Arts DEVO

Cool shit, brah Hello, student friends! Welcome back. Let me be the first to offer you a cold one upon your joyous return. There you are, drink up. Have another! Now light something on fire! That old couch on the sidewalk over there. Whoa, look at it burn! That cat piss is very flammable! Burn! Burn! Burn!!!

Actually, on second thought, if you’re going to get drunk and do a public performance, there are way more creative things to be done. Couch burning is so 2013, and 2012, and 2008, and …

What you should do is get drunk and then write a screenplay, and then get drunk again when your screenplay is made into a film. That’s what local theater actress/director Cat Campbell and filmmaker Joshua Siegel did for their soon-to-be-premiered short film Dead Drunk. Inspired by a similarly bent crew of Portlanders who made the 2013 viral short Star Drunk under the same premise, the Chico unit just changed the setting from space to the world of the undead to make the “first zombie movie written and acted while drunk.”

The film will make its debut during Chico’s Shortz! Film Festival (Sept. 12-14) at the El Rey Theatre, and will have its official premiere party the following week (Sept. 20) at the 1078 Gallery, where it will show with an assortment of local short films.

Sounds like a kick, right? If you keep your eyes—and your heart—open, you’ll notice that there’s actually a lot more to Chico than flaming furniture. Below is a very small sample of some of the other great fun being plotted by Chico’s crazy, creative players in the weeks ahead. And return every week to the CN&R as we continue to shine the light on Chico’s real wild side.

• The Butcher Shop, Aug. 29-31: Possibly the wildest weekend of free art you’ll ever witness in Chico (or maybe anywhere). Chico’s theater vets and youngsters and all their singing, dancing, cooking, bocce-ball-playing friends gather in the orchards (2500 Estes Road) for this annual three-night festival of avant-garde theater. For free.

• Ave Grave, Aug. 30: Known ’round here mostly for his part in lush and loud rockers The Shimmies, Sean Galloway has just finished his latest solo recording under the moniker Ave Grave. He’ll debut the dark, beautiful album at Café Coda.

• The Great Garden Art Weekend, Sept. 6 & 7: A glorious-looking two-day garden party presented at the lovely Magnolia Gift & Garden, where more than 15 local artists will show off their garden art to the sound of local jazz dudes Bogg and the taste of treats (from Mim’s Bakery) and beer and wine for sale.

• Uncle Dad’s Art Collective Presents: Led Zeppelin IV, Sept. 14: The multidiscipline collective of arts pranksters puts its formidable musical powers to work on the muscular riffs of the 1970s British rockers’ seminal album, reworking it with the help of more than a dozen local artists for a multimedia extravaganza in Chico State’s BMU Auditorium.