Thursday, July 25, 2019
Americana's Most Wanted Fugitive Mark Insley and a cadre of gunslingers hold Iron John's Brewing Company–Congress for ransom (if only for a couple of hours) during his Thursday night residency. Details here.
Their latest record, Crisis Actor (Get Loud Recordings, 2019), is wrought out of self deprecation and societal condemnation. Singer Charlotte McCaslin said, "I didn't see the ascendancy of fascism as anything new here. My freshest feelings of disgust were toward anyone who could point their finger in one direction and walk away with a smirk on their face."
Falling somewhere between an angelic Gun Club and a demented Roy Orbison, Roselit Bone transfix at Exo Roast Co. Ex-Cowboy retell sentimental tales of heartache, loss and a murder or two. Details here.
Tucson darlings Sam Bounkeua & Dante Rosano delight on the patio at Agustin Kitchen. Details here.
Pianist and composer Larry Redhouse leads a world-class ensemble whose repertoire incorporates straight-ahead jazz, Latin, funk and reggae. The Larry Redhouse Trio play the Lookout Bar and Grille at Westward Look Resort. Details here.
Guitarist Gabriel Naim Amor showcases his eclectic virtuosity at Tap + Bottle–Downtown. Details here.
You just never know what they'll pull out of the crates. Wooden Tooth Records DJ Night happens at Che's Lounge. Details here.
In 1977, these Chicago prog rockers hit the jackpot with "Come Sail Away," an epic power ballad that ends in rock 'n' roll bombast.
"It's what Zeppelin perfected with 'Stairway To Heaven,'" erstwhile singer/keyboardist Dennis DeYoung was quoted as saying. "Start slow and finish big."
After six previous lukewarm albums, that song was a huge turning point.
"It shot us off into outer space."
July marks the 42nd anniversary of The Grand Illusion (A&M Records), the album that changed this band's trajectory. Styx is at the Tucson Music Hall. Details here.
The Rock 'n' Roll Beer Bash features sets by Dirty Magic Mike, Ted Riviera's Gunrunners and Technical Difficulties at Thunder Canyon Brewstillery. Details here.
From Las Vegas, Hemlock unleash the heavy metal thunder at House of Bards with ScarEater. Details here.
DJs Atom Energy and Lunar Fluxx lay a foundation of deep house at Bar Passé. Details here.
Tags: music , xoxo , shows , concerts , rock , Americana , Styx , metal , house , djs , Image
Additionally, anyone who has moved or needs to update their voter registration must do so by the deadline.
The primary election will take place on Aug. 27.
The City of Tucson holds elections every two years and this year the Mayor and Council Members for Wards 1,2 and 4 will be elected.
Tucson's elections are mail-in only and registered voters will receive their ballots in the mail starting Aug. 2. For those that prefer to cast their vote in person, they will have an opportunity to do so at the city Election Center, 800 E. 12th St., after Aug.5.
You can register or check your registration at https://servicearizona.com.
To register you must be a U.S., resident of the state and be at least 18.
For any questions, contact the office of the Pima County Recorder at 724-4330.
To learn more about the candidates, voting and to find a polling place, visit https://www.tucsonaz.gov/clerks/elections.
Tags: Voting , registration , politics , Tucson , council , mayor , Image
Tags: comics , cartoons , politics , Trump , reelect , Mueller , Claytoonz , Image
Wednesday, July 24, 2019
The Pima County Sheriff’s Department is on the lookout for roughly $50,000 worth of paintings stolen from a northside home earlier this month.
On Wednesday, July 10 just after 6:30 p.m., sheriff’s deputies responded to a burglary call in the 6900 block of North Chula Vista Reserve Place, near the intersection of West Ina and North Oracle Roads, and were told the house was broken into earlier that day.
Among the possessions taken were three paintings by then-9-year-old Kieron Williamson. The three pieces, “City Temple,” Kelling Cottages” and "Thurne Mill,” were estimated to be worth approximately $50,000 by the owner.
