Weekend Preview: Art After Dark, The Nervous Wreckords And New Comedy Club

CAVANAUGH: Is this is KPBS Midday Edition. I'm Maureen Cavanaugh. Paint a mural, find an egg, dance with a pirate, and laugh way kid in the hall. We had an active weekend preview rounded out with interesting music and a trip to a Tijuana Amusement park. My guests, Barbarella, welcome. BARBARELLA: Thanks for having me. CAVANAUGH: And Maya Kroth is here, editor of Where San Diego, and performances magazine. Good to see you. KROTH: Good to see you ladies again. CAVANAUGH: Let's start with you, Barbarella. Art after dark, the quarterly ARRRRT. BARBARELLA: I was going to say! Life without the possibility of parole CAVANAUGH: It's at the Oceanside museum of art, and it's all about pirates! BARBARELLA: And they actually do spell it with the extra Rs. It's a really fun event the museum only hosts four times a year. And this is a big art party that brings people to experience some artistic sensory overload. CAVANAUGH: So what is art about pirates like? BARBARELLA: Well, right now, are the current exhibition is ghost fleet. So you can check out the nautical sculptures by John Taylor, and there'll be additional art, Tony swatton, name a cool movie, and chances are he made a prop for it. He's going to be there to present a small display of pirate props from pirates of the Caribbean and Hook. CAVANAUGH: That's great. So this sort of a dress-up party too in a way? BARBARELLA: Yes, definitely! And you should because guests can get their photos taken in Mr. Mack and the mermaid's photo cove. And if you arrive unprepared, you can create your own eye patch. CAVANAUGH: So you're supposed to dress up like a pirate. BARBARELLA: Or a wench, as they say. [ LAUGHTER ] [ LAUGHTER ] BARBARELLA: I think that equal opportunity women can be pirates too. CAVANAUGH: I'm for you, sister! What else can we experience there? It's a party, right? BARBARELLA: So much! So B-violin and the gypsy knights are going to perform music, Buccaneer ballads that you can dance too. And the Fred Estair dance studio is going to be on deck to help you with your dance moves. You can see sword swallowing, a painter paints these ethereal sirens underwater, live painting. There's craft beer, a wine lounge, Starbucks coffee, and lots of great local food nibbles. So there's something for everybody. CAVANAUGH: ARRRT after dark, it's pirates ashore, happening Friday at the Oceanside museum. Tourista libre continues its fun and unique tours of Tijuana. What will visitors get to see and do Saturday? KROTH: Like all of the tours, they get to see a side of Tijuana that they may or may not have seen before. In this case, Derrick is going to be taking people to Mundo Divertido, which is an amusement park that translates to Fun World. CAVANAUGH: What kinds of rides? Ones we'd recognize? KROTH: Well, are it's funny, they're going to have roller coasters, how do you say roller coaster in Spanish? They're for some relationship called monTanya Russa, which means Russian mountains. I called my mother who's Russian, and why do they call them in Russian, and in Russia they call them American mountains. CAVANAUGH: I appreciate that! KROTH: So they'll have montannias Russas, and the flying chairs, and another called the crazy worm. So who knows? CAVANAUGH: How long has this park been there? KROTH: I think it's celebrating its 20th anniversary this April. CAVANAUGH: And what else will people be doing on this tour? KROTH: The tours feature a little bit of a food and a drink stop. In this case, they're going to be going to Mercado Hidalgo, this is this open-air market in the Rio district in Tijuana where you can get some amazing regional food stuff. Last time I was there, they had cheeses that were so delicious, and fruits I had never seen before. That stuff you can't bring back with you over the board. But they have more souveniry type things. CAVANAUGH: Don't eat before the Russian mountain, right? KROTH: There you go! [ LAUGHTER ] CAVANAUGH: The San Diego river park foundation is looking for volunteers to get creative this weekend. BARBARELLA: Is this the foundation -- they've already completed five community murals in mission valley along the river of the and it's exactly what it sounds like. Volunteers come together to create art both by and for the community. You should know this one is cofunded by teen volunteers in action. Only the teens will be painting on Saturday. Everybody else is invited Sunday. And the Mission Hills garden club. CAVANAUGH: What are they painting? BARBARELLA: Actually, that's a good question! If you go tomorrow at 10:00 AM, the designers, are the artist who did it, is going to be laying out the line work that everybody else is going to color in like a coloring book. So it'll be a surprise, I think for me until tomorrow. Each mural is his own design. Of CAVANAUGH: I see. Of so where again this mural located? BARBARELLA: Right on mission center road and hazard center drive in mission valley. If you were to start at dog beach and head up the river 3 miles east, you'd land at it. CAVANAUGH: When the volunteers get there, they're going to have this outlined, right? Like a coloring book. Are they going to be told what to color which color? BARBARELLA: Tom guera who designed it, he's also going to lead the volunteers. You can't just put pink where the green is supposed be to, I'm