Wednesday, June 10
The Likety Split is a funk night that happens occasionally at Club Congress. The DJs and their flyers will tell you every kind of funk they spin – all original wax pressings, too – but all you really need to know is that they know what they are doing, and that what they aim to do is get you to dance. If you want to start drinking before they start, and maybe spend your whole evening and night in one place, come at 6 p.m. when Punk Rock Cocktail Hour starts in the Tap Room. DJ Don Miguel also knows what he’s spinning, but it’s all kinds of punk rock instead. Four dollar whisky-and-a-Budweiser and 2-for 1 Budweisers sound pretty good, too.
Club Congress. 311 E. Congress St. No cover. 21+. 9 p.m.
Friday, June 12
The Art Institute of Tucson Presents: Movie Spoof Spectacular. Teams will congregate at the Loft to be assigned a movie at random to spoof. Each team gets a DVD and four tickets to opening night, and then takes the next 48 hours to create a 4-6 minute spoof. Judges will award a $500 prize to their favorite and a $250 prize to the audience favorite, at the June 30 showing. If you don’t feel too creative this Friday, you can come to the Loft anyway: they’re showing the original Terminator all day.
The Loft Cinema. 3233 E. Speedway. $50 per team entry, $40 for IFASA and Loft members. 6 p.m. Call 795-7777 for showtimes.
Saturday, June 13
The Red Room at the Grill usually has $1 High Lifes, if they aren’t out. You can walk around and talk to people or go eat in the bigger room and not feel bad about ignoring the band because you didn’t pay and because it’s a diner-bar, really. Sometimes, though, there are some really good shows there. Hopefully this one will be: The Low Ones, The Modeens, and Vanessa Lundon, who are all local. They have good influences (from psych to punk and new wave to Laurel Canyon folk), good connections, and good reputations, and it’s free, so why not?
The Grill. 100 E. Congress St. No cover. 10 p.m.
Monday, June 15
The Pink Snowflakes from Portland, B4Skin from here, and Tucson’s newest self proclaimed “”one-girl band,”” The Tambourines, who will open. The Tambourines have played at least five shows by my count, since her debut only a few weeks ago. She performed a successful three songs inside of a Golden Boots set before Calvin Johnson’s band The Hive Dwellers and Ian Svenonius’s Chain and the Gang performed more than two weeks ago at Solar Culture. It sounds cheesy – one girl, a tambourine, and sometimes just her clapping hands – and it kind of is, but it’s the best kind of cheesy, and not at all embarrassing. In fact, most aren’t able to walk away from her stark, sentimental lyrics and crushing simplicity of song.
The Red Room at the Grill. 100 E. Congress St. No cover. 10 p.m.
Tuesday, June 16
Peter Murphy is coming to the Rialto Theatre! It’s an expensive show compared to most in Tucson, but it’s Peter Murphy! The lead singer of the 1979-formed originators of what we now know as the look and sound of “”goth,”” Bauhaus, is now solo, pretty old and rumored to be collaborating with Trent Reznor (maybe he’s researching David Bowie’s nineties career?) But that does not take away from the fact that he is a legend, an underrated influence and, quite possibly, a hero. Not sure what his 2009 album will sound like, but there’s probably enough goth in him left over from the ’80s to still go around.
Rialto Theatre. 318 E. Congress St. $25 in advance, $27 the day of show.
