If you've been on YouTube since October of last year, you've almost certainly seen and heard Puddles of Puddles Pity Party. He's the giant white-faced clown who sang Lorde's "Royals" with the Postmodern Jukebox and racked up over 8 million views in the process. And, outside of the uniqueness of his appearance, Puddles' Tom Jones-like dramatic singing voice is interesting enough outside of the spectacle.

Well, if you'd like to see the clown sing covers of "Dancing Queen," "Hallelujah," and "I Started a Joke" in person, Puddles will be at 191 Toole for a special seated-show on Saturday, October 11. Tickets ($25) are on sale now.

Beoga is one of Ireland's top traditional bands and returns after releasing their 10th anniversary CD Live at 10. They have five members and two are keyboardists or accordion players, giving the band a unique sound, in some cases a true honky-tonk sound, different than many Irish bands. Beoga means "lively" in Irish. They play traditional instruments on both traditional and original material, and have a lead vocalist, the woman Niamh Dunne who sings both modern and traditional songs. The other band members are Damian McKee on button accordion, Sean Og Graham on guitars, button accordion, mandolin, bouzouki and bass, Eamon Murray on bodhran and other percussion, Liam Bradley on piano, keys and backing vocals. Naimh Dunne is also the band's fiddler.

Tucson's Ronstadt Generations wants to return to the United Kingdom to tour, and they hope a successful Kickstarter campaign will help them get there.

There are four days to go, and so far the band is doing beautifully with 36 backers and $1,760 pledged toward their $2,000 goal.

On why you should provide your support:

Ronstadt Generations has gone to North Wales, England, and Ireland over the past couple of years for promotional purposes. Sharing our music and family stories, and we have started to build a following. These tours don't make much money due to their short duration and the fact that they are promotional. In the past we've gone over with just the trio ('Papa' Mike, Michael G, and Petie) and 'Bertha' the cello (yes we have to buy the cello a plane ticket). As you can imagine 4 round trip tickets to the UK can be pretty expensive and is a cost we have to come up with before we go over there and recoup any of our expenses. This year we are bringing along 'El Tucsonense', Mr Alex Flores (Tenor Sax), bringing the number of round trip tickets to 5.

Thats where you come in. We need your help to raise some funds so we can buy our plane tickets before they get too cost prohibitive (last year we spent close to $4000 on tickets for the trio). We are hoping to raise at least $2000 to help lessen the up front, out of pocket expense. Lets face it, we're musicians and it's rare that we have a spare $5000 to spend on tickets. With you're contribution ($2000), and our own contribution ($3000), we can get these tickets purchased and continue to share our music and stories with the lovely people of North Wales and the UK.

If we go on to raise more then the $2000 it will mean two things. First, you are all very generous and beautiful individuals. And second, we will have some capital to get merchandise (t-shirts, stickers, totes, etc) made to sell at our shows.

We'll have more on writer-turned-musician Sylvie Simmons and her forthcoming album in a future issue of the Weekly, but here's a track from her recorded-at-Wavelab debut (coming out on Light in the Attic Records on October 28), featuring Giant Sand's Howe Gelb and Thoger Lund. It's a sweet song that borders on quaint (in a good way) and well worth a few minutes of your time.

It's possible that our offices have been washed off Mona Lisa Road and into a wash by now by an Odile-caused torrential downpour, so we've left this post here just in case.

No idea where on earth this song came from (other than something called Stayna Records which seemingly involves these same dudes lip-synching an One Direction song), but we spent twenty minutes or so looking for a Spanish language cover of the most famous Scorpions song (Odile's coming from Baja California...it made sense at the time) and this is the best we could come up with.

Set to release their brand new album Fault Line on Saturday night at the Flycatcher, Tucson's Copper And Congress have a music video for the song "Decoy."

“What I’m most grateful for in this band is this experience has helped all of us open up the gifts we have to share and it lets us shine as individuals and bring our best to the table,” says singer-guitarist-keyboarist Katie Haverly.

Read a full feature on Copper And Congress in this week's issue. The show Saturday begins at 9 p.m. Sweet Ghosts and Steff and The Articles are also on the bill.

“With this show, we want to celebrate everybody who inspires us in this community of artists. It’s not just about this record,” Haverly says. “We invited so many bands we love and we’re so proud to bring our art and creativity to a show with so many who have helped us in so many ways to bring this album forward. There’s an enormous amount of support in this community and it means the world to me.”