Williamson, 16, is a watercolor artist from England whose paintings have sold for thousands of dollars. In 2010, a Williamson exhibition sold roughly £150,000 ($187,000) worth of paintings in under an hour.
PCSD Burglary Unit detectives have taken over the investigation, and are asking for the public’s assistance in identifying a suspect in this case. Anyone with information is asked to call 911. Anonymous tips with the potential for a reward can be submitted by text, phone or by going to 88-CRIME.org.
Tags: Art , heist , crime , burglary , Kieron Williamson , Pima County , Sheriff's Department , Image
From the outset, they set their sails for deeper seas, not knowing exactly where they would land. On Hail Mary (Geronimo West, 2019) producer Mark Neeham (The Killers, Imagine Dragons) sought to capture these Austinites’ high-energy, folksy, roots rockin’ country live act—with outstanding four-part harmonies—unadulterated in the studio.
“If I’m going to be singing something every night,” said Shane Smith, the band’s main songwriter, “I like to sing with an honest conviction.”
Shane Smith & The Saints are at The Rock tonight at 7 p.m. Drew Cooper offers up a cure for “Hangovers and Heartaches” during the opening slot.More details here.
In a rare pairing, Arizona Friends of Chamber Music presents, Bin Hu on acoustic Spanish guitar and guzhengist Jing Xia performing a diverse program where East meets West. It features compositions by Enrique Granados, Isaac Albéniz, Chenyu Huang and Wang Zhou at Holsclaw Hall at 7 p.m. Details here.
Their resumes are off-the-charts: Carmine Appice’s includes work with Vanilla Fudge, Jeff Beck, Rod Stewart, Ozzy Ozborne and others. Vinny Appice pounded pagan skins for Black Sabbath, Ronnie James Dio, Rick Derringer and John Lennon to name a few. Two of the world’s most iconic drummers, The Appice Brothers battle to the finish at Encore tonight at 7 p.m. Details here.
Tags: XOXO , music , concerts , shows , Shane Smith , Arizona Friends of Chamber Music , Bin Hu , The Appice Brothers , Image
Tucson's Green Fields private school is closing. According to an article in the Star, the school's enrollment has fallen from 246 students in 2001 to as few as 105 in 2015. Green Fields is a K-12 school, so the 2015 enrollment numbers work out to an average of eight students per grade. No school can remain financially viable with so few students.
Understandably, students who were planning to attend this coming school year and their families are mourning the school's closing. Actually, though, closures like Green Fields' would be a far more regular occurrence in Arizona, except for one thing. You and I and all the state's taxpayers are helping the schools stay afloat by chipping in to pay students' tuition. Not all students, of course, but a substantial number. I'm not just talking about students from low income homes whose parents couldn't otherwise send their children to private school. High income families are using our money to help pay tuition costs as well.
How much are we chipping in? Last year, nearly $200 million which otherwise would have been in the state's coffers, money which could have been used to boost our shamefully low education budget, is paying for children to go to private schools.
$200 million a year is a whole lot of money. Far too much for my taste. I don't like the idea of using taxpayer money to prop up privately funded schools which can't cut it in the private sector. People on the right like to say, governments shouldn't be picking winners and losers in the marketplace by giving some of them subsidies, but somehow they're fine with using $200 million to help private schools survive.
OK, I'll admit, I don't like private school vouchers, period, and I especially don't like them when they run into hundreds of millions of dollars a year. But I want to try and be fair. If that $200 million means a lot more students are attending private schools, that might not be such a bad deal for taxpayers. After all, if those kids weren't in private schools, we would have to pay for their public educations.
So let's take a look at the kind of bang we're getting for our voucher bucks.
Tags: Green Fields school , Private schools , Voucher , Tuition Tax Credits , Grand Canyon Institute , School privatization , Image
Tuesday, July 23, 2019
From 1 to 3 p.m. on July 31 at Pima County’s Youth One-Stop Employment Center, 320 N. Commerce Park Loop, residents ages 16 to 24 are invited and asked to come dressed in their best clothes with a resume containing contact information.
