Happy Ganesh Chaturthi. I know pretty much nothing about Hindu culture, so please let me know if I’m being disrespectful by typing, in my out loud voice, “Happy Ganesh Chaturthi.” I am modestly familiar with Ganesh, the elephant-headed lord of beginnings, the remover of obstacles, the patron of arts and sciences, the deva of intellect and wisdom—all of which makes him sound pretty righteous, and in 2018 the celebration of his birth began September 13. I have no idea what the appropriate, customary way to honor Ganesh is, so I’m going to be a lapsed Catholic heathen arts enthusiast and use the beginning of this episode of The Week This Week to point you to the Indian films opening/playing at Cinemark Egyptian 24 at Arundel Mills Mall, which remains the best theater in the region for popular foreign films from India, Latin America, the Philippines, and South Korea that don’t play art-house theaters: C/O Kancharapalem (in Telugu with English subtitles; see Times of India review), Manmarziyan (in Hindi with English subtitles; see Times of India review), U Turn (in Telugu with English subtitles; see Times of India review), and Sailaja Reddy Alludu (in Telugu with English subtitles; see Times of India review), which is also playing at Cinemark Towson. India released more than 1,900 films in 2017, in more than 20 languages; the U.S. and Canada released 724. And while its films didn’t bring in as much money as American films in 2017, $2.3 billion to $10.2 billion, global audiences bought nearly 3.5 billion tickets to Indian films; Hollywood nabbed about 2.5 billion tickets worldwide.

FRIDAY SEP14 Ami Dang has been a bit more active recently in the duo Raw Silk with cellist Alexa Richardson, whose self-titled debut on Ehse Records has consistently delivered a gorgeous headphones trip over the summer. Dang the sitar ‘n’ beats producer, though, remains one of Baltimore’s underground pop gems, and her 2016 outing Uni Sun showcased an ever more sophisticated flair for fusing Indian melodies and pop beats, the stunning “Nazm” one of the more hypnotic doses of haunting pop that’ll ever make your ears trip balls; Dang plays a night of exploratory sound at Alchemy of Art with Dope Body/Scroll Downers percussion machine/electronics mood sculptor David Jacober and Clean Breast.

Also: Candice Hoyes has a voice that’ll drop your jaw, so know that when she performs a tribute to Billie Holiday at the Motor House, she’s coming correct. Monozine presents power-pop trio Jukebox the Ghost at Rams Head Live with the Greeting Committee. The Underside of Power, the 2017 sophomore outing from Atlanta’s avantrock&B powerhouse Algiers, almost seemed to reign in the knife-edged soulpunkgospel of the band’s 2015 self-titled debut, which sounded like what might happened if a southern church band spent a summer in a woodshed with nothing but their instruments, Fela and 1960s free jazz albums, and a cassette copy of a copy of copy of No New York; the zine EPs the group’s been Bandcamp releasing, though, show it hasn’t lost its ability to stun. Algiers shakes you out of your television coma at the Creative Alliance at the Patterson with the butt-moving experience of F-City. Akron’s rust-belt punk trio Southside Choir Boys corrode the Sidebar with locals Silver Gulls and Subtastics. The Phil Thomas Quintet plays two sets at An die Musik. You snoozed you, uh, lost on this one: JPEGMAFIA, now based in sunny Californ-i-a, sold out the Metro Gallery with Joy Again. Down in Washington, the first night of the Black Cat’s 25th anniversary shows starts up, with Subhumans, Ocampo Ocampo and Watt, Ted Leo, Des Demonas, Dagger Moon, Scanners, Honey, and Work Ethic.

SATURDAY SEP15 New Orleans’ Eyehategod and Maryland’s the Obsessed aren’t merely veteran metal bands whose thundering oomph still packs a wallop, they’re a bunch of working musicians who have lived through some rough stretches of life’s shit, and like the Geto Boys’ Scarface, age has added deeper wrinkles to their already formidable sounds; their joint tour hits the Ottobar with, Tombs, Crow Hunter, and Earthworm Von Doom.

Also: Joyce Scott, Baltimore’s very own MacArthur genius, hosts Taste of Tuva at Towson University’s south campus pavilion, an evening of Asian music, art, and food, featuring the Tuvan throat singing group Alash Ensemble, Shodekeh, J. Pope, and Wendel Patrick. Ami Dang and Jacob Marley play Bollymore’s one year anniversary party at the Motor House. Kix, the pride of Hagerstown, rock your face off at Rams Head Live with Ever Rise. Eighteen-year-old Baton Rouge MC YoungBoy Never Broke Again stops by the MECU Pavilion.Local psychedelic pop outfit Strawberry Sleepover headlines the Cult Pop Carnival at the Crown with Spish, Albert Bagman, and Mess. Maestra Marin Alsop leads the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra through its season opening gala at the Meyerhoff Symphony Hall, which includes Strauss’s Till Eulenspiegel’s Merry Pranks and selections from Gershwin’s An American in Paris feauring Cynthia Ervio and emcee Wordsmith. Waldorf’s Flying Jacob plays an album release show for its new Renew at the Metro Gallery with the Chief End, Circuit Villans, and Night Hums. Trumpeter Charmaine Michelle and the Rodney Kelly Experience play a two show tribute to guitarists at An die Musik. Canada’s long-running punk-metal quartet Propagandhi complies/resists at Baltimore Soundstage with Iron Chic and Sharptooth. Down in DC, the second night of Black Cat’s 25h anniversary show features Ex Hex, Gray Matter, Hurry Up, Algiers, Hammered Hulls, Wanted Man, Foul Swoops, and I will see you there. And the District New Music Coalition, hosts its inaugural new music conference this weekend on the campus of Georgetown University. See its website for programming and more info about its Sunday afternoon concerts, featuring the District5 wind quartet and soloists from the Boulanger Initiative performing works by women composers.

