The Granada has hooked us up with five pairs of tickets to see the legendary Mike Watt this evening, and since the show is happening tonight, we'll give them away to the first five people who email weshotjrtix@yahoo.com with "Mike Watt" as the subject line and their full name in the body of the email. Good luck, and we'll let you know as soon as we have our five wieners.
The contest has been over for a couple hours... sorry i forgot to update!
MON: Mike Watt/Lions/Golden Boys (Granada) WED: My Bloody Valentine/Lift To Experience (Palladium) WED: The Faint/Ladytron/Crocodiles (The Granada) FRI: Acid Mother's Temple/Sonic Suicide Squad (Hailey's) FRI: Man Man/Boom Boom Box/Giggle Party (the Lounge) FRI: New Thrill Parade/Orange Coax (Exploding House) FRI: Lychgate/Ascites (Bike House) SAT: Hannahmontanatron/Kashioboy/Fizzy Dino Pop/Yeahdef (Hailey's) SAT: Stereo on Strike Label Launch with Blixaboy/Dubbel Dutch/Trademarx (Fallout Lounge)
I was going to bitch about how hard it is to keep track of shows when people tell me about them: 1) in person, 2) via text message, or 3) via email, instead of using our show calendar, but then I realized that at least one of the shows we forgot to add to our weekender was, in fact, on the show calendar, thanks for Firehouse Gallery's Ben Rogers, so then I felt a little stupid. And then I remembered the look on Tim Duncan's pathetic face when he took a seat on the bench in the 4th quarter and watched the Mavs steal home court advantage from his team, and I realized that nothing was going to ruin my day. Anyway, here are a couple things going on tonight that we forgot to tell you about:
Going on for a couple more hours (until sunset), there's a free Disco BBQ party going on at Samuel Grand Park with people playing old school house and disco. It's BYOB and there will be grills if you want to bring food.... we don't know exactly who will be spinning there, but Schwa is the one who let us know about it so I'm guessing he's involved.
Also happening tonight is the premier of the Metrognome Collective's Firehouse Gallery in Ft. Worth, with performances from Yells at Eels, Dave Dove, Sonia Flores and Jason Jackson. A great night of free and improvised jazz starts at 8pm.
We have a lot more shows listed on our show calendar(including shows at Doc's, 1919 Hemphill, Hailey's and more) for this busy weekend, but here are some things to do:
FRIDAY
Furnace | Finisher | Trifle Tower | Big Fiction (Exploding House) Furnace and Finisher are two touring New England hardcore bands. Despite all of the good things I've heard about Furnace, I think that Finisher might be the more impressive of the two bands. They utilize the growling singer/screaming singer tag-team technique you hear less and less of lately, and they have a more to the point style of rock that avoids the dramatic breakdowns employed by Furnace. Show starts promptly at 8:30.
Hjertestop | Tolar | Wiccans (818 Hickory St.) Though I'm told this show is "so punk that the floor will cave in," I have my doubts about that rather ambitious goal. Hjertestop hails from Copenhagen and they play rhythmically tight punk about throwing rocks at cops and shit; the kind of thing that Europeans tend to pull off more charmingly than anyone else at this point in punk history. Tolar are a known brutal quantity, and the new Wiccans' recordings (now posted) are so good that I was fooled into thinking they weren't analog.
No Genres with Blixaboy | Cygnus | PWR (Absinthe Lounge) We're told that Wanz and company will be spinning "challenging" electronic music, which I'm guessing involves the more experimental side of IDM as well as maybe some ambient and things like that. Cygnus is always great. I'd mention more specific genres, but they did say NO genres.
SATURDAY
Dan Deacon & Ensemble | Future Islands | Teeth Mountain | Fight Bite (Fort Worth Modern) A timely, fantastic show put together by Spune as part of the Ft. Worth Modern's Modern Till Midnight series featuring Dan Deacon and his ensemble, which apparently consists of more than a dozen other musicians, mostly from Baltimore, who are involved in some level in the now famous Wham City collective. Baltimore's Future Islands feature a more new wave leaning take on that signature Wham City spazzed synth pop aesthetic, and they do it fairly well, while Teeth Mountain explore highly rhythmic, almost tribal compositions that will probably sound fantastic live. Tickets are available by calling the Modern or at the door before the show. starts promptly at 8pm.
Erykah Badu | White Denim | Starlight Mints | Farah | True Widow and more (Good Records) Good Records will be celebrating "record store day" with what has to be the largest event they've ever held, with a full line up starting at noon and going well into the evening. You can check our show calendar for the full line up of all the bands and start times. The store says that if it ends up raining tomorrow, they will move their outdoor stage next door to the Beagle, while all the indoor performances will continue as scheduled inside the store.
(FUN FACT: We've kind of decided to start a little game here at WSJR hq-- every time we post a ticket give away, we're going to bet on how long it will take for the Observer to post the same exact contest on their blog. To our knowledge, they've done it with just about every contest we've posted in 2009, and it usually seems to take them 2-3 hours. Sometimes they even use the same pictures we do! Glad we can help set their agenda over there, and it also means more free tickets for everyone in the Dallas/Ft. Worth area! Anyway, today it took just under 3 hours.)
First things first, here is a little primer from Robert Reich regarding the utter stupidity of the Tea Bagger protests from yesterday. Hey, Billy Bob-- you know your taxes actually went DOWN recently, right? And that we pay LOWER taxes than any country in the industrialized world, right? Ok, go back to your NASCAR now.
