Friday

R. Thies "Cartoonism"(Banter)
A closing reception with free wine and a copy of "Art Nog" Magazine for early arrivals.
7pm- Wild in the Streets
8pm- Boonesboro (from San Marcos)
9pm- Screening of "Diarrhea Diaries"

Jesus Galavan "Yellow Shots"(Decorazon)
Tequila tasting! Oh yeah, and there's some art, too.


Saturday

LAST DAY: Beverly Semmes & Paul Slocum (Dunn and Brown Contemporary)
SUNDAY

LAST DAY: Joshua Mosley (The Modern)


Ongoing Museum Exhibits

"Intimate Modernism: Fort Worth Circle Artists in the 1940s" and "100 Years of Autochrome" (Amon Carter Museum)

Phil Collins "The World Won't Listen" (Dallas Museum of Art)

Drink to Victory /Little Tedly | Deep Snapper | Koji Kondo (Rubber Gloves)
Several approaches to punk rock represented, from the thoughtful to the I don't give a shit if blood is spraying out of my face approach. Seriously, Koji Kondo put on one of the greatest shows many of us had ever seen a couple of weeks ago, and I would say that even if the lead singer hadn't dramatically completed his set after somewhat seriously injuring himself. And to think that the biggest concern some musicians have is not getting enough drink tickets at Hailey's or some shit. That's the first thing I thought of when I saw that blood spilling all over the floor. Laughable.

Slow Burners | Charlie Parr | Jenn Gooch (Dan's Silver Leaf)

Eaton Lake Tonics (Strawberry Fields)

The Great Tyrant | Record Hop | Red Monroe | (Lola's)
Saw a writeup this week that suggested this was a badly booked show. I think it makes perfect sense, especially from an economic standpoint. The Great Tyrant, Record Hop, and Red Monroe are more or less the flagship bands of their respective cities and each are well regarded as solid live acts. Seeing them all on the same night in Fort Worth is not only cool, but convenient. I can't wait to get my hands on The Great Tyrant's new 7-inch.

New Science Projects | Shibboleth | Analog Heartbreak (Club Dada)
Someone once thought I was hating on Shibboleth and upon hearing their music again recently, I think they're a fine band with some similarities to great instrumental acts such as Shadowy Men On A Shadowy Planet and Booker T And The MG's. No problems there. However, I do take issue with the glut of bands and Wes Anderson inspired imagery. Please, bands I beg you: Please stop wearing "funny" athletic headbands. You're killing me.

Bob Dylan (House Of Blues)
Saw Dylan about eight years ago, and if you can just get past the fact that he almost always has a really cheesy, young, hot-shot, lead guitarist, barely has any voice left, and passionately hates his audience, nothing can really ruin hearing "Spanish Boots Of Spanish Leather" performed live. I'm not kidding. It still ruled.

Lost Generation (Fallout Lounge)
Wanz will have some passes to the Melodica Festival tonight, so stop by.

80's Night With DJ G (Hailey's)

Sesame Street Live: When Elmo Grows Up (Nokia)
Hate to break it to you Elmo, but it sucks.




Photo by Layla Blackshear.

The Scoop (Fallout Lounge): This is a new weekly hip hop event at Fallout Lounge. Our own Sally Glass just returned from Israel, so you should take a second to say "hi" or pose for a picture since she's nice and doesn't hate you like we do.

Taxi Fare (Zubar)
On a somewhat related note Central Booking has a good interview and at least one exclusive track with Philly's Dev 79 on their blog. He'll be joining them at their Melodica showcase on Friday. The Party will also be playing the Gorilla VS Booze II day show at SXSW on Wednesday, March 16th. That's right, Wednesday.

"Semi Pro" Slam Drunk Party with It's What We Get | Bangs (Hailey's)
This is an event to promote the new Will Ferrell movie, "Semi Pro." Retro attire is encouraged (isn't it always?) and there will be both slam dunk and dribble contests. I'd pay cash money to see an anemic hipster slam dunk a basketball at Hailey's, but luckily it's free for 18 and up. Presented by Gordon And The Whale. Man, those guys score some crazy interviews. You know, with actual stars. We can't even get a trust fund alcoholic in some indie rock band to write us back sometimes.

ADD: Transmography at Art Club.

Just wanted to let you know that we're giving away two pairs of 3-day passes to the Melodica Festival. If you want them, just email weshotjrtix@yahoo.com any time between now and NOON tomorrow. Please type "Melodica" in the subject line and include your full name in the body of the email. Good luck!

