Monday, January 30, 2012

Scenester Pick of the Day: Marijuana Deathsquads at Replay / Pretentious Literary Pick of the Week: Houellebecq's The Map and the Territory

Readers, chances are you are probably reading this at Dempsey's right now while sipping the much-anticipated second batch of Boulevard's annual Chocolate Ale. Most likely you'll be passed out in a stupor by mid-afternoon, but if you're up and around again by midnight consider taking in Marijuana Deathsquads at the Replay. There's a dude from Gayngs in it, apparently.

Here's the description from their record label : "Marijuana Deathsquads are comprised of multiple drummers, a slew of electronic instruments, and highly effected vocals, their live shows are a violent onslaught of improvised electronic-hardcore."

And Daytrotter says the band will "make you feel as if you've just been bit by a psychedelic rattlesnake." Is that good or bad?

Also, they have a song called "Ewok Sadness."

Larryville's Swanson is slated to open the show.




















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France's literary bad boy Michel Houellebecq has a new novel out that's getting high praise. The NY-Times says The Map and the Territory is "a weird air plant of a book." Is that high praise?

And James Wood in the New Yorker explains the author's work:

"Houellebecq has become famous both for the pornographic fervor of his writing and for the theorizing he likes to do around his sex scenes. Essentially, he argues that contemporary sexuality, though it sails under the colors of liberation and left-ish utopia, is just a continuation of the capitalist, neoliberal market, in which there are always winners and losers."


Chip: "I lost my boner at the word 'theorizing.'"

We're sold on the fact that the novel contains a character named Houellebecq and "devotes a page and a half to a close reading of the instruction manual for Jed’s Samsung ZRT-AV2 camera." Perhaps you'll see it in the hands of PBR Book Club members later this year.





Saturday, January 28, 2012

Kansas Day Events / Burns Night 2012

Readers, tomorrow is Kansas Day and that means the annual Kansas Day Costume Contest at Free State Brewery (the winner gets free monthly dinners for the rest of the year). Chip will NOT be donning blackface for a stirring portrayal of Langston Hughes this year, nor will he be in drag as Carrie Nation, busting shit up. Those ideas didn't go well in the past.

And our friends at Wonder Fair are in the Kansas Day spirit as well, hosting an event at 3:00 that features "such Kansas-themed delectations as (chocolate) box turtles, honeybees, molasses cookies, and wheat bread with whipped honey butter."

You can also "make your own Kansas Day Merit Badges!" We recommend following that up with a march around town to show that your state patriotism is still alive and well despite those sons-a-bitches in office.

And make sure to end your Kansas Day at Burns Night 2012 at the Jackpot, which has nothing to do with Kansas Day but sounds like a pretty cool celebration of Robert Burns where you can dine on "Auld Reekie" (a traditional Scottish soup), listen to some Celtic jams, and hear some Burns poems. It starts at 6:00. Full details at the official Lawrence Scottish Fest site , where you can learn that this event has been held in some form or another at various locales for 16 years?

Thursday, January 26, 2012

Our Top Five Final Friday Art and Music Picks

Another Final Friday is around the corner and this one seems unusually full of music to go along with your monthly dose of art.

Here's what catches our eye so far (quotes taken from the Final Fridays Wordpress site , which will give you a more wide-ranging scoop on tomorrow's events):

1) Lawrence Percolator has been off our scenester radar for awhile (and perhaps they'll soon be off everyone's radar when they are obscured by Doug Compton's newest downtown high-rise). But tomorrow they offer up a "Final Fridaze Extravaganza" called "Songs Amidst Stillness," with performances by Hello Biplane! (we love the exclamation point) and Heartscape Landbreak (clever name!). Audiences are also invited to "bring your music makers" so we expect a room full of Eastside lunatics beating on pots and pans. And we hear soup will be served too. Music around 7:00.

2) The Lost Art Space (formerly Penny Annies) has become the scenester art gallery/performance art space of choice lately, full of "Heaven Parties" and comedians talking about their dicks. The space will host a group show called "Sweet/Sweat Shop" with music by DJ BARRR and One Million Light Years (music at 9:00).

3) Wonder Fair gets our vote for most adorably titled opening with "Togethers": "an exhibition exploring the intrinsic influence and inspiration between two artists who choose to share time, space and life experiences." Also, the Wonder Fair bar will serve up some beer and chocolate pairings. And, in a perfect world, Transmittens would return to Larryville and mumble songs about "sparklemittens" in the corner during this event.

