Austin’s Graham Returns

by B.J. Huchtemann

This week’s big show is the return of Jon Dee Graham to the Sunday Roadhouse series this Sunday, Feb. 12, 5 p.m. at The Side Door Lounge. Graham’s music is tough and tender, ferocious and luminous. His songs reflect the day to day struggles of life in all its rawness and richness, with a thread of indomitable hope running through it all.

In Austin, a town noted for its extraordinary musicians, Graham is the only...

 

Snow Action Movie

by Ryan Syrek

Like a giant, shovel-nosed Irish caterpillar, Liam Neeson has emerged from his late-career cocoon as a crowd-pleasing, ass-kicking action-movie butterfly. This explains why the marketing team behind Neeson’s latest flick lied to our faces when they promised generic thrills n’ chills in The Grey. Oh sure, it’s exciting and all, but look beyond the computer-generated wolves and you’ll find a dense meditation on free...

 

Heartfelt

by Michael J. Krainak

The Hot Shops Art Center has lost one the fondest members of its extended family of artists and artisans with the recent passing of Ed Van Ackeren. Van Ackeren died quietly last Wednesday surrounded by family and friends after a decade-plus battle with heart disease.

This gentle, jovial giant of character and personality was a fixture at Hot Shops, particularly as a founding organizer of the center’s student and...

 

Pick: Red Wanting Blue

by Chris Aponick

Feb. 9
Red Wanting Blue
The Waiting Room Lounge, 6212 Maple St.
9 p.m., $8, onepercentproductions.com

Red Wanting Blue may just be turning up on the radars of those who love honest, hooky heartland rock, but the band has been around 16 years since forming on the campus of Ohio University. The band, led by singer Scott Terry, now calls Columbus, Ohio home. Terry's deep, road-roughened voice is the highlight....