THE TO-DO LIST

BY MARY HENNIGAN AND STEPHANIE SMITTLE

Northwest Arkansas is raising the bar with its inaugural FORMAT festival at the end of the month. With its neon green and chromatic advertising, it’s a stark difference to the forested surroundings, but the festival is aiming to be “as boundless and wild as the Ozark mountains,” according to a press release. The weekend promises music, art and technology experiences from a combined nearly 100 talented artists — a full-body sensory experience. The music range for this festival is huge. For a taste of country pop, hit the Elle King show. Needing an indie jam session with early 2000s hits? Don’t miss screaming to “1901” and “If I Ever Feel Better” from Phoenix. Thundercat’s skills on the bass are unmatched — he’s worked with dozens of talented vocalists, including Stevie Wonder, Childish Gambino and Janelle Monáe, but his solo work is psychedelic and addictive. To fully encompass this festival in a short blurb is impossible; there’s electronic icon Rüfüs Du Sol, The War on Drugs, Beach House, Fatboy Slim, The Marías, Del Water Gap and blues artist Christone “Kingfish” Ingram. On the visual side of things, Nick Cave’s work is returning to The Momentary, and Doug Aitken is pushing boundaries with his mirrored hot air balloon. Other art installations supply a wide range of cultural coverage from international artists from Iceland, Mexico, Germany and others. Expect a show from Arkansas’s own drag queen star Maddy Morphosis, evening light shows and an array of food trucks. MH

COURTESY OF UA PULASKI TECHNICAL COLLEGE

FRIDAY 9/30. CENTER FOR THE HUMANITIES AND ARTS, UA PULASKI TECHNICAL COLLEGE, NORTH LITTLE ROCK. 7:30 P.M. $45-$65.

Lest anyone within earshot unjustly equate the term “folk singer” with wispy treble and wispier acoustic guitar bereft of teeth or bite, point them to Ani DiFranco’s 22-album discography where they’ll find declarations on abortion and police brutality; collaborations with folk forebears Utah Phillips and Margaret Cho; and live performances peppered with vocal yelps, wildly underheralded guitar fingerpicking and plenty of volume (her 1997 live album “Living in Clip” took its name from sound engineer Larry Berger’s comment that DiFranco’s amplifiers were perpetually clipping from being overdriven.) DiFranco is what it looks like to be a folk singer with one foot in Pete Seeger’s labor movement past and the rest of her body firmly planted in electrified social activism circa 2022; expect the seats at UA Pulaski Tech to be filled with new converts as well as longtime fans who know just where every pregnant pause falls in “32 Flavors.” SS

LINDSEY BEST

I won tickets to a Blue Man Group show a few years ago, and it was one of the coolest experiences ever. The trio leans on percussive music, audience inclusion and innovative instruments. Since its inception in 1987, the group has done world tours and had residencies on stages in New York, Chicago, Boston and Las Vegas. They’ve left thousands of fans speechless without ever saying a word. Don’t sit too close unless you want to be in the splash zone; Blue Man Group really loves fluorescent paint. MH

The Statehouse Convention Center will be crawling with creative cosplay outfits and celebrities for days of panels, games, meet-andgreets and a costume competition at Comic-Con. The weekend boasts some notable names, like Matthew Lewis, who played Neville Longbottom, the iconic Nagini-slaying Gryffindor in the epic saga of “Harry Potter” films; Tara Strong, whose voice-over resume includes Timmy Turner, Dil Pickles and Bubbles from “The Powerpuff Girls”; and Tom Kenny of animation’s best “Spongebob Squarepants,” “CatDog” and “Adventure Time,” among many others. Even without tuning into a Q&A or panel discussion, you’re likely to run into a storm trooper or two, maybe even Deadpool and Sailor Moon. MH

It wasn’t written into U.S. law until 1988, but National Hispanic Heritage Week began in 1968 to celebrate the Sept. 15 anniversary of independence for Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua. (Independence days for Mexico and Chile are just a few days away — Sept. 16 and Sept. 18.) Here, the Seis Puentes Education and Resource Center marks the occasion with a festival in the Argenta District of North Little Rock, offering in its second year free dance workshops from Ballet Quetzalli; interactive activities with Laman Library and Arkansas Regional Innovation Hub; and food from local vendors and food trucks like Kalua’s, DolceLuna Bakery and Tacos Godoy. “For our first festival in 2021, we started small to build relationships with our partners and get a feel for the flow of the event,” Seis Puentes Executive Director Raul Fernandez said. “This year we’re really ramping it up with more programming, like free workshops, and working with more community partners.” Seis Puentes will also issue identification cards as part of the North Little Rock Municipal ID Program (stop by 600 Main St. to get in on that program). For details, find the event on Seis Puentes’ Facebook page. SS

JEFF FUSCO

A renowned competitive concert pianist and a longtime champion of Arkansas-born composer Florence Price, Michelle Cann opens the concert season for the Chamber Music Society of Little Rock. On the program are some dreamy selections with an eye toward women composers: Florence Price’s “Sonata in E minor” and “Fantasie Nègre No. 1 in E minor”; Clara Schumann’s “Four Pièces fugitives, Op. 15”; Margaret Bonds’ “Troubled Water,” and ballades by Chopin and Brahms to boot. Get tickets at chambermusiclr.com. SS

