Tucson Weekly: City Week (February 19

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Thursday 19

BUCK UP. Yep, it's back, that boot-stompin', butt-kickin' annual extravaganza that makes cow poop into high art.
City Week In other words, it's time once again for the venerable Tucson Rodeo.
From calf roping to steer wrassling, this week-long gig gives new meaning to the term ball-buster, and reveals why we live in Tucson instead of Dubuque or Newark. That point is brought home by the colorful Rodeo Parade, called the longest road apple-powered pilgrimage of its type in the United States, or something like that.
The parade begins at 9 a.m. at Park Avenue and Ajo Way, traveling south on Park and west on Irvington Road to the Tucson Rodeo Grounds, 4832 S. Sixth Ave.
Pre-rodeo entertainment begins at 1:15, followed by rodeo competition from 2 to 4:30 p.m. Admission for today's events ranges from $8 to $11. Competition continues from 1:15 to 4:30 p.m. daily through Sunday. Admission ranges from $9 to $14. For information, call 741-2233.
LEDOUX-DO. "The guitars are loud and pounding, the backbeat insistent and lyrics as honest as the sweat on a working man's brow."
So who's the musician who can evoke such provocative prose? Why, none other than power-country crooner Chris LeDoux.
Not to be confused with the traditional sound, LeDoux cranks with the best of 'em, and Garth Brooks too. In fact, the indomitable Brooks recalls opening for a LeDoux show several years back: "We basically stood still and played. Then Chris comes blowing out with a smoking B-3 organ and flashpots--and the crowd went nuts. We sat there with our mouths open...He's a rocker with a cowboy hat on."
Tonight, rocker Ledoux pulls out all the stops in a single Tucson performance. Show time is 8:30 in The New West, 4385 W. Ina Road. Tickets are $18, and available at The New West or Dillard's. For details, call 744-7744.
ANOTHER VIEW. The exploits of the Indian-chasing U.S. Calvary in the Old West are legendary or infamous, depending upon your perspective. Today, Tucson Museum of Art docent Sandy Cord recounts the period beginning with the Civil War and ending with the Battle of Wounded Knee in 1890, specifically focusing on the artists who portrayed those events.
Free lecture is 1:30 p.m. in the TMA, 140 N. Main Ave. Call 624-2333 for details.

Friday 20

BLUES BLAST. The Tucson Blues Society and The Rialto Theater team up to host another powerhouse Winter Time Blues Festival. This year's heavyweight line-up includes M.C. recording artists Big Jack Johnson and The Oilers, and RSP artist Johnny Rawls.
Big Jack and band are touring on the heels of their hot new recording, Stop This Killin'. A native of Mississippi, and a former member of the Jelly Roll Kings, Johnson's performances are always marked by a spirited brand of Delta blues.
Johnny Rawls ranks among the blues' top emerging talents. Strongly influenced by O.V. Wright, and with a sound that echoes Robert Cray, Rawls' music is described as creating a "fresh approach that will be one of the most creative areas of the music."
Show time is 9 tonight in The Rialto Theatre, 318 E. Congress St. Advance tickets are $12, $10 for Tucson Blues Society members and Friends of the Rialto, and available at Hear's Music, Yikes! and Guitars Etc. Tickets are $2 more at the door. Call 740-0126 for information.
TOP FLIGHT. Tucson's Tenth Street Danceworks combines forces with San Diego's McCaleb Dance for a weekend of top-flight movement.
Tenth Street's Charlotte Adams, Kevin Schroder and Chieko Imada will "take audiences on a journey" with the harpsichord music of Scarlatti in Lockjaw, and a lyrical game involving three dancers in Schroder's This is For You.
McCaleb Dance is considered San Diego's most exciting new company, and Nancy McCaleb its most vibrant choreographer. The result, says the San Diego Union, is "demanding, often beautiful dance."
Performance is 8 tonight in the Pima Community College Proscenium Theatre, 2202 W. Anklam Road. Performances continue at 8 p.m. tomorrow, 7 p.m. Sunday. Advance tickets are $8, $6 for students and seniors, and available at Bentley's House of Coffee and Tea, and the PCC Center for the Arts box office. Tickets are $2 more at the door. For details, call 622-1793.