The hiring event is sponsored by Pima County’s Community Services, Employment and Training Department, which is the administrative entity that operates the ARIZONA@WORK Job Centers known as One-Stop Career Centers. The event is geared toward youth looking for year-round and part-time jobs.
Anyone who needs help preparing a resume can stop by the One-Stop offices anytime until 4 p.m. on July 30.
Employers set to attend include: Arizona Lotus; Citi; Devereux Advanced Behavioral Health; Fry’s Food Stores; Gentle Dental; Harper’s LTD (carpentry)’ HDS Truck Driving; Park Avenue Healthcare; Pima Pain Center; the U.S. Army and the United Cerebral Palsy of Southern Arizona.
The Pima County Youth One-Stop is located between Congress and St. Mary’s, west of I-10. For more information, call 724-9649.
Tags: Youth One-Stop Employment Center , Pima County , hiring event , resumes , locals , business , Image
PHOENIX – Some of the landscaping at Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport has changed from front-lawn green to desert tan. The airport recently finished replacing nearly 11 acres of turf with native flora as part of a water conservation project that’s expected to save nearly half a million dollars a year.
The landscaping approach is known as xeriscaping, which uses native, drought-resistant flora arranged in ways that promote efficient water usage. The airport project incorporated 435 water-sipping trees, 75 saguaros, 275 other large cactuses and about 2,900 plants and shrubs for groundcover, according to a release from Sky Harbor.
The xeriscaping project is expected to save the city $400,000 annually, in addition to reducing water usage by more than 5 million gallons per year.
“You see in people’s houses, you see it in other natural landscaping because it fits here,” Sky Harbor public information officer Greg Roybal said. “I think the water services director said it best when she said we honor our environment when we plant things that belong here.”
The redesign, completed in June, is part of the airport’s 2015 Sustainability Management Plan, which aims to reduce water consumption by 10% by 2020. Sky Harbor currently uses an average of 30 million gallons of water per month.
Phoenix’s chief sustainability officer, Mark Hartman, said the converted areas were not near pedestrian spaces.
“You want to be very strategic about where you use your water,” he said. “Like, there’s not that many people who walk to the airport and walk along beside the freeway, so having grass there might not be a good spot for grass.”
The xeriscape project is one of seven initiatives in the airport’s sustainability plan, which also focuses on air quality, energy use and waste management.
Because less maintenance is needed on those 11 acres, the project also falls in line with Phoenix’s pledge to reduce greenhouse gases by 30% by 2025.
“It fits in perfectly with not only our overall goals but with the city’s goals and the community’s goals,” Hartman said. “I think it’s going to be looked at as a prime project to model after.”
This story is part of Elemental: Covering Sustainability, a new multimedia collaboration between Cronkite News, Arizona PBS, KJZZ, KPCC, Rocky Mountain PBS and PBS SoCal.
Tags: cronkite news , Sky Harbor , airport , sustainability , xeriscaping , landscape , redesign , Image
It's an all-ages event sure to surfeit the senses. Striving to provide safe community shows, Tucson Pyrate Punx presents Potbelly, Bleach Party USA, Sucker for the Sour and Whiskey Drunk at the Spark Project Collective.
“When you don’t pick up the phone I make up what you said.”
Bellows is the imaginative bedroom recording project of NYC songwriter/producer Oliver Kalb at Club Congress. He plays with ambient experimentalist Gabrielle Smith aka Gabby’s World and Friend PR.
Outer Spaces is the indie rock project of Baltimore songwriter Cara Beth Satalino. Their latest, Gazing Globe, was written during a tumultuous period where Satalino grappled with anxiety and self-doubt. Like a gazing globe—for centuries believed to ward off evil and bring good luck—it may never provide a clear mirror image. If you gaze into its murky reflection long enough you might glimpse at your true self. They play with Radiator Hospital, Jess Matsen and Rough Draft at Wooden Tooth Records.
Tags: Xoxo , music , concerts , Bellows , outer spaces , Club Congress , Wooden Tooth , Spark project collective , Image