4) The Pig gets cute as well with a Valentine's themed show called "Venus Loves Me," featuring "goddesses, love letters, beautiful germs, bathing beauties, genies, flowers, tassels, trophies with boobs." Chip likes the poster because it has titties on it.





















(5) Finally, Love Garden's opening is called "Animal/Magnetism," featuring "life music by Animism, which is a thrown together band that will be ambient noir." We're pretty sure that's supposed to read "live music," but "life music" sounds more important. Music around 7:30.

Get the more wide-ranging scoop on Final Fridays events at the Wordpress site.

Wednesday, January 25, 2012

Larryville Approves Fambrough Drive / Pitchfork's NECESSARY Album of the Week

Larryville's City Fathers approved a plan last night to rename a portion of 11th Street Fambrough Drive in honor of late, great Missouri-hater and former KU football coach Don Fambrough. Fambrough Drive will stretch from Mississipi to Missouri Streets. Are we excited? You bet we are.

Chip: "I suspect that if you stand at the intersection of Fambrough Drive and Missouri Street and hate Missouri with all your might the ghost of Fambrough will appear and call Missourians a bunch of sons-of-bitches."

But let's see what the LJ-World talkbackers think?

Observant says: "Just when I thought commissioners couldn't do any thing stupider than anything before, they did it. A memorial to a losing coach with only his hatred of Missouri as his claim to fame."

Trollkiller says: "Good thing we don't have a coach with a winning record like Bill Snyder, we'd have to re-name the entire town (Snyderville)."

And Andini says: "Can a roundabout be named after Mangino?"

We have to admit, however, that we do feel a little sorry for the frat guys of Delta Tau Delta who pride themselves on their 1111 W 11th St address (and their 11/11 parties). They may never find their way back home from Brother's after the name change.

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When Pitchfork uses the word "necessary," we take notice. Here's a line from their rave 8.6 review of Cloud Nothings' Attack on Memory:

"As an accidental concept album affirming the enduring power and purity of early emo (as defined by Dischord, Deep Elm, and especially Jade Tree), Attack on Memory feels above all necessary, a corrective for indie rock making allowances for everything except music that actually rocks."

Making a concept album without even knowing it is pretty hip in our book.

And check out this cat in an Ernest Tubb Record Shop t-shirt:

Tuesday, January 24, 2012

Super Nerd Night Returns! (not to be confused with Nerd Nite) / Replay Photo of the Week

We're getting a little worried that there are too many nerds in Larryville these days, what with the new Nerd Nite series of lectures at Pachamama's and the sure-to-be-triumphant return of Astro Kitty's Super Nerd Nite on Wednesday (now at the Bottleneck). But at least this week's nerds have a kissing booth staffed by the Foxy By Proxy burlesque ladies. Perhaps next time they'll consider the "groping booth" which we remember so fondly from the old Bottleneck "Fetish Nights" (Chip: "One of the top-five erotic Larryville experiences of my life.").

There's also a "VIDEO-DRONE™ OLD-SCHOOL GAMING BAR!" (we dig the Cronenberg reference) as well as a "SINEMASCOPE™ SILENT FILM/DRINKING EXPERIENCE!" (which we assume means getting trashed while watching silent films).

Also: rock and roll from Radar Defender.

Visit the Facebook event page for Super Nerd Night here here .

And visit Radar Defender's site here and dig the tune "Simian Rock."



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The picture of the day comes to us from the KU Nights site. Apparently they sometimes visit the Replay in addition to Abe and Jake's and Tonic and Brothers. But did the Replay become a hippie bar? Or is this cat being ironic? As always, free PBR if you identify the scenesters. Or perhaps you'd prefer a toke?

Monday, January 23, 2012

Courtneybelle Gets Sloshed on Sidecars at Speakeasy Night at Eldridge / We Recommend a Four Hour Japanese Film About Religion and Upskirt Photography

Larryville has been clamoring for Courtneybelle's first post of the new year, so here it is: her adventures at last Friday's "speakeasy night" at the Eldridge. Enjoy.

