Arts, Film & Events
Music Review: Stocking Stuffer for Blues Lovers
Behind the Mic is a Collection of Northwest Blues musicYou never know what to expect from a compilation CD. Most of them have a spotty record (think of the music sold on late night TV) while others are very good.
As a casual blues fan and a Northwest native, a collection of Northwest blues music sounded promising. So I was eager to listen to "Behind the Mic." However, when I first looked at the artists featured on this CDs 18 tunes, I didn’t recognize even one.
Upon closer inspection, I noticed that The Heard was included. That’s right, Idaho's own impure folk original songsters (as they like to call themselves) are part of "Behind the Mic."
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First Friday Opening
Missoula’s Great Zombie Invasion: A History in Pictures
This past September, a group of Missoula artists called the Tainted Saints were hired to create a Halloween "haunted house" for the Badlander bar. They did much more.
In two months of after-hours labor--involving metalworking, carpentry, video production, make-up, dumpster diving for materials, and the consumption of truly astounding quantities of very bad beer--the Tainted Saints transformed a defunct Mexican restaurant into an Old West Zombie Brothel, in which they performed a blood-soaked, in-your-face, sensory-confounding performance art piece seen by more than 1,000 Missoulians on Halloween night.
Photographer Chris Lombardi documented this spontaneous eruption of community art, which involved the generous creative efforts of more than 40 people. You are cordially invited to the Badlander this First Friday, December 7 to see photos and a multimedia production in the zombie brothel where the event took place. The brothel will be torn down immediately following this show, so this is your last chance to see what will surely become a bloody little chunk of Missoula legend.
Beer, zombies, pretty pictures of pretty people making really ugly faces, inside Missoula's only undead brothel. It's a no-brainer.
Who: Photographer extraordinaire, Chris Lombardi
What: Photographs and multimedia
Where: Old West Zombie Brothel (The Back of the Badlander, 208 Ryman Street.)
When: Dec. 7 5-9 p.m.
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What I did over my thanksgiving break
The Yale-Harvard Game and the Gelband Family Business: Thriving Even From BoiseTo some, the Yale vs. Harvard Football Game is an historic 125-year-old academic and sport rivalry. To the Gelbands, the Game is a tradition of a different sort.
I traveled back to New Haven last week – in part for Thanksgiving but also, and conveniently, for the Game, which is held every other year at Yale. My grandmother’s house, an early 1900s home, is adjacent to the Yale Bowl, and Gelbands have been parking cars in her back yard on Game day for nearly fifty years. A family business for which Gelbands return to New Haven from as far away as Boise, Idaho. A family business almost as old as the game itself.
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How does Boise look from space?
Teacher Astronaut Barbara Morgan to Give Free Talk in BoiseAdmit it, you want to know what it feels like to float around in zero gravity. Now you have the chance to ask someone who has actually been weightless in space. Idaho teacher and astronaut Barbara Morgan, who flew on the Space Shuttle Endeavor last summer, will speak at a free public lecture at Boise State University Dec. 10.
I’m sure “what’s it like?” will be the first question asked, so if you plan to attend the Q-and-A session, think up some more stirring and specific questions about back pain relief or drinking beer in space. Or even something physics related.
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DOOR STILL OPEN FOR MCPAC
Performing Arts Center Granted More Time on Land ReservationAt a Missoula City Council meeting Monday night Mayor John Engen provided a piece of news, and cast a tie-breaking vote, which may have changed the fate of the Missoula Community Performing Arts Center (MCPAC).
Engen’s eleventh hour revelation -- that he’d spoken with a private developer that morning who expressed interest in investing in the arts center -- came as a shock to some council members.
“I have absolutely nothing formal to give you today,” Engen said to the council. However, Engen urged council members to “leave a door open” for the MCPAC.
Two hours of council debate and public comment later, the council voted to postpone until March 1, 2008 the decision on whether to extend a land reservation on a 60,000 square foot of Missoula’s Riverfront Triangle development site to the MCPAC for another 18 months.
