It gets a bit ugly, but that’s a good thing, whether it be a Brooklyn strike to go with an off-the-wall sweater, or a punk band whose music is deemed not quite respectable:
— The ugly sweater contest is one of the most ballyhooed bonanzas each year at the Hudson Bowling Center, and this holiday is no exception. The party on Saturday, Dec. 15, starts early, at 3 p.m., and you might want to squeeze in a few games of bowling also — if your outfit and its pinnings doesn’t make difficult the striving for strikes — or stay afterward for the karaoke, which is offered every Friday and Saturday night. There are prizes and other giveaways offered involving the aformentioned ugly sweaters, as the bowling center, which has been in business for decades, is striving to bring in some new blood and reach out to a broader area, while not forgetting about its core base.
— The Saturday night band at the Beach Bar in Lake St. Croix Beach is called The Disappointments, but we think they will be anything but, based on their hard-ass, tough rocker looks and their lineup of punk, alt-rock and pop songs to go with the mostly long hair. Where do they hail from? From in part Milwaukee, gotta love that, as the city is a force for this kind of music. (I saw one local newspaper article that championed the newfound and fancy, exotic and cocktail drink lineups at bars there, but we all still also behind the good ol’ beer swilling. To continue the metaphor, we go back to the band itself: “See the joke that it is,” they tongue-in-cheek suggest.
— Erin Livingston, often part of a trio, is a versatile and regionally well-recognized jazz, blues and R&B singer, and she will showcase all those genres when she plays Urban Olive and Vine on Friday, Nov. 14. She says her music can be enjoyed at venues all over “town,” in a broad sense.
— Hey Pedro: Its seventh heaven for the big chalk ads all over the sidewalk as you cross Second Street and wander upward most of a block to Pedro del Este. While like others who have followed the trend they leaded, there are small plates, but the multiple descriptive phrases written on the concrete as you go up a small incline are big and they tell a whopper of a tale.
— And then there are the $5 sandwiches and sauces available at Buffalo Wild Wings during the big game. It would be a $5 penalty not to indulge on things like double stacked burgers, especially when one is their namesake, with the First Half being a Buffalo chicken patty on top of Second Half straight beef.
— The Kates are great, the Kates are great, need I reiterate. With all the connections to the royalty in the Winter Carnival in St. Paul, right down to the owner, it’s worth repeating that the Klondike Kates (plural) will be at The Village Inn in North Hudson at 5 p.m. Saturday to lead karaoke. Oh yeah, there will be a meat raffle too.