Saturday, April 30, 2011

Final Fridays Photo Blog

Another Final Friday has come and gone and we observed, critiqued, and (in some cases) even appreciated the art.

Here's a sampling of what we saw (click to enlarge and we hope you enjoy the virtual tour of Final Fridays).

We saw a man in a giant inflatable suit strolling down 9th Street. The wind blew him down in the Conoco parking lot. Chip pointed and laughed.
















We saw a lovely lady from Quixotic Fusion performing a trapeze act of sorts in front of the Lawrence Arts Center. If you think we had boners during the performance then you are correct.


















We saw some lucha libres! (inside the Arts Center)




















At Wonder Fair we saw some squiggly lines projected on a screen. We wish Wonder Fair could get a special license to sell "magic mushrooms" and weed (or even K-2) during their "happenings." It would help us to understand.




















At the Hobbs-Taylor Lofts we saw this pairing of beer art and tasteful nudes. (Chip: "Finally, art that speaks a language I can understand. The language of beer and titties.").




















Also at the Hobbs-Taylor Lofts, we saw a series of photographs containing local fixture Dennis (and his dolls). Is it art, or is it exploitation? Why can't it be both?

Friday, April 29, 2011

Royal Wedding / Brown Bag Drag / Art / Foodie Article of the Week

If you're an avowed Anglophile like us, you stocked up yesterday on warm beer, scones, eggs, bangers, fish, chips, and mushy peas and pulled an all-nighter to watch the Royal Wedding.

Chip: "All the pomp and circumstance (and Kate) added up to a royal boner."

But now it's time to proceed with local activities, first and foremost being the annual Brown Bag Drag Show at KU at noon today. This is the culminating event of KU's month long celebration of "Gaypril," and the only group that loves the spectacle more than Larryville liberals is the Westboro Baptist protesters, whose chants of "Gaypril" are likely to be significantly less celebratory than those of the participants and fans.

Tonight brings another Final Friday art walk. In addition to GIANT.INFLATABLE.ART outside the Spencer at 5:30, we plan stops at Q5 upstair at Quinton's for the unveiling of Leo Hayden's Phil Canty portrait (mark our words: this piece is going to be the Mona Lisa of Larryville!) and Wonder Fair's "Pyramid Lake" opening, with possible detours to a "flash-space" event called "Blame the Moon" (Chip: "I often do") and to Love Garden, which is hosting a performance by Justin Marable's Interior Sea at 8:00.

It's a busy day to be hip in Larryville, and you'll need a meal or two as you make your way from event to event. Perhaps you should check out this piece from www.foodisthenewrock.com in which one of our most influential musicians, the Get Up Kids' Matt Pryor, discusses his favorite local restaurants, which include the usual suspects (715, Free State, Wheatfields) but is noticeably lacking in Krause-restaurants. Perhaps soon we'll all be adding downtown's Curry in a Hurry (which opened Wednesday) to our own personal list of hotspots?

And here's a picture of Matt Pryor holding a chicken:

Thursday, April 28, 2011

Dirty Dillons Update / The Style Scout Visits KU

After the usual protracted discussions, the City Fathers seem to have officially given the go-ahead to replace Dirty Dillons with a shiny new Dillons complete with a "more architecturally interesting" design (Chip: "That means 'quirky.'") and a controversial drive-thru pharmacy along New Hampshire Street.

Commissioner Mike Dever offers this quote in the LJ-World: “I don’t mean any offense to the people who work there, but this is one of the worst retail centers we have in the city currently. It is just horrible. It is an island of concrete. The look there is nothing we want to preserve."

Chip: "But isn't the look of Dirty Dillons in keeping with the kind of charmingly dilapidated feel which makes that area and the Eastside so 'special.' Won't a gleaming new Dillons look a bit like a rose surrounded by toadstools?"

In the talkback, Whatadrag says: "I went there once last summer. I've never seen so many shirtless people shopping."

Presumably the new store will be a bit more strict on the usual "no shirt, no shoes, no service" policy of most retail establishments, though we rarely saw violations of the "no shoes" rule at Dirty Dillons, perhaps because of the broken glass and syringes littering the aisles?

Behold, the Dillons of the future...today:














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We haven't been particularly interested in the last few weeks of Style Scout, but today's visit to KU provides a few insights into local student culture, though Chip was hoping for a peek inside the fashion of sorority houses (Chip: "No, I am not the mysterious campus "shower peeper.'").

George Hart thinks of himself as "a conservative, shy Kansan trying to channel his inner Ziggy Stardust" and describes his fashion influences as "Civil War-era gents and the amphetamine-abusing Bob Dylan of the mid-'60s." He'd like to see more "Lord of the Rings"-fantasy-kid types" in Larryville.

Richard: "Agreed on the last point. I'd much prefer that scenesters gather in the park for some LARP as opposed to kickball."

Chip: "What the fuck is LARP?"

Here's Hart, who doesn't quite resemble either a 19th century dandy or David Bowie in this particular photograph:























Tessa Califano is a rare Scout subject whose style actually seems to match her description of it: "trendy and bohemian. I love loose-fit, flowy clothing." She has three tattoos (including "Fede Speranza Amore") and has her "tragus and ears pierced."

Chip: "I briefly thought 'tragus' was a part of the female body I wasn't familiar with, but then I realized it's part of the ear. Also, I'd wear the hell out of that jacket. But maybe not in southeast Kansas."

Wednesday, April 27, 2011

Final Fridays Coverage Continues: Wonder Fair / Plus, Pitchfork Reviews tUnE-yArDs

The public often associates Wonder Fair with the mischievous artistic antics of Asteroid Head Art Club, but Wonder Fair's openings of late have been far more serious-minded and impressive than other Final Friday offerings (such as "mustache art" and giant inflatable suits).

This Friday they offer Ray Sohn's Pyramid Lake, "a series of works on paper combining elements of ink drawing, collage and painting." . Sohn is a Brooklyn-based artist (instant hipster cred) whose work has been shown in MOMA. Here's an excerpt from his artist's statement on the Wonder Fair website:

"Similar to a jazz musician, I was attempting to build up an idiomatic language of my own out of the basic building blocks of lines and symbols, with which I could freely improvise. At the earliest stages of the project, this spirit of jazz improvisation is what inspired me to refine and advance the work in terms of technical dazzle."

Chip: "I'd say that art and jazz definitely make for a good comparison, since both are things that I absolutely don't 'get.' Other things I don't 'get' include classical music, shoegaze, mumblecore films, contemporary poetry, and gourmet burgers."

When you visit the gallery on Friday, make sure to also purchase an "Occult Legs" t-shirt, which features one of Sohn's works handprinted by Wonder Fair in conjunction with the show.

Full info here.

Chip: "I won't be able to wear anything 'occult' back home in Southeast Kansas for fear of being burned as a witch. They fear the occult down there like Larryville fears Kris Kobach."




















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We love every band whose name is spelled in a weird way or using odd punctuation, so you can bet we are huge fans of tUnE-yArDs, whose new album whokill receives a very high 8.8 on Pitchfork:

"...she creates an almost unsettling intimacy on "Wooly Wolly Gong" by mixing the ambient hum of room sound with closely mic'd arpeggiated chords and vocals..."

"'Powa'...builds steadily over the course of five minutes until it reaches a stunning climax in which Brenner's bass bounces gently as Garbus hits a glorious high note like a feral Mariah Carey."


