Art Review: Wonder Fair's "Our Tube" / Weekend Scenester Guide: Level Grind, Minden, Salute! and much more

Being film-lovers, we were delighted to see that the Wonder Fair gents had transformed the gift shop at the Spencer Museum into an old-fashioned "one-plex"--with 12 seats, a ticket booth, and free popcorn--for last night's first installment of "Our Tube."

The 20-ish minute film began with a rap video from Bangs extolling the joys of moviegoing, proceeded through a series of birdcalls by Eric Dobbins (such as the fart bird), and climaxed with a trenchant examination of the nature of criticism. During a filmed lecture on the 5 elements of criticism, the film went mysteriously (but deliberately) silent, leading one of the Wonder Fair gang (Piechocki?) to walk us through a live lecture of what was being said on screen. Film became "reality." Criticism became a living, breathing force.

Chip: "It was as meta as an episode of Community."

Richard: "I was inspired by the power of criticism in a way that I haven't been since reading Terry Eagleton's Literary Theory."

Part 2 of "Our Tube" arrives on July 28, Part 3 on August 11, and Part 4 on Aug. 25.

Chip: "I think it's probably necessary to see all four to understand what the fuck is going on."



---

Our showcase event for the weekend is Astrokitty's Level Grind (flier in sidebar), tomorrow night at the Granada. It's funny to see geeks dance. And we've worked up some pretty sweet pony-dances to perform when New Suede plays Horses .

Minden's at the Replay tonight. They're getting a little local buzz and Chip thinks the cover of their new album is "arousing." Visit their Bandcamp page here .





















At the Granada tonight, Doug Compton's son, calling himself C3, will be rapping about smoking blunts.

And one of our new favorites, the Jenny Mules, is at the Jackpot tonight. We recently wrote a piece about them.

If you're looking for a show with offensive band names, make sure to catch Ex-Fag Cop and Cuntaloupe at the Replay on Saturday. From a Pitchweekly review of a Cuntaloupe song: "the chorus had the foursome yelling "total bitch, total bitch, total bitch" in unison."

And if you've got $150 bucks to spare (probably none of the readers of this blog), you can join Salute! A Festival of Wine and Food, tonight at the Oread. You probably noticed the festival's Mass. Street Mosey last night, whose participants (apparently) were allowed to strut down the street drinking wine with impunity while we had to drink our PBR in designated areas like a couple of suckers, watching the rich folks walk by.