I swear the timing of this week's Nine Questions was just that, perfect, albeit heartbreaking. This past year, I've become a fan of Jimi Giannatti's work—his photographs, as well as the posters he designs for local musicians and shows. They are beautiful, just beautiful. And I swear, if you see this tall-drink of photographer walking the streets of downtown Tucson with his camera in hand, it's absolutely fun seeing him work, too.

Last year, on Monday, October 14, Bisbee musician Amy Ross, hospitalized in Tucson due to significant health issues stemming from lupus, died. We learned that the next day, in response, her partner in life and work, co-conspirator of Nowhere Man and a Whiskey Girl, Derrick Ross, took his own life. It was a tragic loss for many in Tucson and Bisbee's arts communities, but especially a small group of friends close to the musicians, which includes Giannatti.

Thing is, today's Amy's birthday. Yesterday, Giannatti shared her music with us most of the day on his Facebook page. The loss still runs deep, hell, it's only been a year. So, I don't know, perfect timing? I had no idea. Maybe, just maybe, a bit of an unintentional hug to Giannatti and her other friends whose hearts still feel broken.

So happy birthday, Amy. And take some time to read Giannatti's Nine Questions this week. And make sure you put this on your calender, the 2nd Annual Benefit For Amy and Derrick Ross: A Celebration of the Lives, Love, and Music of Nowhere Man and a Whiskey Girl, Saturday, December 6, at The Flycatcher, 340 E 6th St. Proceeds, like last year's event, will go to the Lupus Foundation of Southern Arizona. Don't worry, we'll have more the closer we get to the date of the event.

From the event's Facebook page:

Last year you all helped us raise $4000 which was donated in the name of Amy & Derrick Ross to the Lupus Foundation of Southern Arizona. This time we want to raise even more money to help fight this horrible disease that took the lives of our dearly loved friends.

This year we will be having two venues, Cafe’ Passe’ and The Flycatcher (both just doors down from one another on Fourth Ave.) At Cafe’ Passe’ we will be presenting some of the finest acoustic singer/songwriters from Phx., Tucson, Sedona and Bisbee playing the songs of NMWG, as well as, songs that are influenced by Amy & Derrick (6pm-9pm) and then at The Flycatcher, we will be presenting larger (and much louder) bands and performenrs (8:30pm-1:00am).

Tickets will be $7 for either venue, OR a $10 wristband will get you into both.

Please help us the honor of the lives, the love, and the music of these two very special humans on this very special night.

Final note: One of challenges with Nine Questions, is that damn short intro. I asked Giannatti, mostly knowing his photography and the cool things he does at Pop Narkotic, to share some more about his life with me so I could craft an intro. He told me today that this is the G-rated version, but who cares—what a life and man, looking at what he shared about Amy and Derrick and the benefit coming up in December, what a friend.

Here's what Giannatti shared, not to embarrass him, but simply because, it's pretty cool:

I’m a self-taught photographer who moved from Phoenix at the age of 30 to NYC (1980) where I spent a decade shooting for modeling agencies, fashion and music magazines. I also saw the other side of the photography business as the photo editor for SPIN Magazine. In the nineties I bounced around between New York, Paris, Los Angeles, and Ojai. At the age of forty I put my photography career on hold and went back to school at UCLA where I graduated Summa Cum laude with degrees in History and African American Studies and then attended Claremont for a Masters in US Social History. After school I reinvented myself as a live-music photographer and have have shot over 300 concerts, and nearly nearly fifty covers for several music magazines. In 2009, my divorce from my 20-year marriage sent me on a soul-finding drunken journey across the Southwest where I landed up in Bisbee. While in Bisbee I formed a close friendship with Amy and Derrick Ross and began making posters for their band, Nowhere Man and a Whiskey Girl. With Bisbee’s rich music scene, I soon began doing posters for other Bisbee artists and bands such as Dylan Charles, Mike Montoya’s (Fatigo), Buzz and the Soul Senders among many more. I was privileged to be part of the inaugural group that launched the Bisbee Royale Experiment where I worked as both, poster maker and booker. For those nearly two years I was introduced to and worked (and partied) with many of Arizona’s best known bands and musicians. While at the Royale many friendships and relationships were formed (and regretfully some were lost as well). The disappointment of the Royale’s decision to become a restaurant and movie theater along with Tucson’s ever growing music scene made moving here a must. I feel Tucson’s downtown vibrant music scene is one of the most eclectic and exciting local scenes in the country today. The choices of good quality live music on a random night in this city is sometimes staggering (and even at times frustrating). On any given night you can catch fantastic acts at The Rialto, Hotel Congress, The Flycatcher, Makers House, Che’s, Cafe’ Passe’, Sky Bar, The Hut, Playground, or The Surely Wench - all within walking distance from each other. The camaraderie among the musicians and bar owners is like none I’ve ever seen. Tucson has also awakened my love of photography once again and I seem to find something simply glorious or banally beautiful around every corner. These days I am proud, humbled, and blessed to call Tucson my home (for now at least).

