First Friday Artwalk

5-8p, free, all ages

The works in guest-curator Denise Markonish's "Boys Life" follow the progression from boy to manhood. The artists in the exhibition address stereotypically male centered hobbies, skewing the notion of what they mean to society by adding humor, social commentary and art historical references to create works that are both about masculine activities as well as their link to more generalized ideas of manhood.

In the front window we feature Mike Libby's "Animals R Us" -- a look at simulation and representation.

Neptune and Crank Sturgeon

8:30p, $7, 18+

From Pitchfork.com:
"If you were standing too close to them, you could have been severely injured. Neptune were crammed into the corner of Charlie's Kitchen in Cambridge, MA, ripping through a set of disgusting industrial post-punk, at once a tight, almost funky band and a piece of kinetic sculpture. Neptune aren't just another squad of noisy art-rockers-- they're a complete package, pulling up to venues in a psychedelic van painted with a giant merman (Neptune himself, one supposes), and emerging on stage (when the venue happens to have one) with unholy contraptions fashioned from scrap metal by guitarist/vocalist Jason Sidney Sanford. The drum sets are piles of oil cans, circular saw blades and assorted car parts, while the guitar and bass look more like medieval weaponry than traditional instruments." (read more)

Lunchbox with Matt Tavares: A Curious City and SPACE Event

Ages 4+. 1p, $3/person, $5/family

Matt Tavares wrote and illustrated three great books about baseball: “Oliver’s Game, ” Mudball” and “Zachary’s Ball.” Come see Matt and his drawings, and join our intrepid art instructor Kelly McConnell in making small 3D models of baseball fields.

A.C. Unit with Horse Thieves and Money Castasia

8:30p, $5, 18+

A.C. Unit is an experimental jazz trio from New York. The members consist of Ben B. Lee (guitar/banjo), Jonathan Moritz (saxophones/bass clarinet), and Mike Pride (percussion). Money Castasia are Portland based, playing robo-jazz and deconstructionist sounding transcendant music over an array of noisy, complex beats. Horse Thieves includes former members of the Portland band Acta Non Verba, playing “prog rock with large dynamic shifts.”

Bleubird with jdwalker and DJ Mayonaisse

9p, $5, 18+

Bleubird’s debut album “Sloppy Doctor” employs a sarcastic-yet-educated world view assisted by ominous, chunky beats that could be the soundtrack to the end of the world. jdwalker isn’t your typical hip-hop artist--his music is hard-hitting and angry, beat-heavy and passionate, organic and emotional. His beats are solid. Sometimes he chants like an angry Compton rapper, sometimes he sings like a Seattle Sub Popper. But, somehow, it comes together into music that is surprisingly melodic, and interestingly abrupt. DJ Mayonaisse has produced tracks on various albums from artists including Sage Francis, Deep Puddle Dynamics, Sole, and Alias.

The Fifth Annual Media That Matters Film Festival

7:30p, $5, All ages

THIS EVENT IS FREE FOR MEMBERS!

Ready to be inspired? In MediaRights’ fifth annual Media That Matters Film Festival hip-hop activists, dancing peanuts and claymation teenagers tackle today’s most pressing social issues. From gay rights to global warming, Media That Matters brings innovative shorts and take action tools to audiences around the country, all year long. The 16 jury-selected films by independent and youth producers will screen at Space on July 14th and MediaRights’ Wendy Cohen will moderate a discussion. Presented by Loreto Bay Company. MediaRights and the Media That Matters Film Festival are projects of the nonprofit Arts Engine, Inc.

Longfellow Books presents:
Sean Wilsey
author of "Oh The Glory of It All"

7p, $5 sug.

Wilsey, editor of McSweeny's, reads from his memoir "Oh The Glory of It All" (Penguin, May 2005).

"In the beginning we were happy. And we were always excessive. So in the beginning we were happy to excess." With these opening lines Sean Wilsey takes us on an exhilarating tour of life in the strangest, wealthiest, and most grandiose of families.

