Last week, Carlos Arzate & The Kind Souls came out with a new video filmed in the Bowen Stone House for the song "No More" for consideration in NPR's Tiny Desk Contest, in which bands and performers independently produce and submit live performances with the hope of being included in the popular online video series. This week, Jillian and the Giants and Katie Haverly are submitting works to the contest, as well.

Jillian and the Giants entered the contest with their song "My Baby," which will be released in a few months on the band's upcoming album, Mr. Airplane. Featuring a very, very tiny toy desk, the video was shot by Mark Bloom and Maggie Rickard and produced by frontwoman Jillian Bessett.


Bessett also makes an appearance harmonizing her backup vocals in Haverly's submission. The song "100 Waters" was filmed in Peppersauce Cave in the Catalina Mountains, which, like Arzate's video, shows off the beauty and diversity of Tucson and its surrounding areas. The song comes from Haverly's 2015 release, The Aviary. 


And, if your band has a video to share, send a link to [email protected].

Local bigwigs are working to revive an influential part of Tucson history with the upcoming Tucson Forum events.

The Fox Theater, 17 W. Congress, will be hosting Mr. Dennis Edwards, lead singer from The Temptations, on Sunday, Jan. 31 for a free armchair discussion.

The discussion, focusing on Edwards’ experiences in the music business during the Civil Rights movement, is free and open to the public. Tickets will be offered in advance at the Fox Theater box office but once doors open, it will be first-come, first-seated. Doors open at 4 p.m., the Forum begins at 5 p.m., and a Temptations Review in Concert will begin at 8 p.m. Tickets for the concert range from $25 to $50 and can be purchased here.

Operating from 1946 to 1984, the Sunday Evening Forum brought prominent and influential people to Tucson. These guests included John F. Kennedy,  Ronald Reagan, Eleanor Roosevelt and Martin Luther King, Jr., according to the Tucson Forum website. At the Forum’s height, one meeting broke the record for the nation’s largest community forum, with 55,000 people in attendance. The board is hoping to return the forum to it’s former glory, with your help.

For more information, visit sundayeveningforum.com.

It's that time of year when bands are looking to get some national attention by submitting their short performances to NPR's Tiny Desk contest. This year Carlos Arzate & the Kind Souls opted to give their submission some Sonoran soul by hiking a mile into the Tucson Mountains to get to a partially-finished structure known as the Bowen Stone House.

The historic site, with its two fireplaces, beautiful masonry and lack of roof or windows, lends an air of mystery and timelessness to Arzate's song "No More." The surrounding mountains and prevalent saguaro provide a picturesque view of the desert. The video was produced by Sandra Westdahl.


Last year, Arzate and his band submitted their song "On & On & On," along with several other submissions from Tucson bands. If your band is entering this year, send your videos along to [email protected].

Sometimes people call Tucson the foot of Arizona because it's boring, because it's barren, because it's "no Phoenix," etc.

Locals, you know that's not true. If you need a reminder, the Tucson community offers up a LOT of cool, recurring weekly and monthly events. Not only are the events on this cool, though—they’re also free. I can’t think a better-sounding combination.

Tucsonans, don't let yourself waste away in this culturally vibrant, diverse town. Get out and explore with Tucson’s 15 coolest, free-est attractions, separated into categories for your ease of use.

MUSIC

The more I’ve lived here, the more I’ve realized that Tucson is kind of a small-scale Austin, Texas—and, yes, I’ve been to Austin. Its music scene is, from a non-local standpoint, actually pretty popping. Any given week, many downtown / 4th Ave. venues host shows ranging in genres from jazz to EDM.

1. 2nd Saturdays: 2nd Saturday is the Tucson equivalent of what is elsewhere known as First Friday. It’s one of Tucson’s many cultural affairs, mixing art, food, and music to create what 2nd Saturday organizer Sandy Mellor calls an urban block party. Though the art and food sometimes cost attendees, the music is always free, entertaining and oftentimes from local artists.
   
   

2. Hotel Congress: You can expect Congress to host a live show from a menagerie of touring artists at least a couple times a week. The historic hotel offers a pretty diverse range of shows, too—they’ve hosted groups including chillwave Hippie Sabotage, pop-punk Modern Baseball and new-wave Martha Davis and The Motels. Every week, though, catch DJ Sid the Kid’s ‘80s/’90s-themed Monday House Party, cumbia-inspired DJ DirtyVerbs Friday nights on the Plaza, and a bunch of local DJs at Saturdaze Dance Party every Saturday night, among many other weekly Congress events.
   