"If you need an excuse to be in costume on a Friday, look no further than “speakeasy night" at the Eldridge. It is always fun to celebrate our nation’s puritanical streak by getting plowed on Sidecars and Cosmopolitans. Based on the crowd this Watkins Museum event drew, it’s pretty hip to be historical. I think modern ladies are drawn to these events because they hearken back to a day in fashion when flat chested girls stood a chance in this world. Once patrons uttered the password, they were admitted to a dimly lit basement room. Watkins Museum provided some entertaining local historical factoids and artifacts [pictured]. Not surprisingly, Lawrence has a rich history of disobedience during Prohibition. As far as I know, Prohibition-era Lawrencians didn’t invent alcohol made out of hemp, but they did their part to contribute to the immorality of the community."

If you look really closely at the second photo, you might see Courtneybelle, trapped forever in the Eldridge, Shining-style!!
































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If you're like us, you just finished reading Haruki Murakami's 925-page opus 1Q84 with the PBR_Book_Club and immediately started looking for another ridiculously long and insane recent Japanese work of art. Luckily, we've got just the ticket for you: Love Exposure, a four-hour 2008 film by Sion Sono about a teenage boy who wants to sin as much as possible to impress his Christian priest father during confessions so he joins forces with an intrepid band of upskirt-photographers who stalk the city, hoping all the while to take the perfect picture of his dream girl who will give him his first boner, which finally happens while he's dressed in drag and pretending to be a bad-ass kung fu fighter named "Miss Scorpion" to impress a man-hating schoolgirl crush. Sold yet? We're two hours in and loving it. Call to discuss. And watch the Youtube trailer here.

AV Club describes the film: "A soundtrack flush with passages from Beethoven’s Symphony No. 7 and Ravel’s Bolero. A roving gang of martial-arts-trained up-skirt photographers. Boners aplenty."

Sunday, January 22, 2012

Our Danny Pound Revue Review

Readers, if we learned anything from the first installment of the Nine Forty LIVE concert series at the Lawrence Arts Center last night it's that there are a significant number of old folks and Eastsiders willing to pay ten bucks to hear local music in a comfortable seat and get home by 10:30 to relieve the babysitters. Indeed, the house was packed for an evening with Danny Pound, Arthur Dodge, Suzannah Johannes, and Matt Suggs.

The highlight: people were roaming the aisles hawking beer (Free State beer, no less) as if we were at a baseball game! Holy shit! Liberty Hall should take a note from this idea and bring us beer when we are crammed in like sardines at a concert.

The lowlights: The evening's MC, Tim, is probably a very nice fellow, but we thought the drunken, abrasive style clashed pretty jarringly with the mellow vibe of the performances. As Art Dodge curtly told him, late in the show: "Wrap it up." And then there was the inevitable dude who finally got drunk enough to yell for Skynyrd after a contemplative Dodge song ("Meet me out back after the show," Dodge said, and hopefully he kicked the guy's ass good and proper).

Our top musical moments:

Danny Pound's rip-roaring song about how "the sun hasn't set on this boy yet." (we don't know titles, but we're guessing that might be the title!). And also his cover of Warren Zevon's "Mohammed's Radio" ("Don't it make you want to rock and roll?").

Arthur Dodge's duets with Mrs. Dodge (who was perhaps the unsung musical hero of the night).

Suzannah Johannes, in a sparkly shirt and boots, singing a lovely duet with Danny Pound after awkward attempts to arrange themselves atop very tall stools. Sadly, she didn't tell the hilarious vibrator story she regaled us with at last week's BARRR stand-up show.

Matt Suggs' "Where's Your Patience, Dear?" (if you have a mix-CD from us, there's a 72% chance this song is on it).

Verdict: four out of four Free State beers brought directly to our seats!

Upcoming shows include Truckstop Honeymoon, with perpetual Larryville neo-hobo Tyler Gregory. And later: Hospital Ships! (is the Hospital Ships show really on St. Patrick's Day, as the MC announced? That seems like an odd night to try to draw a big crowd to a mellow gig).

Artistic discovery of the evening:

Richard was profoundly moved by the haybale art in the gallery, while Chip felt the hay could have been put toward a more practical use, such as a nice breakfast for Coco the Pony.

Friday, January 20, 2012

Weekend Scenester Picks: Speakeasies, Sex Films, and Skronky Tonk

Sure, a lot of you scenesters will be "jockin' your freshes" down at the Jackpot on Saturday (Chip: "I think that's hip-hop lingo for masturbation"), and you can get the full info on that and other weekend music events at I Heart Local Music.

But what else should you consider this weekend?

