The coolest musical performance this week was not a show exactly. Field Day, the group comprised of Zenbilly’s Bill Calloway and his two sons performed a stream of undulating space rock as part of Mallory Fetz & Kit French’s smart installation Trip the Light Electric on Saturday night at the Shaw Center. One of the second-floor classrooms was done up in streamers and balloons to recreate a prom setting, and projected on one wall was an extended video of four wallflowers fidgeting uncomfortably on the sidelines as Field Day’s driving continuum bled in from the room next door, capturing perfectly the existential distance that occurs at the prom -- you are there but you are not participating. Calloway and sons would rotate among drums, guitar and keyboards throughout the night, sometimes mid-song it seemed, which I thought was nice incidental touch.
Not only do I want more of this from our eager cadre of art students at our city’s two universities, but I want the local music scene integrated into it. The two feed each other and create something greater than the sum of its parts. There are those that say nothing cool ever happens here; I would say those people are culturally myopic and need to get out more rather than let their grumblings become a reality.
For instance, I am particularly excited about "The Edge of the Earth: An Evening of Video, Music, and Poetry" at the Manship Theatre this Saturday, featuring the performance of selected movements Olivier Messiaen’s Quartet for the End of Time, a poem written and read by Jacqueline Dee Parker, and the premier of Bird and Squirrel a film by LSU art professor Kelli Scott Kelley. Programming Messiaen’s beguiling quartet for piano, clarinet, cello and violin, written for the musicians and instruments at hand during his time in a German prison camp during World War II, along with Kelley’s film (soundtrack by Culture Candy founder Bill Kelley) about the last boy and girl on earth, demonstrates the synergy an arts scene, music environment and performance space can create when they work together. And the event is free, starting at 7 p.m. I’ll consider it a present for my 40th birthday if you pack the house for this unique and inspiring event. Go see some art, see some live music and keep up the good work.
Oh and check out the Decemberists’ new album, The Hazards of Love, if you need another example of what high ambition can create in the right hands.
Wednesday, March 25
The Shivers, Like Trains & Taxis, and Wilderness Pangs at Spanish Moon
Thursday, March 26
Patti Austin at the Manship Theatre
The Moaners at Chelsea’s
The Winter Sounds and Dear Future at North Gate Tavern
Pat Green at The Varsity
Friday, March 27
HEALTH, Picture Plane, and Man + Building at Spanish Moon
Steve Riley & the Mamou Playboys at The Varsity
Randy Owen (of Alabama) at the Texas Club
Papa Grows Funk at Chelsea’s
Letters in Red and If I Were a Battleship at Click’s
Tin Horse, Johnny Firmin & American Heart, and Steve Bing & the Bayou Hot Shots at Boudreaux & Thibodeaux’s
Zoso at The Varsity
Kenny Acosta at Phil Brady’s
Randy Pavlock at Teddy’s Juke Joint
Saturday, March 28
“The Edge of the Earth” at the Manship Theatre
As Cities Burn at Spanish Moon
6 Pack Deep and Fatty Lumpkin at Chelsea’s
Sky Chief at North Gate Tavern
Maven and Devil & the Details at Click’s
Chris Himel & Outbound at Boudreaux & Thibodeaux’s
Aretmis at Phil Brady’s
Big Red & the Soul Benders at Teddy’s Juke Joint
Sunday, March 29
Big Red & the Soul benders at Teddy’s Juke Joint
Monday, March 30
Langhorne Slim at Red Star
No comments:
Post a Comment