The weird turn pro
One of the privileges of covering music for this publication has been running across some of the weirder band names (and weirder live shows) that come through town, typically at the Nick, the...
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Don’t let me be misunderstood
Leslie Smith III, “Copy Cat,” oil on shaped canvas, 2013. Image courtesy of the artist. The French poet Michel Deguy once wrote that, “Poetry, like love, risks everything on signs.” In a similar sense,...
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The lower depths
Art by Jedidiah Alford. Dante’s Divine Comedy may be the most influential and irreplaceable book in the Western canon. The grim epic’s fingerprints are on nearly every major work that followed it, from...
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Picturing a better Birmingham
Image courtesy of Rachel Callahan. When 12 Years a Slave won the Academy Award for Best Picture, director Steve McQueen dedicated the win to “the 21 million people who still endure slavery today.” Even...
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Who is Avondale for?
Photo by David Garrett. Outside of downtown Birmingham itself, Avondale may be the crown jewel of the Magic City’s material and emotional revitalization. Like Birmingham as a whole, Avondale has...
View ArticleA cavalcade of weirdness
Earlier this month, Nick Prueher achieved viral fame by portraying a fake chef with a fake name promoting a fake book of fake recipes, who nevertheless managed to get on the air with seven different...
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An antidote to nostalgia
Image courtesy of beta pictoris gallery. Travis Somerville works in loaded images. For some artists, that would be a criticism, but for Atlanta native and longtime San Franciscan Somerville, it’s a...
View ArticleA certain kind of cool
If Stone Cloud, released by local rockers Plains a few weeks ago, doesn’t sound like it’s from 2014, that’s not an accident. Whether it’s in his come-hither ballads, poppy meanderings or psychedelic...
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A show of gratitude
For an outdoor enthusiast, Lauren Guillebeau wasn’t a total novice. She’d been hiking to the Sipsey Wilderness three times before and was confident that she and the friend she had gone out hiking with...
View ArticleRising from the dirt
Now more than two years sober, Jason Isbell is at the peak of his career. The former Drive-By Trucker released his best-received album yet, Southeastern, last summer, immediately receiving...
View ArticleExpanding modern art in Birmingham
On May 5, Wassan Al-Khudhairi began her role as the Birmingham Museum of Art’s Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art. In the last seven years, her career has taken her from a curatorial position at...
View ArticleA game of democracy
On Wednesday, May 21, the Bottletree will host Civically Challenged, a game show that will give issues like the Pepsi sign foofaraw, the Hoover busing hullabaloo and the 20/59 imbroglio the Monopoly...
View ArticleOur constructive summer
After two successful summers at Huntsville’s Lowe Mill arts center, Happenin Fest will be relocating to Good People Brewing Company on the afternoon of Saturday, May 24. While the music festival –...
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Space is the place
Art by Craig Legg, courtesy of T-Rex tiny gallery. T-Rex tiny gallery, a new addition to the burgeoning Crestwood arts scene located at 4911 5th Ave. S., will have its grand opening on the evening of...
View ArticleLeaving the crossroads
“If we’d ever start listening to reason, we’d have no reason to go,” local songwriter Corey Nolen sings on “Find a Way,” the first track on his new alt-country record Drive Down South. “If we’d ever...
View ArticleComing of age in Birmingham
Drew Price has had an awfully long career for a 24-year-old. After playing shows at dearly departed all-ages venue Cave9, Price found success with his home recordings online, catching positive...
View ArticleComing Attractions: Summer edition
Back in December, Weld gave previewing the highlights of the spring music season in Birmingham the old college try, despite the fact that a booked calendar was but a twinkle in the eye of most venues...
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Swords of honor
Image courtesy of the BMA. “To have the arts of peace, but not the arts of war, is to lack courage. To have the arts of war, but not the arts of peace, is to lack wisdom.” – Hayashi Razan Starting...
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Dreaming big in Birmingham
Photo courtesy of Marcus Turner. On the weekend of Oct. 24-27, the Dalai Lama will visit Birmingham to explore the Magic City’s relationship with the broader struggle for human rights – its role, to...
View ArticleParadise regained
The literary critic Harold Bloom famously wrote about the anxiety of influence, the struggle of poets to reconcile the impact of their predecessors with their own sense of originality. On his new LP I...
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