How about Speakeasy Night at the Eldridge this evening? It seems that HBO's Boardwalk Empire and Ken Burns Prohibition have made such gatherings hip again (so long as there's plenty of booze involved, of course). So dress like a flapper and check it out. We recommend drinking a lot of Sidecars, which we sampled at the recent Bonnie and Clyde bank robbery re-enactment. They'll get you nice and hammered, and quick. We sincerely hope Courtneybelle attends and reports back to us.

















Film buffs will want to head to KC this weekend to see British auteur Steve McQueen's NC-17 sex-addiction drama Shame, though Chip's a little intimidated to spend two hours in the presence of Fassbender's (by all accounts impressive) schlong. We hope it's as pretentious as the poster and have no doubt it will be!





















Or maybe you're in the mood for some "mayhem-infused skronky tonk music." Old Country Death Band's at the Jackpot tonight. They have a cool name and a cool flyer:

Wednesday, January 18, 2012

SOPA Blackouts Are So Hip Right Now!

Behind this censored bar is the greatest boner joke that we have ever written. Make sure to shout angrily about the SOPA legislation today to insure that our boners keep on coming (if you catch our play on words!).

Chip: "There's so much talk about how SOPA will effectively censor all aspects of the interweb that people are losing sight of the basic fact that it will also keep me from downloading shoddy bootlegs of the newest Transformers movies from random BitTorrent sites."


Tuesday, January 17, 2012

A Local Missed Connections Mash-Up Poem / Scenester Pick of the Day: Up the Academy and Nurses at Jackpot

Readers, it's been awhile since we collected a sampling of excerpts from Larryville's Craigslist Missed Connections and Personals and assembled them into a mash-up poem of lust and longing. But you're in luck today. Enjoy.


I have a hotel room all to myself and was wanting to cheat on my current girlfriend, Pamela Handerson.
I'm young, thin, and have a body smoother than the taste of Camel Lights.
Send me an email with "Battletoads" in the subject line.

U always smile when i come thru the drive up.
Order hotdog n shake or melt n shake and u always try to make it a meal

i asked for oil/vinegar and you're like yeah, they're awesome

seen she had the sexiest waist and tight butt I'd ever seen

Your mom mentioned something to me about my sons straw

What song were you singing?

I was wearing a backwards hat

What I meant was "I want to lay face down in your bathwater as a reward for being a good puppy."

Big boobs and kissing...Good looking guy seeks these two things

i'm a guy, masculine and sane
just want to try giving a dude a handjob or using your pocket pussy on you
while you kick backand watch some porn

you are so sexy and have the nicest ass
You drive a blue ford and have dog
I see You give off so many happy vibrations
I want to bring you flowers every day and treat you like a queen
I bet your amazing in bed
Describe to me what your dog looks like


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The Jackpot is still rocking, at least for now, so make sure to head down tonight and see our buddies in Up the Academy.

Remember that time they fed us patriotic grilled-cheese sandwiches at Love Garden?















Or that time they dressed like bunnies?















They're opening up for Portland's Nurses. You should probably chat with them about Portlandia. Check out their Bandcamp page.

And here are Nurses (they don't look at all like Chip hoped):

Monday, January 16, 2012

Scenester Pick for Tuesday: Daymoths at the Replay / Local Art Feud of the Week

At the LC, we're always on the lookout for adorable duos, and the husband/wife team of Minnesota's Daymoths (at the Replay on Tuesday) just might fit the bill. From what we've gathered on the interwebs, they're an organ/piano/drums duo who occasionally bring handmade soap to their shows!

Urban Tulsa Weekly says:

"The songs bring to mind the freakish contents of Victorian curiosity cabinets and would make for a great soundtrack to the most adorable little taxidermy shop you’ve ever seen."

If Animal Planet's American Stuffers gets a second season, perhaps Daymoths can do the score!

PLEASE watch this video of Daymoths' making unusual sounds in a pastoral setting.


















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In a recent LJ-World editorial, Richard Wingfield complains:

"If taking a picture of a mannequin in a field (Journal-World front page, Jan.10) is the kind of art Gov. Brownback is cutting funding to, please, governor, cut away. I would like my tax money spent on better roads."

Guess what, Richard Wingfield? The artist is not going to put up with your shit!

