FRIDAY Marco Breuer: Principles of Extraction (SMU Pollock Gallery) 5-7pm There is also an artist's talk Thursday at 6:30 pm.
Open Studios Night (Centraltrak) 7 - 9 pm This is some type of Q & A/ tour of the gallery and lofts. Could be interesting.
Narratives (UD Beatrice M. Haggerty Gallery) 6:30-8:30 pm The photography of Beau Comeaux, Roger Colombik, Luis González Palma, and Tracey Snelling
SATURDAY
Leslie Lanzotti: Faces & The JFK Paintings (Artspace III)5-8pm
Joseph Havel and Annette Lawrence Artist's Talk(Dunn and Brown) 2pm
Also, on Tuesday at 7pm there is an artists' talk with Teresa Hubbard and Alexander Birchler at the Modern and a lecture from Dr. Charissa Terranova at Centraltrak.
Artist and graphic designer Brian Gibb runs The Public Trust and is the co-founder of Art Prostitute, one of North Texas' finest art publications. He recently sat down with WeShotJr to relay some hard-hitting art opinions for this week's Greatness.
Richardson Heights: What is your favorite color and why?
Brian Gibb: I don't have a favorite color, I do however enjoy the combinations of many colors.
RH: As both an artist and a designer, do you see a distinction between the two?
BG: The obvious distinction would be when I am designing for a client, I am trying to communicate their product, company or event, whereas with my own personal work outside influences aren't dictating what I am doing. As far as the act of creating either, they both influence each other. Having a hold on the principles and elements of design makes the personal work more formally resolved. Conversely, there is an additional layer of consideration to the design side of things.
RH: Do you have a day job or are you actually able to be an art prostitute and depend on your creativity to survive?
BG: I have not had a "day job" since I was in college. I have been on my own since AP started in 2003.
RH: What's coming up for Bee Lee Gee Press? Are those your initials?
BG: I am working on a website for it that will launch soon. Essentially it will be the moniker in which I will publish books as well as do commercial work, the name is derived from my own. On the horizon I have a book of drawings by Steven Hopwood-Lewis, as well as the first ever hardcover edition of Art Prostitute.
RH: I've seen the phrase "culture jammer" used in describing you. To what extent, if any, were the writings of Kalle Lasn and Adbusters on your publication and design work?
BG: I have always appreciated their perspective on things. Their advertising subversions which were a 1000 times smarter than the advertisements they were critiquing had a pretty profound effect on me when I was in school. This coupled with their commentary on the world in general, really pushed me to make things that I felt mattered and weren't completely self-serving.
RH: Does the fact that you're becoming increasingly famous for something called "art prostitute" make your mom (and/or grandma) a little squeamish?
BG: Not at all. My family has been extremely supportive of this dream since day one.
RH: Do you think Denton has gotten over it?
BG: There are definitely people there that still talk about all that we did there with the publication and the gallery. I would say that overall people are "over it." We caught a lot of wreck when we made the announcement we were leaving. Most of it was from people who in 2 years never came by, or came by 1 or 2 times, or just for the free beer. I am a bit bummed that I don't see many of the people who actually supported us in Denton coming to the gallery in Dallas. The best I can hope for is that what we did motivates people to take their ideas into action, and follow through with them.
Mr. Gibb's current series of prints entitled "All That Glitters Isn’t Gold" is currently on display at the Magnolia Theater Gallery through December 3, 2008. Image courtesy of Brian Gibb.
Brightblack Morning Light | Bill Daniel (Hailey's) Unsurprisingly, Brightblack Morning Light is significantly more popular than when I reviewed them about a year and a half ago. I remember liking some of the Fender Rhodes parts, but what I remember most is the marathon-like nature of their set combined with an unabashed hippie-ness that they wore on their tattered paisley sleeve. Though there is a certain effectiveness to the singular concept of their sound, as well as their willingness to stretch it to an almost punishing length, I am often baffled by these groups and their straight-faced claims that they are mainly influenced by soul music like the Staple Singers; a claim often supported by critics. In just about every case, rather than Mavis, Marvin, or Mayfield, one is often left with another soulfully anemic indie rock band.
God Equals Genocide | Rocket For Ethiopia | Orange Coax | Negaduck (1919 Hemphill) God Equals Genocide plays predominantly catchy downstroke-punk, with occasional lapses where they segue into bouncy little passages reminiscent of This Bike Is A Pipebomb, complete with shouted guy/girl vocals. Rocket For Ethiopia and Orange Coax are two of our favorite local acts, though they are very aesthetically dissimilar. Rocket For Ethiopia are great for their perfectly messy take on Reagan-era hardcore, while Orange Coax has honed the classic No Wave duo of chaotic drumming with over-enthused sax, while the singer tries to keep up. It actually sounds like various elements from some of the best records from Skin Graft's golden age, a little over ten years ago. I don't know anything about Negaduck, but I like the ridiculous Darkwing Duck reference. I'm more of a Liquidator kind of guy myself.
Dub Explosion with Blixaboy | Juan Solo (The Lounge) Ex-Thorazine Dreams member Juan Solo will assist Wanz tonight, their respective sets chronicling the diverse and complicated history of Dub. Wanz leaves to St. Louis next week to play with Glenn Branca's guitar orchestra. I wish I could read music.
