Citizen Staff Writer
Entertainment
Entertainment news about personalities and events with an Old Pueblo Connection.
The 17th Street Band hosts CD release party
The 17th Street Band has been a happening in Tucson for several years now. Finally the 17th Street Guitars and World Music Store within The 17th Street Market will have the 17th Street Band’s CD available for dancers, KXCI supporters & fans.
Fans can visit the market Saturday and have their copies signed by band members Tom Walbank, Darryl Roles, Tom Kusian, Arthur Migliazza and Harvey Brooks.
The band will play two sets. Members hope the community will continue to support local community radio station KXCI. When: 11:30 a.m.-3:30 p.m. Saturday Where: 17th Street Market, 840 E. 17th St. Price: free Info: 624-8821 Ext. 145, www.treasureshidden.com
Tucsonan goes for big prizes on ‘The Price is Right’
Tucson resident Linda Welborn will be a contestant on “The Price is Right” on Friday.
Tune to the popular game show at 10 a.m. on KOLD to see whether Welborn takes home the Showcase.
Serpe holds birthday bash and EP release party
Local musician Michael Serpe has two reasons to celebrate on Wednesday: First, it’s his birthday. Plus, his band, The Space Over Desert, is releasing its new EP.
“The EP is called ‘Stjukshon,’ an ambient instrumental album I wrote after ‘In Seed’ during a time when the band went on hiatus,” Serpe writes in an e-mail. “My multi-instrumentalist’s wife had severe health issues, as did my bass player (though not as severe), my drummer got married, moved and was busy settling into married life and I was bored with guitar. To keep my mind busy I went into the studio steeped in mood and armed with just my bass. I came out with an EP and a new direction.”
The new approach includes a new female vocalist (Vannessa Lundon), who joins returning members Jeremy Michael Cashman (multi-instrumentalist) and Joel Ford (percussion).
“We’re playing ambient instrumentals grading into mellow Americana with male-female harmonies,” says Serpe, who will give everyone at his band’s set a limited edition hand-crafted copy of the EP. When: 9 p.m. Wednesday Where: Plush, 340 E. Sixth St. Price: $8 Info: 798-1298, www.plushtucson.com
N.Y. Times profiles Tucson musician Neko Case
Indie siren Neko Case, who lives in Tucson (for now) was featured in a New York Times Magazine story on Sunday.
Sporting the headline “Wild Thing,” the article by Daniel Menaker discusses Case’s new CD and her impending departure from the Old Pueblo.
Of her latest recording, “Middle Cyclone,” which will be released in March, Menaker writes, “Case displays a wide vocal and emotional range only intermittently present on her six previous recordings and in her regular releases with the Canadian power-pop band the New Pornographers.”
From the article we also learn that we won’t be able to call Case a Tucsonan for much longer. After five years in the Old Pueblo, the Alexandria, Va., native who identifies Tacoma, Wash, as her hometown, is moving to an old farm she is renovating in Vermont.
“I want to get away from the social vampires in Tucson,” she tells The Times. “The people who have no lives of their own and meet me and know who I am and feel entitled to say negative things.
“I have good friends here, especially in the bands” like Calexico and Giant Sand, she says. “But a lot of it is just like high school. And I like forests and all the wildlife up in Vermont.”
Best of luck to you, Neko.
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