Richard: "First off, my new band name is going to be 'Feral Mariah Carey.' Second of all, if you saw tUnE-yArDs open for Dirty Projectors at the Granada a few years back, when Dirty Projectors were still hip, you no doubt already have this album."

In a rare blast from the past, we now reprint an excerpt from our original Dirty Projectors review, circa Nov. 10, 2009, in which we over-use the word 'hip' even more than we do now but weren't yet hip enough to know how to punctuate tUnE-yArDs:

"The Granada was not full for the Dirty Projectors' first-ever trip to Larryville, but the hipsters in attendance were so very hip that each one of them made up for five normal hipsters at least. And from the moment when opening act Tune Yards' vocalist took the stage by performing a few whale calls, looping them, backing them up with a hip-hop beat, and tuning her ukulele, we knew we were in for something special. It was simply an added bonus that her voice was absolutely amazing, so much so that the Talking Heads-y schtick of the (surprisingly accessible) Dirty Projectors soon paled by comparison (apart from their equally impressive female harmony vocals). Notoriously pompous Projectors' frontman Dave Longstreth, perhaps embarrassed to have left New York to play for a half-full room of Midwestern rubes, barely acknowledged the audience all night except to remark on the eerie "Lynchian" shadows along the empty back of the room. Even so, the remark was enough to win Richard over, since he has seen everything Lynch has done three times at least, and he soon began to believe that he was just as hip as Longstreth. This illusion was shattered, however, at the bar, where Richard friend was given a special "dodgeball discount" on a fine Free State ale while her friend, the newly elected East Side President, was given a special cup larger than anyone else's. And Richard? Richard was charged an exorbitant price for a shitty beer in a tiny cup."

Cute hipster drawing courtesy of interweb (click to enlarge and study):

Tuesday, April 26, 2011

Final Fridays Coverage Begins: Giant Inflatable Suits and Scenester Portraits / Plus, Ex-Fag Cop Plays a Set in a Hole in the Ground

The next Final Fridays is on the horizon and here are a few things we're excited about:

"...one of the artists [from the Lawrence Arts Center show] will be doing a performance at The Spencer Museum of Art in his 35' inflatable suit... After the Spencer performance, the artist will be changing into the "much more practical" 10' inflatable suit and walking/bouncing down the hill into downtown, ending at The Lawrence Arts Center." (L.com).

Chip: "I hope that the city has completed the lighted pathway through the student ghetto, because it will be VERY easy to mug a dude in an inflatable suit as he bounces his way downtown. On second thought, artists don't have money, so I suppose he's probably safe after all."

We're also hyped for the "Just Hangin'" show at the Q5 gallery upstairs at Quinton's. Our friend Leo Hayden is currently working on a portrait of local scenester/Bear Club CEO Phil Canty. Here's a work in progress (thanks for letting us post it, Leo and Phil):




















Rumor has it that Leo will soon begin a portrait of our friend "Chip," who wants be immortalized in the local arts scene while sporting his usual boner (which we hope will be implied, more than shown, in the painting).

You can check out the hashtag #paintingphilcanty to watch the evolution of the portrait.

And visit the Q5 gallery site here for more details on the show.

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It's barely hip to play the Replay or the Tap these days. The hippest bands in Larryville are now performing their shows in a hole in the ground. Thanks for the tip, @ValueShock. To be honest, we weren't even aware of this trend, but we hope many bands will soon follow suit. Go here to watch Ex-Fag Cop jamming in what appears to be some sort of debris-strewn pit.

Monday, April 25, 2011

We Attend the Kanrocksas Press Conference / Scenester Pick of the Day: Shilpa Ray and Her Happy Hookers

There's been a bit of gathering buzz this past week about a monstrous KC summer music event called "Kanrocksas." What is it? Where will it be held? Why does it have such a silly name?

In another sure sign that our shenanigans are often taken too seriously, we were invited to attend today's "press announcement" at the Kansas Speedway, so we can answer most of those questions from firsthand experience: it's a giant festival expected to draw 100,000 fans to the Kansas Speedway in August to hear headliners Eminem and Muse (excuse our ignorance on the latter, as we barely know who they are, much less that they were a headlining act). Other acts announced so far include a few more scenester-approved names--Black Keys; Kid Cudi; Girl Talk--as well as, inevitably, The Flaming Lips (it's just not a festival these days until Wayne Coyne rides a giant hamster ball over your head).

Obviously, scenesters avoid any festival that involves such hippie-approved activities as camping, but at least the camping at this festival will involve none of the usual hardships of a more isolated setting such as Bonaroo: one can simply stroll over to the Legends and grab a Jimmy Buffett-burger instead of rubbing two sticks together to start a fire. Also, the camping and parking is free (pretty rare). So if you've got $179 for a two-day pass and enjoy the bands, we won't hold it against you (too much). As for us, we'd probably rather see 59.6 shows at the Replay for that price.

Go here to get tickets (pre-sale for $20 bucks cheaper starts tomorrow).

Here's a shot of the press conference:


















And here's a shot of the sweet freebies we scored (Richard: "I've already got a PBR in my camouflage Kanrocksas beer coozie.").





















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If we were inclined to stay out till 2:00 on a Monday and wade through not one, not two, but three opening bands, we'd totally see Shilpa Ray and Her Happy Hookers tonight at the Jackpot.

Look at this review from www.panicmanual.com:

"There were a few things that were notable about Shilpa Ray and her Happy Hookers. Firstly, Ray plays the harmonium, an unusual instrument for a rock band. Secondly, when she sings, Ray seems to be able to open her mouth up really wide and out of that mouth comes an impressive blues/punk wail."

Chip: "Harmoniums are hip and the statement about the really wide mouth arouses me. I'm going."


Sunday, April 24, 2011

Larryville Morel Hunting and Postmodern Literary Shenanigans at KU with Joshua Cohen

If you haven't heard a lot of chatter about morels lately, then you probably haven't been hanging out on the Free State patio with Eastsiders and townies. Prime hunting season is upon us.

Richard: "I like to pair mine with a nice PBR."

We recommend you begin your hunt by watching this LJ-World video in which staff photographer Richard Gwin finds a "small brown" and proclaims this year's crop to be "phenomenal."


You might also want to discuss your finds on the Kansas message board at www.morels.com, where people rave about their "honeyspots" and boast of their bounty:

"Guerinteed" from Frankfurt, KS, says: "found 2700 yesterday in the fields again, it was more like harvesting than picking, we actually left mushrooms because we were tired, going back now of course."

Chip: "I'm skeptical. This reminds me of frat boys who claim they drink 27 beers each night."


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If you're like us, you read a lot of extra-long postmodern novels and wish you had a chance to quiz the author face-to-face about what in hell it all means. Tomorrow brings a good opportunity when novelist (and visiting professor at KU) Joshua Cohen reads from his novel Witz at 7:00 in Alderson Auditorium.

The Observer says of Witz: "“It’s the sort of postmodern epic that arrives like a comet about once every decade, like ‘Infinite Jest’ or ‘Gravity’s Rainbow."

