MUSIC

Steel Lounge Underground is back as a special summer series! Presented with Derek Jones and Josh Zulu, this music event showcases Houston’s diversity and talent by bringing together musical artists representing a variety of genres. During the event, the audience is free to explore the exhibitions on view while enjoying the music.

This month’s talented lineup: DJ Melodic, Andrew Karnavas & Bart Maloney, DJ Little Martin, and Fly Nice featuring Karina Nistal & Fly Girl T. There is no charge for admission; cash bar and gourmet food by Houston’s latest food sensation, the Fusion Taco Truck. Steel Lounge Underground will be held 8-11pm the last Fridays of May-August: May 28, June 25, July 30, and August 27.

Don’t miss this exciting combination of art and local music.

ABOUT THE MUSICAL ARTISTS -
The DJ collective Soular Grooves creates amazing beats for the people of Houston, and none are more radical than the sounds put down by member DJ Melodic. His friends, like fellow DJ Chicken George, call him an “extremely talented DJ, producer, and music connoisseur with a gentle soul and a passion and dedication for music like no other.” With a style like that, his playlist might be the most inspiring in town.

Both Houston-based musicians, with a flair for the musical styles of yesteryear, Andrew Karnavas and Bart Maloney will be bringing their sound to CAMH, blending rock, blues, folk, rockabilly, and other influences. Karnavas and Maloney will be contributing their individual styles, but blended together, there will be musical magic in the air. With Karnavas’s storytelling music and natural connection to the audience, and Maloney’s accompaniment on the pedal steel guitar, you won’t want to miss this duo.

Post-Punk, Pre-Nirvana, Post-Disco, Pre-House, with his beginnings in Manchester, England in 1983, Little Martin has ridden many waves and trends and created a few of his own. With 24 years experience and vast musical knowledge—House, Dance, Disco, Pop, Punk, R&B, Latin—you will likely not hear the same beat from him more than once all night long.

Blending Latin tones with DJ beats, the Fly Nice pairing of Karina Nistal and Fly Girl T proves that the ladies can bring Hip Hop, and can still be “fly” and “nice” in the process. While you can catch Nistal and her band playing all over the country, Fly Girl T can be heard mixing beats on the Soular Grooves radio show on KPFT 90.1. Together they create an extraordinary blend of attitude and style that insists you get on your feet and stay there.

ABOUT FUSION TACO -
New this year: Fusion Taco, a booming taco truck business brought to you by Julia Sharaby, a locally grown “food-artist” of sorts. Her innovations to the run of the mill taco truck are outstanding, giving all those taco trucks out there a run for their money, complete with short rib tacos, Asian cole slaw and Indian flatbread. We’re not using the word “fusion” lightly here!

ABOUT THE EXHIBITIONS -
San Antonio artist Cruz Ortiz believes he may have missed his calling. “I should’ve been a honky-tonk singer,” he says. But because he can’t croon like a Conjunto or Country music star, Ortiz more than compensates by deploying a broad range of media—prints, paintings, sculptures, video, installation, and performance—to speak about life, love, and the struggle for equality. Among the humorous, oftentimes rattletrap devices Ortiz uses to enable the Spaztek—his post-Chicano, post-punk antihero alter ego—to express human yearnings for companionship and communal action are “balladic broadsides, transient architecture, life-size flying contraptions, megaphones, pushcarts, rockets, maps, banners and flags, and siege machines.” In Perspectives 170: Cruz Ortiz, the artist’s first in-depth museum exhibition and catalogue, the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston will present a selection of works from these categories. On view through July 11, 2010.

Hand+Made: The Performative Impulse in Art and Craft is a dynamic group exhibition that explores the innovative means by which artists continue to expand the traditional boundaries of art and craft. Through the integration of performance, the artists featured in this exhibition have broadened the context of craft in contemporary art. The Contemporary Arts Museum Houston will present sculptural objects, environments, and site-specific installations along with photography and video documenting performances, as well as a series of live performance events. Featured artists include the collaborative group B Team, Conrad Bakker, Nick Cave, Cat Chow, Sonya Clark, Gabriel Craig, Theaster Gates, Cynthia Giachetti, Ryan Gothrup, Sabrina Gschwandtner, Lauren Kalman, Christy Matson, James Melchert, Yuka Otani, Sheila Pepe, Michael Rea, Anne Wilson, Saya Woolfalk, and Bohyun Yoon. On view through July 25, 2010.

Click here to visit the Steel Lounge Underground - May 28, 2010 Facebook page.