Mid-Week Music and Literary Picks: Shovels and Rope, Mike Coykendall, James Greer

Readers, as best as we can tell, the looming government shutdown will not immediately affect PBR prices or consumption, so let's take a look at what's going on this week.

It's a good week for us twangy, rootsy types.  This past Saturday brought the lovely Amanda Shires and Ozark rascals Ha Ha Tonka to the Bottleneck (read our Shires review from yesterday here).  And Tuesday brings Shovels and Rope along with Shakey Graves.

It's been too long since we quoted a bizarre Daytrotter band description, and this description of the duo Shovels and Rope is a doozy:

"They strike us as the kind of couple who sit around their John's Island, South Carolina, home giving each other shit in the most loving way possible, reading Howard Zinn books, stitching beans and rice onto an old J. Crew coat and generally living a leisure life, where some of the greatest parts of it are chewing the fat with their country neighbors and rubbing good old Townes Van Zandt Robinson's doggy belly until he just can't stand it anymore, as he lies by their feet."  (full description here).

Their live show is reputed to be a bona fide hootenanny.   Listen to "Birmingham" via Bandcamp here.




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Mike Coykendall hits the Replay on Wednesday along with LFK's The Harrisonics.  Among other things, Mike Coykendall has been part of She and Him.  Well, he's definitely not the She or the Him, but we'll take his word that he's in the band.  And we'll keep our fingers crossed that Zooey shows up too (though we've primarily moved on to other musical crushes these days).






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On Thursday, James Greer, writer and former member of Guided By Voices drops by The Raven to talk about his new story collection, Everything Flows, which features "color collages" by GBV's Mr. Bob Pollard.  Later that night Greer's band DTCV (we prefer to call it "Detective") performs at the Jackpot.

The site Curbside Splendor says of the story collection that "Greer mixes anachronistic pseudo-history  and unserious/serious digressions into pop culture, pop physics, pop philosophy and pop music (see: the title), to arrive at something both universal in scope and intensely personal."

They had us at "anachronistic pseudo-history."

 

Perhaps PBR Book Club should attend this event and spread around some merchandise featuring their new logo.  Actually, the merchandise may not be ready yet, but it's soon to adorn beer koozies and stickers near you.

Special Sunday Blog Pick: Thollem Electric's Keyngdrum Overdrive with Craig Comstock / Concert Recap: Amanda Shires at the Bottleneck

Readers, if you're anything like us, you are pacing the fucking floor all day waiting for the Breaking Bad finale.  What kind of sick mischief will Todd dish out?  Will Jesse survive?  Will the legend of Heisenberg live on throughout eternity?

No matter what, when it's over, you're going to be all jazzed up and need to blow off some steam.

So hit the Taproom for a bizarre evening with Thollem Electric's Keyngdrum Overdrive. Thollem is an internationally-known piano wizard who is currently traveling around the country playing with an array of drummers.  And his drummer in LFK is none other than our pal Craig Comstock (of This Is My Condition).  Check out Thollem's site here and read Thollem's impressive bio  and listen to some tunes, such as "Grunt Sculpin."

Signal to Noise calls the sound a "A supercollider centrifuge...bespattered with beautiful madness.” Which actually sounds sort of like Breaking Bad, if you think about it.

There's a FB event page here. Five people are going, at least.  Will you join them?

 

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Armed with a ukulele, her trusty fiddle, a foul-mouth, a southern accent, and a bad-ass stand-up bassist, Amanda Shires stopped by the Bottleneck in support of her Down Fell the Doves album to play us some lovely, lilting folk and country tunes last night, along with a Leonard Cohen cover ("I'm Your Man") and a little snippet of Sir Mix A Lot ("Shake that healthy butt.").  There was also a story about a guy named Tiger Bill giving her an actual Siberian tiger claw after a show and an anecdote about meeting Conan O'Brien when she and hubby Jason Isbell performed on his show recently (watch the performance below via Youtube).  It's safe to say everyone fell a little in love, but especially all the dudes making catcalls (was Chip amongst them? Almost certainly yes).  "Sounds like a buncha cats in here," Shires quipped.

After the show, we even chatted briefly with Shires about the greatness of Todd Snider (she's all over his recent Agnostic Hymns and Stoner Fables album)  as well as our old stomping grounds in Arkansas ("I joke about Arkansas, but lovingly," she assured us).  

Oh, and Ha Ha Tonka played too.  The Ozark boys were not bad!  They seem to be attempting a Wilco-ish shift away from their rustic roots these days on the new Bloodshot album Lessons (though they lack Wilco's lyrical/musical mastery) but the harmonies are intact and the sound is rocking and the crowds are eating it up.  We didn't ride it out to the end.  Do they still cover Big Smith's "12-Inch 3 Speed Oscillating Fan" these days?

