Monday, October 31, 2011
See a slideshow of pics from Mud Run 2011
Times photographer Brian Chilson got down and dirty at the Mud Run at Two Rivers Park on Saturday. See a slideshow on the jump.
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Film 'Arkansas Shorts' looking for short film entries
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Music New 607: 'Yik3s!
Just in time for his favorite holiday of the year, 607 has a new album. It's called "Yik3S!" Stream it via Bandcamp.
Big K.R.I.T.'s "Return of 4eva" has been best album of the year by far, 607 said. With "Yik3S!", he aimed to top it. And he's confident he's succeeded. One track is called "607 is the Best Lyricist... PERIOD."
On the jump, the rapper offers video liner notes from a magma-wallpapered room.
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Music / Coming soon Enter the 2012 Times Musicians Showcase
- Brian Chilson
- Last year's showcase winner was Tyrannosaurus Chicken.
So Halloween is already here, which means Thanksgiving is nearly upon us, which means Christmas is nigh, which means before you can say "two-day hangover" you'll be tying one on and toasting the new year and wondering just how in the hell 2011 managed to sneak past you so quickly.
And of course, with another new year comes another Arkansas Times Musicians Showcase. This marks the contest's 20th year.
Here's how it'll go down: your trusty Times staff and the folks from Stickyz and Revolution pare down the field to a gaggle of semi-finalists; starting Jan. 26, four of those acts will square off each week at Stickyz and five judges will select a winner. Each week's winner moves on to the finals at Revolution. The winner of the final round will receive a bevy of excellent prizes and a drink named in his, her or their honor.
So if you are an Arkansas-based musical act (solo or band) performing original material in any genre, you should go ahead and enter. Hip-hop? Yes. Country? Yup. Rock? For sure. Blues? Alright. Metal? Affirmative. Soul? Seriously. Techno? Yep. Folk? Indeedy. Hillbilly-wave? OK. Beard-core? You know it. Ambient lounge? Oh yeah. Psychedelic Calypso? Certainly. Acoustic Electronica? You bet. Celtic Kosmische? Uh-huh. Traditional dubstep-tinged Lithuanian Black Metal folk-trance? Yes, please.
You can click here and upload your band info and tunes (we'll need four). That's probably the easiest way to toss your hat in the ring. We'll also include an entry form in the upcoming print editions, so you can fill that out, clip it and send it to us with a CD.
The deadline is Dec. 31, so if your act is new, new-ish or nonexistent and therefore you don't have any songs recorded yet, you have two months to sequester yourself out in the woodshed with the four-track or iPhone or whatever.
Questions? E-mail robertbell (at) arktimes dot com.
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Reviews / Theater Review: 'Shrek the Musical'
‘Shrek the Musical’
Oct. 28, Robinson Center Music Hall
New York critics weren’t wild about the 2008 stage incarnation of “Shrek the Musical.” But, outside of “The Lion King,” theater critics have pretty much walled off their hearts to popular film cartoons being made into high-priced, Great White Way entertainment. Then again, it’s a tricky business to turn the intricately animated into singing and dancing flesh-and-blood.
Now “Shrek the Musical” arrives at Robinson Center Music Hall thanks to a non-equity tour diverted to Little Rock by Celebrity Attractions. Directed on Broadway by Arkansas native Jason Moore, “Shrek” has undergone changes and songs have been added and cut (book and lyrics are by David Lindsay-Abaire and music is by Jeanine Tesori), but it’s still a musical that very much resembles the 2001 Dreamworks movie.
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Pageantry How does your Halloween costume compare to Boo Bash winners'?
Is your Halloween costume more creative than the ones above — the dude in green is a Swiffer, the woman is dust? If so, you blew it. You could've won $3,500 in cash and prizes at The Peabody's Boo Bash on Saturday.
On the jump, check out the second place finishers, Legos Gone Wild.
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Friday, October 28, 2011
Film MONDAY: Renaud Bros. on arming the Mexican cartels
Little Rock filmmakers The Renaud Brothers — Brent and Craig — cut their teeth making insightful, powerful documentary in some of the world's most dangerous places, including Iraq and earthquake-ravaged Haiti. But doesn't get much more dangerous than where they've been the last few years: the towns along the Mexican-U.S. border, which have been turned into war zones by the drug cartels.