Emily Johnson responds:

"This is a message for Richard Wingfield (Public Forum, Jan. 12). Thank you for taking all of a paragraph to completely generalize the world of art. Art is ultimately about thinking, and it is clear you did little of that. The mannequin, you so easily tossed aside as irrelevant and absurd, symbolizes my mother. It is even more relevant because my most vivid memory of my mother involves her sewing clothes for me on a mannequin dress form. The baby dress on top of the mannequin’s “head” symbolizes me and the way my very existence can be a burden and a blinder, both financially and emotionally.

So, before you decide to attack art, me and, by extension, my family, perhaps you should do some thinking of your own. Even some abstract thinking if you’re up to it, because that is the kind we could use here in Kansas."



At the LC, we fully support any and all mannequin art, especially in fields.

Chip: "I support them not so much for the artistic value, but because they can double as scarecrows."

Saturday, January 14, 2012

Top Secret Stand-Up Comedy Highlights / Graffiti of the Week: Blockbuster? More Like...Cockduster!

Readers, we've always been a little frightened of attending one of BARRR's "secret" stand-up shows. What if he singles us out and makes fun of Chip's boner? Or what if he gets naked on stage (we don't care to witness that). So in the past we've sent in the bold Tweetnasty to provide coverage on such events.

But last night we decided to take our chances and join the throng of scenesters in the old Penny Annie's location (now art gallery) for an evening of vulgarity, depravity, and, who knows, maybe even some jokes.

Here's the line-up:

Peter Lyrene. Peter came armed with some amusing sex jokes about "his and her" lubes and rules regarding porn-watching, but we preferred his geekery (a story about the largely-forgotten mid-to-late 90's fantasy series Early Edition; an unexpected use of the word "Dickensian.").

Chance Dibben. This cat made us laugh with his deadpan delivery. He offered up some good jokes about his stripper/pilot mother and a long story about the time he ejaculated like "the St. Louis arch" into his own mouth.

Suzannah Johannes. Yes, the very same Suzannah who sings quiet and contemplative love songs in a gorgeous voice will also tell you a tale about the time she left her bright blue vibrator (with 15 settings!) in full view, along with a box full of ribs she'd been eating. Photo courtesy of @Steve_Dalhberg:




















Ed (somebody help us out with his last name). He regaled us with a tale of how Sir Paul McCartney blessed his baby in Branson.

Chip: "Branson gets a lot of flak from comedians, but most of them would change their point of view if they actually attended the Shoji Tabuchi show."

And (finally) the man of the evening, BARRR, took the stage, promising to "rape the shit out of us" for 45 minutes. Beginning with his exploits cheating "the Man" at Papa Murphy's Pizza with altered coupons, BARRR soon took us on a powerful journey through his frustrations with his job, the difficulties of marriage and fatherhood, and the sheer terror of being stalked by a local homeless woman. We learned that, when BARRR fucks, the sound (for some reason) is the sound of a big truck backing up (BEEP. BEEP). And we learned that he will sometimes answer the door of his home in N. Lawrence completely naked, with a boner, at 4:00 in the morning. Here's a photo of BARRR in his BARRRhartt jacket.





















And then, as if the evening wasn't already weird enough, legendary Larryville denizen Wayne Propst took the stage to end the evening with a 35-second poem(?) about zygotes. He stormed off the stage with his arm raised in victory and the crowd thanked him.















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Just when you thought Larryville graffiti was nothing more than "AJAX" written on every available surface, along comes this message on the 23rd Street Blockbuster. We think it's a trenchant commentary on the failing economy.

Friday, January 13, 2012

Friday Night Scenester Guide: Secret Stand-Up Comedy and Batmen / Important Local Legislation of the Week: Potbellied Pigs

It's time to quit whining about this week's tiny January snowfall and hit the town, so we'll be starting our evening with a top-secret stand-up comedy show...which you probably already know about if you follow @BARRR on Twitter. But if you still need an invite, we've been authorized to give out 10 of them (it gives Chip a boner to think he knows about shit that other people do not). So send a DM to @larryvillelife if you need the scoop. And we hear Wayne Propst is going to be in the house. Will he be performing any stand-up (or perhaps a ventriloquist act using those freaky babydoll heads?). There's only one way to know for sure.

Afterward, you should probably either head home to watch the Battlestar Galactica episode of Portlandia or to the Jackpot to see Batmen and Mouthbreathers, a show so hip it's not listed on the Jackpot's calendar.


















