitation. I'll be at the opening bash Oct. 26. But I'm really hoping someone opens a hot spot called "Fucking Huge Kind Bud." Cuz I'd, um, like summa that. (I'll be on the green carpet for next week's 2006 Stony Awards at BB King's in NYC. If something good happens, I'll try to remember to write it down.)

► Speaking of partying, A.D. (me!) starts his/my sex-drug chronic-eclectronic The Wiggle Room at Medusa Oct. 21 — spinning every third Sat'day. We ain't done going out. What's this rumor about Penthouse mag taking the recently closed after-hour spot at N. Second's Emerald City? Every booo-teee-ful girl PR-org is getting hired for a December opening.

► It's the sound that darkness makes gettin' spoonfed honey when Daniel Schwartz and Alison Wadsworth — Unlikely Cowboy — twang as one for the release of Desperate Acts Pay Off at Johnny Brenda's Oct. 20.

► Future perfect art-house rocker/anarchist/journalist/ex-Temple of Bon Matin dude John Cecil Price has done everything from spoken-word-scented funk with Phil Moore Brown's Chuck D (with whom he'll be working in December) to free jazz with Elliott Levin to free-space-goth-ambient hoo-hah with Akash (with whom JCP had a legendary falling out). Plus you've got to find his all-that-and-more compilation CD, The Black and Blue American. Well, not only will Price debut his new Baptist Preachers — pop/surf/R&B done hardcore — at Bar Noir Oct. 23 for his birthday. He'll reunite for a one-time-only Akash gig. "It's time to bury the hatchet," says Price, who calls his Preachers "the strongest band I've ever played with making the most accessible music I've ever played."

► WHOWHATWHERE: Collingswood's Mark Smith (owner of Tortilla Press) won an award from the Peanut Advisory Board for his chipotle BBQ sauce 'n' pork dish; not only did he get a ribbon, he got to meet Jimmy Carter at the Plains Peanut Festival. More cut-rate: Gene Simmons hawking KISS Him and KISS Her perfume at Boscov's in Oxford Valley last week. Not so cheesy: Air America gabber Al Franken was at a Lois Murphy/Patrick Murphy fundraiser at World Café Live yakking about trips to Iraq and yelling out "O'Reilly sucks" in relation to Bill, his talk-show nemesis. Unless he meant another O'Reilly, in which case we just feel bad we pinned that bile on The Factor host.

► Got airfare? Philly's alt-universal Ike is making a live acoustic record in Atlanta Oct. 21 at Nickel and Dime Studios, 106 N. Avondale Rd. Why there, John Faye, when you've got, uh, nice clubs here? "Atlanta has ... been our home away from home for several years ... and there's ... a pretty large community of Philly area ex-pats [there]." Oh.

► Goodbyes: You know Plain Parade's booking adventure will soon be over; that Swearing at Motorists' Dave Doughman's life as a husband in Germany'll turn his duo into a near memory (get SaM's free download of Exile on Gipsstraée at www.secretlycanadian.com) after Oct. 27 at North Star; that the Cramp-ed up Sickidz swear they're done for good come Oct. 28 at Khyber. We'll talk about Swearing and Sic next week. There's longtime CP ad director Amy Stoller to sob over (she left for Philly Mag). There's David M. Snyder's rocksnob THE BOB Jr. whose last issue hits, well, not stands. "I was planning on this being my final pamphlet before I found my printer kicked the bucket," says Snyder, who'll send you one if you e-mail fs@more-junk.com. "I burned out long ago. ... I'm generally finding myself pulling back from society." For weeks my editor and I tried to include the fact that The Situation had just made the most sweetly pop-a-licious poetic eponymous new CD but that Joe Castro and lyricist Christopher Tucker were unhappily waffling and ready to start solo projects. No. I wanted to save these guys just like you wanted to save your parents from splitting. Sadly The Situation busted up, leaving Tucker to start his new Meme last week. "I worked on that fucking album for five years and the lyrics on it can stand alone on a sheet of paper in English class and make for worthwhile reading," says Tucker proudly. The music's equally as lovely. Find that Situation CD. Tell Tucker you love him.