According to the NY-Times, the novel concerns the "last Jew alive" (though it never uses the word Jew), who "survives an attack from a country club’s “feral caddies”; apparently turns into a snail; and meets a talking fish that offers to grant him three wishes." The Times praises Cohen's way with language:

"... the scale of the sentences comfortably exceeds the lung capacity of most readers (Cohen isn’t afraid to unfurl a five-page sentence), [but] the prose constantly highlights language’s sonar qualities...Some will be exhausted by the tentacular punning paragraphs, but “Witz” is a brave and artful attempt to explore and explode the limits of the sentence."

Chip: "I had to look up 'tentacular.' This book 'resembles an octopus?'"

We're fans of outrageously long sentences (though we rarely use them ourselves, since hipsters have short attention spans and prefer their language to arrive in short, messy bursts that resemble a Rooftop Vigilantes tune) and we LOVE 'punning paragraphs' (Chip: "If this guy's boring, I'll make like a tree and leave."), so we plan to be on hand tomorrow night for an evening that we predict will be slightly less hip than the night Michael Chabon spent an evening at KU talking about Legos but much more hip than Joseph O'Neil's recent discussion of Netherland (like his novel, he was a bit square).

Chip: "I'm going to ask Cohen what he'd wish for if a fish gave him three wishes."

Richard: "I'm going to ask him if he's ever been morel hunting (and also how he feels about the use of unecessary parenthetical thoughts)."

Saturday, April 23, 2011

We Get Experimental at Love Garden's Earth Day Concert / Black Angels / AJAX Strikes Again

When we arrived (late) to Love Garden for the "avant-garde" Earth Day concert last night there was dead silence in the room. We assumed--and hoped--that the participants were engaged in a "performance" of John Cage's 4'33", but it turned out we'd simply shown up during a pause between Asian gong pieces which were performed by a motley collection of scenesters, musicians, and two young girls who were all beating, tapping, and scratching on gongs (accompanied at times by two violins). The spectacle was visually, if not aurally, interesting, and at one point the performers almost stumbled upon a rhythm by accident. Overall, the event accomplished what the best "experimental" works should: it made us feel stupid. But of course we pretended to "get" it, because we didn't want to seem unhip.


Chip: "I worry that those children in the performance will grow up without being taught that music should have a melody. And some lyrics wouldn't hurt either."


Verdict: four out of four gong hits.

(yes, that's meant to sound like "bong hits"...this event should really have been held two days previously, on 4/20, when all of Larryville was pleasantly baked and might have better understood it).

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Perhaps some of you are planning to get "pleasantly baked" before tonight's psychedelic freakout with the Black Angels' at the Bottleneck? The band is coming off two sold-out shows earlier this month at NY's Bowery Ballroom and Williamsburg's Music Hall. Will Larryville show them some love? Or stay away because it's at the Bottleneck and ticket prices are too high?

Pitchfork gives a decent 7.2 to the Angels' latest, Phosphene Dream, which "finds the band peeling back the psychedelic murk and tempering its bad vibes with a hint of flower-power homage."

Local hipsters: "We preferred them before the bad vibes were tempered. We'll pass on this show and wait for the Shilpa Ray and Her Happy Hookers gig at the Jackpot on Monday."

Watch Shilpa Ray's "Heaven in Stereo video here

How in hell are the Spook Lights NOT opening this show?

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We're loving the new Operation 100 police reports on the LJ-World website:

"Lawrence Fire crews responded to the 700 Block of West 25th Street after receiving a report of a ceiling fan that had caught fire and fallen to the floor. The caller also advised that a toilet was also had been on fire."

The writer sounds as drunk as the folks who set the ceiling fan and toilet on fire.

We also enjoyed the recent Channel 6 coverage of Larryville's mysterious graffiti bandit who spray paints "AJAX" everywhere (sir, you are no Banksy!). We were hoping that the "SHOUT PEACE" graffiti at the Oread would usher in a golden age of Larryville graffiti, but "AJAX" is starting to bore us.

Check out the Channel 6 story and video here


Friday, April 22, 2011

Friday Scenester Guide: Avant-Garde Earth Day Show at Love Garden, PBR Sprints and CVLTS at Replay

Earth Day is today, though Larryville got so excited that we couldn't wait and celebrated last Saturday. If you're still looking for something Earth-y to do tonight, however, look no further than Love Garden, which offers this event, at 7:30:

"...a concert of Avant-garde music hosted by filmmaker/musician Rich Housh and composer Kip Haaheim. In the spirit of John Cage and other experimental artists, the concert will feature environmental electronic music, performance art, and multi-media composed and performed by local musicians. The works will include a symphony of bird calls, improvisations using an extensive collection of handmade Asian gongs, wind chimes, and Tibetan bowls, and mind-bending performance art in which a single moment of time is stretched to mystical lengths" (L.com).

Richard: "This sounds as hippie-friendly as it does hipster-friendly, maybe more so, but are hippies allowed at Love Garden?"

We don't have details on what local bands are involved, but it's probably safe to assume that Drakkar Sauna is one of them. At any rate, we'll be there. Bird calls are so hip right now!

Down the street simultaneously, at the Replay, you can witness the KC Sprints, a stationary bike race in which, for the low price of $2, you can challenge your scenester friend to a "grudge match." Come see Richard and Chip going head to head and chugging a PBR while racing!

According to the event's website , a "PBR cruiser" will be given away at some point in the evening. We want it.



















And the C V L T S show at the Replay should be the perfect follow-up to the Love Garden show. Look at this review from www.nofearofpop.net:

"The C V L T S track No Ghost is a terrific piece of merciless synth noise, with only a slow and eerie bassline and some almost melody-free acoustic guitar chords towards the end to ease the listener’s anxiety."

Chip: "Actually, I found myself, at the end, still a bit anxious."

Watch the scary video here

And meet all your CVLTS needs here

Thursday, April 21, 2011

We Attend the Elite Shot Put Competition and Sample Free State's New Beer: Lupulus Maximus / Arcade Fire in KC

"Everything has to start someplace. Historians will note that the revival of track and field in the United States began Wednesday, April 20, 2011, right here in Lawrence, on Eighth Street, 80 feet or so east of New Hampshire." --Tom Keegan, LJ-World

We suppose only time will tell, Keegan, but in the meantime we can say for certain that last night was a great evening for Larryville gawkers, who showed up 2500 or so strong (if you believe the estimates) despite the fact that the majority of us, from various vantage points, could see little more than an occasional upstretched arm of a contestant or the arc of the shot or the thud of the landing in the massive amounts of sand that had been trucked in for the day. From where we were stationed, just outside Mirth, the Tap Room appeared to be a scenester oasis at the edge of a massive desert. Surreal. Based on reports in yesterday's LJ-World, we were hoping for an absurdist competition to match the carnival atmosphere. One competitor was reputed to celebrate victories while running the perimeters of the competition in a cape and waving a turkey leg (he has also vowed to one day compete while dressed in a full bear suit). We saw nothing of the like (although we missed the guy who ripped his shirt off to inspire the crowd before his throw). But we enjoyed what we saw, even while being saddened that the event could not have been somehow extended to last for its entire scheduled running time instead of ending 45 minutes earlier than predicted, leaving us nothing to do for a long period of time except stand in the street sipping a Sandbar Shark Bite and getting autographs from the world's greatest shot putters.

Verdict: four out of four Shark Bites.

We like this photo from the LJ-World (click to enlarge). This looks like poetry in motion, doesn't it? The poetry of big burly bearded fellows who would "put" us right through a window if we write anything particularly snarky about them.




