On Monday, Oct. 31 at 8 p.m. on Current TV, the Renaud Bros. and Current's Vanguard doc series take you inside one of the most interesting facets of that deadly struggle: the river of illegal firearms — including military-grade assault rifles — flowing from U.S. gun shops and gun shows into the hands of the cartels. The trailer above looks excellent. Check it out.
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Thursday, October 27, 2011
What's going on / Music Saturday To-Do: Pretty Lights
PRETTY LIGHTS
8 p.m. Verizon Arena. $30-$33.
If you're any kind of snob when it comes to band names, Colorado-native Derek Vincent Smith's performance name — Pretty Lights — might, at first glance, sound phoned-in. If you know anything about the DJ/producer's elaborate stage show — a live drummer, digital light displays, video projection — you might wonder if a vision of that spectacle inspired the name. Not so. According to Smith, the name Pretty Lights refers to the way light serves as a necessary component of painting or photography, and how light "embodies the essence of inspiration." Yes, that's right; this is deeper dance music than you're used to.
Read more.
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What's going on / Music Saturday To-Do: Halloween Cover-Up
THE HALLOWEEN COVER-UP
9 p.m., White Water Tavern. $5.
As mentioned earlier, now that ACAC is closed, White Water Tavern is the only game in town for locals impersonating bands you know. As usual, this year's line-up holds a lot of promise. Big Silver, the long tenured folk-flecked pop-rock band led by Isaac Alexander, takes on The Band. The same group that covered Weezer last year at White Water — Michael Inescoe, Jack Lloyd, Phillip Huddleston, Thom Asewicz and Patrick Rippy — offer their take on The Strokes. A group led by Joe Yoder of The See covers Elvis Costello and the Attractions (surely Elvis' best backing band, but don't the Imposters make a better fit here?). And Paul Bowling of Glittercore (and Trusty and Il Libertina) opens the bill with a short set of David Bowie covers.
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Saturday To-Do: Boo Bash
BOO BASH
9 p.m. The Peabody. $10.
The Peabody RiverTop Parties continue into the fall with the city's biggest Halloween celebration. Local DJ Brandon Peck is spinning and Epiphany is emceeing at the voodoo-themed extravaganza. Plus, $5,000 in cash and prizes are being given away for the best costumes — first place gets $3,500 and prizes, including $1,000 cash, $150 in dining certificates and an overnight invitation to the Peabody's Presidential Suite. Reservations are available for the VIP Voodoo Lounge, as well as a special ticket package that includes a guest room the night of the party, and breakfast for two at Capriccio Grill the next morning. Better get that costume pulled together if you really feel like partying in style this year.
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What's going on Saturday To-Do: Mud Run
- Paul Olson
- Mud Run 2010
MUD RUN
9 a.m. Two Rivers Park. $20-$35.
Mud, you know, has positive therapeutic and dermatological properties; people pay a lot of money to dip themselves in it at fancy spas when Neutrogena won't do the trick. Some of my earliest experiences with mud probably came on an elementary school playground and involved proto-scatological pranks. Most recently, I slipped on it in the rain. The Mud Run is a convenient combination of all these qualities: restorative, regressive and downright mucky. For the benefit of Little Rock Parks and Recreation, you get to run a 5K through obstacles and ultimately a 300-foot mud pit. Dress to get dirty, and leave your diamond rings at home. Expect exceptionally clean and firm skin afterwards, as well as a lingering sense of Freudian satisfaction.
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Weekend: Pretty Lights pre-party, David Kimbrough Jr., Randall Shreve & The Sideshow, Blues Challenge
FRIDAY 10/28
The night before DJ Pretty Lights hosts a massive dance party at Verizon, a host of local DJs including DJ Durden, DJ Witnesse, Kramer and more spin at the Official Pretty Lights pre-part at Revolution, 9 p.m., $5 for over 21, $10 for under 21, ticket holders to Pretty Lights show get in free.
Mississippi blues royalty David Kimbrough Jr. shares a bill with Brown Soul Shoes at Cornerstone Pub, 9 p.m., $5.
Cabaret-rock act Randall Shreve & The Sideshow headlines a bill at Stickyz that includes Shreve sibling Benjamin Del Shreve and Fayetteville's A Good Fight, featuring Rep. Jon Woods (R-Springdale) on bass, 9 p.m.
