Dark days, readers. I hope you're all sitting down, because the frenzied diatribe about to ensue is fueled by an ardor so hyper-zealous, so intensely fervent, so borderline maniacal, as to dangerously teeter on the brink of irrationality were it not so solidly rooted in authenticity and quantifiable righteousness. The upcoming happenings are not only close to my own heart and investments, but exemplify empirically radical qualities, the combining of which can only be described as a "Recipe for Awesome." Behold:

Friday night kicks off with your favorite and mine, members of Made in Mexico/Wishing Wells/Arab on Radar/What-Have-You, much anticipated Cumbia all-stars Jamazon. They'll warm it up for Major Stars and (tah-dah!!!!) Sightings. But a short 24 hours after, experimental "Biennial-Makers" Peter Glantz, Blevin Blectum, Amil Byleckie and so many more unleash an audio-visual immersion so staggeringly contemporary that the avante-films of your past will be relegated to the company of steam engines, push mowers, Apple 2Es, and Friendster. Saturday morning also marks the first session of our week long 3 part large format photography class. Old-timey! DIY! Steam Punk! Limited room is still available, so get on the locomotive stat by reserving a spot via our AS220 online shop. If the chemicals don't kill you, come back Monday night for an extra special hotbed of sin and iniquity with the touring phenomenon that would be Pitchfork darlings, if only they'd drop the swearing and loose the Iggy Pop style feminism. The Coathangers guarantee the poppiest man-hating we've had the pleasure of enjoying since the Bombettes, and team up with 3D Mystery and Glowkid. Can the madness possibly end there?! NEVER! Wednesday night marks our Susperia-esque descent into electronic psychedelia via Daniel Ephram (The Heartland!), Sky Jelly, GB PKA GÃteaux Blasters (Switzerland), and Bixit. Thursday, though, we've got a show that you won't be afraid to bring home to mom: Brown Bird, A Weather, and Lis Isenberg bring back sweeping revival Americana. Now thats something we can both enjoy!

Thats all I've got, readers. I'm saving my energy for the rock shows this weekend. What do you think? The black T-shirt, or... Oh wait...

Away!

The Rundown:

Thursday, April 15, 2010 9 pm $4 Free Speech Thursdays at AS220 featuring: Singer/Songwriter & Poet Open Mic

Friday, April 16, 2010 9 pm $7 Sightings, Major Stars, and Jamazon

Saturday, April 17, 21 & 24 2010 $125.00 Large Format Photography

Saturday, April 17, 2010 4-7 pm Free Irish Traditional Music

Saturday, April 17, 2010 9 pm $6 Peter Glantz and The Imaginary Company, CARTUNE XPREZ: 2010 Future Television, In This Economy, Blevin Blechtum Presents: The Preserving Machine)

Sunday, April 18, 2010 5:30 - 8:00 pm $5 Providence Cutting Sessions: JAZZ PROGRAM

Sunday, April 18, 2010 9:30 pm $6 Delusional Records Presents: Big Kurt,Hw, Kozzwon, Rite hook, and Political animals

Monday, April 19, 2010 9 pm $6 Glowkid, The Coathangers and 3D Mystery

Tuesday, April 20, 2010 6:00-8:30 pm $6 Life Drawing

Tuesday, April 20, 2010 9:30 pm $6 Hitchhikers Thumb, The Real Makers, and Valencourt

Wednesday, April 21, 2010 9 pm $6 Daniel Ephram, Sky Jelly, GB PKA GÃteaux Blasters (Switzerland), and Bixit

Thursday, April 22, 2010 6:30 pm Free Free Speech Thursdays at AS220 featuring: Poetry Tag & Writer's Workshop 2nd floor of Empire Street

Thursday, April 22, 2010 9 pm $6 Brown Bird, A Weather, and Liz Isenberg

Friday, April 23, 2010 9 pm $6 Ros Raskin & The Ricecakes, You Can Be A Weasley, and Anisette

"But Reba, Tell Me More..."

Thursday, April 15, 2010 9 pm $4 Free Speech Thursdays at AS220 featuring: Singer/Songwriter & Poet Open Mic
Free Speech Thursday's Singer-Song Writer and Singer/Songwriter's Open Mic!! Come and play your songs in front of an appreciative, respectful Poetry Slam audience used to giving their full attention to performance art, at an event run by professionals who know how to maintain a listener's environment and keep the show moving. The mic is open to all on 3rd Thursdays, but the focus is definitely on the music: Singers and Songwriters get 8 minute blocks, acapella poets get 3 minutes. Open mic list goes up at 7:30/Doors at 8pm. Come early because the list fills up quick!! For more info: contact us through our myspace account! http://www.myspace.com/providencepoetryslam

Friday, April 16, 2010 9 pm $7 Sightings, Major Stars, and Jamazon
Jamazon (members of Made In Mexico). Guitar, bass, timbales, vocals and backing tracks. Cumbia music. http://www.myspace.com/themajorstars http://www.myspace.com/sightings

Saturday, April 17, 2010 4-7 pm Free Irish Traditional Music
Hosted by Jimmy and Hannah Devine with Mark Roberts, Andrea Cooper, Teddi Scobi and Friends! Every Saturday from 4-7pm at the bar at AS220! No cover charge! A full menu of food and beverage will be available, so come in for a pint or make this your regular spot for dinner while enjoying some of the best traditional Irish music around!