SUNDAY SEP16 Pittsburgh’s indie-rock quartet The Zells chicken walk into Joe Squared with Philly’s Buster, DC’s Saturday Night, and and Coco&bananas. Classical pianist Ben Kim plays a 2 pm matinee at An die Musik; later, Chicago trumpeter Elliot Bild & The Zone take over the club. Rainbow-pop combo Arlie strikes me as the kind of band where somebody’s going to be playing the tambourine at some point during the set; the Nashville group strolls into the Ottobar with Strange New Shapes and the Last Year. Fellow Texan Rhett Miller not only looks like he’s barely aged since I first saw the Old 97’s perform at Club Dada in the ’90s, he’s matured into a thoughtful writer as well as singer/songwriter, and stops by Columbia’s the Soundry with Owen Danoff.

MONDAY SEP17 With its seventh album The Outer Ones due out later this month, Boston’s intricate metal combo Revocation kicks off its fall tour at Metro Gallery tonight with a really solid bill, featuring Exhumed, the modestly proggy death metal of Rivers of Nihil, and Yautja, a Nashville trio whose 2017 Dead Soil contains as much Void-y hardcore as it is does death-y metal. Pianist Joshua Espinoza and bassist Alex Meadow host the Monday jazz jam at An die Musik.

TUESDAY SEP18 Secret Club, Tampa indie-rock outfit Pohgoh‘s first album in 21 years, sounds as crunchily confident and unfussy Superchunk’s return-after-a-hiatus Majesty Shredding, and as as unafraid to be touched by time: Club is as informed by a two-decade split from band life and guitarist/vocalist Susie Ulrey’s challenges since being diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 2001; Pohgoh rocks the Metro Gallery with Thrushes and J Robbins. Seattle’s Slow Code pounds out an insistent post-hardcore intensity, and moments of its recent Wastelayer have a Three One G-ish/Drive Like Jehu edge to it; the trio stops by the Sidebar with Ex-Motorcylce Couriers, Meatbot, and Scuds. D.R.I. plays an all-ages show at the Ottobar with A Wilhelm Scream, Kaustik, and Babies With Rabies.

WEDNESDAY SEP19 Brooklyn’s Celestial Shore singer/guitarist Sam Evian silkily slides into ’70s soft rock, summer road-trip mood on his sophomore solo outing You, Forever; he headlines the Metro Gallery tonight with Hexgirlfriends, and don’t sleep on tour mate Katie von Schleicher, whose recorded output—Silent Days, Bleaksploitation, last year’s Shitty Hits, and a 7-inch from earlier this year—has revealed her an expert in hijacking sounds, melodies, and moods from the popular American songbook for her own wrist-slittingly intoxicating downer pop. Philly hip-hop crew Jedi Mind Tricks is nine albums deep into a fairly prolific underground hip-hop career, and its latest, The Bridge and the Abyss, is a 19-track monster that sounds like it could’ve been put out by Def Jux in the early 2000s; JMT heads into the Ottobar with ex-Arsonists MC Q-Unique, whose new The Mechanic fucking stomps, Billy Lyve & Ill Luck, Laurel’s Nasa 8, local veterans DJ Mills and DJ Harvey Dent.

COMING SOON Tickets went on sale this morning for for Animal Collective performing Tangerine Reef at the Baltimore Parkway Theatre Nov. 9, presented by Monozine. Super City plays a CD-release show at the Ottobar Sep. 29 with Vita the Woolf. Chicago art-rock duo Ohmme comes to the Metro Gallery Oct. 1 with Renata Zeiguer. Maxwell‘s 50 Intimate Nights tour stops by the MECU Pavilion Oct. 6. Jazz-punk outfit Clang! makes noise at the Undercroft Oct. 10 with Brian Enemy. And Chris Brokaw and Thalia Zedek play the intimate Club 603 Oct. 13.

THE WEEK

FRI14SEP The third-annual Baltimore Podcast Festival occupies parts of the Crown, the Baltimore Improv Group, and the Windup Space today and Saturday, with a variety of live recordings. Check the fest’s Facebook events pages for who, where, and when.

SAT15SEP AfriCOBRA: The Evolution of a Movement opens at Galerie Myrtis Sep. 15 with a reception from 5-7 p.m. The African Commune of Bad Relevant Artists, aka AfriCOBRA, started in Chicago in 1968 and added equal parts intellectual and visual oomph to the Black Arts Movement. Don’t miss.

SUN16SEP Lynne Parks talks Lights Out Baltimore at the Fleckstein Gallery from 1-3 p.m.  Local artist Parks is the outreach coordinator for Lights Out Baltimore, a volunteer organization of local birdwatchers working to make the city safe for migratory birds by advocating turning off decorative lighting so that birds don’t fly into glass buildings and die. Parks talks about the organization this afternoon at the Fleckstein Gallery, which is currently showcasing Deborah Donelson’s art in The Living Sky.

MON17SEP The UMBC Humanities Forum presents Carolina Guerrero’s “Breaking the Language Barrier One Story at a Time” at the Albin O. Kuhn Library Gallery at 4 p.m.Guerrero is the executive director of NPR’s 2014 Gabriel García Márquez Prize for Innovation in Journalism award-winning Spanish-language podcast Radio Ambulante, and she’ll talk about telling Latinx American stories, in America, in Spanish.

TUE18SEP Carolee Schneemann speaks at MICA Brown Center Sep. 18 at 4 p.m. as part of the Mount Royal School of Art Visiting Artist Lecture series. “I’m of the opinion that we don’t necessarily need so many artists. I recommend that many of the people who think they want to be artists should go into the [American] Friends Service Committee, or do government outreach to communities that don’t have water, or that need seeds or ecological assistance. It would create a system in which people with engaged sensibilities and potential insight assist instead of imposing. I think it could leap right out of the art world into wonderful community action, just like the kind that happens in cities where small groups begin to revitalize a space with action, with information, with graffiti.” — Schneemann, in conversation with Pipilotti Rist, Interview, Oct. 16, 2017.

WED19SEP Wet-N-Wild Wednesdays at Club Bunns, 9 p.m.-2 a.m. Erika Chloe Adams hosts this first and third Wednesday of every month event promises the “best male exotic show in Baltimore;” show starts at 11:30 p.m.

MOVIES, REPARATORY FILMS & SCREENINGS

My Art at the Baltimore Parkway Sep. 14 at 7 p.m. Artist Laurie Simmons directs and stars in this drama about a woman artist moving into video art in her 60s. Josh Safdie, Barbara Sukowa, veteran character actor John Rothman, and the great Parker Posey co-star. Simmons appears in a Q&A conversation with Rothman following the screening. See Cara Ober’s interview with Simmons at Bmore Art.

