Buzz Blog

Hello to all you award-winning, ticket-holding, prestige-garnering, speech-giving, photo-snapping, SPJ-awards-gala enthusiasts! --- Last night was the annual Society of Professional Journalist awards for Utah, and will you look at that, I got into the finals ... but came in second behind our other blog, The Secret Handshake. Damn you, Colin Wolf! This can only mean one thing: I need to slap the proverbial “glove of shame” across his face and declare war on his blog. That's right, kids, I'm starting a faux civil war on our own website. -- a war that will be paid attention to by nine whole people, four of whom work for City Weekly. Oh well, at least I still, as Wolf himself so eloquently put it when he joined us, “get the ladies.” In all honesty, it's nice to see the recognition; special thanks to the Utah chapter of the SPJ for the night and the free beer.

Let's skip this blog feud (or Felog) and get right to events. First up, breaking news to pass along over what would have been our first event. The Salty Streets Flea Market has been canceled for tomorrow. At this time, we're waiting for details, but the word came down just this morning on their Facebook page that ,“Due to a few unfortunate circumstances, the flea market has been CANCELLED.” So if you were planning to head to Kilby Court tomorrow, don't. Those who have any questions are being asked to e-mail the organizers.

Moving on to Wednesday, Crucial Fest will officially kick off. You'll read more about it in this week's issue of City Weekly, so I'll spare you the finer details and get right to the point: GO TO THESE SHOWS! I don't know if you've caught on yet, but we don't get a lot of rock or metal festivals in this state, or any priced out this cheaply for this much music over this many dates. Buy a wristband and go -- if you can't make the nightly shows, at least hit the all-day Kilby showcases.

Speaking of festivals, the Utah Arts Festival kicks off on Thursday. I'm not going to write much about this, either, because I'm sure you'll see many, many things written over the next few days about it, too; just take my word and go -- if not for the art, for the music; if not for the music, for the food; if not the food, the poetry; if not the poetry, the films etc., etc., etc. Just go!

If the Arts Fest isn't your thing on a Thursday night, at the Gallivan Plaza, the Downtown Alliance along with Electronic Arts and the Suspension Lounge will be presenting Pixel 2012. --a free evening of exhibitions focused around the entertainment industry and the culture behind it, primarily film and video games. The evening will include art exhibitions, sketching cabarets, live music, a NewTech theater, workshops, video games, film booths and more. You can go to this link here to check out a full program of the evening's events and activities.

Next Saturday will be a major fundraiser that those of you in the music community need to attend. As you probably now well know, The Garage suffered fire damage from the mysterious salvage-yard fire that happened last Saturday. The venue lost the back patio, but quick thinking and action on the part of firefighters saved the bulk of the building. But the damage remains, as the business cannot operate under current conditions, forcing The Garage to let go of its staff and cancel all shows until it can reopen. But you can help them reopen as The State Room will be throwing a benefit show featuring The Trappers, The Folka Dots, Triggers & Slips, Candy's River House and Spell Talk! If you want to see the venue return to business as quickly as possible (shy of donating supplies and your own time to rebuild), this is the best way you can help them out at the moment.

Next Tuesday will be the another installment of Dr. Sketchy's Anti-Art School at The Metro. As we've mentioned before, grab your finest sketch pad and whatever drawing tools you wish to use to sketch out these sexily clad models. This month it's A Tribute To Betty Page, one of the most famous pinup models, as well as fetish-photography girls, of her time. This evening should make for some interesting drawings.

Moving to next Thursday, Salt Lake Acting Company will kick off its annual performance of Saturday's Voyeur, the company's yearly musical-satire showcase about all things political, pop cultural and just plain ridiculous in the land of Zion. It truly doesn't matter what I say about this play, it will be a sellout no matter what, so this is about as advanced warning as you'll get from me on it. GO BUY TICKETS, NOW! I'm not joking, these usually sell out, and the show always turns out to be the most -jabbing-at-all-things-local you'll see in local theater. It's worth checking out at least once during its run.

Next Friday, we have a pair of events. First off in the cycling end of the community will be Velo Weekend 2012. The two-day extravaganza held by Velo City Bags in downtown SLC will include an alleycat, fixed freestyle competition, bike jousting, a guerrilla drive-in, a “bike morp” and much, much more. You can still sign up for many of the events listed by going to the main website, not to mention events happening the day-of.

If you're not looking to cycle and want something a little more creative, local poet Christopher Leibow will be releasing his latest works on June 29. A combination poetry/art chapbook going under the title Bable is the first book we've seen from Leibow in a few years, mainly because in 2010 he delegated himself to releasing free pamphlets and then audio works in 2011. He'll be having a live reading of his works at Ken Sander's Rare Books that evening and selling copies.

And then in two weeks, we have a pair of events to check out. First up is the next Hip Hop Roots Salt Lake City. The fourth installment of the series will take over the Sugar Space, with music from Toki Right and Burnell Washburn headlining and a slew of local names holding the stage. As always, there are a handful of activites to take part in; just $10 at the door for this all-ages event.

Meanwhile, at The Salt Palace will be the next bout for the Salt City Derby Girls. The league returned in style with the new banked track getting tons of attention, even from non-skate fans who are interested to see whether or not this will be a hard-hitting revival of the sport in SLC. On this night, the Bomber Babes will take on the Sisters Of No Mercy. If you haven't had a chance to see the new track, this is an opportunity you shouldn't pass up.

As for the blog: Over the next few weeks we're really going to get artistic. We'll head out to Gallery Stroll, look at the latest move (literally) from a gallery, chat with a local T-shirt company, bring you coverage from the aforementioned Utah Arts Festival and get the skinny on the latest changes at KRCL. At least, that's the plan. For all I know, that'll all fall apart tomorrow. As always, we'll see what happens.

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