 
 

More Weekend Picks: Wonder Fair Weirdness; Dead Girls, Amanda Shires, Pale Hearts, and Heisenberg

Wonder Fair can't wait for Halloween to do weird shit, so they'll kick off the season tomorrow with something called "Greatest Hits and the Dead-End Diener."  Read about it here via the Wonder Fair site.

"Visitors to last year’s Cemetery Cinema may remember Dustin Williams’ pun-filled video store, staffed by a surly ghost, lined with fictional VHS tapes, and entombed in cobwebs. This year, Williams--along with fellow artists Cameron Lamontagne and Jon Linn--will expand his ghostly real estate to open the Dead End Diner."

The FB event page is here.



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"Mean" Melin is mostly known these days for NOT playing an instrument (if you catch our air-guitar reference). But don't forget that he's also in a kick-ass band that actually does play instruments. Catch their CD release on Friday at the Replay.  It's an extra-solid triple bill featuring the ever-pretty pop tunes of the ACB's and our rockin' pals in Rev Gusto.



We're big fans of female fiddlers, so we were hyped when we heard that Amanda Shires opens up for Ha Ha Tonka at the Bottleneck on Saturday.  Also, we find her attractive.  But she's Jason Isbell's gal and, since he put out the best singer-songwriter-y album we've heard this year (Southeastern), we'll try not to hit on her.  (Chip: "No promises").  It's a KJHK-sponsored show.  Check it out.  Rolling Stone gives her a 3 and a a half star review:  "A multi-talented fiddler schooled in Western swing as a whippersnapper member of the Texas Playboys, Amanda Shires nowadays writes and sings dark, deceptively pretty songs as a solo act...On "A Song For Leonard Cohen," she fantasizes a date with her artistic hero in which she gets him drunk and then sticks him with the bill. He'd still be a fool to turn her down."  Agreed!

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If you prefer to spend your Saturdays in an old cockfighting pit, Pale Hearts can be found in the basement at Frank's.  This wins our flyer of the week award:




But who is responsible for the heinous (yet hilarious) vandalism of a Pale Hearts sticker in the Replay men's room?  (photo below).  We're guessing it was Chip.  Or maybe the folks over at LFK's newest arts and entertainment enterprise known as fART LyFE.  Visit their FB site here and their new website launches soon (tomorrow?).

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And Sunday? It's the Breaking Bad series finale, dummies.  So cancel all your other plans.  Here's a cool fan art image of Heisenberg.

Final Friday Picks (Part One): Catfish, "Intimate" Rock From Cowboy Indian Bear, and ELFK Art and Film

We'll tackle the late-night weekend music scene later, but for now here are three picks for the early part of your Friday evening.

Lawrence is many things, but it's never been a town where you can get really good Southern-style fried catfish.  But the fine folks at Terrebone do make a decent catfish po-boy, and on Friday they'll be dishing up a full-on "fish fry" at a benefit for Friends of the Kaw down at Abe and Jake's.  There's live music and "river art" and catfish.  Enough said.

Chip:  "Are they using the mutant, three-eyed fish from the Kaw?"




After you stuff yourself with fried fish, unwind with an "intimate" show by Cowboy Indian Bear at Love Garden, along with CS Luxem.  When last we saw Luxem (in fact, last night) he was strumming some really pretty songs outside the Percolator for a bunch of moon-worshipping hippies at an equinox party.





And did Invisible Hand move into the Cider Gallery when we weren't looking? The image below says yes.  Damn, we haven't been to the ELFK arts district in too long, apparently.  Anyway, their Final Friday film installation looks cool as hell, so get out there on Friday and check it out (and catch a presentation and film by the artist at Liberty Hall on Thursday).  Visit the FB event page here

Odd Event of the Week: The Goonies on Mass. Street / Local Controversy of the Week: Guth Takes a Holiday

The City Fathers don't always do the right thing (anybody remember porch couches!) but occasionally they bow to the will of the people. And the people want to see the fucking Goonies projected on a giant inflatable screen on a closed-down block of Mass. Street.  So make sure to head down on Thursday evening for beer and food at 7:00 and the movie at 9:00.  Chip is very good at the Truffle Shuffle and is happy to show you.

Did any of you old-bastard readers see The Goonies when it opened at The Granada in 1985?   (yes, children, the Granada showed actual movies in the days of old).