The Breakfast Club at the Canton Branch of the Enoch Pratt Free Library, Sep. 15 at 11 a.m. “When my daughter proposed watching ‘The Breakfast Club’ together, I had hesitated, not knowing how she would react: if she would understand the film or if she would even like it. I worried that she would find aspects of it troubling, but I hadn’t anticipated that it would ultimately be most troubling to me.” —Molly Ringwald, writing in The New Yorker, April 6, 2018.

Captain America: The First Avenger at the Southeast Anchor Branch of the Enoch Pratt Free Library, Sep. 15 at 2 p.m. I’ve always faulted the modest box-office performance of this pulpy, throwback actioner for muting Hayley Atwell’s totally awesome Peggy Carter, who should be ruling some TV/movie universe right now. Also: it’s a story about a scrawny but scrappy everydude who becomes a superhero for the explicit purpose of punching Nazis.

La Familia at the Parkway Sep. 15 at 1:30 p.m. A father tries to protect his son from retribution in the slums outside Caracas in writer/director Gustavo Rondón Córdova’s gritty debut. Also Sep. 23 at 4 p.m.

Rendezvous in July at the Charles Theatre Sep. 15 at 11:30 a.m. Beautiful young people try to figure out what to do with themselves in Paris immediately after the second world war’s devastation in a restored print of Jacques Becker’s 1949 proto-New Wave movie, reaching American screens for the first time. Also Sep. 17 at 7 p.m. and Sep. 20 at 9:30 p.m.

California Split at the Senator Theatre Sept. 16 at 10 a.m. Robert Altman’s 1970s may be an American director’s strangest decade ever. Bookended by 1970’s career-making M*A*S*H and career-near-ending Popeye in 1980, in between were some of the finest films of the era, as well as some genuine head scratchers. His 1974 California Split sometimes gets lost amid Altman’s ’70s riches—Nashville, 3 Women, Brewster McCloud, McCabe & Mrs. Miller, and The Long Goodbye—but time has been kind to this deceptive buddy flick starring Elliot Gould and George Segal. It’s ostensibly a gambling comedy but feels more like a plunge into the economic desperation that underpins that big business we call America. Also Sept. 19 at 9:30 p.m.

Silent Light at the Parkway Sep. 16 at 4 p.m. Mexican filmmaker Carlos Reygadas’ lavishly austere 2007 drama about love, forgiveness, and faith in an isolated Mennonite community in Mexico would be a great film to revisit if you’re still chewing on Paul Schrader’s recent First Reformed. Screening as part of the the Latin American Cinema series.

Bloodsworth: An Innocent Man at the Orleans Street Branch of the Enoch Pratt Free Library Sep. 17 at 5:30 p.m. Gregory Bayne’s documentary about Kirk Noble Bloodsworth, the first death-row inmate exonerated by DNA evidence in the United States. In 1985 Bloodsworth was convicted of the rape and murder of 9-year-old Dawn Hamilton in Baltimore County; DNA testing led to his release in 1993, and new DNA evidence led to the Kimberly Shay Ruffner, who confessed to killing Hamilton. Bloodworth was exonerated in 2004.

The Battle of Algiers at the Parkway Theatre Sep. 17 at 7 p.m. Gillo Pontecorvo’s neorealist recreation of the Algerian National Liberation Front’s anti-colonial guerilla uprisings against the occupying French military and police not only remains a feat of incendiary, and inspiring, protest art, it invented the vérité action flick .

Death Wish at the Pennsylvania Avenue branch of the Enoch Pratt Free Library Sep. 17 at 5 p.m. Eli Roth’s remake of the 1974 Charles Bronson vigilante flick and arguable first stone in the rise of tough-on-crime politicians, from mayors up to presidents, stars Bruce Willis, was penned by the entertainingly ridiculous action screenwriter Joe Carnahan, and lasted about a day in theaters. If you’ve seen, you know why. Woof.

I Am Not Your Negro at the Senator Theatre Sep. 17 at 7 p.m. Raoul Peck’s documentary explores racism in America as inspired by James Baldwin’s unfinished Remember this House.

Mind Game at the Parkway Sep. 17 at 7 p.m. Masaaki Yuasa’s 2004 directing debut is an anime adaptation of Robin Nishi’s manga about an aspiring young comic book artist’s metaphysical encounter with his childhood crush and the yakuza. Fear takes the shape we’re willing to give it.

American Graffiti at the Senator Sep. 19 at 7:30 p.m. George Lucas’ mash-note to growing up in early 1960s California is possibly ground zero in nostalgic Baby Boomer monoculture that has moved from choking the life out of popular culture to choking the life out of government.

American Horror Story viewing party hosted by Lyric Bordeaux at Mixers Sep. 19. OK, yes, not a movie, but if you’re going to watch American Horror Story: Apocalypse, the upcoming seventh season of Ryan Murphy’s FX anthology show, if there’s a better place to do so than at a neighborhood gay bar on Belair Road, god is keeping that secret to herself.

Baltimore Parkway Theatre Opening/playing Sep. 14-17 (see website for dates & times): 2001: A Space Odyssey (the Parkway’s Kubrick 90 series continues with the Christopher Nolan-supervised 4K restoration of this 1968 wiggy, sci-fi trip through inner and outer space); Cocote (a gardener travels to his home village following his father’s death and is pushed to consider revenge in Dominican Republic filmmaker Nelson Carlo de Los Santos Arias’ first non-documentary feature); Don’t Leave Home (an American artist travels to Ireland to investigate a missing girl and the artist priest who painted her portrait in writer/director Michael Tully’s gothic horror flick); Mandy (Director Panos Cosmatos’ arty horror actioner unleashes the full Nicholas Cage).

STAGE

The Institute of Visionary History and the Archives of the Deep Now opens at the Peale Sep. 13 at 7 p.m.; this is Submersive Productions‘ latest immersive, intimate theater experience, predicated on the notion that was once an Institute of Visionary History and its archives are shaping the experience. This first episode involves Harriet Tubman. YMMV, and it can feel a bit LARPy at times, but Submersive is pretty consistent at this, and the whole idea here is a wee bit steampunky. Every Thursday through Sunday through Sep. 27.