You should also watch this cool time-lapse video of the construction of yesterday's event.

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Obviously, PBR is our scenester drink of choice. But we'll occasionally indulge in a Hamm's (at Love Garden) or a Tecate (at Esquina) or a Miller High-Life (at 715). Every so often, though, we get an urge to sample the sophisticated flavors of Free State beer, and when we saw their tweet yesterday regarding a beer called Lupulus Maximus, we knew from the name alone that we must try it, and soon.

Richard: "I have no idea what the name is meant to suggest but, to me, the word 'Lupulus' reminds me of 'Lupus,' which suggests 'wolves,' which makes me think of werewolves. And the word 'Maximus' reminds me of Russell Crowe's character in Gladiator. After three of these beers, I totally felt like a werewolf gladiator."

Chip: "The name is just so...manly. Simply ordering one is enough to give me a boner, much less drinking it. 'I'll have the Lupulus Maximus please and, yes, I am fully erect.'"

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Sure, the hippest of local hipsters abandoned Arcade Fire shortly after their instantly-infamous set at the Jackpot many years ago, but plenty of local scenesters still trekked over to Starlight in KC last night for an evening of communal joy (centered around suburban malaise). Our friends at I Heart Local Music report that the band's set was full of "interesting little noises."

Chip: "Is that a polite term for 'boring?'"

Head to their site for a full review with photos and videos.

Wednesday, April 20, 2011

Local Sports Coverage: Primitive Behavior in The Cave and an Elite Shot Put Event / Also, a Pony Party at the Replay

It's been awhile since a member of the KU men's basketball team engaged in a knife-fight or a campus brawl or (to borrow the terminology of the local sports world) "tossed their bitch into a sink," but the news spread yesterday that Thomas Robinson was cited with misdemeanor battery for a recent altercation in The Cave in which he (allegedly) hit and spit on a bouncer.

Chip: "I'm sure there's more to this than meets the eye. My theory? Robinson was likely participating in one of The Cave's infamous 'Best Caveman/Cavewoman' contests and merely got a little carried away with his 'performance.' One man's misdemeanor battery is another man's method acting. Much ado about nothing, in my opinion."

In other sports news, downtown Lawrence will host an "elite shot put" competition along 8th Street this evening from 6:00-7:30 as part of the Kansas Relays. Local sports columnist Tom Keegan has been assuring us for weeks that this will likely be one of the best events we've EVER witnessed, on par with such great sports moments as:

"Lee Trevino overtaking Bert Yancy and holding off Jack Nicklaus to win the 1968 U.S. Open at Oak Hill in Rochester, N.Y.

Playing on the road for Cal-Irvine in 1987, Scott Brooks torching University of Pacific, the local school that didn’t offer him a scholarship.

Kirk Gibson hobbling around the bases after his one-legged home run in Game 1 of the 1988 World Series.

Mario Chalmers’ jaw-dropping three-pointer in San Antonio in 2008."


Perhaps. But we'll settle with someone accidentally shot-putting an oblivious hipster on the Tap Room patio.

Our friends at the Sandbar report that (unlike at last week's lame Adult Swim Block Party) there will indeed be beer on the street for this event, as well as $4 Shark Bites. Go here for a rundown of tonight's activities.

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Did we find ourselves covered in glitter at 2:00 am on a Tuesday after a Pony Party at the Replay? Of course not. That's why we're lucky to have the new blog I Heart Local Music, which not only reviews important events such as last night's Dangerous Ponies show but even provides videos so the rest of us can vicariously live through their hip experiences. We are pleased to hear that the show was full of leotards and "brazen beards and meticulous moustaches." Go here and see if you spot any well-known scenesters dancing in the video.

Tuesday, April 19, 2011

Scenester Pick of the Day: Dangerous Ponies / A Pulitzer-Winning Power Point Presentation

We're always looking for new bands who offer us a spectacle on stage (as opposed to the usual indie scenester bands who treat their sets like a minor interruption of their evening of PBR-drinking). Philadelphia's Dangerous Ponies, slated to hit the Replay tonight, may just fill our needs. Look at some of their press material:

"What do you call an EP by a rainbow pop-rock band called Dangerous Ponies that has eight members, three of them being hype-men and women donning fantastical costumes? Obviously, you call it Dr. Ponie, Medicine Ponie."

"...[Dangerous Ponies blend] pop sensibility, solid musicianship and infectious melody with glitter, dancing, tambourines, face paint, heart-shaped guitars, sideways ponytails, you name it!"

With song titles like "I Only Wear My Favorite Clothes at Home" and playful album covers like the one below, we predict the kind of adorable evening that's all too rare since the Transmittens left town.

Chip: "If I don't leave this show covered in glitter, I'm asking for my money back."




















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No one can accuse the Pulitzer committee of making an unhip choice for this year's prize-winner for fiction. They could have easily gone for Franzen's much-praised Freedom (which would have been hip enough), but instead they've awarded the honor to Jennifer Egan's experimental, rock and roll novel A Visit From the Goon Squad, which contains a 78-page reproduction of a power point presentation called "Great Rock and Roll Pauses." We were singing its praises way back in July, if you'd like to refresh your memory here . We can assure you that reading this book increases your hipster quotient greatly, although it certainly would have been hipper to read it prior to its Pulitzer win.

Here's a page from the power point section (click to enlarge):

Richard: "I think this is the very page where I was reading along and suddenly muttered to myself, jealously, 'Egan's got the Pulitzer.'"

Monday, April 18, 2011

Larryville Receives a Foodie Honor / Captain Chanute Reviews Duran Duran's Coachella Set

The Daily Meal just voted Larryville as one of "9 Great Small Food Towns in America":

"The town has a surprising spread of cuisines like Central American food at La Parrilla and a booming gastropub scene with Dempsey’s Burger Pub and Free State Brewing Company leading the pack. Go for the basketball, stay for the food."

Read the full list and watch a slideshow here

LJ-World talkbackers disagree with Larryville's place on the list (of course).

One Eye Wilbur says: "What Lawrence does NOT have that some of the others do have or very close by is: A German Restaurant. Lawrence dining is hardly exceptional when most of it consists of mexican, mexican, mexican and chinese, and more chinese...Lawrence has a sister city in Germany and still cannot get anyone to serve up a schnitzel in Lawrence.

Maybe we ARE weak in the German department, One Eye, but Mass. Street (with the exception of Pickleman's Deli and the return of Chip's beloved-but-hardly exceptional Jefferson's) is getting "foodie"-r by the day. We're particularly excited about the arrival of Curry in a Hurry, which is moving out of its former gas station home and into the big-time.
















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We tend to pay close attention to South By Southwest and the Pitchfork Festival while mostly ignoring Coachella, perhaps because it has "hippie" associations (by virtue of being large and occuring in California). But this year's event, which wrapped up last night, caught our attention with such acts as Arcade Fire and The National (anybody planning to catch them at Starlight this week?), as well as our beloved Animal Collective.

Our friend Captain Chanute, however, was interested in one band and one band only. That band? Duran Duran. We offer you his thoughts on the their performance, which he watched on-line via live webcast (sadly, we could not afford to send him to the festival for a first-hand review):



"If you're like me, and you're too busy slaving for the man to go out and have fun or if you're a recluse that knows virtual fun is better than real fun (which you likely are if you're reading this), then you probably joined me for the live webcast of Coachella this weekend. If you happened to miss it, I'll fill you in on some of the dirty details. Well not all; the Captain only watched one band—a band that created it's own niche at the intersection of media, fashion, consumerism and...androgyny: Duran Duran.