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The most interesting local controversy over the past week has been the continuing shouting match over KU journalism professor David W. Guth's provocative Twitter comment after last week's Navy Yard mass shooting:

The tweet in question:

"The blood is on the hands of the #NRA. Next time, let it be YOUR sons and daughters. Shame on you. May God damn you."

Guth soon found himself on a paid vacation from the university (not because of what he said, the Chancellor assured the community, but because of the disruption it might cause in the world of KU's student scholars).  The move inspired the expected applause from some, outrage from others, and a wealth of opinions from the ever-opinionated LJ-World talkbackers:  was this indeed the best move? or was KU bowing to the will of conservatives calling for Guth's head (and almost certainly failing to see the irony in their own death threats, which were far more clear than the ones implied in the tweet)?

Let's take a look at some trenchant comments from the most recent LJ-World piece on the issue:

In a classic (and ever-popular) talkback strategy, Merrill attacks anyone from Topeka who weighs in : "This matter is a KU situation that does not need any rhetoric from Topeka,Kansas. Topeka,Ks has been home to ALEC Right Wing spin for too many years. Let's flush it down the toilet."

kuhoopsfan invokes a Godfather comparison:  "I read that the provost is trying to determine how long Mr Guth should stay away ... reminds me of the Godfather when Vito Corleone says Michael had to leave the country after all those false charges and he now had to figure out how to bring Michael back."

question4u attempts to employ cleverness (never a good idea on the LJ-World talkbacks) to expose potential ironies of the reaction through the use of other Kansas examples:   "When Republican State Representative Virgil Peck advocated, on the floor of the Kansas House, the use of automatic weapons and helicopters to murder immigrants State Sen. Greg Smith, R-Overland said that Peck's speech was inexcusable because it "urges people to use guns to perpetrate violence on other people and their children.'" Wait, no he didn't.  Smith must have said that when Republican Speaker of the House Mike O'Neal sent an email about Obama, including the first part of a biblical quote that ends "may his children be orphans and his wife a widow." Wait, no, Smith didn't say it then either. What's the pattern here?"

But it's Optimist who probably gets closest to the real truth here:  "Mr. Guth is an idiot, those threatening him are idiots, and the rest of us are caught in the middle, captivated by their idiocy."


Chip:  "Guth's Twitter account has now been entirely deleted.  Is anyone else at least slightly suspicious that either KU or the NRA may have quietly 'disappeared' him?

Banned Book Trading Cards / Tuesday Picks for Horror Fans and Hippie Moon-Worshippers / Foodie Corner

The first-ever Banned Books trading card ceremony was a success at Liberty Hall last week, complete with air-guitar theatrics by Mean Melin and a bizarre "Banned Books ballet" featuring the evening's host Mark Twain.  Make sure to pick your cards up each day this week at the library.  Yesterday's was Bless Me, Ultima (banned for Satanism and "religious viewpoints") and today's is Leaves of Grass.  Click here for a great pic of LFK mayor Mike Dever proudly holding a copy of this "satanic" Bless Me, Ultima.

And here's a pic of Chip's thumb holding yesterday's card:

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We like Horror Remix but sometimes the re-cut versions of the films are STILL too long for our taste, even at a 30-40 minute range.  So we're excited about the "Variety Show" edition which hits the Bottleneck tomorrow.  As we understand it, there's only one featured film this time ("a classic evil kid movie" called Don't Go To Sleep) along with an hour of random madness from various films.  Visit the website here.




If horror movies are not your thing, how about dancing around outside under the moon to celebrate the beginning of fall?  Head to the Percolator for an event called "Harvest Moonsongs" which promises
"an evening of equinoxial celebration and harmonious joy."  CS Luxem is among the featured performers. so it's certain to get weird.  And there's poetry too.  Chip is rolling his eyes right now.  Visit the FB event page here to find out that 33 of your moon-loving friends will be there.  Most of them are almost certainly from ELFK.

Here is the featured image from the FB page:





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You foodies will be pleased to know that Merchant's Pub and Plate is indeed up and running and we stopped by over the weekend to sample a fried walleye sandwich (good) and a dessert topped with apple cider ice cream and bacon (good, obviously).  Also, the fries are FAR superior to Free State's sad-new replacement fries.  Dennis came in wearing a tail while we were there, and seemed to give the place his seal of approval.  The only downside was that the restaurant was out of the first beer we tried to order from the 30-beer menu ("Don't think we have that one today.  What's your backup beer?").  We look forward to future visits.




Over at the Burger Stand we weren't quite bold enough to try the "Goose, Goose Dog," a roasted goose leg served on a bun with gooseberry jam.  It was a one-night special (we think?) as part of a Wonder Fair print event. Burger Stand connoisseur Colin pronounced the dish "surprisingly lackluster." 
 