Cat on a Hot Tin Roof opens at Center Stage Sep. 13. Judith Ivey directs Tennessee Williams’ Pulitzer prize-winning 1955 play about a wealthy Mississippi family going all kinds of southern and rich over the course of a drinky evening and the lower-class young woman who married into it. Through Oct. 14.

Sex With Strangers opens at Fells Point Corner Theatre Sep. 14.

Stage, in production

Dancing at Lughnasa  at Everyman Theater. Amber Paige McGinnis directs this version of playwright Brian Friel’s 1990 drama follows the lives of five sisters in late 1930s rural Ireland as their priest older brother returns from missionary work. Through Oct. 7.

Luther at Arena Players. Writer/director Randolph Smith’s portrait of quiet storm legend Luther Vandross returns to the venerable McCulloh Street theater. Through Sept. 30.

Shakespeare’s R&J at Vagabond Players. Playwright Joe Calarco sets his version of the star-crossed romantic tragedy at an all-boys Catholic boarding school, where four adolescent boy-men go searching for the naughty bits and start acting the play out. Through Sept. 30.

Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street at Rep Stage. Can’t lie: I’m fully expecting deliciously macabre things from Joseph W. Ritschdirecting Stephen Sondheim’s tasty human pie horrorshow with music direction from Stacey Antoine. Reviews: DC Metro Theater Arts, DC Theater Scene, Metro Weekly, Theater Bloom, Washington Post. Through Sept. 23.

Putin On Ice (that isn’t the real title of this show) opens at Single Carrot Theatre. I have absolutely no idea what to expect from the Acme Corporation playwright Lola Pierson’s latest, and that’s exciting. Read Brandon Block’s Q&A with Pierson and director Yury Urnov at the Baltimore Fishbowl. Through Oct. 7.

VISUAL ART

A Designed Life opened at UMBC’s CADVC Sep 13. UMBC associate professor Margaret Re curated this exhibition, which focuses on American textile, wallpapers, containers, and packaging commissioned by the U.S. Department of State in the early 1950s to tour Europe to promote democratic ideas. Through Dec. 8.

Madelein Keesing: Refractions and Sally Egbert: Dust of Summer opened at Goya Contemporary Sep. 13. In previous Goya exhibitions, both Keesing and the Egbert have showcased intense, large-scale abstractions. Through Oct. 30.

Abstract Perspectives, an exhibition featuring the work of Se Jong Cho, Thomas Dahlberg, and Jodi Ferrier, opens at the Montpelier Arts Center in Laurel Sep. 14 with a reception from 7-9 p.m. Through Oct 28.

Find Your Voice: Art and Activism panel at the Waller Gallery Sep. 15 from 4-7 p.m. Featuring Valeria Fuentes (founder, Roots and Raices),  Mia Loving (co-founder of Invisible Majority), Bilphena Yahwon (Restorative Response Baltimore), and moderated by gallery director Joy Davis. Waller’s current exhibition, Joaquin Esteban Jutt: We Are Not Voiceless, runs through Oct. 5.

Pooneh Maghazehe: Split Double Zero and Aurelia opens at Resort Sep. 15 with a reception from 6-9 p.m. Aurelia is a group show featuring Sophia Belkin, Gabriella Grill, Amy Stober, and Sarah Tortora, while Zero is an extension of Maghazehe’s current installation at 17ESSEX in New York. Through Oct. 20.

Antonio McAfee delivers an artist’s talk at ICA Baltimore Sep. 15 from 1-2 p.m. about his current exhibition, Theme and Variation. Exhibition through Sep. 23.

Joseph Paul Cassar: Balancing Act opens Sep. 15 at the Ynot Gallery with a reception from 5-9 p.m. The Maltese artist and art historian displays paintings, drawings, and collages, and delivers an artist talk Oct. 13. Through Oct. 20.

Photographer Sierra Haynes’s Breathing Space opens Sep. 17 at the MICA Piano Gallery. Through Oct. 12.

Ceramicist Connor Czora’s Clay Americana opens Sep. 17 at the MICA Pinkard Gallery. Through Oct. 12.

Visual art, ongoing

Baltimore: Beneath the Surface opens at the Eubie Blake Cultural Center, featuring street photographers Lashelle Bynum and Angelia Carter. Through Nov. 3.

Depth of Field  at UMBC’s Albin O. Kuhn Library Gallery,features about 100 pieces acquired over the last decade years by UMBC’s Photography Collections. Through Dec. 19.

Four Baltimore-based artists shows at School 33: Cindy Cheng and Jackie Milad‘s The Thing is Close, painter Bill Schmidt’s Unintended Consequences, and new media artist Kieun Kim‘s mixed-media installation “Revealuxion”. Through Sep. 29.

Pointing at the Sun | An Exercise in Abstraction. Featuring David Brown, Zoë Charlton, Stephen Hendee, Terence Hannum, Bill Schmidt, Ariel Cavalcante Foster, Ruri Yi, Mono Practice is a new gallery founded by Yi, co-directed by Guest Spot @ The Reinstitute‘s Rod Malin. Gorgeous space, solid debut show, and the Charlton, Foster, Hannum, and Schmidt works are fucking exquisite. Through Oct. 13.

Hateful Things  at the Reginald F. Lewis Museum of African History and Culture,a traveling exhibit curated by the Jim Crow Museum of Racist Memorabilia at Ferris State University that documents more than 150 years of racist and anti-Black imagery and material culture. Through Oct. 14.

Isla: Regarding Paradise  at Towson University’s Center for the Arts Gallery. Jackie Milad curates this group show that explores the notion of “paradise” as it usually refers to the islands of Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic. Through Oct. 20.

Latoya Hobbs’ Sitting Pretty at Goucher College’s Rosenberg Gallery,featuring the local artist and MICA professor’s woodcut and mixed-media monotype prints. Reception 27 Sept., 6-9 p.m.