Bexar Bexar | Balmorhea | Alex Dupree and the Trapdoor Band | Bryce Isbell (Rubber Gloves)
Sorry bros-- my computer is all fucked up today (as is our website), and I can't get Myspace players to work for some reason, which means that I didn't have a chance to take a close listen to much of this music today, even though I've luckily heard three of these four bands before (guess which ones). Austin's Balmorhea has been receiving a bit more attention in recent weeks thanks to a solid Pitchfork review, and Bryce Isbell's recent output has been quite interesting as well, focusing on atmosphere and found sound and all kinds of things that have nothing to do with "folk." Probably a pretty chill show if you're into that kind of thing, although the phrase "influences include Mogwai" always frightens me a little.

ADD:

The Wax Museums | Terrible Twos (Club Dada)
Meant to add this show much earlier. This looks to be an exciting pairing between two punk bands, one local and one from the proven punk hotbed of the Detroit/Ann Arbor area. I have it from a reliable source that Terrible Twos are one of the best live experiences going right now. Upon first listen they seem like straight ahead dirty rock music, but they couple the attack with synth as well as some cool stuttered guitar parts. Wax Museums are great, with a sound straight off of some obscure scene compilation from the hardcore era, where all the bands have weird names, weird songs, and weird recording methods. So authentic, it kind of creeps me out to be hearing this in 2008.

We Shot J.R. Presents.....

The Mae Shi (Los Angeles, CA)

Make A Rising (Philadelphia, PA)

Crime Novels (New York, NY)

Daniel Francis Doyle (Austin,TX)

Mittens on Strings (Chicago,IL)

Day Show.

Wednesday, March 12th.

At The Parlor, 100 B E. North Loop (53rd1/2 and Ave F).

Something for everyone.

Free. Free Beer. Free Nelson Mandela.

Details to come.

In addition to Cool Out at The Cavern and jazz at the Amsterdam, some of you Vampire Weekend people might be interested in sampling the real deal:

Ladysmith Black Mambazo, the South African male vocal group that recorded Graceland with Paul Simon, will be performing this evening at Bass Performance Hall. Tickets are $25-50, which is obviously a bit expensive, but they are quite interesting in the sense that you can hear traces of so many modern forms of music contained in the group's more traditional African performances. I didn't know much about this group before today, but you can read a fairly interesting Wikipedia entry on them here.



ADD: The Party will be continuing their Monday night gig at the Foundation Room at the House of Blues this evening. I haven't been to this yet, has anyone else?

GOOD RECORDS LOCAL TOP 5

1. Mom - Little Brite
2. The Polyphonic Spree - The Fragile Army
3. Shiny Around the Edges - Applied Quantum Physics 7"
4. Doug Burr - Promenade
5.(tie) Christian Teenage Runaways - Holy No No
5.(tie) Koji Kondo/Daniel Francis Doyle - History of Consideration Split 7"

GOOD RECORDS OVERALL TOP 20

1. Hot Chip - Made In the Dark
2. Vampire Weekend - Vampire Weekend
3. Bon Iver - For Emma, Forever Ago
4. Nada Surf - Lucky (Deluxe Ed.)
5. Cat Power - Jukebox (Deluxe)
6. The Atlas Sound - Let the Blind Lead Those Who See but Cannot Feel
7. Holy Fuck - LP
8. Radiohead - In Rainbows
9. Helio Sequence - Keep Your Eyes Ahead
10. British Sea Power - Do You Like Rock Music?
11. MGMT - Oracular Spectacular
12. Drive-By Truckers - Brighter Than Creation
13. Mom - Little Brite
14. The Polyphonic Spree - The Fragile Army
15. Samamidon - All Is Well
16. Black Mountain - In the Future (Deluxe)
17. American Music Club - Golden Age
18. Basia Bulat - Oh, My Darling
19. Magnetic Fields - Distortion
20. Band of Horses - Cease to Begin

Good choice on that Hot Chip, people. It's easily their best. And maybe I'm a wimp, but that Samamidon is fantastic as well. Great takes on classic folk songs that don't end up being too sentimental.

RECYCLED TOP 3

1) Bubba Hernandez w/ Alex Meixner – Polka Freak Out
2) Strawberry Fields’ “Denton Deluxe: Volumes 1 & 2”
3) Shaolin Death Squad – Intelligent Design

And everyone can say goodbye to Trey (the guy in charge of the local music section at Recycled), who will be leaving the store this week. In his time there, Recycled has more than quadrupled their sales in local music, and that is a good thing for everyone involved.