Saturday 21

COMPULSIVE CARNIVAL. You may not be able to stop. At least one Minnesota audience couldn't sit still when the 30 dancers, musicians and singers of Bale Folclorico da Bahia took the stage recently.
"Energetic, exuberant and technically virtuosic, this troupe came bounding in on the pulse-quickening beat of Afro-Brazilian rhythms," says a reviewer for The Minneapolis Star Tribune. "When I left, the roof was still in place, but it was about the only thing that was."
The Brazilian troupe performs a repertoire based on the "Bahian" folkloric dances of African origin, including slave dances, copoeri (a form of martial arts), samba and celebrations of Carnival. Now they bring Tucson a show the Tribune simply calls "ecstatic."
Performance is 8 tonight in the Tucson Convention Center Music Hall, 260 S. Church Ave. Tickets range from $18 to $28, half-price for students and children. Senior discounts available. Tickets are available at the TCC box office, Dillard's, or by calling 791-4836.
TROUBLING TOPIC. With a tumultuous decade behind it, and no end of hassles on the horizon, there have been plenty of questions raised about Mexico's future. Not the least of them is whether the country will remain "the perfect dictatorship."
Now Juan Pasco, a former UN official, reflects on that troubling query with a lecture aptly titled Democracy in Mexico?
Free lecture is 2 p.m. in the Pima Friends Meeting House, 931 N. Fifth Ave. For details, call 622-5743.
TEXAS WAILER. They come from Texas, where they've earned a reputation for a "hell-bent and beautiful" blues style. Now the Smokin' Joe Kubek Band, featuring B'nois King, make a return journey to Tucson's own little blues hotbed, the Boondocks Lounge.
"Kubek succeeds," says Request magazine, "by striking an invigorating contract between the leader's intense Stratocaster-spanking and King's streetwise, cool-as-dry-ice vocals."
Show time is 9 p.m. in the Boondocks, 3306 N. First Ave. Advance tickets are $10, and available at the Boondocks. Tickets at the door are $12, $10 for Tucson Blues Society members. Call 690-0991 for details.

Sunday 22

FOUR-WHEELED AID. Tucsonans will help send a second Isuzu Trooper to Mayan communities in Guatemala today, as part of St. Michael and All Angel's Guatemala Project.
The Trooper is destined for the communities of Ixil and Quiché Maya, whose people were forced to flee into the hills during Guatemala's long and bloody civil war. Royal Isuzu has serviced the vehicle free of charge, with help from Tim Van Norman of St. Michael's, and from Galloway Motors.
The send-off celebration includes a 10 a.m. Mass, an 11:30 a.m. blessing of the vehicle, and an 11:45 a.m. benefit meal featuring Guatemalan food and "Solidarity Soup" provided by the Casa Maria soup kitchen. Donations are requested. All events will be at St. Michael and All Angels, 602 N. Wilmot Road. For details, call 623-3063.
SWINGING SNOOZERS. Six-time Grammy winners Asleep at the Wheel roll into Tucson for a single performance in The New West.
For almost three decades this band has pioneered a unique blend of country music and rhythm and blues. "The musical styles we love--roots American music--were missing from the landscape when we began," states vocalist and head guitarist Ray Benson. "Western swing, hillbilly, boogie woogie and jump swing music had all been passed over and nearly forgotten when we began reviving them for our repertoire.
"Today, that's not the case, and I'm proud to say we are a small part of the reason these great American art forms are once again a part of the fabric of popular music."
Show time is 8:30 tonight in The New West, 4385 W. Ina Road. Advance tickets are $10, $8 for KXCI members, and available at Hear's Music and KXCI. Tickets are $2 the day of the show. Call 744-7744 for information.