Survival Bias and Floating on Mended Boats  at Current Space. Bias features artists Brittany De Nigris and Adam Milner; Floating is a solo exhibition off Seth Adelsberger‘s paintings from a recent residency in Kenya. Through Sep. 29.

CLUBS/NIGHTS

SEP. 14 | Josh Stokes and DJ Ellen Paul hold down the free Pump dance party at the Crown, and DJ Big Thad spins at the Crown’s HipHop + R&B Dance Party. DJ Hemlock and DJ Solanine bring goth, industrial, and EBM to the Depot for Toxicity. Cospop Productions goes Looney Tunes burlesque for its Cartoons After Dark performance at the Windup Space. And following the closing of the Baltimore Eagle, Grand Central has turned its Loft over to leather community every Friday and Saturday.

SEP. 15 | Landis Exapandis spins his Skin Tight Soul Party at the Crown. Kasper Burnstein and DJ Trakklaya and DJ Rob G3 spin at the House Thang Fridays at Factory 17. DJs CB and Hemlock spin goth and industrial at the Depot for Batz Over Baltimore. Leather Staurdays in the Loft at Grand Central.

SEP. 16 |Pariah Sinclair and Sextia N’Eight host the Bloody Sunday: A Night Drag event at the Windup Space including performances by Anastasia Belladonna, Onyx D’Pearl, and Molly Boro, with pitches of mimosas only a dangerous $14 all night long.

SEP. 19 | Dubmelt brings a slew of low-end to the Depot with R3.No.B.

COMEDY

SEP. 14 |Craig Gass at the Ottobar with Mickey Cucchiella, Beth Haydon, and Eric Navarro.

SEP. 15 | Pariah Sinclair hosts Scandalous Saturdays at the Sidebar featuring queens Shaunda Leer, Shawnna Alexander, and Bombalicious Eklaver and comics Daniel Noble and Violet Gray.

SEP. 17 |Dark Mark Joiner hosts the Open Mic Night at the Sidebar.

SEP. 19 | The Art of Comedy Open Mic hits the Motor House Showroom bar at 8 p.m.

DANCE

The Collective curates the Inside the Block |Outside the Box performance at the Creative Alliance featuring LucidBeings Dance, Chiles VandenBosche and Kristen LeChevet, In the Dark Circus Arts, and Tevon Robinson.

BOOKS & LIT

Local author Dr. Kerri Moseley-Hobbs talks about her historical novel historical novel More Than a Fraction at the Edmonson Avenue Branch of the Enoch Pratt Free Library Sep. 15 from 2-4 p.m.

Washington Post political columnist Dana Millbank delivers the 2018 Mencken Memorial Lecture at the Enoch Pratt Free Library Sep. 15 at 2 p.m.

Natasha R. Howard talks about the essay collection she co-edited, Black Women and  Popular Culture, The Conversation Continues, at the Reginald F. Lewis Museum of African American History and Culture Sep. 15 at 1 p.m.

WEDNESDAY 05 Sept. In a city where artists do many things well, Abdu Ali is one of the more thoughtfully nimble multi hyphenates. As the founding curator/organizer of the Khalon party, they created an exploratory space for fellow radical musical genre benders and politically astute soundspeakers, and their podcast drum BOOTY is an Afrofuturistic motherboard exploring contemporary black experience. Their music has always been Ali’s most arresting cultural output, an head-spinning  alloy of Baltimore club, hip-hop, and dance music that flirts with futuristic jazz and techno dressed down in maximalist sheen. Ali plays the Metro tonight with Philadelphia’s W00dy, Kotic Couture, and Pamela_ and her sons, before heading down to the Hopscotch Music Fesitval in North Carolina this weekend.

Also: Montreal’s Ought reveald itself adept at molding its angular art punk into almost new wave-y pop on its third album, Room Inside the World, and the quartet explores disgrace in America at the Ottobar with the reformed Swearin’, the power-punk outfit featuring Allison Crutchfield, and local bedroom-pop trio Outer Spaces. Sandcathcers, a New York band consisting of oud, lap steel, bass, and drums, and Erik Friedlander’s cello hauntingly interweaving Middle Eastern and American folk music, stops by 4 Hour Day Luthier (4305 Harford Road) in Beverly Hills with local finger-picking guitarist Pergola. Boston’s very Bostony named Chuggernaut plays a disarmingly solid brand of groove-oriented sludge rock on its recent five-song EP Kodiak, and delivers a control burn to the Depot with Takoma Park trio Myopic, Easton’s Side With Villains, and Centreville’s A Flood of Flames.

THURSDAY 06 Sept. Guitarists Eric Arn and Margaret Unknown have trod their own idiosyncratic paths into free improv and exploratory acoustic guitar figures; their debut duo outing, Paranza Corta, recently issued by the indispensable Feeding Tube Records brings to mind such hallucinatory guitar duo albums as those Alan Licht and Loren MazzaCane Connors collaborations Mercury and Two Nights, less for any sonic similarity than the level of interplay between the two artists. Arn and Unknown land at the True Vine with Superflower and Plake 64 and the Hexagrams.

Also: Ex Hex, guitarist Mary Timony’s whip-sharp trio with drummer Laura Harris and bassist Betsy Wright, rips up the Ottobar with NYC trio EZTV, who traffic in pretty solid C86-era indie-pop, and the intoxicating downer noise-pop of locals Romantic States. If the Physique playing Sidebar tonight with Flower, Syringe, and Bustdown is the Olympia, Wa., combo responsible for the eight-song EP Punk Life is Shit from earlier this year, come prepared for a righteously blistering slice of Discharge-y crustpunk. Tune-Yards headlines WTMD’s free, final First Thursday Festival of the summer at Canton Waterfront Park with Fantastic Negrito, singer/songwriter Jackie Greene, dream-pop harpist Mikaela Davis, and more. The resurrected Dead Boys get loud and snotty at the Metro with the Cramps-y Austin duo the Ghost Wolves and the local street punk of Ravagers. Pianist Benito Gonzelez and his trio—bassist Herman Burney and drummer Lee Pearson—plays a two show tribute to pianist McCoy Tyner at An die Musik. Local alt-country, folk, and bluegrass combo D.T. Huber and Whale Show play the free honky tonkin’ show upstairs at the Ottobar; dancer Amanda Stearns offers two-stepping lessons before and between sets. And late on Wednesday evening, Unregistered Nurse announced a last-minute Mac DeMarco secret show tonight at Rams Head Live.

