Anna McCarthy at the Weekly's All Shook Down blog has this fun review of Saturday's Air Guitar Championship at The Independent. The event was a two-day regional spectacular in which winners move on to become finalists in D.C. on August 7th. Friday night's champion was a guy named Awesome with huge hair and a red beard, and on Saturday Jello Biafra (of Dead Kennedys fame) showed up to be a celebrity guest judge and apparently fell into the much hated Simon Cowell critic role. Boone's was a sponsor, so much of the pink stuff was drunk, and the winner, who went by the name of Cold Steel Renegate, was said to have brought air tears to at least one eye. more ›

The Weekly's big undersized Summer in the City issue is out, and in it they're offering up a few suggestions of stuff to do on the cheap (under $15), including heading over to the Paramount in Oakland for their Friday classic movie series (next up, Creature from the Black Lagoon on July 10th), or going to the Academy of Sciences for their $10 nightlife events. But we were especially glad to be reminded of Audium, the "sound-space continuum" designed by electronic music composer Stan Shaff. It's a deeply 70s space tucked away in an assuming building at 1616 Bush, featuring 169 speakers and a bunch of chairs arranged in a circle. Audience members are immersed, with the lights off, in a sound sculpture in which a custom-composed piece of music seems to move around the room as it is played. The place was funded by an NEA grant in the early 70s, and is still presided over every Friday and Saturday by Shaff himself, who is 79 years old and just premiered a new composition this past October, "Audium 9." more ›

by Moses Namkung more ›