Oh, those wacky hipsters. While we were sleeping, a bona fide arts community has risen on the South Side, and it’s as ambitious as anything to ever emanate from Denton (a.k.a. Hipsterville).
On Lancaster Avenue in a once-abandoned warehouse, the Metro-gnome Collective has recently started doing business. As part of the group’s mission to provide an alternative space for art, film, and just about every other creative pursuit, the collective is jumping with both feet into the live local music scene. Last month, a few indie-rock outfits played the warehouse, but they were just getting the place warmed up for this week. As bands from all over the globe make their way to Austin for the state capital’s annual SXSW music festival seven days from now (March 15-19), a few of them will be stopping by the warehouse on 1518 E. Lancaster Ave., including The North Atlantic (San Diego), The Mutts (Brighton, UK), Gunshy (Chicago), Run Chico Run (Victoria, Canada), Dropsonic (Atlanta), Skeletons and the Girl-Faced Boys (Queens, NY), Bring Back The Guns (Houston), Dada Swing (Rome, Italy), and “the original dirty rapper,” Blowfly (Miami). (Sample Blowfly song titles: “Too Fat to Fuck,” “Porno Freak,” and “Cum of a Lifetime,” and those are some of the relatively tame ones.)
The name of the Metrognome’s series of shows is (har, har) Fly-by-Fort Worth. A pass to see all two weeks’ worth of shows is a paltry $20. The inaugural performance is on Monday, March 13. Passes are available online at www.metrognome.org or at Panther City Coffee (2918 W. Berry St.; 886-0665) and CD Warehouse (6080 S. Hulen St.; 817-292-9109). Metrognome was originally based out of Arlington, and while the group’s physical relocation to Fort Worth has been a rather stealthy and fast-moving development, the part of town where the warehouse is located is getting a little hot. The area has been attracting interest from hipsters for the past couple months, and another though less formal art-ish collective, 1919 Hemphill, has fast become a small institution.
The two people who are renting the East Lancaster space – sonic artist Terry Horn and Lori Thomson, visual artist and owner of Firehouse Art Studios and Gallery – have been doing some visual art-related stuff in the warehouse since about last year. The music and art and film will be in full effect on Gallery Night, April 1; if the Metrognomes aren’t busy quaffing boxed wine and deconstructing Foucault with me, they’ll also be working on publishing the first of a planned arts-centric quarterly, Ad-Perpetuum. (No word yet on when the first issue will appear.) For more information, visit the collective’s web site or call 817-366-0866.
… Speaking of hipsters, a cover band of arty-farty TCU profs called Shotgun Dick played The Moon last week, and the non-verbal dialogue between the pinko commie bastards (other professors) who turned out to support the band and the few dozen blue-bloods (students) who stumbled in out of habit was hilarious: On one side of the room, you had yellow-dog liberals dressed like dharma bums; on the other, a lot of blank stares. The tunes were appropriately abrasive – Chuck Berry, the Stones, The Band. Like Harry Whittington, those well-heeled whippersnappers didn’t know what hit ’em.
Contact HearSay at hearsay@fwweekly.com.