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And don't forget that the City Fathers are meeting next week to decide whether pot-bellied pigs should be allowed as pets. Personally, we don't find them as adorable as hedgehogs. Look at this 70 pound beast named Sparky from the LJ-World story on the subject:











Do you want that thing rooting around in the apartment above you?

If you're a local progressive (or resident of the Eastside) the answer is almost certainly yes.

Wednesday, January 11, 2012

Nerd Nite 3: Observations and Reflections

Readers, Nerd Nite has reached its "tipping point" (as that nerdy Malcolm Gladwell would say). Doors opened last night at 7:30 and by the time we arrived, at 7:34, the room was at capacity. However, we luckily scored a seat, not because we're the only son-of-a-bitches in town who cover this event but simply because a group of people waiting nearby did not want to leave any of their members behind. We are pleased to note, however, that the next Nerd Nite will be held in Pachamama's ballroom, which should provide plenty of room for every interested nerd in town

And now some highlights from the three presentations:

1) Truck Stop presentation

"Showers are golden when you're on the road."
(The presenter never seemed to realize the unintentional sexual innuendo here, but the nerds sure did. We all snickered like Beavis and Butthead.

The presentation was notably lacking in trucker music and clips from films such as Smokey and the Bandit, but at least Convoy was referenced.

One of the presenter's Top Ten trucker lessons was that "Truck stop food is awful," but Chip profoundly disagreed, as he has never met a truckstop chicken-fried steak that he didn't enjoy.

2) Intro to Whisky presentation

No, there's not supposed to be an "e" in whisky, you dummies!

Line about barley that gave Chip a boner: "You've got to get it wet and sopping."

We scored a free sample of whisky (thanks to Courtneybelle!).

3) Neo-Archaic Revivalism lecture

These days people who are into Terence McKenna are the kinds of folks that go to Sound Tribe Sector 9 shows (good point, Nick Ray!).

"Knurds" are "agents of change." Especially Plato.

Admittedly, we were drunk on good Scotch by this point, but we're pretty sure that Nick Ray accidentally said "John Cameron Mitchell" instead of "James Cameron" at one point, which made us think about how awesome Avatar would have been if the director of Shortbus had made it: imagine all the hot Na'vi orgies that would have ensued!

Important point established during the Q&A: There is no sequel to Titanic.

Also, all nerds in attendance last night were given a copy of the inaugural Nerd Nite magazine, and we have spent the morning studying the Nerd Nite personals. We're totally going to email Pam Willis from Austin, a sexy biologist nerd who is made happy by "critters, surprise cocktails, and singing in the car." Go here to subscribe to the magazine.



Tuesday, January 10, 2012

Most Anticipated Album/Time Machine of the Year: White Flight

Readers, if you're like us, you scour the interwebs each day looking for information about White Flight's new album. So imagine how excited we were yesterday when we discovered (via Range Life Records) a missive from "Whitey" himself.

"ALOHA! I write from southern California on this beautiful sunny day. We are alive and this planet is hot hot hot right now! I have begun work on a new recording, which I won't even call an album, as it is going to be much more than that, the genesis sounds for a film and eventual multi-sensoral other-dimensional transport tool."


If we're reading this correctly, the album will double as a time-machine! Let's hope he finishes the album before the Mayan apocalypse arrives in December. In order to insure that this happens, he needs someone to offer up a "special retreat-like space that could be transformed into a studio for 2 weeks to 2 months."

Please visit Range Life Records here and offer up your services in whatever way you can.



Monday, January 9, 2012

Scenester Pick of the Day: Dubb Nubb (and Pizza Power!) at Wonder Fair

All the Pizza Power folks want to do is eat some delicious pizza and rock out, but The Man managed to shut down their house parties. Luckily for you, the party returns to Wonder Fair tonight, with pizza at 6:00 and music from Dubb Nubb and others at 7:00.

Dubb Nubb is two nineteen year old twin sisters from Missouri, and they even have a Daytrotter session, which we'd happily listen to except we get annoyed by having to register for shit over at Daytrotter these days, so we'll dig their Bandcamp tunes instead.

Daytrotter says: "Dubb Nubb has created these succulent moments of introspective black holes - those HUGE thoughts that, once you get going on them, you find that they're deeper than the deepest well and you're falling forever."

Sounds dangerous, but we love "succulent moments!" Go check it out, why don't you?

