Screening: We Denton Do It and Phosphate on Film present Who’s Afraid Of Virginia Woolf (The Hydrant)

80′s Night With DJ G (Amsterdam Bar)

Akron/Family/Delicate Steve (The Loft): After finally piecing together that it was Delicate Steve’s set I caught and reported as a “lowlight” at Club 1808 during SXSW, on second thought, perhaps I was too hard on the act.  It could be that Dominque Young Unique, who came on right after them, just couldn’t be topped, but  they do have perhaps one too many sonic nods in the direction of an Allman Brothers’ jam-strumental, which they somehow managed to stretch out to a full-length.  Perhaps that’s not so hard to believe considering that the sort of 70′s treasure-box of extended compositions they’re blowing the dust off of were made to fill out multiple sides  (if necessary).  If you want to meld Southern Rock licks with just enough world music rhythms to get on Luaka Bop, knock yourself out.  The project does feature ample amounts of impressive playing and the less-indulgent moments contain plenty of enjoyable melodies, but will anyone be surprised when sole-songwriter 23-year-old Steve Marion grows up and writes his own “I’m No Angel?”  We’re waiting.

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Sad news for Texas art criticism: the Texas art journal Art Lies has announced that it will cease production and publication both in print and online as they enter a “period of hiatus and reflection beginning in May 2011.” From the release:

The Board of Directors’ decision has not come lightly. Print criticism, an increasingly precarious enterprise with the advent of digital media, has come to a crux in recent times. We have been fortunate to maintain a consistent and uncompromised output, responding to the changing dynamics of our field and readership with a diversified media presence. Today, facing the nationwide decrease in arts funding, our efforts have proven financially unsustainable.

That’s a sign-off after 17 years. Very sad. Pour one out for them people. Here’s the release:

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Here are this week’s openings.

Photo: Work by Jay Shinn, showing at Marty Walker Gallery.

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“Have lots to drink and dig deep in your pockets.” This advice from Point Blank’s lead singer John O’Daniel was the theme last night at the “Give ‘Em Shelter” Tsunami Relief Show at House of Blues. The free concert was filled with an eclectic mix of fans, many of them 40-somethings who seemed to be friends of the band. Maybe that’s why the excitement for The Stoneleighs didn’t die out when one of the four guitarists either hit the wrong note or wrong song, like during most of “Like a Rolling Stone.” Regardless of whether the music was off key, Loren White’s lyrics were solid and the entire audience joined in with “how does it feel.”  The Stoneleighs definitely had a diverse set up on stage with at least eight members playing an array of over 10 instruments including anything from the harmonica to the trumpet – a solid cover band.

However the Stoneleighs had nothing on Point Blank, the southern rock band from Texas that’s been making music since the band formed in 1974. They brought the energy and the talent last night to the House of Blues as if they were at their first sold out stadium show. O’Daniel first commented on how it’s always good when people come together for a good cause rather than a bad one and then his quiet voice left him and the rock began. The voice that came out of that man was something I would never expect. He could hit a high note and hold it like he had the lungs of a teenager, but just as easy dug deep into that southern rock groan. An amazing vocal range that was only matched by guitarists with a swashbuckling ferocity reminiscent of KISS.

Whether it’s a 24 hour marathon or a Horton Foote fest, films are on our minds lately. This Thursday’s giveaway adds a little international flaire. We’re giving away a pair of passes to the Dallas International Film Festival, which launches tonight. To get your hands on them, all you need to do is answer this question in the form below: What was the name of Michael Cain and company’s film fest before it was called the Dallas International Film Festival or AFI Dallas? We’ll pick a winner from the correct answers after 3 p.m. today.

Image from Jess + Moss

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This Friday, the Dallas Opera opens Modest Musorgsky’s Boris Godunov, and as Scott Cantrell writes, it is an opera in the grandest sense:

“There will be more people on the stage, I think, than with anything we’ve ever done,” says Dallas Opera music director Graeme Jenkins, who’s conducting the performances. “I take my hat off to [artistic director] Jonathan Pell, who went off to audition all these young Russian singers. He’s assembled a fantastic cast. And I’m incredibly proud of what the chorus have done, to memorize over an hour of Russian text.”

The opera hasn’t been performed in Dallas in more than 30 years, and the production will feature a design by the great Russian film director Andrei Tarkovsky, the man behind Solaris and Andrei Rublev.

Back in January, DJ Sober told us some of the things that distinguish Dallas and Houston audiences, but those minor grumbles didn’t stop the DJ from mixing up an homage to Dallas’ hip hop history, I’m So Dallas, which appears on A.Dd+’s “When Pigs Fly” compilation, and which you can hear right here (h/t to DC9).

There’s an interesting article on Slate by Witold Rybczynski which looks at how the use of computer design programs has affected the discipline of architects. 

I remember, as an architecture student in the 1960s, painstakingly inking drawings, stenciling lettering, coloring prints with pastel pencils. These operations required a lot of preparation as well as time management, since you couldn’t just throw things together at the last minute. Discipline was also a hallmark of the École des Beaux-Arts, the Parisian architectural school that dominated teaching in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Given an architectural program for a building, the student was required to produce, quickly, a parti, or architectural concept. The rest of the time was spent refining—but not altering—the parti into a finished building design. In part, this was an exercise in developing the ability to quickly deduce the crux of a problem. It was also a recognition that stick-to-it-ness was essential in the lengthy process of architectural design, especially as the large, elaborate watercolor renderings required by the Beaux-Arts took weeks of meticulous work. . . .

The fierce productivity of the computer carries a price—more time at the keyboard, less time thinking.

Meadows Dance Ensemble mixed bill presented at The Bob Hope Theater, Owen Arts Center on Wednesday was precisely that: a mixed bill in every regard. The entire evening was interesting, and superbly performed, the performances offered a wide-range of choreography both in terms of genres and crafty movement innovation. Four works on the program were Prayers by Jessica Lang, Vigelands Garden by Christopher Dodd, No Contact by Jamal Jackson White, and Camille. . .A Poem of Intimacy by Jean Paul Comelin.

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End Times/The Others/The People Men/Those Damn Kids/Torry Finley (1919 Hemphill): Unity through Diversity.  That’s 1919 Hemphill’s motto and yet the long-running non-profit space is occasionally on the receiving end of criticism that it’s the opposite, and even has an obligatory poorly-written Yelp review as proof.

But it’s quite often that I run across lineups that feature an “odd band out,” or at least an artist that is nothing like the rest of the bill.  Such is the case with tonight’s show, which features a handful of punk bands, a surf duo, and Torry Finley.

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