But we're big fans of this fry-munching dinosaur currently stationed in the front window!

Weekend Picks: Music, Movies, and Merchant's Pub and Plate

Look: it's our ol' pal Til Willis and Erratic Cowboy rocking the Replay matinee on Friday this week.  We chatted politics with him last year in a fun interview.



If you're looking for a place to shake your ass, we recommend the ever-funky, Afro-beat all-stars Hearts of Darkness down at the Bottleneck on Friday.   LFK's own SUNU opens up.  We caught SUNU last Sunday at the Replay matinee and were impressed by how many gorgeous women were drunk and dancing at 6:00 pm on a Sunday.  And the band was pretty hot too.  Visit the FB event page here to find out that at least 95 of your funkiest friends will be packing the dance floor.



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We're declaring Saturday to be Merchant's Day in LFK, as the new gastropub finally opens its doors (postponed from Thursday) with 30 beers on tap for your boozing pleasure.  PBR isn't one of them (sorry, scenesters!) but we're looking  forward to swilling some Ambidextrous Sticke Alt from Left Hand brewery and munching on some "Bee Stings" : "manchego cheese drizzled with truffle-infused local honey and fresh cracked pepper."  Keep tabs on them via their Facebook page for numerous pictures of food, booze, and the new sign.





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Naked River Readings returns to Frank's on Sunday. We understand that no one is actually naked at this event, so our interest level has waned (along with Chip's boner).  Also, don't worry.  This event should be over prior to Frank's weekly Breaking Bad watch party.




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If movies are your thing, consider a free screening of the 1978 cult-classic Piranha at the Natural History Museum tonight.  A surprisingly R-rated choice for the Myths and Mayhem series.  We approve.

Chip: "Awww, I was hoping this would be the new 3-D  reboot where the severed dick floats right up in your face!"

Details via the museum site here.



Our friends at Liberty Hall are finally opening up Fruitvale Station this weekend. It's the film about race that people SHOULD be seeing in great numbers instead of Lee Daniels' The Butler.  You'll cry for pretty much the duration, but it's worth it.



The fall film season kicks off on a mildly intriguing note at the multiplex as Prisoners opens.  We weren't particularly excited till we realized it was shot by the great Roger Deakins (our favorite Coens' cinematographer).  The New Yorker insists that it's pretty good.




And our Alamo Drafthouse pick of the week has got to be the Re-Animator screening next Tuesday at 7:45.  Details here, which sound like they were written by Chip:

"...the movie is passionately violent, dazzlingly clever, features almost nothing to do with its source material. It's also a goddamn motherfucking masterpiece." (Zack Carlson).

Here's a Youtube clip of Lester Burnham and Ricky Fitts getting stoned and discussing Re-Animator in American Beauty (around the 1:00 mark):  "Did you ever see that movie where the body is walking around carrying its own head, and then the head goes down on that babe?"

 

LFK Literary Event of the Week: Banned Books Trading Cards Award Ceremony at Liberty Hall / Plus, Faulkner Meets Franco

You may remember that our friends at the Lawrence Public Library unexpectedly had a phenomenon on their hands last year when the first batch of Banned Books trading cards appeared and garnered national media attention.

Well, a new batch is ready, and LPL and Liberty Hall are hosting a silent auction and award ceremony on Thursday to celebrate.  You can find details here via LPL but some late-breaking news is that none other than WORLD champion air guitarist Mr. "Mean" Melin will be entertaining the literary types along with plenty of other hijinks.  And there booze, obviously.  The event kicks off at 7:00 with the winning entries announced at 8:00.

Here's an example of a possible winner:  Maggie Allen's bad-ass card for Jaws.







Check out other contestants here via LPL.

While we'd never condone banning books, if any book should be banned, it's surely the new edition of Faulkner's As I Lay Dying featuring James Franco on the cover (promoting Franco's film adaptation of the great novel).  For fuck's sake, Franco!  This book cover is one of the worst things you've done so far.

Chip:  "Scoff as you may at Franco, I can't wait for a Faulkner adaptation that prominently features Kenny  Powers!'

The Granada Celebrates 20 Years of Music / Wednesday Scenester Showdown: Best Coast and Bleached vs Action Bronson and Danny Brown

Readers, it's an important day in LFK, as the City Fathers will be hearing the Granada's plea to close down a block of Mass. Street on Sept. 26 for a free outdoor screening of The Goonies on a giant inflatable screen.  This should be a good test of whether the Commission has any sense of fun and/or appreciation of Corey Feldman. (Also, the event is already prominently listed everywhere, so let's hope the Granada didn't get ahead of themselves).

