DAMMIT! The Cops should not be breaking up! That's stupid and ridiculous. They have been one of my favorite Pacific NW bands, and I will go down in history as saying so.

Watching the late-but-eternal Dave Day from first-punk-band-ever The Monks watch The Cops and fall in LOVE with them as deeply as I am at a Saturday Knights show at Havana a few months ago, I never would have thought that they would throw it in.

Hire a rabid therapist like Brian Wilson or Metallica, take a big bag of weed into the studio and record a three record set, go to Jamaica and get robbed for inspiration, get blood transfusions in Sweden, WHATEVER IT TAKES, please DO NOT GIVE UP.

But please do play your Rock n' Roll Circus this week, three stupendous nights of Sunset Tavern burn down, and here are other reasons to be there every night, each and every one of us:

Thursday, 12/18: Cancer Rising opens, and this is the funkiest, most inclusive, damned intelligent language and rhythm collective this region has. (Besides another band with a mad mystic named Tilson in it.) Watch Larry and his guys chop it up and start the flow before The Cops come out and sizzle. (Also up for the night: Bad Things, Widower.)

Friday, 12/19: The Whore Moans, which combine various genres of punk vocals with intricate and aggressive playing, putting the songs first each time. They are a terror to behold and if they didn't have such a sweet sense of humor would be scary. (The Fall of Troy and Kinski are there this night too, which might mean there won't be a Sunset left the next day for…)

Saturday, 12/20: Wallpaper, whose recent album Rock Collage is a delightfully trashy, too smart, hilariously hostile, nervous wreck rave-up, with such classic songs as "Nod Off," "Bottom Top Blues," and the hit single from hell "Shag Carpet." Just them and The Cops would have been worth rebuilding the Sunset today for. (Also along is Spiral Stairs and The Sea Navy.)

Those are my picks. As I'm pretty sure other TIG writers will pick out their own bands each night, or pick which night is best for them, I'll shut up for now and get back to mourning the upcoming hiatus of The Cops after this week.