Monday, September 10, 2012

Tuesday and Wednesday Scenester Picks: David Wax Museum and Nerd Nite's "Down Home" Edition


David Wax Museum hits the Bottleneck tomorrow (Tues. Sept. 11),  riding high on a new album called Knock Knock Get Up and a recent NY-Times piece regarding their Mexico-via-Appalachia (via Missouri) sounds:

"Onstage Mr. Wax often plays a jarana, an eight-stringed baroque guitar, while the other core member of his band, the fiddle player Suz Slezak, sometimes picks up a quijada, the percussion instrument made from the jawbone of an ass."

Folks, we've been waiting quite some time to witness an ass-jawbone jam session!  See you there.

Here's David Wax wearing red pants in a forest:

david-wax-museum-2.jpg

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LFK, we hope that you are all ready to Bone, if you catch our meaning!  (we mean that the Read Across Lawrence/Winter's Bone events are kicking into high gear).

This week's Nerd Nite (Wednesday at Pachamama's) serves up a "Down Home" edition inspired by this year's Read Across Lawrence selection.  Here are the three presentations:

1)  "Behaving Bad: The Dirty South (mostly) in Literature, or Grit Lit:" by Susan Brown and Sean Barker

We're told by Susan that this presentation may involve a discussion of drowning puppies, but we suspect that no actual puppies will be drowned during the presentation. 

[You can also join Susan and Sean at the LPL on Thursday evening from 7:00-8:30 for an even more fleshed-out take on "grit-lit":  details here.]

2)  The chemistry and biology of meth by Bryan Smith  

This presentation is billed as "an overview of methamphetamine from the perspective of someone who works on making new legal drugs for a living."  

We'll assume that free samples of some of these new drugs will be offered during the presentation.


3)  Picking and Plucking: A short history (and demonstration) of the fiddle and the banjo by James Brown

Finally, some live music at this event!  And James Brown is coming back from the dead to play the fiddle for some reason??  This is shaping up to the be the best Nerd Nite ever.


And (perhaps?) for the first time ever, Wednesday's Nerd Night will be followed by Super Nerd Night at the Bottleneck.  Totally different event, but equally nerdy (there's a band called The 8th Horcrux playing: now that's nerdy!).   Readers, do you dare attempt a Nerd Nite/Super Nerd Night double-header?




Super Nerd Night "Weird" Edition



1 comment:

Unknown Hipster said...

Dear Nog: I went to summer camp with David Wax in Fulton, MO. I shit you not. This is true. He was in a band at the time called Cat's Pajamas. This dude is undoubtedly a genius. Tell him his childhood says hello.