It’s not exactly surprising that Shearwater vocalist Jonathan Meiburg moonlights as an ornithologist—after all, he thanks four birds by scientific name in the liner notes of Rook, the band’s fifth full-length (also named for a bird and sporting a spooky, Hitchcock-inspired cover). Expanding the sonic palette employed on 2006’s stellar…
Calling a play Intimate Apparel is a pretty, uh, ballsy move. With a name like that, you have every right to expect a stage production full of bustiers, garter belts and banana hammocks, in other words, plenty of reasons to fork over full price admission. But don’t be fooled, the…
If there’s one thing we love it’s a good heist movie, whether it’s Ocean’s Eleven, The Thomas Crown Affair, Inside Man, Kelly’s Heroes, A Fish Called Wanda, Home Alone or uh, Home Alone 2. (OK, so maybe we’re stretching with Home Alone 2, but come on, it’s awesome. We still…
Every few years someone in Hollywood decides to put out a film in 3-D, hoping to recapture a little of that 1950s magic, when well-groomed youngsters thought nothing of wearing nerdy red and blue glasses through a nausea-inducing 60 minutes of bad sci-fi. Director James Cameron (Terminator, Titanic, etc.) is…
If there’s one thing we can tell you from looking at tons and tons of art show press releases every week, it’s this: Contemporary art is infinitely more interesting to look at than to read about, especially if there’s free drinks and hors d’ouvres involved. Luckily for you, this weekend…
Doing justice to an artist with the gravitas of Tom Waits is a challenge for any singer, much less a 23-year-old actress making her musical debut. But that’s exactly what Scarlett Johansson and her hip rock cohort attempt on Anywhere I Lay My Head, a collection of 10 Waits covers…
The last time singer-songwriter Mark Olson played the AllGood Café, the power went out right before the show. Olson and his band weren’t fazed, however, offering to do the gig completely acoustic. Unfortunately for us, the power came back on, and while the sprinkling of old Jayhawks songs and excellent…
To be perfectly honest, I’m not terribly familiar with the work of Kansas City artist Archie Scott Gobber. I do know that “Gobber’s mixed-media constructions and works on paper slyly deconstruct ‘of-the-moment’ words and phrases, manipulating both surfaces and meaning in an often biting and humorous manner.” I also know…
Free-jazz legend Albert Ayler’s body was found floating in New York’s East River in November 1970, a victim of either suicide or murder (ostensibly due to his association with the Black Panthers), depending on who you ask. So why then, nearly 40 years later, would the 15-piece Athens, Georgia, rock…
Landscape art can be a risky venture. For instance, for every Ansel Adams, there are practically 10 Thomas Kinkades (and just one is plenty scary for us). Thankfully, the artists of Un-Ordinary Horizons each take vastly different approaches to the art form, and none of them claim to be “masters…
My favorite thing about Black and Blue is the fact that they’re a “Keith and Mick” tribute band and not a Beatles tribute band. They’ve also named themselves wisely by taking on the moniker of one of the Stones’ lesser works rather than, say, Sticky Fingers. That’s truth in advertising—”We’re…
Artist Kehinde Wiley’s paintings mix the vastly different aesthetics of formal European portraiture and urban hip-hop, resulting in the type of colorful mash-up images you might see on the cover of say, an Outkast record. Spoofing such classic images as David’s “Napoleon Leading the Army over the Alps” and Géricault’s…
[The scene opens on a post-collegiate girls’ slumber party. The ladies are painting their nails and joking about the most embarrassing things their fathers ever did.] “One time my high school girlfriends were over and my dad walked out to the kitchen in his underwear!” “Oh my goodness! Hee hee…
I often find myself longing for the days of good old-fashioned freak shows since I never really got to see one myself. I’ve seen some two-headed snakes and tiny horses and such, but no two-headed boys or dog-faced ladies, if you catch my drift. (Sure, the crowds at the State…
Fans of Pavement have been clearly divided on their opinions of lead singer Stephen Malkmus’ post-Pavement material. Half accept their hero following his muse. The other half hopes in vain for another Wowee Zowee or Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain. Malkmus’ fourth solo record, Real Emotional Trash, won’t do anything to…
I hate to say it, but I don’t really do much “for the kids.” I’ve never volunteered at a children’s hospital or even knowingly contributed to a children’s charity. It’s not that I don’t care, really. I might even hit up Friday’s 2008 Race for the Kids Gala at Lone…
Oral historian Studs Terkel published the bestseller Working in 1974. Subtitled People Talk About What They Do All Day and How They Feel About What They Do, the book features interviews with people from all walks of life: farmers, miners, phone operators, hookers, truck drivers, actors, janitors, garbage men, cops,…
Icelandic artist Magnus Sigurdarson has a cool ass name. Together with Argentinian Leon Ferrari, the two could even give McLovin a run for his money. Sigurdarson works in photography and multimedia, which in this case means over 7,000 copies of PaperCity magazine turned into “expired time” and housing “video soliloquies,”…
If you’ve haunted the streets of Deep Ellum in the past couple of decades you’ve no doubt stumbled upon the art of Frank Campagna, whether it was gracing the brick walls of the Gypsy Tea Room or those of his own Kettle Gallery. Or perhaps you’ve seen some of his…
Punk blues/soul musician Black Joe Lewis is apparently a man of few words, but then again, songs like his own “Bitch, I Love You” pretty much speak for themselves. The track, from his self-titled 2006 debut, marries Lewis’ foul-mouthed man-done-wrong verses (“Come home late at night/Bitch, you know it just…
When I was a kid I had a Sesame Street playhouse, and it was badass. It was so badass, in fact, that one night two car thieves used it as a hideout from the cops. Didn’t work for them, but it did work for me, at least until a giant…
Last year we accompanied some tykes to the Day Out With Thomas festivities at Grapevine’s Cotton Belt Depot. Unfortunately we didn’t have tickets for the train ride on Thomas, which is the coolest part, so we just made bubbles in pits of soapy water and hung out with Bob the…
