If I’m not mistaken, this is the first time we’ve ever featured Primus on the blog. It won’t be the last. The group is scheduled for a May 27 appearance at the Arkansas Music Pavilion in Fayetteville. The song is “Jerry Was a Race Car Driver.”

After several months of negotiations, the Walton Arts Center has officially purchased the Arkansas Music Pavilion, we understand. The sale finalized earlier this week, and as expected, Brian Crowne, the former owner, will be obtained in a managerial role.

Here’s the related news, and the part you really want to know: We’ve also got a list of four concerts that will take place at the venue in the parking lot of the Northwest Arkansas Mall.

Here they are:

April 22 — Pretty Lights

May 1 — Lucinda Williams

May 26 — The Band Perry

May 27 — Primus

Tickets for the Pretty Lights show, which will be $27, go sale at 9 a.m. today (Feb. 18). Tickets for the other three shows go on sale Feb. 25. All ticketing will be handled by the Walton Arts Center, which can be reached at 443-5600 or through their website.

More shows are expected to be announced in the weeks that follow.

Cage the Elephant tells us “There Ain’t No Rest for the Wicked.” If you like music, there might not be much rest for you. Concert season is starting.

Yeah, we realize that would be one weird bill. Modern rock (Cage the Elephant) mixed with rootsy neo-country (Hayes Carll) mixed with electronica (Pretty Lights).

It looks like more like something at a festival.

But, it also looks like Fayetteville in late March and early April.

The last 48 hours or so, I’ve been occupied with trying to remove ice from my car. Maybe it wasn’t that long, but still… it’s been busy around here.

So, I get around to checking concert updates, and what do I find? Three shows to get excited about, that’s what. Cage the Elephant, who lasted visited as an opener for Silversun Pickups, will visit George’s Majestic Lounge on April 8, a Friday.

Hayes Carll will be at the same venue about a week earlier. He plays on March 30, a Wednesday, at George’s.

Also, it appears that Pretty Lights will perform at the Arkansas Music Pavilion on April 22.

The websites of Cage the Elephant and Hayes Carll confirm these dates.

As for Pretty Lights, we’ve got no official word, but a local concert promoter who has worked with Pretty Lights in the past has the date listed on his Facebook page. We’re working to get official confirmation on this show.

Cage the Elephant tickets go on sale at 1 a.m. tomorrow (Feb. 4). Hayes Carll tickets are onsale now. Get either at the venue’s ticketing website.

Concert season is starting, folks. Get excited.

The Shondes

A lot happened between the release of the The Shondes’ second album and the third, “My Dear One,” which will come out in early May. A guitarist quit the band in the middle of a tour, and songwriter and bassist Louisa Solomon went through a bout of heartbreak. But the band has regrouped for the recording of “My Dear One” and a tour. That trek across America will bring the Shondes to Fayetteville for two weekend gigs: an in-store performance today (April 23) at Sound Warehouse and a concert on Saturday night (April 24) at the Boom Boom Room on Dickson Street. Tonight’s night show is free and will begin at 6 o’clock. The Saturday night show will include local support from Color Club and Hosta. That show is expected to start at 8 p.m.

Other concerts of note this weekend include:

Pretty Lights at the Fayetteville Town Center tonight (April 23)

Springfest takes place on Saturday (April 24). There will be music in the Walton Arts Center parking lot at Dickson and West and also in the WAC’s Rose Garden. Music starts at 10 a.m., and you can find the full schedule here.

And plenty more.

Derek Vincent Smith is Pretty Lights

I didn’t expect him to be so eloquent. Especially considering that he had just woken up from a nap and was occasionally talking around bites of a tortilla, prepping for a concert that night in St. Louis.

But Derek Vincent Smith, mastermind behind the electronic-soul music group Pretty Lights, was perfectly coherent and borderline inspirational.

Smith has been developing his style of music for about 10 years, experimenting first with hip-hop beats and progressing to electronic. “It has more feeling and the ability to channel emotion more than typical electronic dance music,” he said of what Pretty Lights does/is.    And he’s spent years championing it to those who might otherwise write off electronic jams, doggedly searching for new people to “just give it a try!”

Which is why it’s especially satisfying that Pretty Lights’ music is taking off, rapidly growing in popularity among dance-ready crowds looking for something “super-fresh.”
Two years ago, Pretty Lights didn’t play outside of its home state of Colorado. This year, Smith’s touring will take him to Europe four times.

It will also bring him to Fayetteville on April 23.

At his concerts, which are characterized by an extensive lightshow (though the name Pretty Lights came far before the techno-dazzle), Smith uses three different devices — a modified keyboard, a mini-controller and a 128-button grid thingamajig called a monome

Click here to view the embedded video.

He’s joined by drummer Cory Eberhard, who “adds another organic dynamic” to the concerts, visually and sonically melding electronic music and the live band scene.

Pretty Lights sold out George’s Majestic Lounge in November, as Kevin Kinder reported in an earlier Tuned In entry, and has moved on to the bigger Fayetteville Town Center. The show starts at 8 p.m., and tickets cost $20 in advance and $25 the day of the show — that is, if there are any left. Tickets can be purchased at George’s in Fayetteville or online at www.georgesmajesticlounge.com.

Check out Pretty Lights and download some free tunes at www.prettylightsmusic.com.

Blog entry by Sara Sullivan

Well, Pretty Lights is coming to Fayetteville on April 23. His latest EP, “Making Up A Changing Mind,” is out now.

You better have it then, huh? Well, why don’t you go and get it? For free.

Pretty Lights (aka Derek Smith) is releasing the EP free on his Web site. Find that here: http://www.prettylightsmusic.com/#/downloads.

If you like what you hear, you can check him out like at the Fayetteville Town Center at 9 p.m. Tickets are $20 and available through the Web site of local venue George’s Majestic Lounge.

It’s not a video of Pretty Lights himself, but the lights sure are pretty. Electronic producer Derek Smith (aka Pretty Lights) is coming to Fayetteville in April.

He was a popular draw at Wakarusa. He sold out George’s Majestic Lounge in November.

And now, it looks like he needs a larger venue.

Producer Derek Smith, who tours under the name Pretty Lights, will come to the Fayetteville Town Center on April 23, a Friday.

Increasingly, Smith has been performing at national festivals as a top-drawing electronic act. Although Pretty Lights’ sound is best classified in the broad electronic genre, it also includes a live band when translated into a live setting.

Tickets for the 8 p.m. show go on sale soon.

Tickets will be $20.

Pretty Lights

Those who went to the local Wakarusa Music and Camping Festival may have heard about Pretty Lights, whose set there drew a large crowd. Pretty Lights is producer Derek Smith and, in a live setting such as the one that will take place Thursday night (Nov. 12) at George’s Majestic Lounge, a drummer. Pretty Lights has given away nearly half a million copies of their electronic-based music online and that was before a third album, “Passing By Behind Your Eyes,” was released for free on Oct. 6. Tickets to the show at George’s, located at 519 W. Dickson St. in Fayetteville, are $15 and are available at the venue or its Web site.