If one had only heard the concert (or were blind, I guess), one would have mistaken it for the DD of yesteryear. Now in their 50s, the prettiest boys in rock played some of the trusty favorites for the smattering of people in the crowd born before 1990, opening with the farsighted New Romantic banner song “Planet Earth” and following with “Hungry Like the Wolf.” They also played energetic, precise versions of “Notorious” (likely garnering some confusion from many young music aficionados who thought it only a sample from B.I.G. Songs), “Ordinary World” (which will be played at the Captain's funeral) and “Rio.”

Judging from the set list, one may think that DD simply played it safe. However, the Brummies inserted new singles from All You Need is Now, their 13th album effort, to stunning fanfare. Mixing trademark new wave elements with contemporary stage complexities like a strings section, an appearance by Ana Matronic from the Scissor Sisters and multiple outfits changes. The new material went over well with the barely legal crowd, mixing catchy dance ballads with an increasingly multifaceted and mature presence seen in all the old hits.

From my own perspective, I found “The Chauffeur” most catching. Spinning in footage from the original video, Simon LeBon donned a driver's cap and played his orchestral flute solo with the glow of electric sex gyrating in the background. Simon then changed into his best 007 white tux for a rendition of “A View to A Kill” before segue-ing into their final piece, “Girls on Film,” a song about blatant sexual fetish—quite apt for the day. In the extended presentation of the song, string accompaniment played pieces of Robbie Williams' “Millennium” and background singers joined Simon in spitting a few verses of Gaga's “Pokerface” while keyboardist Nick Rhodes snapped photos with his digital camera of the goings-on on-stage and in the crowd.

In sum, DD put on a show for everyone. To the tens of thousands of listeners who were too young to enjoy the cocaine- and side-project- fueled 80's, it was a fitting presentation. To the fifty or so people that found this as nostalgic as the Captain, it was downright orgasmic in the most homoerotic sense possible. I can leave off with saying that Duran Duran, for the moment, is back. Rather, they're still here. After 30 years of make-up, millions of miles traveled, even more screaming girls following in tow and some questionable material including Timberlake, DD is still at home in the Captain's heart."

Sunday, April 17, 2011

Sunday Photo Blog: Earth Day and Sonic Bivouac Festival

While most local scenesters were contributing to the Earth's destruction by purchasing tons of vinyl at Record Store Day, we were down at South Park, visiting with the anarchists from Solidarity, who gave us a "seedball" and some literature on its purpose: "Toss this seedball anywhere soil is exposed and help the earth regrow herself into what she wants to be...".

Chip: "I assume it's a ball of marijuana seeds?"














Afterwards, we arrived early to Craig Comstock's Sonic Bivouac "noise festival" and perused the cardboard installations at the Percolator. Can someone please buy this giant bear for Chip on his birthday?













And then it was time for the Leotards (King Tosser and Stephanie Stix) to make a rare public appearance, treating us to an afternoon of songs about cocks, ranging from the punk swagger of "Cock Jokes" to the sexual frenzy of "Sugar Dick."

Chip: "Stix's orgasmic howling surely gave everyone within a four-block radius a major boner."

Oddly enough, several in the crowd were munching on bananas during the set, adding to the evening's phallocentric theme.














Drakkar Sauna were up next. It's hard for anyone to follow a good old-fashioned "Leotarding," but these scenester stalwarts did manage to restore a bit of the evening's promised "family-friendly" atmosphere by warning their own children not to play in the almost-certainly-contaminated stream of water flowing through the Percolator alley.

(notice the completely empty seating area...as always, we scenesters were in the very back, chatting obnoxiously during the sets).

Saturday, April 16, 2011

Tuvan Throat Singing / Love Garden on Record Store Day / And The Leotards Will Rock at 5:00

Sure, there were plenty of traditional scenester shows in Larryville last night (Fourth of July, Quiet Corral), but we were confident that I Heart Local Music would cover those (and they did: visit their site today too). So we chose to spend our Friday evening with most of East Lawrence at a jam-packed, sold out Arts Center performance by the Alash Ensemble. If there's one thing Larryville loves (apparently), it's Tuvan throat singing.

Chip: "Much of it was surprisingly beautiful. And other parts sounded like four different-sized frogs being poked in the belly with sticks."

Richard: "One of the dudes sounded a lot like Tom Waits."

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Love Garden was predictably jammed this morning with scenesters waiting in long lines for their turn at the "exclusives" table. We were too hip to wait in line, so we snapped this picture and moved along. But please write in and tell us about your hippest purchases and, as always, identify the scenesters in this photo to win free PBR's.














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And don't forget this evening's Sonic Bivouac at the Percolator. Our friends The Leotards will open this "family-friendly" show (as the fliers proclaim) promptly at 5:00. Hopefully they'll play such "family-friendly" hits as the song about the big dick ("Sugar Dick") and the song about wanting to fuck Kate Winslet ("Kate Winslet"). We'll be on the scene. Here's a press photo of King Tosser and Stephanie Stix. We also encourage you to buy Tosser's book prior to the show (info here , and available at local bookstores) so that you can engage in a proper intellectual discussion of "subversive rock humor" with him after the set.




Friday, April 15, 2011

Larryville vs. Vice Magazine / Adult Swim Block Party

Local music lovers were in a Twitter uproar yesterday afternoon when notorious hipster site Vice Magazine published a super-snarky review of Larryville band Hospital Ships' new album Lonely Twin.

Here's that review in full:

"I was back at my folks’ house over the holidays watching TV with my dad when an ad for Martin Lawrence’s latest opus Big Mommas: Like Father, Like Son came on. My dad watched in complete silence, then, staring straight ahead, murmured, “Black people and white people will never understand each other.” I feel this way about the East Coast and the Midwest, and this record is my Big Momma’s House."

Chip: "First off, the Big Momma series is fucking funny for everyone, so I fail to see what this guy's on about, or how a movie about a big fat black lady played by a man has anything to do with this record."

Richard: "I'll disagree with your first assertion, Chip, but I too fail to understand how Martin Lawrence's broad comedy (which borders on minstrelsy, I might add, but that's a topic for a more serious blog) is comparable in any way with the subtle indie pop of Hospital Ships."

Our buddies over at I Heart Local Music offer a closer look at the Twitter debate that took shape between Vice and Hospital Ships, as well as their own (much kinder than Vice's) thoughts on the new record. Check it out here

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With almost zero publicity except for the Jayplay, The Adult Swim Block Party arrived for its second appearance in Larryville last night, once again without beer (Larryville, is it THAT hard to obtain a liquor permit for such events?). We arrived just in time for the evening's "Hairiest Man" contest. But none of the contestants seemed especially hairy. Unwilling to wait in long lines for an hour to obtain a free Adult Swim frisbee, we adjourned early in Curren$y's set and joined the old folks at the Lied Center for a delightful evening with Del McCoury and the Preservation Hall Jazz Band, which culminated in a second-line, Mardi Gras march through the Lied with an army of locals twirling their umbrellas and following the band on stage. Verdict: unhip, but fantastic.