   

3. Cushing Street Cool Jazz: Every Saturday night from 7 to 10 p.m., Cushing Street Bar and Restaurant hosts a “cool” jazz showcase featuring the music of Jeff Lewis and pals. Jazzy.
   
   

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There’s something for everyone, this week in music. On Jan. 29, artists ranging from pop icons to Brit-emo originals will release new LPs.

BASEMENT — Promise Everything

Ah, yes, good ‘ol Basement—comforters of insecure adolescents everywhere. The British alt-rock band (which has a pretty pop-punk sound, IMO) is back after a 2013 hiatus. Based off the singles from their upcoming album, they’re not too different from when they left us. The title track, “Promise Everything,” reminds me of “Spoiled” and “Control” off 2012’s Colourmekindess, and single “Aquasun” vaguely reminds me of old Title Fight, in a good way. Check out Promise Everything for an update on Basement’s classic sound—heavy guitar riffs, drums and, of course, Andrew Fischer’s enjoyably detached voice.

MILK TEETH — Vile Chlid

Milk Teeth actually already leaked Vile Child—well, more so willingly released it—on Pandora Premiere early on Thursday, Jan. 21, so you can give the grunge-punk record a listen before it officially releases on Friday. I’m not too familiar with Milk Teeth—when I read they were dropping a new LP, I was briefly confused, as I thought of Keaton Henson’s “Milk Teeth”—but they have a pretty good grip on the garage-band sound, from the looks of Vile Child. If you like Bully, Paramore or Pity Sex, you might enjoy this record. It’s varying vocals, LOUD guitar riffs and banging drum samples reminded me of a fusion of those bands’ sounds.

The Tucson Jazz Festival is treating Tucsonans to an awesome lineup of free jazz today, including two outdoor stages and shows inside a bunch of clubs. There's really no reason not to go, unless you're stuck working. Check out the full lineup of today's MLK Jazz Fiesta here.

Our very own Margaret Regan, author of Detained and Deported, will be a keynote speaker at this weekend's Sahuarita Border Issues Fair at the Good Shepherd United Church of Christ, 17750 S. La Canada.

The fun starts tomorrow night and continues on Saturday: 

The Border Issues Fair Concert, 7 p.m., Friday, Jan. 15, will feature Lance Canales & The Flood—a roots-blues influenced Americana trio from California’s breadbasket, where Canales lived the life that so many songs have been written about since the birth of roots music – hard labor, one room shacks and taunting ghosts whispering of a better life. Canales’ guttural vocals combine a hard-edged storytelling approach beneath a stripped down, foot-stomping, acoustic instrumentation. Opening act will be the Ambos Nogales, border singer-songwriter, Pablo Peregrina. Tickets $20.

The Border Issues Fair will begin with registration at 8 a.m. Saturday, January 16.. Donation $10 at the door. There will be three keynote addresses. The first, by Margaret Regan, journalist and author of “Detained and Deported: Stories of Immigrant Families Under Fire” and longtime contributor to the Tucson Weekly, begins at 9 a.m. “Detained and Deported” was recently named a Top Pick in the 2015 Southwest Books of the Year competition.

Jennifer Johnson, Washington D.C, border policy advisor for the Southern Border Community Coalition, gives the second talk. Dr. Abby Wheatley, border activist and researcher, gives the third lecture, “Reframing Life and Death on the Arizona-Sonora Border."

Donations: Please bring belts and warm hat, gloves and jackets for those in the desert.

Like writers writing dust jacket blurbs about each other, there are musicians that other musicians talk about. Their names may not be backlit on marquees, but they are behind the nuts and bolts of sound within the city limits. Their peers are well aware, but an audience may not know these names, instead catching the players by sight, by style. Recognizing a familiar face on stage left or a lick heard from the smoking patio on a different night.

One of my first nights in Tucson, I was told to go to the Red Room and check out a guitarist named Jameson Clay Koweek. I walked through The Grill and into the bar, catching the last couple songs of the band Otherly Love, fronted by Ben Schneider, a local musician and promoter whom I already knew from years of touring. Anyway, I was in the crowd and, being new to town, glad to see someone I knew. His band was cooking, everyone in the room seemed comfortable and attuned, and then this guy next to Ben started peeling out on a Telecaster. There were country runs coupled with odd hiccups, ideas erased as they form—style that owed as much to Richard Brautigan as it did to James Burton. Dude could fucking play, and he was having a good time doing it.

