The Locust

Some bands suck unintentionally. Then there are bands like the Locust, who suck intentionally, and do it so well that they don’t just offend the audience, they even offend their own instruments. The Locust know how to suck bad, really well. Justin Pearson, lead singer, has said he just wants to “destroy music in general.” And he and his crew of spastic, faux-fur-wearing, freak synth-grind bandmates know how to stink up a joint. From their out-of-this-world nylon costumes, to their odd stage presence that usually sees every band member (drummer included) lined up at the front of the stage, the Locust know how to freak your mind. So come out on Saturday and let the Locust freak you right.

The Locust will spazz the funk out at Valentine’s (17 New Scottland Ave, Albany) this Saturday (Nov. 17) at 7:30 PM. To purchase tickets or for more information, call 432-6572.

Jenny Holzer: Projections

Internationally renowned artist Jenny Holzer will present “her first interior light projections in the United States” with this exhibit, which opens this weekend at the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art. These projections “will transform the enormous, seemingly empty gallery in Building 5” with “words, bodies and light.”

Also, in an adjacent gallery, Holzer will show a series of “redaction” paintings based on formerly classified government documents. Of these works, Artforum critic David Joselit observed: “The works . . . are just as shocking for their copious deletion of names, phrases, and passages as they are for re-counting atrocities in the bland idiom of bureaucratic forms . . .”

Jenny Holzer: Projections opens Saturday (Nov. 17) at MASS MoCA (87 Marshall St., North Adams, Mass.) with a reception from 5:30-7:30 PM. Reservations are required for the reception; for more info call (413) 664-4481 ext. 8112. The exhibit continues through Fall 2008. Following the reception, the Jazz Passengers will perform; tickets for this event are $18. For details, please visit www.masssmoca.org.

Dudley Observatory’s Evening With the Stars

The Dudley Observatory in Schenectady is one of many Capital Region treasures, and it celebrates its 150th anniversary of making it possible to study the stars with an Evening With the Stars.

Well, there are actually a couple of events in this celebration. Today (Thursday, Nov. 15) at the Nott Memorial on the Union College campus (Schenectady), acclaimed science writer Dava Sobel—author of Longitude, Galileo’s Daughter and The Planets—will lecture at 7:30 PM on “When the Sun Stood Still,” a look back at how Copernicus and Galileo “ushered in a new cosmic order.” This event is free.

Tomorrow (Friday, Nov. 16), the Evening With the Stars gala will be held from 5:30 to 8 PM at the Albany Institute of History and Art (125 Washington Ave., Albany) with food and drink, music, a silent auction, telescopes and historical artifacts dating back to the beginnings of the Dudley Observatory; the honorary chairs for the evening will be Dava Sobel, Assemblyman John McEneny and RPI President Shirley Ann Jackson.

At 8 PM, following the gala, attendees are invited to take part in a re-creation of the 1857 painting of the opening of the observatory. Michael Oatman will stage the tableau, and ace Metroland contributing photographer Joe Putrock will take the picture.

Tickets for the gala at AIHA are $60 per person or $100 per couple. For reservations and information, call 382-7583 or visit www.dudleyobservatory.org.