STRAWBERRY FIELDS TOP 3

1. Angry Business Men - 16 Songs
2. denton Deluxe v. III
3. Koji Kondo/Daniel Francis Doyle - History of Consideration Split 7"

A couple important developments:

1. Melodica 3 day passes can now be purchased online via Paypal. Click here to get them.

2. The big Friday night show at Sloppyworld featuring Silver Apples and Spectrum, among others, will now be all ages.

SHOWS OF NOTE THIS WEEK

TUE: Balmorhea (Good Records- 6pm)
THU: Drink to Victory/Lil Tedly/Koji Kondo (Rubber Gloves)
THU: Record Hop/The Great Tyrant/Red Monroe (Lola's)
FRI: Melodica Festival
FRI: Baby Dee/John Contreras/Alex Neilson/Paul Oldham/the Theater Fire (Arts 5th Ave)
SAT: Melodica Festival and especially Finally Punk/Treewave/Medio Mutante/Cry Blood Apache/Zanzibar Snails (Amsterdam Bar)
SAT: Boats/I Resign (715 Panhandle)
SAT: Car Stereo Wars/Killtronix (The Cavern)
SAT: Seth Sherman/Fight Bite/Glass/Voyant/Angry Businessmen/Glass Gown/Fake Blood (Strawberry Fields)
SUN: Melodica All Ages Show (Club Dada, 4pm)
SUN: Black Lips (Good Records, 4pm)

The vast majority of the this post was hurriedly written by Defensive Listening. Corrections and/or additions to follow.

FRIDAY

We Made Out Once Presents: It's What We Get | Wild in the Streets | Craig Welch (Hailey's)

Wild In The Streets and It's What We Get couldn't be more wildly disparate as far as what they play, but it's good to see such different DJ's together. Wild In The Streets plays old French Ye-Ye, while It's What We Get plays modern French electro. WITS is 60's mod sleaze while IWWG is 80's synth sleaze. Craig Welch is one of the most insane local acts I've every seen, due to the ridiculous tongue twisting of his non-stop flow and delivery. Event is "semi-formal." Is that the same thing as biz caj?

The Paper Chase | Micah P Hinson | Shiny Around the Edges (Sons of Hermann Hall)
This show probably would have been more of a mismatch a few years ago, but The Papechase have transformed into a moodier outfit and are much less prone to the freak-outs of their first few recordings. The emphasis is much more on melody lately and the singular themed narratives of each album, complete with horror fantasy lyrics and sound effects. Shiny Around The Edges are an increasingly muscular live force that will stand up to the cavernous Sons Of Hermann Hall with ease.

Mom | Violent Squid | My Son The Astronaut (Strawberry Fields)
Looks like this could be the most packed SF show ever, due to Mom's involvement. As far as Violent Squid goes, I love a band that puts out a myspace bulletin for their rotating backing band to actually show up and play that night. I seriously think that's great. My Son The Astronaut is the solo acoustic work of Daniel from 715 Panhandle. This is a benefit for The Denton Artists' Collaborative.


Dove Hunter | Bridges And Blinking Lights | Doug Burr (Double Wide)


SATURDAY

Xrin Arms | Yatagarasu | PSOAS | Mistress | Animal Forces | | Traducer (House of Tinnitus)

Very unusual aesthetic from the headliner, Xrin Arms, that combines tech grind, electronic elements by way of Dutch-styled gabber hardcore, and even soul music to create an extremely heartfelt racket. There is an insightful interview with Xrin Arms on the excellent new local blog, Digital Liver. Traducer is from Austin and are tourmates of Xrin Arms that play disjointed breakbeat overlapped with distant ambient sounds. Yatagarasu has played HOT at least a couple of times before and is a 8-bit one-man act with distorted bass "subtleties." Three local duos, PSOAS, Mistress, and Animal Forces experiment across the entire avant spectrum featuring everything from harsh noise to ominously spaced out sounds.

Jeff Parker | Loop 12 | Stephen R (Fallout)
Hard to pin down Chicago musician and Post Rock pioneer Jeff Parker practically created a new genre with his work in Tortoise, just one of many groups he has played with since the early 90's. New work focuses on everything from intricate guitar pieces fluent in complex jazz chord positions to DJ mixes. Loop 12 seems to have come out of nowhere and is now playing every weekend, usually on notable shows.

White Drugs | Raised by Tigers | Gun Gun | The Better Halves/Low Dosage (Hailey's)
Low Dosage is the brand new project of Medicine Window founders Cody Robinson and his wife, Amanda. The one track on their page shows not only that they have they picked up where MW left off, but that you don't have to grow soft due to marriage. Gun Gun is a poppy electronic duo featuring Ashley Cromeens.