FRIDAY 07 Sept. Australia’s Deaf Wish crank out a variety pack of postpone snarl and groove on its recent Lithium Zion (Sub Pop), scratching out a circa-Evol Sonic Youthy burr and sneer one moment, a Dustdevils-y sprawl the next. Unregistered Nurse presents the Melbourne quintet at Joe Squared with the  postpunky noise-rock of Pittsburgh’s the Gotobeds, Muscle, and Oakland’s Patti.

Also: Gang Gang Dance‘s ambient pop Paxils the Metro with Deakin and DJ Brandon Carlo. Germany’s Excrementory Grindfuckers is exactly the kind of over-the-top theatrical grindcore act that should be headling something called the Baltimore %&*fest at the Depot with the equally ridiculous local duo Earthworm von Doom (sample song from its recent 8279: “Bro, Why is That Light On?”), Cann’d, Roanoke’s Gaffer Project, Cemetery Bastard, and, well Fukbut. Local indie-rock outfit Surhoff  gallops into the Sidebar with Pennsylvania’s Wawaset and the lo-fi Yes Selma. We Three—the trio of locals John Lamkin III (drums) and Kris Funn (bass) with veteran guitarist Mark Whitfield—play two sets at An die Musik. Maryland indie rock band Outside Smoke plays a EP-release show at the Ottobar with Thunder Club, Normandy Wood, Strange Attractor, and A-Language.

SATURDAY 08 Sept. Baltimore-based Nigerian-American artist JaneliaSoul makes contemporary neosxoul that’s as touched by afrobeat and reggae as it is by classic R&B; she plays the Westport Block Party, which runs from 3:30-6:30 p.m. at the Westport Academy (2401 Nevada Street), as part of Baltimore office of Promotion and the Arts SoBo Summer Music Series. Brooklyn’s indie-rocking Ritual Talk and dream-popping Ackerman hit the Crown with Strange Attractor.  Los Tiki Phantoms, a surf band from Barcelona that can lay down a shimmering garage stomp, fires up the Ottobar with New Jersey’s the Primitive Finks and locals the Bali Lamas, and the Phantom Killers, whose 2016 demos of no-fi monster movie punk you can score for the nice price of $6.66. The Vincent Herring Quartet—featuring pianist Kevin Brown, dummer Joe Farnsworth, bassist John Weber, and Herring on tenor sax—swings at the Caton Castle. All Pigs Must Die—the hardcore collaboration featuring the Hope Conspiracy’s Kevin Baker, Converge’s Ben Koller, and Bloodhorse’s Adam Wentworth and Matt Woods—brings it caustic vision to Metro with DC’s sludge-y Ilsa, NJ’s Homewrecker, and Philadelphia’s Backslider. Doom-y duo Yatra‘s smoke is rising at the Sidebar with Et Mors and Virginia’s most excellently named trio Foehammer. Classical guitarist Ana Vidovic tends to favor the romantic and post-romantic composers who celebrated the guitar’s rich register and moods that’ll be familiar to fans of the instrument, but she’s a focused interpreter and performer with an ability to illuminate anew tunes and melodies you’ve heard many times before; she plays An die Musik tonight. Soulfly and Cavalera Conspiracy guitarist Mark Rizzo shreds Reverb with Crow Hunter, Berkana, and Molldyer. Oh, and Hamdenfest 2018 takes over Hamdenlandia; there’s bands, beer, and toilets.

SUNDAY 09 Sept. Local touring musician B&B Feed the Scene hosts a 3 p.m. metal matinee at the Depot featuring Drowning Ares, Seventh Autumn, and more. Brooks Long and the Mad Dog No Good got soul at Metro with the indie-pop or Lushpockets and DJ Rod Macy. For his recent album Book of Travelers, NYC composer and singer/songwriter Gabriel Kahane chatted with people on the train ride from New York to Chicago the day after the 2016 presidential election; his current tour makes a whistle stop at the Creative Alliance at the Patterson. Wiggy Brooklyn J-pop band Love Spread gets noisy at the Crown with Mavis Beacon and local noise-pop project Blood on the Mercy Seat. The industrial bump and grind concocted by ohGr doesn’t deviate that much from vocalist Nivek Ogre and writer/producer Mark Walk’s previous band, Skinny Puppy, though ohGr favors more pop-friendly songs and sounds over SP’s dancefloor electro-goth; Tricks (2018), ohGr’s fifth album, even flirts with outright synthpop. ohGr gets freaky at the Baltimore Soundstage tonight with Lead into the Gold, the side-project of Ministry bassist Paul Baker that delivers a pretty satisfying Wolfgang Press-ish wallop of industrial thump, the darkwave pop of Omniflux (the nom music of Los Angeles Mahsa Zargaran, whose recent Aquarelle has moments of Fennez-y blissout), and DJ Hemlock.

MONDAY 10 Sept. Killing Joke has piloted one of the more curious paths of English postpunk bands. Its 1980 self-titled debut souned like a heavier PiL or Gang of Four and became a cornerstone for a handful of ’80s metal bands, while KJ’s later output moved through shades of goth, industrial metal, and experimental hybrids of all of the above, all laced with an anxious tension that consistently feels like a metal rod that’s about to snap. Th band’s 40th anniversary tour hits Baltimore Soundstage with Pig. Charles Funn leads the Dunbar Alumni Jazz Band through the works of Duke Ellington, Billy Strayhorn, “Count” Basie, Earth, Wind & Fire’s Maurice White, and more during their monthly Monday night at An die Musik.

TUESDAY 11 Sept. Brazilian metal outfit Angra has been around since the early ’90s, and does a rather solid, noddly-proggy update of that NWOBHM twin-guitar attack, if that’s your thing, at Baltimore Soundstage with Bucharest’s a bit more poppy metal quartet Scarlet Aura and Essex’s very own Offensive. The Control, Young Rudiger, and metal guitarist-&-drum-machine solo act Pamela Stashak lay down the riffs at the Sidebar. Canada’s jittery new wave-y quartet Preoccupations eases into the Metro with local indie-pop trio Raindeer. Real Estate sold out the Ottobar with Wet Tuna.

