The new Stranger column to watch—if you care about music—is Eric Grandy’s Fucking In the Streets, which made its debut in last week’s issue. The first installment was full of wild predictions (“I’ll probably regret saying this, but what the hell—Feral Children are the next Modest Mouse”), news (“Seattle’s venerable (or is that venereal?) den of after-hours iniquity Egg Room closed this weekend without so much as one last blowout party”), rumors (the “popular hiphop weekly, Stop Biting, is rumored to be moving to Thursdays at the Baltic Room in the not-too-distant future”), a report on the atmosphere at a benefit featuring James Mercer of the Shins (“Nothing injects a crowd with quiet sobriety quite like the specter of muscular dystrophy”), plus updates on a whole bunch of other stuff including Jeremy Cooper, Rags2Riches, the Bus Stop, a new DJ night at Sugar, and the elusive Cafe Un-American, and a blind item about a “coked-up fight” involving a local record store employee and some new wave LPs.

That was the first week. We haven’t had a music news column this plugged in for years. What’s coming in this week’s F.I.T.S.? The scuffle at Neumo’s last Friday, things you would never expect at the Comet are happening at the Comet, spring programming changes at Chop Suey, Clayton Vomero’s upcoming tour as DJ Pretty Titty, a not-yet-named electronica night starting in April “uniting Decibel, Fourthcity, Simply Shameless, and Electrosect for a two-room, 18+ night that may regularly run as late as 4:00 am…”), and more…

How does Grandy, like, know all this? His answer: “In the years that I’ve spent DJing and putting on shows and going out to bars I’ve accumulated a bunch of connections who keep me filled in.” He grew up on the Eastside and used to go to all-ages shows at Redmond’s Old Firehouse as a teenager. Then he worked there for 5 years. Then he went to college in Olympia, interned at K Records, volunteered at Yo Yo a Go Go, moved to Seattle and put on house shows (Japanther, Thrones, Fast Forward, Tussle, Yellow Swans, Secret Mommy, Shoplifting, Doomsday 1999, Wrangler Brutes, Triumph of Lethargy Skinned Alive to Death, and others), and in 2003 started DJing under the moniker Fucking in the Streets—a reference to the MC5’s batshit political wing, the White Panther Party.

He became a full-time Stranger music staff writer two weeks ago.

AND! More music staff news will be announced later today. Stay tuned…