Free Will Hip Hop Benefit (Green Elephant)
All proceeds of this massive benefit go to the family of William "Free Will" Hunnicut. Select and Schwa finish the night off but will first be joined by DJ's, Marty Mar, Nemesis, Tape Masta Step, Quick Chris, Priest TD, BK and Rob Viktum. Other artists include Mic Most, Verbal Seed, Reflect June, Colby Savage, Philly Station, PPT, and many more. There will also be B-Boy crews and graffiti artists on hand.

Lollipop Shoppe (Sloppyworld)


Live Projections will be provided by Chad of Strawberry Fields. Music will be provided by The Dirty Novels.

AM Ramblers | Doug Burr | Stanton Meadowdale (J&Js)

Formal: Art Opening for Sergio Garcia (Kettle Art Gallery)
Opening for graffiti artist and musician, Sergio Garcia.

The Party | Hot Flash | Cool Out (Club Dada)
This is the after party for the Kettle Art Opening featuring the three biggest local dance events squeezed into a single night.

SUNDAY

No Age (FREE -Good Records)
Starts at 4pm

Liars | No Age | Select (Hailey's)
Big show for a Sunday with two of the most critically acclaimed acts of recent years. Liars have kept things interesting with a constantly evolving sound that's shifted from what some deemed unlistenable noise (though it hardly qualified) to their more recent percussion driven exercises and finally...sounding somewhat like Beck. No Age hails from the "Smell" scene in Los Angeles, where a beloved venue weighs heavy in the ethics and sometimes even the sounds of the bands that hail from there. Though No Age is hardcore punk-influenced there is a vulnerable emotional slant to the music that is catchy and poppy, and it never completely dissipates no matter how much it's drowned and dirtied with lo-fi noise and production values. Select will DJ either in between acts, or with his own set, as is usually the case when a DJ plays Hailey's.

So here's the deal: All of us at HQ have decided that some of you might like to know what's going on in the arts. Every Thursday, you are going to get just that with our new Art List section.

If you have anything you think should be up on the site, email me at artnews@weshotjr.com.

This week, there are a ton of openings going on. Even if this stuff sucks... you can at least grab some free wine. Possibly a cookie.

FRIDAY

Real Time: Mobile Phone Video (Dallas Contemporary) 7-9:30


SATURDAY

Delineation (Holly Johnson Gallery) 5-8

Kenda North, J.P. Long, and Kirk Tatum (Craighead-Green Gallery) 5-8

William Cannings (Pan American Projects) 5-8

Collecting and Collectivity (Conduit Gallery) 5:30-8:30

Layer Upon Layer (Artizen Fine Arts) 6-9

Triple Vision (Marty Walker Gallery) 6-9

Jim Ward | The Secret Lives Of Sparrows (Rubber Gloves)
Jim Ward is a member of Sparta and this is his much more hushed side project. The Secret Lives Of Sparrows' feature music that has rustic acoustic qualities of the sort utilized by Tom Waits. I often wish Tom Waits wouldn't utilize anything.


Lost Generation (Fallout Lounge)
Tonight's guest will be Shane English, currently of No Way, but of so many good projects before that it would fuck up our commitment to great design if were to list them all. Shane has been posting some really great music and videos on his blog, The Soundhead. So expect some great obscure tracks tonight, especially of the scratchy, danceable, foreign and forgotten variety.

80's Night With DJ G (Hailey's)

The Riot Before | Excretion | Sabra Brown | Hawt Dawgz (1919 Hemphill)
Hawt Dawgz features members of Fake Blood, Angry Businessmen, and Koji Kondo with boombox accompaniment.

Of course we have the regular activites this evening (It's What We Get at Hailey's and Taxi Fare at Zubar), but for something a little different, you might want to check out Fall in Love at Fallout, a pre-Valentine's Day event hosted by Circa 77 and featuring That's Whats Hot, a DJ I wasn't too familiar with until a couple weeks ago. If you check the Myspace page, you'll hear a brief yet excellent mix of Italo synth pop, classic house, and hints of sexy disco that will surely fit the mood of the evening. Anyone into Lindstrom or the Italians Do it Better roster will probably really dig it. Anyway, the organizers tell me they'll be giving away an all local compilation CD as well as a bunch of other stuff, so drop by. It's free, after all. Hopefully, Christmas bow tie dude will show up again.