SATURDAY 10/29
The Arkansas River Blues Society hosts its annual contest to determine who'll represent the blues society at the Blues Foundation International Blues Challenge next year. Those vying for the position on Saturday at Parrot Beach Cafe include guitar whiz Josh Stoffer (formerly of Riverboat Crime), Lucious Spiller, Bluesboy Jag and Johnny Baxter, Ben "Swamp Donkey" Brenner and Chris Thompson, 7 p.m., $5.
Discovery's Halloween bash promises to be the best venue in town to see or wear costumes that involve near nudity; Dominque, Hollywood, Ewell, Jacob, Ramon, Jared and Rufio provide the entertainment, 9 p.m.
For something likely as hopping, but with less near-nudity and glow-in-the-dark body paint, g-force DJs at Cajun's Halloween party and costume contest and The Buzz's Pat Bradley emcees, $5, 9 p.m.
At the Afterthought, The B-Flats host a Halloween party, 9 p.m., $7.
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What's going on / Music Friday To-Do: 'The Allman Brothers'
'THE ALLMAN BROTHERS'
9 p.m. White Water Tavern. $5.
In 10 years of existence, the Arkansas Community Arts Cooperative hosted punk rock proms, put on fashion shows, booked touring bands, threw art shows and screened indie movies. The group called it quits earlier this year, but lives on in spirit through a tradition it started eight years ago, when it convinced a handful of local bands to dress up like famous bands from past and present and cover their songs. The show was always an event even if local acts were terribly unprepared. Several years back, White Water Tavern started hosting similar shows, but usually featuring only bands that were really, really serious about doing justice to whatever band they were impersonating (remember The Boondogs as Fleetwood Mac? Good Fear as Six Tom Pettys and the Heartbreaker?). Now comes a group of local musicians who're poised to do more justice to their source material than anyone who's come before. The players include most of Amasa Hines (and formerly The Natives and Romany Rye): Whitman Bransford (keys), Ryan Hitt (bass), Judson Spillyards (guitar) and Joshua Spillyards (drums). Plus Arkansas guitar god Greg Spradlin and Velvet Kente's polyrhythmic drummer Jamal. That, friends, is a badass group of players, and the same instrumental line-up the classic-era Allmans employed. The plan, according to Judson Spillyards, is to, over the course of two sets, play all of the self-titled debut album and visit a number of the hits — "In Memory of Elizabeth Reed," "Hot 'lanta" and "Don't Keep Me Wonderin.' "
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What's going on / Theater Weekend To-Do: 'Shrek the Musical'
'SHREK THE MUSICAL'
7:30 p.m. Robinson Center Music Hall. $27-$67.
But for the fact that he died in 2003, two years after the first Shrek movie kicked off the franchise, New Yorker Cartoonist William Steig would today be rolling around in royalties today. He is, after all, the original creator of the green ogre who has appeared in four movies, various fast food and theme park tie-ins, and now a Broadway musical based on the earliest Shrek film. It's the anti-fairy tale, anti-Disney story of the crotchety eponymous ogre who saves a princess from a diminutive, equally crotchety bad guy. Because it gives sarcastic shout-outs to every anthropomorphized member of the Mother Goose canon, and then some, it's been a hit with kids on its national tour. Just about everybody, though, should get a laugh from its notorious jabs at the fairy tale establishment (whatever that is). The musical continues on Saturday and Sunday with performances at 2 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. on Saturday and 7 p.m. on Sunday.
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What's going on Thursday: Herman's Hermits, Lydia Loveless, The Big Boo!-seum Bash
UCA's Reynolds Performance Hall hosts a double-bill of nostalgia with Herman's Hermits ("Mrs. Brown You've Got a Lovely Daughter") and The Lettermen ("When I Fall in Love"), 7:30 p.m., $23-$40.
Promising young singer/songwriter Lydia Loveless has drawn comparisons to Neko Case and Exene Cervenka; she performs at an 18-and-older show at Stickyz, 8:30 p.m., $6.
The Big Boo!-seum bash offers families a host of local museum venues — Central High School National Historic Site, the Old State House Museum, EMOBA, the Clinton Presidential Library, MacArthur Museum of Arkansas Military History, Mosaic Templars Cultural Center and Heifer Village — as an alternate, pre-Halloween route for trick-or-treating and games, 6:30 p.m., free.
Boo at the Zoo continues at the zoo (through Halloween) with rides, a haunted house, a magic show and more, 6 p.m., $7-$15.
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