Hands down, the Great Cover-Up is one of my favorite reoccurring events here in town.

First of all, it raises money for a great cause - the Southern Arizona Artists and Musicians Healthcare Alliance, which helps local artists in their time of generally uninsured or underinsured medical needs. Secondly, it’s just a ton of fun as local musicians take a different form for a few songs, whether that’s an act that has influenced them or something that’s just fun to play.

Right now, the organizers are taking applications to participate in the sixteenth edition of the event. It’s a relatively simple process (send an email to [email protected] with what act you’d like to cover and who the heck you are…where you’ve played, a link to your Bandcamp page, etc.), but it’ll be tougher to get on the stage this time than in recent years. Since this year’s Cover-Up will be only two nights (Friday December 19 at Congress; Saturday, December 20 at the Rialto), there are about a third fewer spots available than last year.

Basically, make sure your pitch is awesome, something extra clever that people would actually enjoy seeing.

My suggestion for the fourth consecutive year: Happy Mondays. Pure gold, I swear.

The deadline to apply is October 10 and we’ll have more to come on the Cover-Up as December approaches.

The very mention of the words "Rio Nuevo" tends to raise up a certain amount of bile in people's throats here in town, which isn't entirely fair to the most recent version of the board (release 3.0, more or less) considering Fletcher McCusker and company are generally trying to clean up the mess left behind by two groups of people who had no idea what they were doing (or in the second round led by Jodi Bain, appeared to be actively hostile to the city of Tucson). However, then the board goes and spends $100,000 to hire the Beach Boys:

$100,000. For the Mike Love-fronted Beach Boys. The fact that this is a group with more in common with the song "Kokomo"...

...than the glory days of Brian Wilson's "teenage symphonies to God"...

...is a particularly irritating point to me, but still the idea that if the board is going to toss money at an concert that "isn't designed to make money," maybe it would be a good idea to book an act that vaguely represents the current interests of Tucsonans instead of a group from the senior citizen/casino/state fair circuit. Yes, the Beach Boys sold plenty of tickets for their 2012 show at AVA, but that show had the hook of an anniversary show with a very rare reunion of the group's surviving members, who generally tour in two separate packs (Brian Wilson does shows on his own and with Al Jardine; Mike Love performs with Bruce Johnston and a bunch of other dudes in the version of the band coming to the TCC).

Admittedly, $100,000 isn't all that much in the concert booking world (sounds crazy, but it's true), especially if you're trying to get an act that might have some promise of halfway filling the newly-refurbished TCC Arena, but there are certainly a number of high-profile country acts (KIIM is the most popular radio station in this market, after all) or Spanish language acts (because a regional Mexican act might reflect the interests of Tucsonans better than a bunch of old white dudes, just throwing that out there) that could have been booked in place of the Beach Boys. Fletcher McCusker generally had a good sense of what would work when he was in charge of the Fox (even though the acts there did often lean towards a nostalgia circuit aesthetic), but this seems like an odd perception of what people actually like.

But, hey, maybe John Stamos will show up, but even if he doesn't, they do have the fall back of not trying to make money (and likely succeeding on that front).

Seeing a show on a Monday night is a little rough for me with the Weekly's production schedule, but hey, a free concert by a great band at Congress tonight might be enough to get me to be a little grumpier at work tomorrow morning.

Mini Mansions are in the midst of a run opening for Arctic Monkeys across the country as they work out new material and they're playing (for free!) at a 7 p.m. show with Mute Swan opening, and if you like super-hooky Beatles-circa-Revolver-esque dark harmony-heavy pop, you'll love this LA trio. Plus, it's free. What do you have to lose, other than sleep?

More info on the band at their Facebook page.

Here's their brooding take on Blondie's "Heart of Glass":