Sean's blond-bombshell mother (one of the thinly veiled characters in Armistead Maupin's bestselling Tales of the City) is a 1980s society-page staple, regularly entertaining Black Panthers and movie stars in her marble and glass penthouse, "eight hundred feet in the air above San Francisco; an apartment at the top of a building at the top of a hill: full of light, full of voices, full of windows full of water and bridges and hills." His enigmatic father uses a jet helicopter to drop Sean off at the video arcade and lectures his son on proper hygiene in public restrooms, "You should wash your hands first, before you use the urinal. Not after. Your penis isn't dirty. But your hands are."

When Sean, "the kind of child who sings songs to sick flowers," turns nine years old, his father divorces his mother and marries her best friend. Sean's life blows apart. His mother first invites him to commit suicide with her, then has a "vision" of salvation that requires packing her Louis Vuitton luggage and traveling the globe, a retinue of multiracial children in tow. Her goal: peace on earth (and a Nobel Prize). Sean meets Indira Gandhi, Helmut Kohl, Menachem Begin, and the pope, hoping each one might come back to San Francisco and persuade his father to rejoin the family. Instead, Sean is pushed out of San Francisco and sent spiraling through five high schools, till he finally lands at an unorthodox reform school cum "therapeutic community," in Italy.

With its multiplicity of settings and kaleidoscopic mix of preoccupations-sex, Russia, jet helicopters, seismic upheaval, boarding schools, Middle Earth, skinheads, home improvement, suicide, skateboarding, Sovietology, public transportation, massage, Christian fundamentalism, dogs, Texas, global thermonuclear war, truth, evil, masturbation, hope, Bethlehem, CT, eventual salvation (abridged list)—Oh the Glory of It All is memoir as bildungsroman as explosion.

The Steel Yard

Jon Brumit: Vendetta Retreat

Opening Reception

with music by The Awesome Brothers

6-8p, free

SPACE hosts a group gallery show with our friends from Providence. The Steel Yard is located at the historic Providence Steel and Iron site, along the Woonasquatucket River in the heart of Providence?s industrial Valley neighborhood. With a 5612 square foot industrial shop featuring a foundry, ceramics studio, blacksmithing shop, and welding shop, as well as studio space and outdoor work and exhibition space, the Steel Yard is a multi-use venue. The Steel Yard?s program areas, focusing on arts education, the incubation of new business and arts initiatives, and the establishment of a lasting community arts resource, cater to working artists, students and community members, tradespeople, arts educators and entrepreneurs.

In the front window, we host visiting resident artist Jon Brumit. Jon will establish an office in SPACE for the execution of his project "Vendetta Retreat."
"Where else can one turn for a creative and non-violent alternative to revenge? Vendetta Retreat makes explicit the benefits of creative sublimation within a collaborative environment. There are eight highly interactive phases so far, each of which requires collaboration to varying degrees.

You are here because something has happened to you which you feel you don't deserve, and you're right! Explore the possibilities of revenge! Develop the creativity, intensity, depth, and symbolic meaning of your next vendetta, and do it with or to someone you love! Vendetta Retreat offers accomodations for singles and groups. Make reservations today, for a brighter tomorrow!

A fulfilling future starts with us! No more failed attempts at revenge, get it right the first time! And don't throw your life out of balance getting even, we assist you in creating vendetta production schedule that works for you! (It is suggested that guests provide their own calendars, planners, or PDAs for maximum efficiency.)"

Check out The Awesome Brothers' video here.

Doc. Film: We Jam Econo: The Story of the Minutemen

7:30p, $5, All ages

Go to the film website here:
http://www.theminutemen.com/

WE JAM ECONO - THE STORY OF THE MINUTEMEN is a feature length documentary chronicling this ground breaking, early 80’s punk rock band from their humble beginnings in the harbor town of San Pedro, CA to their untimely demise when lead singer and guitarist D. Boon was killed in a van accident in December of 1985. Told by those who were there, WE JAM ECONO - THE STORY OF THE MINUTEMEN weaves together footage from over fifty newly shot interviews with archival interviews and live performances to capture the dynamic energy and do-it-yourself spirit of these punk rock pioneers.

