A.Dd+ (pictured), “Can’t Come Down” (audio) – The forward-thinking Dallas hip-hop duo’s mildly humorous but highly realistic story song premiered online earlier this month. While it samples a cover tune – Yael Naim’s version of Britney Spears’ “Toxic” – in its chorus, the real treats here are in the verses. The guys’ well woven tale carries a subtle public service announcement: Don’t wake and bake when you’re trying to find a job. See A.Dd+ at the fantastically billed free show ..read more

We’ll tell you whether this week’s new releases are worth the trip. Check out our movies section.

One would expect a two-actor play to include quite a bit of back and forth dialog, a verbal pas de deux of wordy riffing.  What a delightful surprise, then, that Amphibian Stage Productions’ interpretation of Morris Panych’s Vigil contains multitudes with mostly one actor’s voice and facial expressions that say it all from the other.

Jonathan Fielding plays Kemp, a loquacious malcontent misanthrope who quits his dead end job at a bank to rush to the bedside of his dying aunt, ..read more

Eat, drink, enjoy music, and give back this year at the Fort Worth Music Festival. Camp Bowie District’s beautification programs have been bringing new life to the Boulevard. Since 2000, Camp Bowie District has planted more than 185 trees along the 9-mile stretch and has placed benches throughout the Boulevard to help add to an urban, pedestrian friendly experience. With help from sponsors, vendors, and festival-goers, the Fort Worth Music Festival can help support the beautification efforts of Camp Bowie District. To learn more, visit campbowiedistrict.com.

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FRIDAY

Roky Erickson/Dim Locator (The Kessler): Even casual rock historians will immediately understand the significance of this show, and hopefully the general public will too. Roky Erickson is firmly in the top handful of the most important musicians that Texas has ever produced, especially for his work in The 13th Floor Elevators, though the story doesn’t end there. The Elevators are often argued to have been the first group to ever use “psychedelic” to describe their own music, by way of ..read more

There is a milky light that drenches much of Gus Van Sant’s macabre adolescent love story, Restless, which gives the film a crisp, wintery feeling — the kind of chilly stillness that is ripe for cigarettes, warm coffee, soup, and the dreamy music-scapes of the Icelandic band Sigur Ros. The mood fits Van Sant’s story, which at least get’s this right: making a movie about adolescence is the same thing as making a moving about feeling. Restless is full of ..read more

On March 27, 2006, I was held at gunpoint, thrown into the back of a car, and abducted.

For the next two hours, I was driven around west Philadelphia, slumped over in the back seat of a tan Lexus, with a handgun resting on my left shoulder, while the three men who abducted me cleaned out my bank account and debated whether or not to kill me.

In the end, the vote was two to one: I lived.

There’s nothing more black and ..read more

The life of Sam Childers is so ridiculous, so overblown, absurd and unbelievable, that knowing that the new film, Machine Gun Preacher, is based on a real person hardly makes the story seem any more feasible. That’s because Childers’ life – a former drug-dealing biker who finds Jesus and sets off to the Sudan to found an orphanage – is so over the top, it seems it could only really be inspired by the movies in the first place. But ..read more

Men are a mystery, aren’t they, ladies? What are they looking for, exactly? And why aren’t they buying what you’re selling? I mean, come on.

You’re the main character in What’s Your Number? Your name is Ally — doesn’t that just smack of being cute but not so overly feminine that you’re above spending a day watching Mexican wrestling on pay-per-view with your fella?

You’re a 30-something who’s just been fired from your vague, low-level “marketing” job, but you apparently come from ..read more

If you’re wondering what happens to cause the crappy year referenced in the title of director Cam Archer’s second feature film, Shit Year, you’re asking the wrong question. It’s what doesn’t happen that makes retiring actress Colleen West’s life a drag. West (Ellen Barkin) is supposed to be an accomplished veteran of stage and screen living in a Hollywood that, through cinematographer Aaron Platt’s gritty black and white photography, feels more like the wasteland of Jim Jarmusch’s 1980s Lower East ..read more