WEDNESDAY:12 Sept. Black Stone Cherry‘s “Lonely Train” from 2009 is a rare bird, a classic-slash-Southern-rock anti-war song that delivers on both fronts. The hard-rocking Kentucky quartet is obnoxiously adept at wrapping bluesy, butt-rocking hooks around singer/guitarist Chris Robertson’s twangy, white-boy howl, and the band doesn’t try to fix what ain’t broke on Family Tree, its recent sixth album. Black Stone Cherry rides into the Baltimore Soundstage with fellow Kentuckians Otis, whose Eyes of the Sun has enough shuffle and groove to make any ZZ Top fan nod in appreciation. Kentucky is all over Baltimore tonight, with Louisville metal quartet Stonecutters smashing into the Depot with Mangog and Frederick’s math-y Gloop. Tilian Pearson, who provides the pop harmonies in the odd rock band Dance Gavin Dance, brings his super-polished pop to the Ottobar for a 6 p.m. all-ages show with Royal Coda, Andres, Sunsleep, and DC’s proggy, indie-poppy Body Thief.

COMING SOON Jay Rock‘s Big Redemption tour hits Baltimore Soundstage Sept. 25. Local blues artist Ursula Ricks takes over the Eubie Blake Cultural Center Sept. 29.

THE WEEK

WED05SEP: D Convo #94: Artists, Architects, and Making Space for the Arts at the Motor House Showroom Bar, 6-8 p.m. The latest installment of arguably the longest-running local forum for discussing that intersection of the built environment and economic development features presentation/conversations among Renata Southard of Autotroph Design and Aran Keating talking about finding a forever home for the Baltimore Rock Opera Society; SM+P Architects Ron Masotta and the Peale Center executive director Nancy Proctor;  and painter/architect Jerome Gray.

THUR06SEP: The Fourth annual Baltimore Taxidermy Open at the Walters Art Museum, from 5-8:30 p.m., in conjunction with Bazaar, allows visitors to get up close and personal with conventional and not-so-conventional works of preserved natural history specimens.

FRI07SEP: Nick Cannon’s Wild ‘N Out Live tour hits Royal Farms Arena, featuring stand-up sets/imrpvo highjinx from the MTV show’s cast, including DC Young Fly, IamZoie, Emmanuel Hudson, Justina Valentine, Conceited, Chico Bean, Hitman Holla, Charlie Clips, DJ D-Wrek and Rip Micheals, and musical guests Rick Ross and Jadakiss.

SAT08SEP: The Baltimore Peoples Climate Movement’s free Festival for Change: Climate, Jobs and Justice runs from noon-4 p.m. at the Baltimore War Memorial downtown; and features a solid mix of speakers, such as Rev. Heber Brown III, and performers, including Joy Postell, Dew More Baltimore, and the mighty Baltimore Twilighters marching band.

SUN09SEP: The Windup Movie Club’s free Long Pig Double Feature begins at 7 p.m.; to be perfectly honest, I have no idea what’s going on here, but any movie club that’s grouping “two great films that correlate in one way or another” under the rubric “long pig” has my attention.

MON10SEP: Black Panther screens for free at the Enoch Pratt Free Library Canton branch at 5:15 p.m.

TUE11SEP: Composer/trumpeter Theljon Allen leads a free open jam session at the Motor House.

WED12SEP: September’s FEEDBACK monthly happy hour at the Crown benefits Baltimore Youth Arts, 6-8 p.m. Intuitive tarot readings $7-10 sliding scale.

REPARATORY FILMS & SCREENINGS

Ed Wood at the Senator Theatre Sept. 5 at 7:30 p.m., Sept. 9 at 10 a.m., and Sept. 11 at 9:30 pm. Before Johnny Depp’s life/career took its recent turn into TMZland, he was a gifted interpreter of social misfits, and while he may be more beloved for his turns in Edward Scissorhands and What’s Eating Gilbert Grape, his open-hearted portrayal of America’s greatest bad director in Tim Burton’s 1994 mash note remains a startling reminder of Depp’s ability to love a sincere oddball with every beat of his heart. Also: Martin Landau’s Bela Lugosi is one of the finest examples of a great character actor’s ability to find the vulnerable human inside a bona fide movie legend. Pull the string.

Dan Savage’s Hump! festival stops by the Creative Alliance Sept. 6-8. Yes, it’s what happens when you crowdsource short porn films, and consistently more entertaining than that description suggests.

The Last Movie At the Charles Theatre Sept. 6, 9 p.m. Dennis Hopper’s 1971 fever dream—a loopy, experimental anti-Western possibly about the failed making of a Western—remained one of 1970s New Hollywood unseen legends for nearly two decades; its recent full 4K restoration gorgeously revived Lazlo Kovacs’ cinematography and I don’t think a major studio has ever released a film as obstinately defiant of commercial film language, standards, and expectations.

BioKids at the Windup Space Sept. 6 at 7 p.m. Trash flicks and cult epics series Mondo Baltimore presents this howlingly odd 1990 Filipino film that feels like a Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers parody involving a gang of kids battling a—no, really—crime lord party clown.

Bus Stop at the Charles Sept. 8 at 11:30 a.m. The Misfits is, by far, Marilyn Monroe’s best dramatic role, but her turn in this adaptation of William Inge’s play is an early example of her underused range, playing an under-talented cabaret singer who is, well, creepily harassed by who’s supposed to be a socially awkward cowboy but who we can recognize today as a pretty typical stalker. And, yes, this 1956 film is still often referred to as a romantic comedy. Also Sept. 10 at 7 p.m. and Sept. 13 at 9:30 p.m.

Moana screens at Calvert Street Park (2201 N. Calvert) Sept. 8 as part of city’s Department of Recreation and Parks‘ Rhythm and Reels series (see PDF).

Black Memorabilia at the Reginald F. Lewis Museum of African American History and Culture Sept. 9, 2 p.m. Director Chico Colvard‘s documentary follows who makes and profits profits from the ongoing manufacturing of racist objects in today’s global economy. Presented in conjunction with the late Marlon Riggs‘ Emmy-winning 1987 documentary, Ethnic Notions.