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Two Bozeman Shows Saturday
Band of Horses Find Their Stride
You have to love the indie music community and the speed at which unassuming but talented, dedicated musicians can rise through its ranks. Take, for example, Band of Horses: Ben Bridwell moves from South Carolina to Seattle where he at one point becomes happily homeless, works at the legendary Crocodile Café, plays in an obscure band for awhile, forms a new band with fellow southerners, joins longtime friend Sam Beam of Iron & Wine at a Subpop Records dinner and within months has a record deal. And not only has a record deal, but also goes on to produce a really, really good album that everybody loves.
Such is the life now of Ben Bridwell and Band of Horses. The band just released another great album—Cease to Begin—and are in the first stages of a tour that will take them to Bozeman this Saturday and then across the U.S. and Europe.
Bridwell’s Southern sentiment and love of straightforward rock and roll render a decidedly simple, gritty, guitar-driven sound, and his echoing, sheer voice cuts to the chase of his words. On Cease to Begin, Bridwell fully takes the sound formed in Seattle back to his Southern roots.
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Gallatin Valley Non-Profits
Emerson Center for the Arts and Culture: Celebrating Creativity
The Gallatin Valley is home to over 200 non-profits. These organizations do not hinge on metropolitan amenities, and are often created to preserve wild places and stimulate culture in communities of the West. As part of our New West economy, NewWest.Net/Bozeman is highlighting Gallatin Valley organizations in a weekly series.
When Emerson Elementary School closed its doors in the early 90s, the historic building was put onto the market, its future questionable. Concerned about buyers developing the property into businesses or housing, members from the Bozeman community successfully rallied together to preserve the building and create a community arts center.
Since its creation in 1993, the Emerson Center for the Arts and Culture has blossomed into the primary resource for the arts and culture in Southwest Montana, adhering to their mission of stimulating and celebrating the arts in all its forms, fostering a lifelong appreciation and understanding of arts and culture, and building community and economic development among creative enterprises, businesses and civic organizations. Jeane Alm, executive director, expands upon the Emerson Center and its efforts.
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Rock it, Man
Elton John Coming Back To Missoula
Elton John, who played the Adams Center Sept. 28, is coming back to Missoula for an encore performance April 11. The Missoula stop will be the only Montana show on this part of John's "Rocket Man: Number Ones" tour. This fall, he also came to Bozeman after his Missoula show.
Tickets will go on sale Monday, Nov. 5 at the Adams Center box office and GrizTix vendors: Southgate Mall, Worden's Market and The Source in the University Center. University officials made it clear in an announcement sent Tuesday that the tickets will be on sale at these locations "as supplies last." The group of tickets sold at the outlets will be separate from the tickets sold online at www.griztix.com or over the phone at 888-MONTANA.
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These guys are the bright side of life
Spamalot is Great Fun, Even for Non-Musical TypesIf you had asked me yesterday whether or not I liked Broadway musicals, I would have answered with a thumbs down and a “ptthhhbt.”
Ask me tonight and I will tell you that there is at least one I like: Spamalot.
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Cutting a Rug with Moscow's Beloved Hippie Queen
Lois Blackburn: 75 Years of Kicking Ass and Taking Names
Auntie Em: Why don't you find a place where there isn't any trouble?
Dorothy: A place where there isn't any trouble. Do you suppose there is such a place, Toto?
I've learned a lot from The Wizard of Oz. I've learned that too often we confuse cowardice with wisdom, that we must pay attention to the man behind the curtain, that there's no place like home, and that there's no place on earth where there isn't any trouble. Most importantly, I've learned that "A heart is not judged by how much you love; but by how much you are loved by others." I thought about this on Friday night as I attended Lois Blackburn's standing room only birthday party in Moscow's historic 1912 Building. Lois has never sought trouble, but she's never run from it, either. And, if our hearts are judged by how much we're loved by others, then Lois has made the right choices. This is a salute to Moscow's Hippie Queen: Long may she reign!
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