“Keep your juices in the chops, keep your juices in the brats,/Serve ’em on paper plates, ‘tato salad and grape pop.” The freshmen are moved in, the weather’s changing, and downtown Phoenix is back in action! Welcome to DevilPass, your weekly dose of arts, culture, and entertainment in the downtown area. With all the new and returning students, and the natives returning from vacation, now is the perfect time to get back in the groove of the city.
Events this week range from a cult movie screening, free-flowing rap performance, a documentary of the untold side of crime, poetry from new perspectives, and a farewell to one of Phoenix’s favorite daughters. To the newbies and the returning downtown vets: take chance this week and see a new side of your home.
Lisa Frank’s *Magical*NEON!Unicorn{dildo} POETRYSHOW
- Friday, Aug. 24
- 8:00 p.m. Show
- Lawn Gnome Publishing and Bookstore: 905 N. Fifth St.
- Getting there: Walk — Fifth and Roosevelt streets
- Price: FREE
Recommended if You Like: Lisa Frank design, feminine-feminism, boundary-pushing lit
Lisa Frank, responsible for every unicorn and flashy disco-style design on the backpack and notebook of a tween girl over the past three decades, has taken on a new meaning. The long-running commercial art and design behemoth is being appropriated by a trio of potent poets from right here in Phoenix. Natasha Murdock, Brigit Maloney and Meghan Kelsey each hail from local colleges and universities, and all aim to help create a new portrait of feminism through spoken and written word. Rather than the stereotypical masculine image of feminists in society at large, the poetry collective “write[s] about feminism without necessarily condemning My Little Pony or Lisa Frank Trapperkeepers.” Take that as you will, and show your activist side with style tonight at Lawn Gnome.
WHY? with Serengeti and DJ Tony Trimm
- Monday, Aug. 27
- 7:00 p.m. Doors, 8:00 p.m. Show
- Crescent Ballroom: 308 N. Second Ave.
- Getting there: Walk — Second Avenue and Van Buren Street
- Price: $15 advance at Stinkweeds or crescentphx.com; $17 at the door
Recommended if You Like: Son Lux, Death Grips, avant-hip-hop
California indie label Anticon has long set the standard for avant-hip-hop. And in 2005, co-founder Jonathan “Yoni” Wolf made his solo project WHY?, a fully-realized band, mixing his label’s penchant for hip-hop with his prior folk tendencies. With their first full-band release “Elephant Eyelash”, the group garnered praise from such tastemakers as CMJ and Pitchfork, eventually building on that momentum with their two successive albums, before founder Wolf took a break to work on various solo projects. Though WHY? is the critical darling of this billing, Serengeti is quickly becoming the darling of Internet and indie-rock aficionados following this year’s collaboration with heavyweights Sufjan Stevens and Son Lux, the polarizing s / s / s. What do Brian Dennehy, O’Doul’s, the Octomom, and amnesia have in common? All are utilized in the lyrics of ‘Geti over his three releases this year. “C.A.R.”, Serengeti’s third release of the year (and first full-length), finds the rapper inhabiting 11 new characters in a stark, dark departure from his s / s / s work and the Kenny Dennis EP. This is the new fringe, and this Anticon-based tour is bringing it all.
- Saturday, Aug. 25
- 7:30 p.m. Doors, 8:00 p.m. Show
- The Trunk Space: 1506 NW Grand Ave.
- Getting there: Bike — 15th and Grand avenues
- Price: $6 at the door
Recommended if You Like: Regina Spektor, quirky folk, Uni & Her Ukulele
Since 2009, Phoenix chanteuse Michelle Blades has been winning the hearts of even the most jaded scenester, working stages from the backyard of Conspire in downtown Phoenix, to the Piper Theater at Mesa Arts Center. From her first improvised ukulele ditties at an open-mic, to her jazz-, Latin- and post-punk-influenced work of the present, Blades has continued to develop her sound through dozens of gigs and even more YouTube videos of half-developed songs. The niece of world-famous salsa musician Rubén Blades, Michelle first arrived in Phoenix after throwing a dart on a map, departing from her native Miami to attend Arizona State University. During her time here, Blades has toured Europe three times and performed at TEDxPhoenix. But after some years of success, she is ready for some change, going abroad for another European jaunt before settling in Portland, Maine. For her farewell show, Blades is returning to her musical home at the Trunk Space, inviting talented friends Stephen Steinbrink (French Quarter), Tobie Milford (The Whisperlights), and some secret guests for a last musical hurrah.
Wet Hot American Summer—Movie in the Garden!
- Saturday, Aug. 25
- 7:30 p.m. Doors, 8:00 p.m. Show
- GROWop: 902 N. Sixth St.
- Getting there: Bike — Sixth and Garfield streets
- Price: FREE
Recommended if You Like: The State, Michael Ian Black, culture in the garden
This Sunday, the growing season kicks off at Roosevelt Growhouse, downtown’s most-renowned community garden. To celebrate the occasion, the space is throwing a summer-camp party. Join the key players from ‘90s cult MTV sketch-comedy hit The State for the last week of summer at Camp Firewood, where the counselors are looking for love and the campers are left to their own devices. In a series of events including an unexpected coming-out, an epic choreographed dance routine, arts and crafts, and saving the camp from certain meteorite destruction, the summer comes to a raucous end, and a perfect intro to a productive season at the Growhouse. This FREE event features drinks and snacks provided by the staff of the space, though the organizers ask that attendees bring their own chairs or blankets to lounge upon under the stars.
“Of Dolls and Murder” A film by Susan Marks
- Friday, Aug. 24
- 7:30 p.m. Doors, 8:00 p.m. Show
- The IceHouse: 429 W. Jackson St.
- Getting there: Bike — Fifth Avenue and Jackson Street
- Price: $5 at the door
Recommended if You Like: John Waters, CSI, dollhouses
Where now DNA and forensics dominate crime scenes, it was once the realm of the more fanciful among us. In Susan Marks’ 2011 documentary, join cult film legend John Waters in a journey into the strange past of American crime investigations. The 90-minute film follows the practice of using dolls to recreate crime scenes during the 1930s and ‘40s, an idea originated by so-called “crime-fighting grandmother” Frances Glessner Lee, and still used today in training investigators to visualize crime. Flashing between the quaint-but-disturbing visual of dolls placed in grisly murders, and America’s current obsession with court-room drama and the intensity of the acclaimed CSI television show, the film paints a vivid portrait of the evolution of crime.
Events compiled by Connor Descheemaker