Tim Howard (of Soltero) with Lewis & Clarke

8:30p, $6, 18+

Tim Howard writes songs about the hem and haw of a young heart and the struggle to lead a good life in bad times. The recordings display the full-band bravado of Neil Young, the quiet melancholy of Leonard Cohen, and melodies recalling the Kinks and an untrained Mamas and the Papas. His band Soltero has had several incarnations over the last five years, from solo acoustic to full band; the last year has seen a much heavier emphasis on solo shows and tours. Lewis & Clarke emerged from rural Pennsylvania in the early 2000s as the slowcore side project of songwriter Lou Rogai. Rogai had already made a name for himself on the East Coast as a solo act, releasing the well-received Empty Throne EP on Quicklife Juncture in 2000. Lewis & Clarke’s strummed lo-fi intimacy has drawn comparisons to such artists as Codeine and Elliott Smith.

Ratio

8:30p, $5, 18+

Sponsored by Mensk, Ratio and Ride 207.
http://www.ratio22.com
http://www.mensk.cc
http://www.ride207.com

RATIO "LAUNCH" and "NEXUS" (THE SKATEPARK LIVES!!) BENEFIT FOR A NEW PUBLIC SKATEPARK
RATIO is a fusion of eclectic visual elements and backgrounds:
"Graffiti,"technical illustration, traditional symbology and sacred geometry to name a few. This marks the official beginning of the Ratio clothing line, featuring new and old designs on various media and apparel, some only for this event. With live art performance by RATIO and Mike Crockett. Video-mashing by Codex. This event will also be raising funds and awareness for the development of a new, long-term public skatepark/recreation area. including silent art auction,raffles ... etc. Music TBA.

Kid 606 with Knifeandchop,
Eats Tapes, and
Beat Mechanic>Paul Bosse

8:30p, $8, 18+

Inspired by hardcore techno, indie-punk, noise-rock and a liberal dose of heavy metal, the recordings of Kid 606 are a highlight of the growing American indie-electronica scene. His lack of seriousness regarding "intelligent techno" (conspicuous in his attitude as well as his recordings) and fondness for breakbeat thrash places him in line with Digital Hardcore advocates Atari Teenage Riot and electronics deconstructivists such as Add N (To X).

Joining the bill is our very own Paul Bosse, The Beat Mechanic (or, in some circles, "The Best Mechanic"). Percussionist extraordinairre, Paul delivers fast and furious beats that leave jaws dropped to the floor.

[ UPCOMING ]

8.04.05 | Thurs | Artist Talk / Performance with Jon Brumit
8.05.05 | Fri | First Friday Artwalk
8.09.05 | Tues| Sapat
8.10.05 | Wed| Magnolia Electric Co. and Grand Buffet
8.20.05 | Sat | Milled Pavement Records CD release
8.24.05 | Wed | The Pernice Brothers
8.25.05 | Thurs | Vorcza Trio
8.26.05 | Fri | Esperanza
9.02.05 | Fri| First Friday Artwalk
9.07.05 | Wed | Bakery Photo Collective 2005 Photo Lecture Series: Chris Jordan
9.08.05 | Thurs| Cerberus Shoal and Barbez
9.09.05 | Fri| Reclaiming Space Outdoor Megaparty DON'T MISS THIS ONE!
9.19.05 | Mon| Found Magazine/ Davy Rothbart's Lone Surfer tour "2005!"
9.20.05 | Tues| The Gossip
9.23.05 | Fri| Micah Smaldone CD release

And always more to come...stay tuned.

We’re looking for new members!
Information on memberships is available on our website at http://www.space538.org/pages/membership.php