assuming. I don't know what his vision is. He's going to lead the painting, and after he free-hands it, and later on for more experienced artists, there are some slots open, it fills up pretty quickly, slots open for people who want to do the touch-ups. And he will be leading that too. CAVANAUGH: So basically, nonartists are welcome at this event? BARBARELLA: Yes, definitely. But there is only so much room. I talked to them this morning. If you get there, and all the space is taken, you could take the opportunity to explore the 51-acre mission valley preserve and sign up for the cleanups, which is what they're really all about. The murals are to draw people down there to see why we're protecting the habitat. There's an old dock from where people used to travel up from the ocean, so lots of fun things to see. You can definitely have a lot of fun and check it out. CAVANAUGH: The San Diego river community enhancement mural project takes place Sunday for people who want to participate in the painting in mission valley. We're going to be talking about several notable bands playing the Casbah on Saturday. Tell us about the headliner, the nervous wreck ords. KROTH: Great name. In is a super bill on Saturday. The nervous wreck ords, these are one of my favorite bands to see lost in San Diego. They bring the energy like nobody else. It's led by Brian Carcig, who people might know from the band Louis the 14th, which was a sexy, salabors band from a couple years ago. And everybody in the band is really good looking and total bad-ass musicians, and it's this fun, brit-pop high-energy fun music. CAVANAUGH: Here's a song from the 2010 album, Valuminimum. (Audio Recording Played) CAVANAUGH: Another band is Graham rabbit. What are they known for? KROTH: Graham rabbit is known for just being this weird, psychedelic rock band from the darkest depths of Joshua tree out there in the high desert where everything is just weird. Their first record was called music to start a cult to. If you listen to it, it's the perfect title for that kind of dusty, cosmic psychedelic folk rock. CAVANAUGH: Coming back from Joshua tree, now, there are two buzzed about local bands. Tell us about -- oh, I don't know how to say her name KROTH: Marrin pareducel. She's a local singer and band leader that has been getting a lot of buzz lately. I know she was out at south by southwest, and people were talking about her out there. She's got a new record coming out in May that reminds me kind of a little bit of the '90s indie pop, like cardigans a little bit, like a fun, up-beat dance vibe. CAVANAUGH: Somebody I recognize, thank you. KROTH: She's got a really great voice that you want to listen to more and more of. CAVANAUGH: And low-volts. KROTH: He's really cool. A 1-man band. He calls himself a cross between early Elvis and Evel Knievel. And then you listen to the music, and oh, yeah, that's exactly it. It's like a twangier black keys, maybe. Brash, sexy music. CAVANAUGH: Now here's our eggs, Barbarella. There's an egg-citing event happening this weekend. BARBARELLA: And I love the tongue twister. Egg-uecasion: KROTH: We're all about the puns today. BARBARELLA: I love puns. I admit it. I'm not going to some sort of group to get over it either. I embrace my vice. CAVANAUGH: Do it! BARBARELLA: Is this really fun. They do these family discovery days out at the San Alehad on lagoon, this one is different kinds of eggs. There are a lot of birds but also reptiles that naturally hang out and live at the lagoon. CAVANAUGH: Oh, so are these eggs that have little reptiles in them? BARBARELLA: If only you could see the hand gesture she's making, is that what an egg is in charades? CAVANAUGH: An egg that has a creature in it or an egg that you're going to color? BARBARELLA: No, you're not going to be coloring eggs. The crafts are really different. There's a quarter-mile loop that is sit up with all these little stations, and at each station the kids go to, they collect candy, feathers and eggs. They learn something about the birds and reptiles in the lagoon, and the importance of the habitat and why it's important to correct those things am CAVANAUGH: And therefore it's egg-uecasion. BARBARELLA: And you thought it was a pun, but it's totally a new world now. KROTH: You guys can't see my rolling my eyes. BARBARELLA: I feel it! CAVANAUGH: It's happening Saturday and Sunday at the San Alijo Conservancy in Encinitas. There's a new comedy club in town. Tell us about it. KROTH: I'm so excited about it. Of it's the American comedy company, it just opened in the Gaslamp, and it's the first real comedy club since I've lived in San Diego that's bringing through the kinds of comthatics that people really want to see. San Diego has been without a comedy venue for too long. CAVANAUGH: Tell us about the comedians performing this weekend. KROTH: This weekend, there will be Dave foley for Friday and Saturday, who you know if you watched kids in the hall back in the '90s. He was on news radio with Phil Hartman a few years later. And on Sunday, Brian Posehn, who might be unfamiliar, but he's worth getting to know. If you saw the documentary, comedians of comedy, he was one of the four. Really funny guy. CAVANAUGH: Thank you both, Barbarella, and Maya. KROTH: Thanks. BARBARELLA: I wish I had a pun to end that on. But I don't. CAVANAUGH: We just have it end it! [ LAUGHTER ]