Larryville's hairiest men:

Thursday, April 14, 2011

We Prepare For Record Store Day and Sonic Bivouac at the Percolator (Starring the Leotards!)

This Saturday is the hippest day of the year, Record Store Day, and we're ready. As usual, we'll be camping outside Love Garden on Friday night to be first in line for sweet scenester bargains.

Love Garden's got a new policy for early birds this year:

"We'll be handing out numbers to people just before we open at 10am. The first person in line gets the first number, and so on. Each individual will get to grab 5 items to purchase from the exclusives table. We'll proceed through all the numbers until everyone who was in line BEFORE 10am gets their turn at the exclusives table. After everyone with a number has had their turn, then we'll lift the 5 items per-person limit."

Since most true hipsters sleep till noon on Saturdays, we figure the five hippest items on the exclusives table will be all ours!

The Republic Tigers, slated to perform at the store that day, have cancelled, but we're not too bummed: they aren't very hip anyway.

Go here to watch a lovely "visual tribute to the indie record store" set to The Brunette's "Record Store":





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The most rumored, most feared, and least seen band in Larryville makes a rare public appearance this Saturday at the Percolator, 5:00 pm sharp, as part of Craig Comstock's fourth annual Sonic Bivouac. Yes, we're talking about The Leotards, which consist of local punk scholar and Replay habitue King Tosser on guitar and S. Stix on lead vocals, sultry screams, and simulated sex noises.

Also on the bill: Comstock's This Is My Condition, Drakkar Sauna, and Jonathan Nilsson-Nagel. Go to this event. And go here to read the origins of Sonic Bivouac and confirm your attendance on the event's FB page.



Wednesday, April 13, 2011

Larryville Gets An Interactive Cupcake Bar (Plus, The Mass. Street of Yesteryear) / Spot That Activist

Just when we were getting a bit tired of Three Spoons' self-serve, multi-topping "froyo" along comes news of another silly dessert shop on Mass. Street that we are sure to love: an "interactive cupcake bar" called Cupcake Construction Company. If you follow food trends, you know that cupcakes are very hot right now (Cupcake Wars is one of our favorite non-sleazy reality shows, second only to the new show Extreme Couponing). The "interactive" concept sounds complicated, but an article in the Town Talk section of the LJ-World simplifies the process:

"Here’s how it will work: Each day the store will offer a variety of cake flavors, multiple filling options, and several icings. Customers will be able to choose their cake flavor, their filling flavor and their icing flavor. The result will be that there are thousands of possible combinations, kind of like what you are faced with when you go to one of those build your own sundae shops. One other twist is that the store will try to break the trend of cupcake shops being all frilly and girlie. The store will have a construction-based theme. When “building” their cupcakes, customers will be told the cake is the “foundation,” the filling is the “interior,” and the icing is the “roof.”

Chip: "Genius. I love cupcakes, but I don't like their girliness. I predict this place will become a popular stop for frat boys on their way to Brothers, or Tonic, or wherever they go these days for an evening of Jager shots and date rape."

Richard: "If it's all the same to the owners, I'm going to go ahead and refer to the icing as the icing."

But sometimes we wonder what Mass. Street was like way back in the day, before gourmet burgers and "interactive cupcake bars," and even before our era of favorite bars such as the Replay, the Jackpot, the Tap.

This morning we stumbled upon an LJ-World discussion called "Dead Bars I Used to Love," which lists such establishments as the Sanctuary, Bierstube (the 'Stube), the Congo, Bogart's, Off The Wall Hall, Dirty Herbies, Four Winds ("Haskell's babe-mart"), Red's Place, and the Seventh Spirit Club. We'd love to hear more about this bygone era, so if we have any elder statesmen of the scene who still read this blog, we'd love to hear your comments.

And apparently there was also a bar called Quantrill's Saloon on Mass, circa 1979 (photo below).

Chip: "How was this bar approved? And did someone burn it to the ground?"















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As promised, liberal protesters gathered at the Lied yesterday evening prior to Kobach's lecture (Kobach: “If you really want to create a job for an American citizen tomorrow, deport an illegal alien today") and carefully pre-screened Q&A. Name the activists below and we'll buy you a beer while discussing immigration policies.

Tuesday, April 12, 2011

Peaceful Protests / Phosphorescent at Jackpot / The Motherfucker With the Hat on Broadway

A group of Larryville liberals are planning a 6:00 pm protest on the southeast corner of the Lied Center lot in advance of Kris Kobach's lecture tonight, so make sure to prepare your witty signs ("Show us your ID, Kobach!") and join the activists.

We're guessing that "tunahelper" (from the LJ-World talkback on the protest article) will NOT be among the peaceful protesters, though he may be first in line for the lecture:

"we need a 50 foot high 10,000 volt electric fence with border with Mexico. And a mile wide strip of landmines in case any attempt to sneak thru."

We'll buy a PBR for whoever sends us the best photos from tonight's circus (which we won't attend, since we'll be out drinking PBR somewhere hip, such as the Phosphorescent show at the Jackpot).

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We're guessing a lot of scenesters aren't pleased that Phosphorescent has drifted away from the "forlorn wilderness folk" (Pitchfork) of their early records and into a full album of Willie Nelson covers followed by an accessible album of "beer-soaked, sun-baked country-rock," (Pitchfork) but we're the rare scenesters who prefer music to be halfway-listenable, so we're quite pleased with the transition.

Allow us a personal remembrance here, since we had a fascinating Phosphorescent moment at the Jackpot a few years back. At one point the band, covering a John Mellencamp tune (possibly "The Authority Song," though PBR makes things fuzzy) tossed the mic into the audience, encouraging us all to pass it around and continue the lyrics. What should have been a cathartic, communal rock and roll moment, however, went astray as the crowd was either (a) too hip to acknowledge they knew the lyrics except for a few half-baked and sneeringly ironic attempts or (b) actually unfamiliar with the lyrics. So the moment became instead a perfect illustration of the scenester aesthetic: the perfect refusal to have fun at a fucking rock and roll show.

Chip: "Speak for yourself. I totally rocked 'The Authority Song.'"

Tonight's opener is The Hips, for those of you who can't make it through a week without at least one set by Drakkar Sauna or a Drakkar-related side-project.

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Surely the best thing on Broadway: Spider Man Turn Off the Dark (so dangerous, literally!). Surely the second best: Parker and Stone's Book of Mormon (so delightfully blasphemous!). Surely the third best: The Motherfucker in the Hat , the new play by Stephen Adly Guirgis (which also marks the Broadway debut of Chris Rock) with a title which can only be printed as The _________ With the Hat in most major publications.

Ben Brantley's theater review begins with a consideration of the title, which he proclaims "vexing for those of us who would like to extol the virtues of “The ___________ With the Hat,” at least in public. (The title also seems to have created problems for the people trying to publicize the play.)"

Shouldn't 'art' and free speech win out over journalistic prudishness and propriety in this case? (and how will this be dealt with on TV at the Tony's, which the play is likely to take by storm?). At least you can go to the play's official website and hear Broadway legend Elaine Stritch relishing the title! Please click here and enjoy!

Monday, April 11, 2011

Controversial Event of the Week: Kris Kobach Lecture at KU / Bill Maher in Larryville

Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach will give the annual Vickers lecture at the Lied Center on Tuesday night. Known for his instrumental role in drafting the controversial Arizona illegal immigrant legislation and for his current crusade against Kansas voter fraud (he believes the illegals are voting in high numbers), Kobach is, needless to say, not a favorite of Larryville liberals.