PETER ASH LEE

Singer Michelle Zauner is a talented lyricist, a two-time Grammy nominated artist and New York Times best selling author for her 2021 memoir, “Crying in H Mart,” which is being adapted for the big screen. Zauner’s inspiration for her art has evolved from her mother’s cancer treatment and death, to the fight for her happiness in a dimly lit world. She has three brilliant albums that together circle through grief, anguish and a celebration of the passing of time. Her latest album, “Jubilee,” includes some of my favorite bops: “Be Sweet,” “Savage Good Boy” and a real kicker of a closing track, “Posing for Cars.” As Jbrekkie on Instagram, she shares her sometimes edgy and sometimes frilly, but almost always avant-garde fashion choices. This is sure to be an epic show of textured, electronic pop sounds and dream-like vocals. MH

When a National Book Award-nominated novelist and Decibel Magazine columnist takes to the stage with lyrics and an electric guitar, is it any surprise that what comes out of the speakers is literary rock? John Darnielle’s outfit The Mountain Goats has been orbiting the borderlands between fiction and folk rock since 1994, but the group’s latest draws heavily upon Darnielle’s cinephilia, particularly the pulpy action movies he found himself inhaling during the first sofabound pandemic winter — the 2008 French thriller “Mesrine,” Donald Pleasance’s 1974 bio-horror “The Freakmaker,” 1970s Italian crime cinema. The common thread? Revenge. We all know that revenge is bullshit, right? The Greeks knew this,” Darnielle said of the labrum. “It’s never a zero-sum game. And yet the idea is so delicious, you can’t get enough of it. It’s more of a grail — because you can’t have it, it starts to seem really appealing.” They come to Little Rock with some new album energy (“Training Montage” is my best bet for the set opener) and with rock royalty Lilly Hiatt, whose birdsong voice and noise-rock sensibilities have established her bona fides far beyond being John Hiatt’s daughter. SS

VARIOUS BLONDE BY NICHOLAS LANCE MCFEE

Hot Water Hills Music & Art Festival, an all-ages festival put on in downtown Hot Springs every fall by Low Key Arts, is back for its 10th year, and the lineup looks awesome: Annie Ford, Hillbilly Casino, The Mask of the Phantasm, Various Blonde (pictured above) and lots more. Like its springtime sibling Valley of the Vapors Independent Music Festival, Hot Water Hills is a fest where knowledge of the musicians prior to attendance isn’t really necessary. The organizers know how to pick ’em, and odds are you’re going to leave a fan of whoever you see. It’s open to all ages, and children 12 and under enter free, and here’s how the ticketed admission for adults works: Entry is ticketed beginning at 4 p.m. Friday, Sept. 30; festival entry is free for everyone from noon until 4 p.m. on Saturday, and ticketed entry resumes at 4 p.m. on Saturday with the commencement of live music. Head to Spotify and search on Hot Water Hills, and you’ll find a playlist from Low Key Arts to get you through ’til then. SS

A gifted fiction writer with a knack for teasing out the subtleties of adolescent awkwardness and for reinventing the art of the ghost story, Little Rock author Kevin Brockmeier is the featured speaker for the rekindled Argenta Reading Series, which takes place in a charming storefront-turned-church-turnednightime literary venue. Doors open at 6:30 p.m. for mingling and box wine from 107 Liquor, and opening reader Meghan Reed begins at 7 p.m. SS

Here’s something you will hear absolutely nobody say on Main Street Little Rock on Sept. 11: “Hey, where’s that food truck festival?” This thing’s a full-on food truck takeover — a parade of rumbling generators and buskers and a sea of faces sporting the kinds of smiles that quesabirria tacos and funnel cakes tend to induce. Find the full lineup at mainstreetfoodtrucks.com. SS

This Tennessee trio is making it big in the indie-rock scene; it has about 2.2 million monthly listeners on Spotify and joined in the Hangout Music Festival in May alongside major headliners. They match uplifting, catchy beats with depressing lyrics about heartbreak and solitude. Some tracks are funky that get you bobbing your head along without even noticing; others urge mourning loss with the artists. Personally, I think these songs sound like driving with the windows down screaming lyrics with your best friends in the middle of summer, all while shredding on your imaginary electric guitar. This Friday show will likely combine the group’s 2021 self-titled album with its previous two EPs — bangers like “See Through” and “2/14” are bound to be played. MH

Tricia H. Spione directs D.W. Gregory’s rapidfire two-act play “Radium Girls,” penned in 2000 through the lens of young women working in factories in the early 1900s, where they were hired to paint the faces of watches and dials with radium, often dipping the brushes in their mouths to moisten them — and, for many of them, unknowingly accelerating their death by radium poisoning. With its small cast and focus on the perils of American industry, the comic drama is tailor-made for this tenacious community playhouse. SS

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