Saturday, April 17, 21 & 24 2010 $125.00 Large Format Photograph
It may seem silly in a time of pocket sized digital cameras to even consider using a heavy, large format view camera, but their simplicity and quality has no rival in the electronic world. A view camera works on the most basic camera principals and yields an impressive 4x5 (or larger) negative. These negatives can be contact printed or enlarged to epoc proportions in the darkroom. The detail and precision from a view camera makes it the prefect camera for many artistic applications, and in this class, students will not only learn how to properly use a large format camera, but will have access to the AS220 Darkroom's collection of cameras, also available for use in our Camera Rental Program! All supplies are included in this four week class, held Saturday, Apr.17 from 10am-2pm, Thursday, Apr 21st from 7-10pm and Sat. Apr.24 from 1-5pm. Students will spend the Thursday classes in the darkroom, learning to develop sheet film and prints, and will spend the Saturday classes in the Performance Space learning to set up and shoot with the large format cameras or "in the field" taking on-location shots. This is a comprehensive course for those interested in learning how to expand their photographic knowledge as well as their scope and scale of their images.

Saturday, April 17, 2010 9 pm $6 Peter Glantz and The Imaginary Company, CARTUNE XPREZ: 2010 Future Television, In This Economy, Blevin Blechtum Presents: The Preserving Machine)
This program, which presents a glimpse of an upcoming DVD release, is shaped around a maximum diversity of animated forms. Using popular media as touchstones for their perspectives, each artist guides us through an inverted fantasy of isolation in this weird digital world. The program will provide a rare opportunity to see videos by emerging artists as well as internationally known artists whose collective resume includes major exhibitions at the Whitney Biennial, the MOMA in New York, the Sundance Film Festival, and many other institutions across the world. In addition, Hooliganship will be doing a live performance of their newest cartoon theater. Films by: Nate Boyce, Markus Vater, Sebastian Buerkner, Taras Hrabowsky, Stu Hughes, Rimas Sakalauskas, Christine Gensheimer, Jim Trainor, Allison Schulnik, David Daniels Blevin Blectum : Slow-mo sunspots, high contrast hydraulics, Cascaded Integrator-Combing, and negative acceleration. Epic sound for distressed ifrit. Peculiar winds during the eclipse allow for the rapid cooling of the organism via evaporative water loss and convection from mucous-covered surfaces. The metal-helmeted cascade-familiar performs maintenance.

Make sure to watch the early episodes of "In This Economy" so you are up to speed. Links below.

Peter Glantz and the Imaginary Company: a short video and performance excerpt from the upcoming show "Being Impossible".

http://www.cartunexprez.com/press/ http://www.myspace.com/blevinblectumandsagan http://www.youtube.com/walterandweston

Sunday, April 18, 2010 5:30 - 8:00 pm $5 Providence Cutting Sessions: JAZZ PROGRAM
"Providence Cutting Sessions" is a new Jazz Program at AS220. The program runs every THIRD Sunday of the month from 5:30 pm - 8 pm. The goal of this program is to inspire others to contribute to and support a growing jazz community. Students and Jazz musicians of all levels can contribute to this jazz community through performance, composition, and appreciation. The "Providence Cutting Sessions" is a program created by the Artistic Director of AS220, Bert Crenca, and a trio of local jazz musicians, Nick Sollecito, Mike Bernier, and Alex Chapman. This program's mission is two-part. First, to give jazz musicians a venue to display their art and talent; second, to compose a new repertoire of jazz standards. Providence Cutting Sessions will display new and original jazz compositions by local musicians. These compositions will mainly be in the style of the "Real Book", which contains hundreds of well-known jazz standards. This program welcomes jazz musicians to come to performances and sit in with the house trio. All instruments are welcome. Original charts are available at performances and online in .pdf format (go to www.anglesideside.com for more info). Available charts have been transposed in keys C, B flat and E flat. We welcome composers to submit original songs to be performed (email providencecuttingsessions@gmail.com for more info). This program is inspired from the original cutting Sessions that took place in the 1930s and 1940s in many cities around the United States. Some of these cities included Kansas City, Milwaukee, Chicago, and of course, New York City. They were held in smaller clubs where jazz was played. Musicians would come to these sessions and join the band on stage to perform well-known songs of the time, or standards. One rumor of how the term "cutting sessions" came about is if the musician did not know the song, he/she would essentially be "cut" from the stage. While this may have been true of these sessions in their time, there is another belief in how these performances got the name "cutting sessions" and this is more our vision of the program. Cutting sessions offered musicians the opportunity to "cut their teeth." In other words, these sessions gave musicians a chance to get their experience in a real life situation of performing jazz on stage, with professionals, in front of an audience. http://www.provcuttingsessions.com/