Official Dallas County Democratic Election Night Watch Party (413 N Bishop Ave., Bishop Arts District, Oak Cliff) There is no show I can really wholeheartedly recommend on a night like this, and honestly, I don't know of anyone that plans on going out for non-election reasons. What I can do is tell you, again, about the best option for gathering in public and doing one of the following:
A. Celebrate. B. Get agitated and confused because of ballot issues and human error. C. Weep softly in the corner. D. Not care because you're too cool and anarcho to vote.*
This event starts at 6:00 and ends at 11:30 PM. There will be live music (I believe The Happy Bullets are performing), three large screens broadcasting the results, Democratic candidates and elected officials, and the rare joy of congregating in Texas with people sympathetic to your oft-ridiculed political leanings. See you there.
Note: Complimentary remote parking is available at the Oak Cliff Tower building (A.K.A. Bank of America building), located at 12th and Beckley. A complimentary shuttle bus will run continuously to and from the festival.
*Eff you, jerks. Yes, we're still friends. I'll forgive you by Christmas.
Now that you're done puking up your halloween memories, you can start thinking about what you'll be doing this weekend. Luckily, we have some tickets to give away to two shows you might like:
1. We have three pairs of tickets to Deerhoof's performance this Friday night at the Granada Theater with the excellent Experimental Dental School;
2. And we also have two pairs of tickets for Diplo's performance at Palladium on Saturday night with Abe Vigoda and Telepathe.
Wanna win them? Just email us at weshotjrtix@yahoo.com any time between now and 7PM tomorrow (Tues) with the name of the show in the subject line and your full name in the body. We'll choose the winners at random. Good luck friends!
Cool Out (the Cavern) Special edition of Cool Out tonight will have all the Dallas hipster girls going buck wild I think-- L.A.'s Shadowscene will be taking pictures at Cool Out this evening for a feature in URB magazine, which, despite the inherent silliness of all such hipster fashion photo spreads, is actually kind of an honor when you think about the relaxed and casual vibe that Cool Out usually seems to bring every week. Schwa and Big J should start a fucking class on not trying too hard. Oh, can they also teach 90% of the rest of the DJs in town how to spin funk and disco records properly as well? Whatta ya say guys? Anyway, Shadowscene actually has some pretty interesting photos you can check out.
Yeah, we know it's been a little quiet around here lately, ok? We haven't been doing all the record reviews, live reviews and feature articles that we've wanted to over the past couple of months, but we've had a good reason-- today, we'd like to announce the formation of We Shot J.R. Records.
After almost three years of thinking, writing about and experiencing local music, we felt the time was ripe for us to get a little more directly involved in supporting some of our favorite local groups, and the idea of We Shot J.R. Records was born in that spirit. We wanted to create a small, locally based label that would showcase some of the music in the area that we feel should be heard elsewhere, and thanks to all the excellent new bands that have emerged around here over the past year, the task of assembling a quality roster was rather easy.
We Shot J.R. Records will focus mainly, though not exclusively, on releasing the music of local artists via limited edition vinyl pressings, sort of a boutique label that will highlight what we believe to be some of the best the area has to offer. Here is a list of the first three records we will be releasing:
Fight Bite-- "Swiss Ex Lover"/"Spring Rain (radio edit)" on 7 inch vinyl
Of course, we will not be offering "reviews" of the records we release, and if you have any question about our objectivity regarding the bands we work with, then you must be dumb because record reviews are never objective anyway. Duh.
In any event, you can go hereto check out the records and purchase one via Pay Pal. We'll have a link to the label site on the top of the sidebar very soon, and although only Fight Bite's 7 inch is available for purchase at the moment, the other two records will see release some time very soon, and we'll update you to let you know when they are ready.
Oh, and here's another little bonus for you-- this Friday, November 7th, please join us for the We Shot J.R. Records Kick Off Party at Time Bandits Vintage in Denton, featuring performances by:
First band at 9pm. Free show. Free Beer. And we'll also have Fight Bite 7 inches available for sale. If you can fight the urge to go see Trail of Interpol at the Halliburton.Com Rockers Garage Lounge or whatever, we'll see you there! And now that we're done launching this label, expect to start seeing a lot more regular feature articles once again. Thanks.
Something (sort of) appropriate for election week:
SHOWS OF NOTE THIS WEEK
TUE: Dallas Democrats Election Night Block Party (Bishop Arts, Oak Cliff) WED: Brightblack Morning Light/Bill Daniel (Hailey's) THU: Yacht (Club Dada) THU: Centro-matic/Baptist Generals/South San Gabriel (Rubber Gloves) FRI We Shot J.R. Party, details to come today (Time Bandits) FRI: Deerhoof/Experimental Dental School/Flying/Hawnay Troof (Granada) FRI ...And You Will Know Us By the Trail of Dead/When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth/Dead Twins (Club Dada) SAT Diplo/Abe Vigoda /Boy 8 Bit/Telepathe (Palladium) SAT: Calexico/Bowerbirds (Granada) SAT: Spinto Band/Frightened Rabbit/Grassfight (Hailey's) SUN: Parts and Labor/True Widow/Dogme 95 (the Lounge) SUN: Atmosphere (House of Blues)
