CORE Dance Collective

Live Manikins

For the second year in a row, October will be transformed into ARTober, and on Oct. 20 the Midtown Arts Festival will feature all kinds of performers and artists. The festivities will take place outside of the MARRS Building (1050 20th Street) from noon to 6 p.m. The SMUD Performing Arts Stage will host dance groups like Jodette’s Belly Dance Academy, Step 1 Dance and Fitness and the Submerge Band Stage will host The Royal Jelly, Sicfus, Ross Hammond and others. An array of booths featuring local artists and crafts will be open for browsing and shopping. There will also be a kid’s arts area and lots of interactive art activities for guests of all ages. Visit the craft beer area, Untapped, featuring many of Sacramento’s diverse breweries and maybe you’ll discover your new favorite beer! The festival expects an estimated count of 3,000 attendees this year, making it a guaranteed party. This event is free so grab all your friends and relish in the beauty of Sacramento’s mild October weather while enjoying the creative talent our city has to offer. Visit the event website for more information on all the fun activities that will be taking place, http://www.exploremidtown.org/MidtownArtsFestival.

Ross Hammond

If you attended last Saturday night’s show at Luigi’s in Davis as part of Davis Music Fest, you would have never known you were witnessing the final show the venue would host. The very next day, Luigi’s quietly closed its doors for good. “It just didn’t resonate and never got better,” owner Linda Brida told Submerge of the all-ages venue and pizza joint, going on to say that Davis “is an interesting animal.” They wanted to tough it out to the one-year mark (they opened on January 21 of this year), but it just didn’t make sense financially to keep it going any longer. As of press time there was no indication as to what business would fill the location.

The closing of Luigi’s in Davis leaves the small college town with very few legit (i.e.: not house shows) all-ages venues for both touring and local bands to play. One remaining example is the ever-popular, long standing Sophia’s Thai Kitchen, which hosts all-ages shows on their patio during fair weather months.

“Unlike Sophia’s, Luigi’s didn’t have a clientele that treated the place like a local,” said musician Lauren Cole Norton, who plays in The Souterrain.

“If there was going to be anyone in the audience, they were going to be people you had invited out,” she said, as opposed to a built-in crowd that comes out no matter who is playing. Her band had played Luigi’s during the venue’s opening weekend and she remembers that the “place was hopping.” But, she added, “You could see already how it was going to be tricky to get people to pay to come down to the basement when they could hang out upstairs at the bar and listen for free.”

“We thought that was what Davis wanted,” Brida said. “It was not their cup of tea. It just didn’t take off.” She pointed out how hard it was to close the location knowing that their 15 employees would be out of work.

Luigi’s two Sacramento locations, 3800 Stockton Boulevard and 1050 20th Street in Midtown (which also holds all-ages shows) will both stay open. The Midtown location is scheduled to be remodeled later this year, something that Brida says they’ve been planning for a long time. It will include a kitchen expansion and a cleaning up of the “Fungarden,” the room adjacent to the eatery where countless touring and local bands have had the pleasure of performing.

“There’s lots of wear and tear, and there’s lots of things that we’re trying out,” Brida said of the Midtown location.

Wear and tear or not, there are some killer bands playing at the Fungarden throughout the month of July, so keep an eye out on our calendar section, pick a show, grab some friends and enjoy some live music for cheap (cover is typically around $5). And while you’re at it, grab a slice and a beer. You know how the saying goes, Sacramento, you never know what you’ve got ‘til it’s gone.

Sacramento comedian Johnny Taylor’s recurring gig “Comedy Kill,” which goes down every fourth Friday at Sacramento Comedy Spot, is quickly becoming one of the city’s premiere stand-up nights. Taylor started Comedy Kill to give him and his friends somewhere to highlight the type of stand-up they’ve been doing. “I thought it would be really rad to showcase smart, offbeat comedy on a consistent basis,” Taylor recently told Submerge. “It’s grown to a point that I get to bring some really talented friends up from the bay area as well,” he said. Taylor has been doing stand-up comedy for just over a year, but has already performed a number of times at 142 Throckmorton Theatre in Mill Valley, Calif., a highly sought after venue. “You never know when you’re gonna be sitting in the green room and Robin Williams or Dana Carvey stroll in,” Taylor said. “I always leave that place feeling starstruck at least once.” Taylor also recently had his set from a gig at Pasadena Ice House recorded for Comedytime.tv. Catch him hosting and cracking jokes at the next installment of Comedy Kill on Friday, April 27 at 9 p.m. at Sacramento Comedy Spot (1050 20th Street, Suite 130) alongside headliner John Ross and featured performers Nick Aragon and Kiry Shabazz. “There are so many talented comics in Sacramento,” Taylor said. “People sleep on this city, but I’d put the top guys in our scene against any other city out there in a stand-up comedy battle royale and feel pretty comfortable with our chances.” Get your tickets for Comedy Kill for just $10 at Saccomedyspot.com.

-J.Carabba