Saturday, January 7, 2012

Alternative Lecture Series Take the Scenester World By Storm / Nerd Nite 3 Preview / Replay Matinee Recap

"Alternative lecture series" are so hip right now! Check out this piece from the NY-Times which offers a glimpse inside several such series.

There's the "Secret Science Night" series:

"Dr. Harcourt-Smith flashed a “slightly kinky” slide of a chimp holding up a silver stiletto with its feet before offering to buy that evening’s special cocktail, the Fossil Evidence, for anyone who could guess the name of a certain bone."

There's the "Moonlighter Presents" series:

"This series, which started in 2010 in a former funeral home in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, draws about 50 people. It features youngish academics, artists and writers on subjects outside their expertise... topics lean toward theory-tinged eclectica like the poetics of hay fever, the cultural politics of Steely Dan fandom and the history of the car ferry in Elberta, Mich...".

And of course there's "Nerd Nite":

"Susan Carnell... did manage to slip some real science into her talk, including references to a recent study of the mating behavior of male topi antelopes and a slide depicting the vagina photoplethysmograph, a contraption used to measure female arousal."

As you should know by now, Larryville has its own Nerd Nite series, and Round 3 is this Tuesday.

This week's lectures:

"Caffeine, Public Showers, and Howling Wolf T-Shirts: Exploring
America’s Truck Stops" by Stephanie Day


"An Introduction to Scotch Whisky" by Kevin Freese (let's hope there are free samples!).

and the one with the most adorably academic title:

"Let’s Get (meta)Physical!: How to dip your toes in the Neoarchaic
Revival without getting wet" by Nick Ray.


Visit the FB event page here.

And you should also consider presenting at a future Nerd Nite. Chip is hard (!) at work on a presentation called "A History of Boners: From Lysistrata to Bridesmaids to the One in My Pants As I Speak." And Richard is rumored to be preparing a collaborative presentation with Bananasuit called "Building a Better Book Club: How We Convinced a Bunch of Folks to Spend the Holidays Reading a 900 Page Japanese Novel."

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We didn't make it to any late-night scenesters shows this weekend, but that doesn't mean we didn't witness some weird shit at the Replay. At Friday's matinee, we beheld the following sights:

--Lance Fahey marching around the inside bar with an accordion trying to get the crowd to sing along to the Pixies' "Monkey Gone to Heaven" (with very few joining in despite the fact that everyone in the bar is BORN knowing those lyrics).

--the gals in Smile High Club inviting a (lucky) guy onstage to be ridden like a horse during a song about ponies (bad photo here, but we assure you this dude is being ridden like a horse!).





















--Smile High Club performing a song about the pleasures of sitting atop a washing machine (with the orgasmic moments consisting of the chorus from "Natural Woman"). Is this something that women often do? Please send us detailed accounts of your experiences to be incorporated into a future Nerd Nite presentation titled "Spin Cycle: Oh My God Don't Stop!"

Friday, January 6, 2012

Picking and Grinning Pick of the Day: Smile High Club

Our friends at I Heart Local Music have already informed you of the weekend's hippest events, such as Kaitlyn Conroy's new project La Guerre at the Replay on Saturday and The Sluts at the Bottleneck (also on Saturday).

So let's take a look at a few other choices you might otherwise overlook. For the early birds amongst us, the Replay offers a matinee of picking and grinning this evening (it's so fucking warm they should move it outdoors and pretend it's summer again!). Will Katz is opening the show with "singing commentary for the misleaders of our state?" (L.com). Is this dude like the Mark Russell of Larryville? He better have a Brownback/#heblowsalot tune! And maybe a tune written in the past few days about Kansas House Speaker Mike O'Neal forwarding along offensive emails about Michelle "YoMama."

And the matinee headliner is Smile High Club. We can only assume (and hope) they thought of the name while getting high and having sex in an airplane restroom. We're sold based on this photo (note the PBR t-shirt). Also, they have a wonderfully vulgar song called "Sweet Ass" which you can hear at their FB page . Learn it and sing along tonight.






















Or perhaps you should head to Wayne and Larry's to support K-State in the Cotton Bowl at the "Lawrence Area Catbacker Watch Party." Just kidding. You should NOT do that. Instead, you should root for the Hogs, because Richard still has Razorback roots. However, Chip does enjoy this pic from the official Wayne and Larry's website, which suggests that the waitresses are folksy types with bare feet and rolled-up jeans.

