Arts Devo

Lately, I Keep Scissors In these stinky times, if the shit’s gonna keep hitting the fan, do we cut the damn cord or start nicking some of the monkeys who keep flinging turds at everything that moves?

Severance Package’s scissors are sharpened and ready to slice, and the Chico garage-punk power trio has created the “unfriending anthem of the century” to serve as the soundtrack to cutting the BS out of our lives. “Scissors Gonna Cut Ya” is the just-released first single from the band’s new album (coming this summer), and to properly introduce the sassy, riffy, damn catchy raver to a drama-weary world, the band teamed up with local animator/filmmaker Josh Funk to create a video for it.

The key word there is “create,” because Funk crafted his own little meticulously edited animated world with a video with characters that look like living, rocking paper dolls. Funk filmed the band members (vocalist/bassist Robin Indar, guitarist/vocalist Josh Indar and drummer Mike Erpino) and a few familiar locals (Claire Meehan, Katie Norris, Claire Fong and Moshin’ Dave), all decked out like bee-hived characters from John Waters’ version of the 1950s and then cut them out and placed them against various animated environments. It’s really impressive, and all the cutting (hey, I see what he did there) matches the song’s herky-jerky energy.

See it for yourself for the first time at the band’s video-release party this Friday (April 7) at the Maltese. Funk will be on hand for back slaps and congratulatory shots, and Severance Package, The Empty Gate and new Chico crew Licky Lips (playing their first show), will be rock ’n’ rollin’.

I hear you “Make Sure They Hearin’ Ya is a new experiential installation from master of fine arts candidate Garrick Hargrove. Mixing sculpture, sound and furniture together, he has created a large, socially engaged piece …” More than any local exhibit in recent memory, the description of this one coming to the Jacki Headley University Art Gallery for a short run next week (April 10-14) strikes a resonating chord with Arts DEVO. “Experiential installation,” “Mixing sculpture, sound … ,” “socially engaged.” This sounds like it could be something fresh and different and maybe even—if it lives up to the rest of its description—serve “as a potential catalyst for positive change and reflection during this turbulent time in America.”

Hargrove will give an artist talk during the reception Thursday, April 13, 5:30-7:30 p.m.

Rock the vote The CAMMIES Music Festival officially kicks off today (April 6), and for the next three weeks, the CN&R will be publishing a calendar of the week’s local-music offerings (see pages 22-23), as well as listing all of the shows between April 6 and the April 23 CAMMIES Music Finale & Awards Show online at facebook.com/chicocammies/events. But before you get too whipped up into a local-music lather, while you have your wits about you, click over to vote.newsreview.com/cammies-2017 and vote for your favorite local act. Because if you don’t, then that one band might win. You don’t want that.