California Split at the Senator Theatre Sept. 12 at 7 p.m. Robert Altman’s 1970s may be an American director’s strangest decade ever. Bookended by 1970’s career-making M*A*S*H and career-near-ending Popeye in 1980, in between were some of the finest films of the era, as well as some genuine head scratchers. His 1974 California Split sometimes gets lost amid Altman’s ’70s riches—Nashville, 3 Women, Brewster McCloud, McCabe & Mrs. Miller, and The Long Goodbye—but time has been kind to this deceptive buddy flick starring Elliot Gould and George Segal. It’s ostensibly a gambling comedy but feels more like a plunge into the economic desperation that underpins that big business we call America. Also Sept. 16 at 10 a.m. and Sept. 19 at 9:30 p.m.

STAGE

Angela Delfini Explains It All for You, a one-woman show created by Italian actress, dancer, and clown Delfini and the New York-based physical comedian John Towsen, takes over the Theatre Project on Sept. 6 and 7.

Dancing at Lughnasa opens Sept. 4 at Everyman Theater. Amber Paige McGinnis directs this version of playwright Brian Friel’s 1990 drama follows the lives of five sisters in late 1930s rural Ireland as their priest older brother returns from missionary work. Through Oct. 7.

Luther opens at Arena Players Sept. 7. Writer/director Randolph Smith’s portrait of quiet storm legend Luther Vandross returns to the venerable McCulloh Street theater. Through Sept. 30.

Shakespeare’s R&J opens at Vagabond Players Sept. 7. Playwright Joe Calarco sets his version of the star-crossed romantic tragedy at an all-boys Catholic boarding school, where four adolescent boy-men go searching for the naughty bits and start acting the play out. Through Sept. 30.

Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street opens at Rep Stage Sept. 7. Can’t lie: I’m fully expecting deliciously macabre things from Joseph W. Ritsch directing Stephen Sondheim’s tasty human pie horrorshow with music direction from Stacey Antoine. Through Sept. 23.

Wasted at the Peale Sept. 7. Oli (Will Hearle) and Emma (Serena Jennings) crash into each other at the tail end of boozing from pub to club and end up at back at Oli’s flat, each almost blackout drunk. Center Stage presents writer/director Kat Woods uncomfortable exploration of consent tonight at the Peale. 8 p.m.

The 24-Hour Play Slam at Morgan State University’s Murphy Fine Arts Center Sept. 8 at 7 p.m. A group of plays go from page to stage in a day in the free Theater Morgan event.

Unlucky Soldier opens at the Downtown Cultural Arts Center (401 N. Howard St.) Sept. 8. The Theatrical Mining Company produces playwright Robert Garcia’s latest as part of the Baltimore Playwrights Festival. Through Sept. 23.

Putin On Ice (that isn’t the real title of this show) opens at Single Carrot Theatre Sept. 12. I have absolutely no idea what to expect from the Acme Corporation playwright Lola Pierson’s latest, and that’s exciting. Through Oct. 7.

VISUAL ART

Pointing at the Sun | An Exercise in Abstraction opens at Mono Practice Sept. 6. Featuring David Brown, Zoë Charlton, Stephen Hendee, Terence Hannum, Bill Schmidt, Ariel Cavalcante Foster, Ruri Yi, Mono Practice is a new gallery founded by Yi, co-directed by Guest Spot @ The Reinstitute‘s Rod Malin. Reception 6-9 p.m., Sept. 6.

Isla: Regarding Paradise opens at Towson University’s Center for the Arts Gallery Sept. 6. Jackie Milad curates this group show that explores the notion of “paradise” as it usually refers to the islands of Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic. The show includes a series of artists talks, with Gabriela Salazar up first Sept. 6 at 6:30 p.m. Reception Sept. 6, 7:30-9 p.m.

Just East of the Harbor opens at the Capitol Lounge (1531 Pennsylvania Ave.) Sept. 7 from 4-7 p.m., featuring the works of Jessy DeSantis, Monique Dove, Bryan Robinson, Andre Hines Jr., Mikea Hugley, and Ashley Huff Jr., and Akan Udoh.

LaToya Peoples: Which Me Will Survive opens at Jubilee Arts Baltimore Sept. 7. Reception 6-8 p.m.

Survival Bias and Floating on Mended Boats open at Current Space Sept. 7. Bias features artists Brittany De Nigris and Adam Milner; Floating is a solo exhibition off Seth Adelsberger‘s paintings from a recent residency in Kenya. Reception Sept. 7, 7-10 p.m.

Maren Hassinger performs as part of her The Spirit of Things exhibition at the Baltimore Museum of Art Sept. 8, 3-4:30 p.m.

COMEDY

Camirin Farmer and Collin Baker at the Crown Sept. 6 with Ian Salyers, Chris Hudson, Eric Glaeser, Dark Mark Joyner, and Michael Furr.

Dan Perlman headlines Gin & Jokes at Joe Squared Sept. 6.

Miz Jaxxxn delivers a one-woman comedy show at the Motor House Sept. 7.

Jordan Raybould and Bret Raybould hit Joe Squared Sept. 8.

The Second Saturday S#!t Show hits the Ottobar Sept. 8 with headliner Sean Savoy and , Rose Vineshank, Kim Ambrose, Kiragu Beauttah, Ian Salyers, Kurt Ryan, and Mike Quindlen.

Michael Ian Black, who has opinions on things, closes for local comedian Christine Ferrara at the Ottobar Sept. 9 with Michael Moran.

Dark Mark Joiner hosts the open mic at the Sidebar Sept. 10.

Art of Comedy open mic hits the Motor House Sept. 12.

BOOKS & LIT

Investigative reporter Chris Hedges reads from America: The Farewell Tour at Enoch Pratt Free Library Sept. 5.

George Pelecanos reads from his new crime novel The Man Who Came Uptown at the Ivy Bookshop Sept. 8.

INTELLECTUAL FUCKBOI COSPLAY

 

In case there’s any confusion, the above is not an endorsement, more an alert to where certain kinds of (probably white dudebro) men may be on a certain day, at a certain time, for a certain reason.