That night, I made a mental note to remember the name Jameson Clay Koweek. When next I saw him, walking down Convent Avenue in Barrio Viejo, I flagged him down and made a point to shake his hand. Long before I ever came to Tucson, and in the years since, Koweek has been a fixture of this scene. From weekend DIY parties at the HangArt to Monday bluegrass jams at The Hut, you can find Koweek around. Also known as Donkeyman, he has kept and continues to keep busy, adding a little extra to a bunch of acts, including infamous honky-tonker Hank Topless and French ex-pat Marianne Dissard. He can hold it down up front, singing country classics and pleasing dinner crowds at La Cocina with his old Boot-Gaze Band, and then the next night be the element of chaos and noise guesting on an indie-rock set at Congress. Schneider summed it up to me that night at the Red Room, "Donkeyman is a renaissance man."


This Saturday, Jan. 16, he'll be leading his new Electrified Donkey Band through a set at our radical local vinyl shop, Wooden Tooth Records (415 N. Fourth Ave.). Koweek has also been known to sit in with the Night Collectors, a hometown Japanese psych-tribute-band-turned-multi-sax-and-guitar behemoth that opens the show. The Night Collectors have their own share of known names: Jeff Lownsbury from Katterwaul and Secret Highway Secrets, Connor Gallaher from every band ever—chances are you saw at least one of the Collectors performing on your last night out. If you do end up at Wooden Tooth for the show, which is free and begins at 7 p.m., you can bet you'll see a lot of musicians in the audience, taking notes. 

The recently late, long great David Bowie was, apparently, an avid reader. As part of a 2013 exhibit at the Art Gallery of Ontario in Toronto, he included a list of his 100 favorite books. I won't print the complete list here. You can go to the LA Times article to see it.

It's a wide-ranging book list indicating eclectic tastes, not surprising for a man like Bowie who spent his life in constant reinvention. Here are a few, in no particular order, where his tastes and mine intersect:

"A Clockwork Orange" by Anthony Burgess
"Madame Bovary" by Gustave Flaubert
"The Iliad" by Homer
"As I Lay Dying" by William Faulkner
The Master and Margarita" by Mikhail Bulgakov
"Lolita" by Vladimir Nabokov
"Black Boy" by Richard Wright
"The Great Gatsby" by F. Scott Fitzgerald
"The Waste Land" by T.S. Elliot
McTeague" by Frank Norris
"A Confederacy of Dunces" by John Kennedy Toole
"1984" by George Orwell
"White Noise" by Don DeLillo
"A People’s History of the United States" by Howard Zinn
"Lady Chatterly’s Lover" by D.H. Lawrence
"On the Road" by Jack Kerouac
The Hidden Persuaders" by Vance Packard
"The Fire Next Time" by James Baldwin

And I would be remiss if I left out some of his favorites not on my reading list, like:

Chances are, you found out on Monday which friends you could delete from your list if they were talking about anything other than the loss of rock legend and beloved weirdo David Bowie. You may have also seen some of the many tributes put out to honor the Thin White Duke. Well, aside from the already posted "Space Oddity" lyrics on Rialto Theatre's marquee, the historic venue and its across-alley bar, R Bar, are offering a full week of events to help commemorate David Jones. 

The events began last night with a special performance from Tom Walbank at R Bar and will culminate in a large mural painted on the side of the venue of Bowie and Motörhead's Lemmy Kilmister from Tucson-based artist Danny Martin. Here's what the rest of the week has in store:

• Wednesday, Jan 13: The "Live and Rare" residency continues at R Bar with Tyler Akin, who has been asked to offer a tribute to the late rock 'n' roll god. The show begins at 9 p.m.
  
• Thursday, Jan. 14: DJ PhatSoul will be presenting a David Bowie video tribute set in addition to the hip hop and soul that comes standard on Thursday nights from 9 p.m. until 1 a.m.
  
• Friday, Jan. 15: Beginning at 5 p.m., the legendary Phil Davis will be performing during happy hour at R Bar for the first time with some soulful Bowie additions to his set. Davis will play until 7 p.m.
  
• Saturday, Jan 16: At R Bar, Clif Taylor will be spinning Bowie all night. Anyone dressed as any iteration of Bowie gets half-priced drinks. Over at Rialto, the "HEROES" tribute will feature live music, a Bowie dance party and the same dress-up deals as R Bar, hosted by KXCI's Cathy Rivers and Hannah Levin. There is a $3 cover for the Rialto event, which begins at 8 p.m.
  
• Sunday, Jan. 17: "Every Day Is Like Sunday" DJ night features DJ E_RUPT playing all your favorite Bowie jams with a screening of your favorite Bowie films. The weekly dance night runs from 9 p.m. until 2 a.m.
  

For more information on these and other Rialto Theatre events, visit the venue's website.