Wednesday, January 4, 2012

We Don't Know What a "Global Pants Party" Is All About, But There's Not Much Else Going On Tonight / Local Missed Connection of the Week

Readers, if you're like us you've no doubt already clicked on the Jackpot's home page to plan your January hipster itinerary and found yourself facing a totally blank slate. Sure, we cried a little. But we're told there ARE still occasional events scheduled (which you can find listed at I Heart Local Music). And of course Duckie and company are still doing karaoke on Tuesdays.

However, let's face it. It's slow this time of year in general and, without the Jackpot rocking on a nightly basis, it's going to be a long winter and you're going to have to settle for some off-the-beaten-path events at other, less hip venues.

So we'll see you at the Bottleneck tonight for something called a "global pants party." It's free if you're over 21 and there's also going to be some "live painting" going on.



















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Romance is in the air at the gym in this recent "m4f" Missed Connection.

"Anyways I am definitely turned on by you and would love to tear my shirt off and show you what I have underneath for you. Reply back to this telling me what color shirt I wore last night. Clue...We did lock eyes a few times and I also know that you switched from the treadmill to the stair-stepper because it was right by the tricep machine that I was using and you wanted to show off that ass of yours."

Chip: "Women love when a guy rips his own shirt off and the tricep machine is indeed the best vantage point to check out asses at the gym. I have a feeling this guy will get lucky."

Monday, January 2, 2012

The LC's New Year's Resolutions

1) Readers, we resolve to publish a little more sporadically in 2012. Daily posting just gets to be a little much. Some days there is simply nothing hip going on. And, on a few rare occasions, the pressure to publish daily has been so intense that Chip has had to fake a boner. So we'll likely be limiting our coverage to the hippest of events and essential local stories (such as #heblowsalot and Coco the Pony). For those needing a more constant source of snark, local links, and PBR jokes, there's always the @larryvillelife Twitter feed.


2) We resolve to bring you a few more guest pieces in 2012. Last year we offered up fine work ranging from Courtneybelle's analysis of the Twilight series ("Mormons wank too!") to @plyrene 's powerful investigation of local scenester violence ("Just stand your ground, go home, and write a fast and loud song about the experience for your band's next 9-minute EP.") to Tweetnasty's ever-popular sex advice columns ("Dudes: don't send a flaccid dongshot to a girl you're trying to impress."). However, it's surprisingly hard to get apathetic local scenesters to commit to actually writing a short piece for us, even though we KNOW you're out there on the scene every night drinking PBR. So...when we ask for your help, please rise to the challenge and take comfort in the fact that your week may eventually be discovered through random Google searches (especially if you use the word "naked" a few times).

3) Finally, we resolve to continue being the fourth best source in town for local cultural coverage. Thanks for reading.

[Also, as with all New Year's resolutions, we reserve the right to break all of these in a few weeks and return to writing lazy daily boner jokes].

Sunday, January 1, 2012

New Year's Eve at the Replay Recap / Local Mural Restoration Project of the Week

Readers, normally we spend a quiet New Year's Eve in bucolic Romance, Arkansas, which is now home to a new reality show on Animal Planet called American Stuffers, about a family of extreme taxidermists who specialize in stuffing beloved pets (this shit is real: take a look !).



But last night we found ourselves in Larryville, so we ventured to the Replay to see how local scenesters ring in the New Year. How? With a 45 minute set break and absolutely nothing happening on stage at midnight nor any announcement of the New Year (probably there was more festivity on the patio than inside).

But at least Dean Monkey's pre-midnight opening set of "dirty doo wop," complete with ZZ Top beards and a shirtless adult baby with a pacifier, offered up a version of "Auld Lang Syne."




















And in the early minutes of 2012, likely to be humanity's final year, The Devil (turns out The Devil is a woman) took the stage with distorted guitars and gave Chip an evil boner in the front row.
















Here's a frighteningly ethereal picture of The Devil:



















And it's probably safe to assume that Fag Cop (or "Homo 5-0," as Dean Monkey called them) played later, but we were passed out in the alley by then.




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If you're a local progressive, you love art and you love saving art, so head over to Dave Loewenstein's blog and find out about one of his 1993 murals (the one in the alley on the side of Signs of Life bookstore) that just got painted over but MIGHT be restored with a little support from you. Do you want the mural back? Of course you fucking do!

Thanks to @oxfordist for the story tip.