FRUIT BAT TURNOVER: The Shins' Eric Johnson is in town, but not with the band in Natalie Portman's headphones. Years before Johnson joined The Shins in 2006, he founded Fruit Bats, a project yielding happy-go-lucky, countryside songs not far from The Shins' soft narratives. Read more about FB's latest album in anticipation of their show at The Loft in a Dallas Observer interview with Johnson (the Fruit Bats, Johnson reminds us, were around first.) With Death Vessel, 8PM.
KNOWN PLEASURES: Willard Spiegelman, a Southern Methodist University English professor the Dallas Morning News swooned over last month, channels the poets on his syllabi when he lives the smallest moments of his life. The buttoned-up educator shares how activities as simple as walking or looking can enrich us hurried humans in a reading from Seven Pleasures: Essays on Ordinary Happiness at the Lincoln Park Barnes and Noble, 7PM.
FREE THE WEEK: Ryan Thomas Becker of RTB2 grew up in Highland Village, a city known for being the safest in North Texas, but the blues-rock he cranks with Grady Don Sandlin is sharp and loud and the enemy of benign. See the one-time Quick cover boys with Rival Gang, Drink to Victory, and Violent Squid for the second show of Rubber Gloves' Free Week. 9PM.
