Through Jan. 8

We got to know Lorna Bieber, through a good friend, her brother David, who handles special projects for the Phoenix and WFNX and is avid collector of pop culture artifacts. His home doubles as a private museum - comic books, vintage radios, records, consumer products. (Neither Bieber is related to Justin; Bieber actually used to be a fairly obscure name until the kid from Canada.) Lorna collects stuff too, but does things a little more public with them. Back in the '90s, we took a tour of Lorna's home/studio in New York and was very impressed with collages, photos and montages. Now, Bieber has an exhibit, "Narratives," up at the Addison Gallery at Phillips Academy in Andover through Jan. 8,

     Composed of mundane even generic imagesm Bieber’s works are both ambitious and transcendent. For the past 30 years, she has used found images and stock photographs as the raw material for her art. In creating large-scale photographs and wall-sized montages, she begins with ordinary pictures and illustrations found in books, newspapers, and magazines. These appropriated images are then re-interpreted through a range of manipulations that includes photocopying, enlarging, reducing, cropping, enhancing, and ultimately re-photographing. Teasing out unnoticed and humdrum details from ordinary images and collaging fragmented tidbits culled from everyday pictures, the artist spins complex and ethereal worlds out of decidedly simple and earthbound elements. Likening her photography to alchemy, she says, “By altering the ‘root picture’ in these ways, I can create new branches whose narratives are utterly different from the original, bringing the observer to see the world in dramatically unexpected ways.” It makes us think of art the way the Residents make us think of music.

Born out

 Thurs. Dec. 22 - Sat. Dec. 24

Had enough of "The Nutcracker" in your life? Year after year after year after ... The gals in Babes in Boinkland thought maybe some changes were in order, so they conconcted the only change that made sense to them: "A Sexy-Freaky Holiday Zeitgeist Spectacular!" - their words - which they call "The Slutcracker," which is up at the very respectable Somerville through Friday Dec. 24, Thursday through Sunday. Now, it's truly become a bonafide Boston tradition, has it not?

"'The Slutcracker' was so overwhelmingly popular and just plain fun, it was a no-brainer bringing it back," and Ian Judge, who directs the goings on at the Somerville Theatre. Heck, about 5000 people see the show each year So, what's it all about?

We asked BiB's Vanessa White, aka Sugar Dish, to describe this. She, after all is a dancer and the creator of this production. She told us, "'The Slutcracker' is a dance-theatre production comprised of a coalition of Boston-area performance artists including, but not limited to, burlesque and can-can dancers, drag kings, hoopers, ballerinas, acrobats, bellydancers, actors and actresses. Through a contemporary interpretation of the traditional 'Nutcracker,' 'The Slutcracker' aims to bring the art of burlesque back to its sexy, bawdy, hilarious roots."

Thurs. Dec. 22

 Erin McKeown's new disc features songs like "Santa is an Asshole" and "Christmas (Love It or Leave It)." Suggests a certain spirit about the season doesn't it? The album title makes it a bit more clear: "F*ck That! Anti-Holiday Album." The Virginia-born, Mass.-bred queer folksinger-electro popper will celebrate that release wtih two neatly timed "Anti-Holiday Show" at Club Passim Thursday Dec. 22. She pitches it this way: "Tired of holiday hype? Gritting your teeth until New Year's Eve?" The album is "filled with profanity, irreverance, and just plain bad behavior. 'F*ck That!' is the antidote to all that annoying holiday spirit. It's the world's first anti-capitalist, pro-queer, suspicious of christmas-as-patriotism, sex-positive, not safe for work, multi-ethnic, radical leftist Anti-Holiday record. There is nothing redeeming about Christmas in any of these 10 songs. Please note this album contains adult language and themes completely inappropriate for children. On purpose. McKeown, the 34-year-old Virginia-born and Mass.-based singer-songwriter, is part of the Ani DiFranco/Indigo Girls wing of lesbian feminist pop. She's also worked with Modest Mouse and Bill Frissell; she's a boundary and genre-pusher. And she was selected to be a 2011-2012 fellow at Harvard University's Berkman Center for Internet & Society. (She has a degree in ethnomusicology from Brown.) At Harvard, she will work to connect the worlds of policy, art, and technology while considering questions about how to make a creative life a viable vocation.
Shows at 7 and 9:30. Tix: $20.

47 Palmer St., 617-492-7679 www.clubpassim.org

This is the bit I do every so often on WBUR's "Radio Boston." This was Thursday Dec. 22 and I did it with the Weekly Dig's Hilary Hughes. http://radioboston.wbur.org/2011/12/22/weekend-arts-holidays

Sun. Dec. 18

It's the third year for Gary Sohmers' Rock N’ Soul Holiday Concert at Arlington's Regent Theatre. Where do you know Gary Sohmers? Well, if you were on Lansdowne Street in the '80s you may have known as the pith-helmeted productionmanager at the Metro/Spit from 1984-1991. Says Gary:
"Good times. The best shows? Prince on the 30" stage when he jumped into the audience onto a B3 organ wearing only a thong" - I was there too, when he was playing the "Dirty Mind" disc, ab-fab! - "Stevie Ray Vaughan, Cab Calloway, Red Hot Chili Peppers were some of my favorite shows." You might know Gary if you watched PBS's "Antique Roadshow." He was an appraiser, a collectibles expert and dispenser of wise advise about pop culture antiques. How much is the punk rock badge worth? That Beatles poster? This is what he does professionally at Wex Rex Collectibles in Hudson. He buys and sells vintage radios, rock memorabilia, etc. Put it this way: The jobs have moved around, but his passion for music and music-related stuff remains and what's important here is what Sohmers is producing for Christmas, a multi-guest charity gig for Toys for Tots and Ernie Boch Jr.'s Music Drives Us Foundation. On board for the 8 pm show Sunday Dec. 18 are Barrence Whitfield, Danny Klein’s Full House (in photo), The Fools, Charlie Farren, Professor Doug Bell, Casey Desmond, John Powhida, Chris Fitz, Streight Angular, Tsunami of Sound, Jamie Lynn Hart, and The Rock n' Soul Holiday All Stars - Wolf Ginandes, Cliff Goodwin, Marty Richards and Bill Holloman.
    "When I conceived this event a few years ago," says Sohmers, "it was to get the classic performers together with the next generation of New England talent for a holiday fund-raiser. Like in the 1980s, I asked my good friend and performing legend Barrence Whitfield to participate, and when he agreed, many others wanted to be on the show with him.  He is the humblest of humans with massive heart and soul with a voice and stage presence to match. 
The first show featured Barrence, Doug Bell, Sarah Borges, Mike Gent, Eli Paperboy Reed and many others. The second year we included a 5 camera HD video recording with 48 channel audio mix and produced a special for PBS featuring great New England performers Barrence with Doug Bell, Danny Klein’s Full House, Casey Desmond, The Fools and Sal Baglio.
This year we have classic and new comers including Streight Angular, Jamie Lynn Hart joining previous performers Casey Desmond, featured on NBC’s The Voice earlier this year and year one performer John  Powhida, who won this year’s Rock 'n' Roll Rumble."

Tickets: $30/$20.

7 Medford St. Arlington, 781-646-4849 www.regenttheatre.com