As we mentioned yesterday, our friends at the venerable LFK establishment are celebrating their 20th anniversary as a music venue (and 80th anniversary in general) with a bunch of kick-ass shows. To name a few: "Party Messiah" Andrew WK hits the stage tonight, Best Coast arrives tomorrow, Friday brings a free outdoor show with Stoney Larue, and Rancid takes over on Saturday (despite being listed as Friday on the cool image below).

So stop by and party with them, why don't you?


 




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Once again, Wednesday in LFK brings another interesting scenester showdown.

Best Coast may have lost some of their scenester luster at this point, but Bethany Cosentino is still pretty cool, as is the opener Bleached.  On Chip's "boner-meter," this Granada show ranks among the week's highest.

Down the street at Liberty Hall, however, you can see Danny Brown and Action Bronson rapping about Adderall and wrestlin' and jeeps and such.

Here's a taste of Danny Brown's lyrics from the song "Adderal Admiral":

"She runnin from my dick like it's a bull and she a matador.
 She a pregnant labrador.
 Said my metaphors are the highest caliber."

Chip:  "Well, it's hard to argue.  Those really are high-caliber metaphors. Although technically the first one is a simile"


Photos:  Bethany, Bleached, Action Bronson, and Danny Brown:









 


 

 
 

Monday Possibilities: Estonian Folk and Blue Men

Readers, we're busy today and we're still reeling from last night's soul-shattering, gut-punch of a Breaking Bad episode, so let's keep this short.

You've got two options for Monday night oddness.

For some reason, there's a Monday matinee show at the Replay featuring an Estonian indie-folk band called Ewert and the Two Dragons.  La Guerre is opening.  If we were betting men, we'd bet you three PBRs that almost no one realizes this fucking show is happening, so it would be nice if you head down there and support the scene and then go around claiming you'll ONLY listen to Estonian indie-folk from now on.  Or perhaps we're dead wrong and there's a huge contingent of Estonian indie-folk fans in LFK and this will be a packed-to-the-rafters show that's the best thing that's happened on a Monday night in LFK since Mates of States played a basement show in an old cockfighting arena recently.  Either way, it's worth a shot for three bucks.





If you'd rather spend $50 bucks for a dose of mainstream performance art (or whatever it is that the Blue Men do), Blue Man Group begins their two-night stint at the Lied tonight.  Not unlike Tobias Funke, Chip "blue" himself this weekend to get in the spirit of things."


 
 

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Coming later this week:  the Granada celebrates 20 years as a concert venue with...a whole lot of stuff, some of it worth checking it out.

Nerd Nite 20 Recap: Deep Plowing

"We've got a bad thing made by men, and by God that's something we can change." --Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath

After two long months apart (due to an August vacation) the nerds of Nerd Nite assembled in large numbers on Wednesday at Pachamama's to nerd out about the Dust Bowl.

Some highlights:

Luke Wohlford began the evening with a trek through Kansas populism, charting  the rise of the Kansas People's Party in the 1890's through the Teddy Roosevelt era (with his famous speech at Osawatomie, Kansas) and into the "dirty thirties."  Our favorite figure from this period has got to be Kansas politician "Sockless Jerry Simpson" and we've already begun writing a Hollywood biopic about him.

 


Beth Beavers then delivered what turned out to be the single most inadvertently naughty Nerd Nite presentation in history. Did you realize that farm terminology sounds exactly like sexual innuendo??  Here's a list of Chip's favorite phrases from Beth's presentation on Dust Bowl farming equipment and practices:

"deep plowing"
"harder and slicker"
"This is a gang plow because we have multiple bottoms."
"It'll explode if there's too much pressure" (Chip almost yelled "That's what she said!" at this point).
"Keep tilling it and you'll get the moisture to stay in"  (At this point, Chip had to excuse himself to keep from yelling "Oh my God, that's what she said!").

Here's a photo of Beth Beavers looking adorable via Larryville Artists (click for their recap as well). 





And the evening ended with Kate Meyer, who taught us the giggle-inducing term "Haboob" (an Arabic term for dust storms) and analyzed Dust Bowl-related literature (such as Grapes of Wrath, of course) and art and photography by Joe Jones and Arthur Rothstein and many more.

Work from Jones and Rothstein, respectively:

 





Nerd Nite returns on Oct. 9 with a highly-anticipated (by us!) presentation on the plays of Sam Shepard from Rob Schulte, as well as mystery presentations from Wonder Fair's Meredith and @punnilingus (who swears he's NOT talking about Faulkner this time around: we don't believe it).