A group of outraged Larryville liberals: "Let's show our tolerance by shouting him down until we get thrown out of the Lied Center, like we did a few years back when Ann Coulter was here."

Chip: "Personally, I think it's nice to see the conservative position get represented for once in this town. However, I wish they'd gone with an even more controversial choice, such as Kansas Representative Virgil Peck, who recently made the comment about shooting illegals 'like feral pigs.' I bet he'd deliver a great lecture that plays as sort of a cross between FOX news and the Redneck Comedy Tour."

Richard: "I'm just going to ignore this event and bide my time until the Henry Louis Gates Jr. lecture on Thursday."


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With liberal hero and notorious anti-religious comedian Bill Maher in town last night for a show at Liberty, it was a given that the Phelps' crew would be on the scene. Here's a photo from our Twitter friend @goodfox. This guy on his cell phone looks like he's a bit bored with his protesting duties. He couldn't even think of anything very specific for God to hate.




















But Maher seems to have had a good time in Larryville last night.

He tweets: "Thank u Lawrence, very hip town, as advertised."

Sunday, April 10, 2011

Stoner Picks: Bad Dream at Replay and Woodsman at Jackpot / Reality Show of the Week: Showtime's Gigolos

We're entering the lazy days of spring in Larryville, and tonight and tomorrow look like good nights to take in some stoner-y rock and roll. We love every band out of Brooklyn, so tonight's set by Bad Dream at the Replay is a must-see, but hipper still is tomorrow's Woodsman show at the Jackpot. Woodsman is an "experimental ambient post-psychedelic band" out of Denver and Pitchfork digs their Mystery Tape EP, which receives a 7.7:

"Despite their reliance on electronic elements and looping devices, their sound is naturalistic and reminiscent of some of the more outré acts from the late, great Jewelled Antler Collective, who would sometimes rely only on field recordings and scraped-pinecone sounds to evoke nature's aura."

Richard: "I've always said that one of the major missing elements in the Larryville music scene is 'scraped-pinecone sounds.' This show will be excellent."


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If you're like us, you prefer your reality shows to be sleazy and crude (remember our fondness for the sadly short-lived series The Cougar?). Jersey Shore satisfies some of these needs(we love the talk of "smush rooms" and "grenade whistles"), but it's far too popular for our tastes. So we've decided to champion Showtime's new late-night reality series, Gigolos, which follows the lives of a number of male prostitutes in Vegas.

Let's see what the NY-Times says:

"It’s almost impossible to watch “Gigolos,” a bluntly pornographic Showtime reality series about male prostitutes who cater exclusively to women and not be distracted with illicit thoughts of ... release forms."

Chip: "I disagree. It's totally possible to watch without any thoughts of 'release forms.' As for me, I was focused on all the boning."

"Showtime deserves some credit for creative casting. The producers of “Gigolo” somehow found camera-ready clients like Rodney and Allure, a middle-aged couple who pay Jimmy to have sex with Allure while Rodney, and the audience, watch. “It’s my birthday,” Allure explains. All sorts of clients submit quite eagerly to decidedly explicit and unromantic depictions of sexual intercourse."

Chip: "How is this NOT a romantic birthday present? Also, I found the show to be ultimately quite inspiring, as the boning scenes tend to be accompanied by thoughtful voice-overs in which the men talk about 'giving 100% to their jobs.' I'll watch every week."

Saturday, April 9, 2011

Saturday Photo Blog: Larryville Farmer's Market / Plus: Middle of the Map Fest

We spent Friday evening with the townies, basking in the sunshine on the Free State patio like a couple of turtles (scenester turtles) while being entertained by a busker magician, who posed for us.

Chip: "I thought buskers were only allowed on the streets during one designated weekend in August, so I quickly alerted the authorities."
















This morning brought one of spring's most-anticipated events: opening day of the downtown Farmer's Market. We stocked up on "goat butter soap" and Free State Oatmeal Stout cupcakes.

Food trucks are so hip right now:















Chip was fascinated (and maybe a little aroused) by this painted statue woman holding court in the middle of the Market, but she wasn't a great statue: at one point she broke character and rushed off to retrieve a dollar bill blowing through the Market.















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KC's Middle of the Map Fest is under way, and we're not attending. Luckily, we have Chewyfally's new site to insure that important musical events actually get documented in a timely fashion these days. Her report assures us that there were "Lawrence peeps as far as the eye could see" at the Festival's opening night.

Go here for thoughts on sets by The Casket Lottery and Appleseed Cast, as well as Micki Hadley's photos, which include these two dudes. Are they Larryville "peeps" too?


Friday, April 8, 2011

This Week in Local Film: The Spook Lights Need Your Help

If you've got any money left over this weekend after shelling out for Daniel Johnson's mental illness, BARRR's comedy stylings, and the local veggies at tomorrow's opening day of the Farmer's Market, please consider giving some of it to The Spook Lights, who are planning their follow-up to It Starts With Murder to be called The Galactic Jungle:

"We're shooting a low-budget, high-camp melodrama detailing life amongst the bedrooms and boardrooms of our solar system's power elite. Think DALLAS or DYNASTY in outer space, with more robots and male nudity.

We would like to raise around $3,000 to pay for costumes, set-pieces, psychedelic lights, and spaceship building supplies.

We have actors, we have a screenplay. We have access to a camera and a microphone.

What we don't have are space stations, androids, and giant video screens. What kind of future is bereft of these things?

A few thousand dollars would go a long way towards helping us suspend disbelief for a couple of hours!"


Chip: "If I donate enough, can I appear nude in this film?"

That isn't listed as one of the options on their Kickstarter page, Chip, but a pledge of $1000 or more will get you a speaking part in their next project, and even much lesser pledges ($25) offer excellent benefits, such as your name in the credits and a copy of the DVD.

Go here to get on board!

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In the meantime, what should we see at the multiplex this weekend?

Ebert gives Your Highness one star and writes, "Your Highness" is a juvenile excrescence that feels like the work of 11-year-old boys in love with dungeons, dragons, warrior women, pot, boobs and four-letter words. One of the heroes even wears the penis of a minotaur on a string around his neck."

Chip: "I'm in line as I write this. A minotaur's penis is comedy gold."