Monday 23

SET SAIL. Sailors Peter and Nancy Hardy hit the high seas--via the Old Pueblo--when they present a slide show about cruising in the San Juan and Gulf Islands north of Seattle. The presentation is part of the regular meeting of the Tucson Sailing Club.
Free event is 7:30 p.m. in O'Malleys on Fourth, 247 N. Fourth Ave. For details, call 743-0519.
SPRING CARPET. Russ Burhrow, ebullient grounds curator for Tohono Chul Park, has been putting his deep analytical skills to work, and predicts a chart-topping year for wildflowers. And of course Tohono Chul isn't about to miss the colorful boat, as it fires up another season of wildflower tours.
Park staffers admit to helping Ma Nature along by planting seeds in October.
Hour-long tours begin at 10 a.m. Monday, Wednesday and Friday through April 29, in Tohono Chul Park, 7366 N. Paseo del Norte. A $2 donation is requested. Call 742-6455 for information.

Tuesday 24

BRONZE AND TREE BRANCHES. The Pima Community College West Campus Art Gallery presents an exhibit of jewelry and wall sculpture by Lucinda Brogden, photographs by Susann Tolan, and capes and tapestries by Katherine Uetz.
Brogden works mostly in bronze and sterling silver, using Western Repoussé and Japanese Chasing to produce elegant jewelry and relief sculptures. Her work reveals a narrative quality that weaves together bits and pieces of social events and personal history, hinting at a story that's never fully revealed.
Momento Mori, Tolan's densely layered collection of photographs, explores the experience of loss and the effect--with a religious subtext--that it has on our lives. Her dream-like imagery is created by altering her negatives with scratches, and by cutting and taping various parts together.
Fiber artist Uetz uses vines, tree branches, beeswax and clay, along with more traditional elements like silk and velvet, to create exquisite capes and tapestries. She places natural imagery such as animals, bones, feathers and leaves on each piece, forming patterns that change as you move around them.
Exhibit runs through March 24, with an opening reception from 5:30 to 7 p.m., in the PCC West Campus Art Gallery, 2202 W. Anklam Road. Regular gallery hours are 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday, 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. Tuesday. Call 206-6942 for details.

Wednesday 25

CLOSE TO HOME. Tenney Nathanson's poems have appeared in Caterpillar, The Massachusetts Review, Social Text, Ironwood and the Sonora Review. His book of criticism, Whitman's Presence: Body, Voice, and Writing in Leaves of Grass, was published in 1992.
A teacher of American literature at the UA, the prolific Nathanson is presently hard at work on a study of John Ashbery, Charles Bernstein, Leslie Scalapino and David Shapiro. And tonight, he'll even find time to read from his own work as part of the UA Poetry Center's Spring Reading Series.
Free reading is 8 p.m. in the UA Modern Languages Auditorium, located on campus north of the main mall. For information, call 321-7760.
STRING FLING. Since its 1992 inception, the Brentano String Quartet has been singled out for technical brilliance, musical insight and stylistic elegance.
And within the last year, they've claimed three major victories, including the Cleveland Quartet Award, the Naumburg Chamber Music Award, and the 10th Annual Martin E. Segal Award.
Featuring Mark Steinberg and Serena Canin on violin, Misha Amory on viola and Michael Kannen on cello, the quartet is named after Antonie Brentano, who many scholars believe to have been Beethoven's "immortal beloved," to whom the composer wrote his famous love confession.
Now the Brentano Quartet brings its talented emotional baggage to Tucson in an appearance hosted by the Arizona Friends of Chamber Music.
Performance is 8 p.m. in the TCC Leo Rich Theatre, 260 S. Church Ave. Tickets are $14, $4 for students, and available by calling 298-5806.

City Week includes events selected by Calendar Editor Tim Vanderpool. Event information is accurate as of press time. The Weekly recommends calling event organizers to check for last-minute changes in location, time, price, etc. To have material considered, please send complete information at least 11 days prior to the Thursday issue date to: Tucson Weekly, P.O. Box 2429, Tucson, Arizona 85702, or fax information to 792-2096, or email us at listings@tucsonweekly.com.

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