AIDS Wolf

“A squid eating dough in a polyethylene bag.”

That is the way Montreal-based Canadian noise merchants AIDS Wolf, who will be coming to Valentine’s on Monday night, describe their sound. The band whose name is just as jagged and off-putting as their jazzy, destructive art-noise sound would like you to believe that said name originated in an urban legend. We sort of doubt that.

“We didn’t come up with AIDS Wolf as a concept,” said one band member in an interview. “The idea has been floating around in the public psyche for a while. In urban legend, wolves transmit AIDS instead of rabies; in depressing college towns, street gangs spray-paint ‘AIDS Wolf’ on the side of buildings.” In tribute to AIDS Wolf’s ability to deconstruct reality as well as chord structures, we propose our own interpretation of their name. A bored bunch of Montreal musicians needed a name as disquieting as the “music” they bashed out, and, thus, AIDS Wolf was born. We luvz u AIDS WOLF!

AIDS Wolf and fellow musical loonies the Bunny Brains will perform Monday (Oct. 22) at 7 PM at Valentine’s (17 New Scotland Ave., Albany). For more info, like ticket prices, call 432-6572.

Sleeping Beauty

The good folks at Steamer No. 10 in Albany—you know, the charming old firehouse building that’s looking more and more like a castle every day—begin their fall season of entertaining and engaging children’s theater with a new production of Sleeping Beauty.

This time around, Rebecca Boswell is the Wicked Fairy with a grudge against the beautiful princess (Nicole Signore) to whom she doses (via spindle) a potion that puts the beauty to sleep for 100 years; Franklin Crump is the prince who turns up in the nick of time, kisses the princess, thus turning her into a frog. Wait, that’s not right. His kiss breaks the spell and she awakens, as pretty as ever.

The production runs a kid-friendly one hour (with intermission).

Sleeping Beauty will be presented at Steamer No. 10 Theatre (500 Western Ave., Albany) tomorrow (Friday, Oct. 19) at 7 PM; Saturday (Oct. 20) at 3 PM; and Sunday (Oct. 21) at 11 AM and 3 PM. There will be additional performances at Steamer No. 10 Oct. 27-28 and Nov. 12; and performances at the Saratoga County Arts Center (320 Broadway, Saratoga Springs) Nov. 10-11. Tickets are $12 adults, $10 students and seniors. For complete showtime info and reservations, call 438-5503.

Cast Images

The latest visiting exhibit in the Bank of America Great Art Series at the New York State Museum is a selection of American bronze sculpture from New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art. The works, mostly from the late 19th to the early 20th centuries, are by such well-known luminaries as Frederick MacMonnies, Frederic Remington, Paul Manship, and Augustus Saint-Gaudens (who also designed some pretty nifty coins for the U.S. Mint).

According to the museum’s notes, “by mastering a vital French-based naturalism and choosing modern subjects,” the artists working in bronze at the turn of the last century “popularized the American bronze as a fine collectable object.” Like the bronze pictured here, Saint-Gaudens’ grandish Victory (1892-1903, cast between 1912 and 1916).

Cast Images: American Bronze Sculpture from the Metropolitan Museum of Art opens Saturday (Oct. 20) at the New York State Museum (Empire State Plaza, Albany) and continues through Feb. 24. For more information, call 474-5877.