Wednesday, April 6, 2011

BARRR Shares a Secret / Another Article Proclaims the Death of Hipster Culture / Side Project of the Week: Dr. Octor

Perhaps the essence of scenester culture is the feeling you're part of an exclusive club, and perhaps no local event is better at providing that feeling than BARRR's "secret" comedy shows. The second installment of the series is tomorrow night, and BARRR drops by to give you the scoop. Here's his blurb, interspersed with a few parenthetical thoughts from Chip and Richard:


"If you made it to the debut of Shhhhh: Secrets, you know it was a wild event. [refresh your memory with Tweetnastyy's review here ]. I'm booking super intimate private/secret events all year. I don't announce where the show is or what time it is until the day of the show. You gotta be in the know and paying attention. The point of Shhhhh:Secrets is to get a few performers/artists/comedians together to work out new material or simply to try something different. We had a packed house last time. It was incredible. This is not for the conservative crowd either. My stand up is usually pretty brutal & honest. It's more cathartic story telling and crowd interaction. [Chip: "Why can't modern comedy just let me sit quietly in the dark and laugh? I have a feeling BARRR will single me out and make fun of my boners."]. Doing something different leaves open the possibility of things going terribly wrong. That's why we keep it intimate! I don't want to deal with a bunch of jerk offs expecting Dane Cook. [Richard: "The primary difference between this show and a Dane Cook show is that this show has the potential to be funny."] It's also harder to perform with 50 people staring at you 5 ft away. No Stage. You can make direct eye contact with everyone in the room. It's really intimidating, but it's really rewarding to see your act work. It's a rush you can't get anywhere else. Mystery guests are booked & I will deliver an entire new set of material. [Chip: "However, I'll be shouting requests for a bit of the older stuff too, such as BARRR's patented catchphrase 'rape cottage.'"]. So....you're wondering where do I get the info?! Email BARRRHEAVEN ( AT ) GMAIL for the announcement on Friday of where & when the show will be. The Show is always at 8pm. This allows you to come out early, get drunk, laugh, & go out! The show is a fundraiser for the A.D.D. podcast! Only $5 BYOB! Beer will also be available for sale on the cheap!

Keep your ears to the soil...cuz that's where the story is!

JBARRR"


Also: check out BARRR's new podcast interview with comedian TJ Miller (Chip: I loved him as Ranger Jones in Yogi Bear!") here.

BARRR prepping for a comedy show:




















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You can't tell it in Larryville, but the media keeps insisting that hipster culture is dead. The most well-known piece on the subject is probably the New York Times "What Was the Hipster?," which we have considered here in the past.

But today our Twitter-buddy @boredintellect tips us off to a new, snarkier, (hipper?), piece called "Let’s No Longer Make Love, Nor Listen To Death From Above: The Hipster’s Eulogy." In this piece, Kyle Fitzpatrick examines three recent events: the last shows of LCD Soundsystem, the decline of American Apparel, and (of course) Carles closing down Hipster Runoff:

"The most vocal and ironic of all ironers in the past decade, the site was a shining beacon of pop culture commentary by, for, and against hipster culture. Hipster Runoff was a conundrum: it was in on the joke, while living the joke, but didn’t ever know the punchline."

Chip: "That's what we aspire to here, except we tend to offer punchlines, usually in the form of boners."

Fitzpatrick concludes that we're entering a "Posthipster" world, but his definition of that world isn't much different than the old scene, it seems:

"Posthipster, a person who has avoided Pabsts being thrusted upon him by partygoers and has instead grabbed up a newly redesigned bottle of Miller High Life."

Read the piece here .

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Those guys in Drakkar Sauna are so prolific. They write books, they serve us PBRs, and they find time for numerous side projects such as The Hips and Dr. Octor, who rocked the Replay last night. Chewyfally assures us that there were an "exquisite number of mustaches in the audience." That's all we needed to know.

Read the I Heart Local Music review of the show
here

Local Election Recap / Middle of the Map Fest / Hashtag of the Month: #TKAMB

The votes are in, and Sven did not win. According to local talkbackers on the LJ-World message board, the bankrupt Sven can go back to what he normally does: posting on the message boards under numerous aliases.

The LC congratulates winning City Commissioners Mike Dever, Hugh Carter, and Bob Schumm, who owns Buffalo Bob's and Dynamite Saloon. The talkback comment of the day goes to "hitme," who quotes the brilliant line from Bob's Dynamite Saloon commercial:

"How 'bout a Fat Tire Amber Ale....... right now."

Watch the ad here

But how many write-in votes did Chip get in yesterday's contest? At least two, from Chip and Richard (Chip: "Actually, I just drew a picture of myself. With a boner.").

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After driving the hippies and their Wakarusa Fest out of town and down South to Mulberry Mountain, one would think that Larryville could establish a music festival more befitting our scenester aesthetic. Last year's Garage Fest was awesome, but it was (presumably?) a one-off event. And even our North vs. South (Minneapolis vs. Austin) Festival has ditched the Replay and the Jackpot for KC in recent years.

This weekend, KC hosts a new scenester festival, Middle of the Map Fest, in the bars of Westport. Perhaps the biggest draw is Daniel Johnston (mental illness is always hip). In addition to national acts such as Johnson and Cursive and The Raveonettes (who also rocked Garage Fest), the festival also features numerous local and regional bands worth catching, such as Larryville's Appleseed Cast and KC's The Life and Times and Capybara, a band we've been wanting to see for some time now, especially after looking at this adorable photo of the band members hanging out with their namesake creature!

Go here for full details.















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Our Read Across Lawrence/Twitter Book Club discussion of To Kill a Mockingbird is so popular the hashtag #TKAMB has begun popping up in sidewalk chalk at KU. Look closely at the below photo and you'll see the hashtag and a picture of a mockingbird! Join us on Twitter and find out how the book compares to the post-modern texts we normally devour (hint: it's better!).


Tuesday, April 5, 2011

The LC's Book Club Reads DFW's Posthumous The Pale King / Scenester Pick of the Day: The Seedy Seeds

Perhaps you're reading today's entry while waiting in line to vote at your local polling place (that's a joke: there aren't any lines). But that doesn't mean folks aren't interested. The LJ-World talkback forums are buzzing with ideas about Sven's bankruptcy, along with obscure suggestions for write-in candidates, such as this one from somedude20:


"Vote for Johnny Chimpo, Gordon Shumway and Nile Rodgers!!!!!!!!"


But we turn our attention today to literature. The most important literary event of the year--the release of David Foster Wallace's posthumous novel The Pale King--is almost upon us: it's slated for an April 15th Tax Day release, timed to coincide with its subject matter of IRS agents.

TIME magazine offers an excerpt from the novel:

"Howard Cardwell turns a page. Ken Wax turns a page. "Groovy" Bruce Channing attaches a form to a file. Ann Williams turns a page. Anand Singh turns two pages at once by mistake and turns one back which makes a slightly different sound. David Cusk turns a page. Sandra Pounder turns a page. Robert Atkins turns two separate pages of two separate files at the same time."

Richard: "I predict the entire novel is exactly like this and, if so, I'm already prepared to declare it a masterpiece."

A few years back we participated in an on-line summer reading and discussion group, Infinite Summer, which tackled DFW's massive Infinite Jest, and we had a blast with our daily discussions of The Mad Stork, tennis arcana, wheelchair assassins, armies of feral hamsters, Canadian double and triple-agents, The Year of the Trial Size Dove Bar, and page after page after motherfucking page of footnotes. If The Pale King offers 1/3 as much joy and frustration, count us in.


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At first we assumed The Seedy Seeds, playing tonight at the Replay, were merely an Americana band, and we were mildly excited. Then we discovered that they are an "Americana/indie-electronica" band, and we were even more excited. Then we read a review in which the first sentence compares them to beloved Larryville-band The Anniversary, and we were sold:

"The Anniversary, only with more noodly keys and banjos? What the fuck? Okay, wait, I take that back — actually, this is nearer to The Postal Service with banjos, or maybe Mates of State, or…hell, make that a combination of all three. The Seedy Seeds wed sweet, bumping keys and rhythms to banjo and accordion, then throw gorgeous melodies and earnestly-dueling indie male/female vocals on top of that, and the resulting amalgam is both fairly unique and pretty damn cool." (www.spacecityrock.com)

Watch a video here