Sunday, April 18, 2010 9:30 pm $6 Delusional Records Presents: Big Kurt,Hw, Kozzwon, Rite hook, and Political animals
H.W. - A veteran in the hip hop scene, H.W. has recently released his latest body of work titled "A Years Worth Of Worry" to critical claim, he also was just recently signed to a major distribution deal with Leedz Edutainment/Traffic Entertainment. He has performed with such artists as: Eyedea And Abilities, Sole, Themselves, Solillaquists Of Sound, Ceschi and many more. He has played as220 atleast 8 times. Shinobi Ninja - are the super group for the 21st century, composed of six colorful, vibrant New York City musicians and performers from different corners of the music world. “To put it simply, they are a walking, breathing and screaming cartoon: loud, colorful and full of enough energy to put nearly any other band to shame,” says New York’s Radio Exile. With their debut EP Brooklyn to Babylon and their own revolutionary video game Shinobi Ninja Attacks, the band is ready to bring the party to you, wherever you are! Onstage and online, Shinobi Ninja have built themselves a devoted following, garnering much-deserved attention from notable sources such as Mergent Music Magazine, who proclaimed the band were “taking over the world, one sweaty rock circus at a time.”

http://www.longlivehw.com http://www.myspace.com/shinobininjamusic

Monday, April 19, 2010 9 pm $6 Glowkid, The Coathangers and 3D Mystery
It all began in that dimly lit back alley in the summer of 2006. It was there that four ladies of leisure, bound by circumstance, joined forces to disorganize rock and/or roll. Forged from the blood of aborted fetuses and risen from the ashes of blunt roaches... Coathangers will devour your immortal soul. Who's in? You?? If you said no, fuck your dad... your mom's alright. Glowkid is an exciting rock band with members of Hircine and A Troop Of Echoes. Totally fun.

3D Mystery was spawned from the obsolete technology of analog cinema and delivers multi-dimentional journey through obscurities of electro latin dance prog punk.

http://www.myspace.com/fuckthecoathangers http://www.myspace.com/glowkidband http://www.myspace.com/3dmystery

Tuesday, April 20, 2010 6:00-8:30 pm $6 Life Drawing
Every Tuesday bring your drawing utensils and paper to AS220 and sketch from a live model!

Tuesday, April 20, 2010 9:30 pm $6 Hitchhikers Thumb, The Real Makers, and Valencourt

Hitchhikers Thumb is an indie pop rock band. Valencourt is an acoustic performer. Drawing inspiration from 311, Death Cab For Cutie, Elliot Smith, and other greats.

The Real Makers are an original rock band with a backbone of blues and nasty funk.

http://www.myspace.com/hitchhikersthumb http://www.myspace.com/valencourt http://www.realmakersband.com

Wednesday, April 21, 2010 9 pm $6 Daniel Ephram, Sky Jelly, GB PKA GÃteaux Blasters (Switzerland), and Bixit
Bixit combines pre-arranged numbers with spontaneous composition. Odd time signatures, big Zappa/LA Fusion/African Soukous influences.

Daniel Ephram is a one man band from Tulsa, Oklahoma. Daniels is "epic nintendo music" with video projections and drum n bass beats! Sky Jelly is a one person psychedelic, noisey blues project/dance party.

GB pka Gâteaux Blasters is lo-fi impro electronica from Geneva, Switzerland.

http://www.bixit.org http://www.myspace.com/danielephram http://www.myspace.com/skyjellymusic http://www.dasandereselbst.org/gb/gbgo.htm http://www.myspace.com/gbpkagb

Thursday, April 22, 2010 6:30 pm Free Free Speech Thursdays at AS220 featuring: Poetry Tag & Writer's Workshop
2nd floor of Empire Street *6:30-9pm: Providence Slam: Poetry Tag & Writers Workshop!! POETRY TAG/WRITER'S CIRCLE *Laid back, low pressure writer's group. A chance to share and talk about poems away from the stage. 6:30PM/UPSTAIRS, 2ND FLOOR AS220 CLASSROOM SPACE For more information contact us through our myspace page. http://www.myspace.com/providencepoetryslam

Thursday, April 22, 2010 9 pm $6 Brown Bird, A Weather, and Liz Isenberg
Brown Bird are an amazing indie-folk roots americana band. A Weather (Portland, Oregon) are on Team Love Records. Indie rock.

Liz Isenberg says: "i write songs on the guitar string bass loop pedal and banjo".

http://www.myspace.com/brownbird http://www.myspace.com/aweathermusic http://www.myspace.com/lizisenberg

Friday, April 23, 2010 9 pm $6 Ros Raskin & The Ricecakes, You Can Be A Weasley, and Anisette
You Can Be A Weasley has poppy hooks, whimsical imagrey, handclaps, and tambourines which shimmer throughout. See saw drums, repetitive beats. Fuzzy RnR. Roz Raskin and the Rice Cakes are folky, indie pop jazz songs.

Anisette is a melodic experimental band.

http://www.myspace.com/youcanbeaweasley http://www.myspace.com/rozraskin http://www.myspace.com/giraffesgiraffes