FRIDAY 8/19
CODY BELEW AND BONNIE MONTGOMERY
9 p.m. South on Main. $10.
Cody Belew’s MTV bio says, “When asked about the sound of this first album, Cody proclaims, ‘I don’t want anything on this album that you won’t want to skate to. If you can’t roller-skate to this album then we might as well not do it.’ ” That, and what CeeLo Green called a “badass leather jacket” that Belew helped design for his choreographed 2012 performance of “Crazy in Love” on NBC’s “The Voice,” ought to give you a fairly accurate impression of the Cody Belew aesthetic. He’s got a monster voice that’s as informed by Dolly Parton as his hips are informed by Elvis, and it’s obvious when he’s on stage that he’s dead serious about making sure he’s giving you all he’s got. In the words of Blake Shelton, “I really enjoyed that and I’m confused in a good way. But I guarantee you everybody back in Arkansas right now are going, ‘Did we raise this boy? Did we raise this guy?’ ” He’s joined at South on Main by his longtime collaborator Bonnie Montgomery, named 2016’s Ameripolitan Awards Outlaw Female for her EPs “Cruel” and “Joy,” and for her gorgeous self-titled album in 2014. Montgomery’s “Billy Blythe,” a folk opera based in Hope that depicts the adolescent life of Bill Clinton, premiered at Ithaca College in New York, and is to be staged in September in Little Rock as a production of Opera in the Rock. (Full disclosure: I’m singing the role of Virginia Clinton in the opera.)
FRIDAY 8/19
DIRTFOOT
10 p.m. Four Quarter Bar. $10.
“If there were such a thing as heavy metal during the ’30s, we would’ve been it,” said a member of Dirtfoot on a 2007 video titled simply “Meet Dirtfoot.” The “gypsy punk country grumble boogie” band’s front man Matt Hazleton continues: “Nasty, you know, not in the triple-X kind of nasty way, although some of the songs … well, actually most of the songs do have to do with sex.” Dirtfoot was a staple of the first of what would be many chompdown breakfasts at Wakarusa, and their call-and-response brand of jug band music (but, you know, with saxophone) tends to tickle the rowdy bone with their concert crowds. They’re known for passing out “bean can shakers” at their shows; two tomato soup cans taped together with beans inside. They elaborate on the instrument’s intended purpose: “Shake the bean cans we give ’em and shake whatever else they wanna shake.” Four Quarter Bar has a lineup of crowd pleasers like Squirrel Nut Zippers to ease into the fall season, and Dirtfoot fits that bill.
FRIDAY 8/19
BIG PIPH AND TOMORROW MAYBE
10 p.m. White Water Tavern. $10.
After years in the works, Big Piph (known to some as Chane “Epiphany” Morrow) released “The Legacy Project,” an album produced by Moonrize Studios by Ferocious of Ferocious Productions and G-Sizz of Moonrize Productions with a stunningly long list of credits and collaborators, many of them local musicians with projects of their own: Joshua Asante, Bijoux, Sarah Stricklin, Young Red, Justin Paul, Cheryl Humphrey and Dee Dee Jones. The rapper-activist’s been making the rounds with “The Legacy Project” through Colorado, Kansas and Oklahoma, and he’ll stop in at the White Water Tavern long enough to drop a few rhymes like “Claim a rebel heart, but is there Kool-Aid in my system?” and tongue-in-cheek biblical references: “Y’all ain’t down with concubines?” This show’s got the home-field advantage, so Piph’s band Tomorrow Maybe will be in tow to fill things out: vocalists Bijoux Pighee and Dee Dee Jones, Lucas Murray on lead guitar, Paul Campbell on percussion, Dre Franklin on keys and Corey Harris on bass. The show opens up with Kyle Hubbard, also with Fullmetal and DJ Discipline.
SATURDAY 8/20
MESSTIVAL
10 a.m. Museum of Discovery. Free-$10.
The relationship we encourage between our children and slime is a complicated one. Fair or no, some slime varieties are relegated to the category of “gross” (see: egg whites, boogers and slugs), while other slime varieties are not only presented as acceptable, but occupy prime digital real estate on Pinterest pages with titles like “sensory play” or “mad scientist” or “1,000+ recipes for Galaxy Slime.” Presumably, the light in which slime is cast depends a lot on the situation at hand, and this Saturday, the box in which slimy messes are contextually sanctioned is shaped like the building that houses the Museum of Discovery, where “Messtival” is to be held. Museum of Discovery has mess-making activities suitable for all ages, including exploding paints, bubbles, “play with food,” the sorts of volcanic eruptions that science fairs are made of and, of course, homemade slime. The museum encourages attendees to wear clothing and shoes that can get dirty. Tickets are available at museumofdiscovery.org.
SATURDAY 8/20
THE VOGTS SISTERS
2 p.m., 7 p.m. Ozark Folk Center State Park, Mountain View. $12-$20.
The Vogts Sisters (pronounced “votes”) may not have the promotional machine behind them or the archetypal personas of the musicians they cover — John Fogerty, Gillian Welch — but the Erie, Kan., sisters — Maggie and Abigail Vogts — are the genuine article. From “The Lost Highway,” a song about a disillusioned Bonnie running with Clyde (“I learned to lie and use a gun, Clyde taught me everything / And we ran from town to town, it was fun at first, but now it drags me down”) to original tunes like “The Loving Kind,” the muted-plaid-clad duo employs delicate harmonies, a capella Appalachian folk intros, remarkably synchronized breaths, and those looks between siblings that might only span a millisecond, but are shorthand for a dozen things. The pair is so serious on stage that it’s a little hard to believe Maggie Vogt’s comment preceding an outdoor performance of her tune, “Once in a While”: “Once in a while, we get a wild hair and do something funky.” Neither rookies nor overcoached ingenues, Maggie and Abigail Vogts play a quiet, intimate blend of songs born of the Neosho River Valley but firmly rooted in the Ozark Mountain tradition.
SATURDAY 8/20
EXPERIENCE FILMS
ANNUAL SHOWCASE
21c Museum Hotel, Bentonville. 7 p.m. Free.
The Arkansas division of Creative Arts Forum, Los Angeles (CAFLA, for short), organizes the Experience Films Annual Showcase with a professed goal to “present short films characterized by the absence of linear narrative, the use of various abstracting techniques — out-of-focus, painting or scratching on film, rapid editing — the use of asynchronous sound or even the absence of any sound track.” To that end, 21c Museum Hotel hosts a night of these abstract experimental shorts, with bartenders from The Hive crafting “abstract-themed” cocktails, whatever that means. The screening includes the work of quite a few artists affiliated with the sUgAR Gallery, a student-run art exhibition space in downtown Fayetteville where University of Arkansas graduate students curate and run six to eight exhibitions a year under the guidance of the faculty at the university’s department of art. Those students include Corey Johnson, Stephanie Marpe, Dillon Dooms, Cory Perry, Aaron Hayes and Wanbli Gamache, and their films will join shorts by Daniel Hintz, Ashley Lewis, Jay Myers and Kalli Lum. Dooms and Travis Keymer will perform what they call “a live music and glitch video interactive performance” under the name White Mansion and Popsicle of Doom.