Second things second, our beloved Dallas Mavericks will be playing the hated San Antonio Spurs in the first round of the playoffs starting Saturday. I have to admit that I've been something of a fair weather fan this year, but man, this has the makings of a great playoff series. The Mavs are playing their best basketball of the season, and the Ginobli-less Spurs aren't looking so hot. There's nothing sweeter than sticking it to Spurs fans either, and I'm saying Mavericks in 6. Don't hate me if I'm wrong. Now for music shows ya'll (and sorry I'm so late... sometimes you have to work, you know?)
Amon Amarth | Goat Whore | Skeleton Witch | Lazarus AD (Granada) Long time Swedish "melodic death metal" band Amon Amarth headlines a show this evening that certainly has the potential to inspire a much tougher and less good looking riot than Crystal Castles. Much more interesting is New Orleans black metal group Goat Whore, who seem to take a lot of inspiration from black metal legends Emperor, albeit with much better production values.... same goes with Skeleton Witch.
Sun Club with Fizzy Dino Pop | VJ Jibu/ OPS ESPONJA w/ XIAOCHUAN LI (Rubber Gloves) Interesting line up at Rubber Gloves this evening, put together by Thursday residents Sun Club. I'm not 100% sure about this, but I believe Fizzy Dino Pop is a former Dentonite who has relocated to Austin, which is a shame because his chip-tune/electro-pop tracks are quite invigorating and almost all rather catchy-- sure, a lot of it is pretty standard chiptune stuff, and the material is certainly influenced by artists operating outside of what you might call the chiptune underground, such as Mr. Quintron, Dan Deacon and the Death Set, but most of this stuff is poppier than the first two and decidedly more dancefloor oriented (not to mention stranger) than Death Set's stuff, and quite frankly, Fizzy Dino Pop is a lot more approachable and enjoyable than a lot of similar artists who are supposed to be "good" or whatever. Elsewhere, Jibu does original video productions, and Ops Esponja performs some sort of "down tempo," although we haven't had a chance to hear any of it.
Art Motel: Spring Open Studio Night (Marty Walker) 6-8pm Beer, burgers, margaritas, a little mystery- start at Marty Walker and go from there.
Re• (Decorazon)6-9pm A show themed around our favorite prefix.
SATURDAY
Modern 'til Midnight (the Modern) 6pm-midnight This will probably be a pretty packed event, since Dan Deacon is performing, along with Fight Bite, Teeth Mountain, and Future Islands. There will be a screening of St. Nick from local filmakers David Lowery and James Johnston, and the new Rosson Crow exhibit is up, along with some of the permanent collection.
DADA Spring Gallery Walk 2-8pm Look here for the participating galleries, who's showing what where, etc. I'm not going to lie, I'm always pretty disappointed by these things
Firehouse Gallery Grand Opening (4147 Meadowbrook, 76103) A new location for the Metrognome Collective! Here's what they have to say about this Sunday's opening shindig:
"From 5-7pm James Talanmbes will spin music, and we will open the doors for an artist reception featuring the works of Jeru Gabriel in our studio gallery. The Studio Gallery will rotate mixed-media works monthly. The garage gallery will rotate photography works monthly, staggered two weeks from the studio gallery openings. We're currently displaying photography from our permanent collection in the Garage."
From 7pm on there is a $5 cover to see improv from Yells at Eels, Dave Dove, Sonia Flores, and Jason Jackson.
And a brief word about last night: It got a little crazy there at the end, after the announcement that the show was canceled. I thought the world's weakest, hippest riot was about to break out. I've never seen so many good looking people so unhappy. Anyways, I think The Granada is doing an excellent job of trying to remedy what is obviously an unpleasant situation, as the following forwarded email shows:
Fans of Granada Theater, and Crystal Castles:
We are very sorry for the unfortunate circumstances of last night's canceled Crystal Castles concert. Refunds are already taking place (04/15/09 10:00 am) It is the policy of The Granada Theater to never cancel shows, but sometimes matters are beyond our control. We pleaded with the band for several hours to play their set, but in the end they refused to perform...or apologize.
To make things right, we are offering something special to the people who bought tickets on our web site for Crystal Castles:
We will let all of you who bought tickets from www.granadatheater.com come FOR FREE to the show of your choice.
There are a lot of you fine folks, so here's how this will work:
Email management@granadatheater.com with a list of the top 5 shows you want to see from our calendar (in order of importance to you).
Include your order number from the Crystal Castles show.
As guestlist space permits, we will give you all tickets (1 ticket for every ticket purchased to Crystal Castles) to one of your 5 specified shows.
Please be understanding with us, we expect to receive 500+ emails with guest list requests, so we will deal with each and every one of you personally in the order we receive your emails.
Please exclude The Faint & Ladytron, Ryan Bingham and Brandi Carlile concerts from your lists as they are almost sold out.
Apologies to our friends Vega, who were very understanding about not being able to play the show last night. As it worked out, they were able to have a successful show of their own last night. We're looking forward to the next opportunity to have Vega here at The Granada!
We're terribly upset about the situation. Our fans have never been inconvenienced so greatly at our venue before, and we're doing everything we can to make it right.
Thanks for being so understanding.
Management @ Granada Theater
Order #: ___________________ Band of Choice: 1- 2- 3- 4- 5- (Put in order of importance to you, Tickets will be General Admission, if Reserved Seats are available on the show you can upgrade for a couple extra dollars night of show if you desire). Our response to you will have the name of the band only and the quantity of tickets in the body of the email. This will be all we will reply with. You will be on the guest list for the night. Print the page and bring it with you on the night of the show for extra confirmation. (Not required)
