This is not your typical shake-ya-ass music: "Open your eyes, see eye to eye with me/Righteous lives, that's how we try to be/No disguise, this isn't Halloween . . ."
And with that, Oddio Audwell isn't trying to make mamasitas move in slow motion this Friday, August 6, when he and other underground hip-hop artists perform at the Clubhouse, 1320 East Broadway in Tempe. The Phoenix-born 23-year-old songster delivers what he calls "conscious hip-hop" in an industry full of falsities. "Even the Black Eyed Peas have to use a girl in a short skirt to sell records," Audwell observes. Despite the absence of curvy women and black skin, Audwell's expressive messages of mass appeal (mixed with midtempo melodies produced by friend Flip) still have the power to put hundreds of hands in the air . . . waving without an ounce of care. If you like underground and fresh new sound, check out Oddio at 8 p.m. and bring $10 to put down. Call 480-968-3238 or visit www.oddioaudwell.com. - Jonathan Winters
DeadHeads
The Bard paved the way for Jay and Silent Bob
8/5-8/29
The cryptic concepts within Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead aren't the easiest things to wrap one's brain around. So if you're flummoxed by such cerebral subjects as existentialism or fate-versus-free-will, try equating the tragicomic twosome with another pair of aimless buffoons -- like, say, Jay and Silent Bob. TheatreScape's production of Tom Stoppard's absurdist "spin-off" of Hamlet starts at 8 p.m. Thursday, August 5, at The Space Theatre, 4700 North Central. "More people know who Jay and Silent Bob are than Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, unfortunately, in this day and age," says director Tim Butterfield. "But if it allows them to come and see the play, they'll get a little more depth than they bargained for -- but that's not a bad thing." The Dead live through August 29. Call 623-326-4702 or visit www.theatrescape.com. - Benjamin Leatherman
Soul Survivor
A "clean" adult puppet show
8/10-8/12
Poor Zedwin. He's a mapmaker with less than an hour to find his soul, and he keeps getting lost. Good thing he's a puppet. Zedwin's lofty quest is the stuff of Map Making, an adult puppet show presented by Omnipresent Puppet Theater as part of the Lunchtime Theater program at the Herberger Outreach Theater, 222 East Monroe. Just because the show is labeled "adult" doesn't mean it's dirty, but puppeteer and writer Kamala Kruszka says there is a brothel scene. She adds that Zedwin is an allegorical "everyman" character confronted by despair, control and want in his soul searching. (Obviously, Zedwin doesn't know he's a puppet.)
The show runs Tuesday, August 10, through August 12, beginning at 12:10 p.m. For tickets, $5, and to preorder a boxed lunch, also $5, call 602-252-8497 or 602-254-7399, extension 106. -- C. Murphy Hebert
