Tonight’s First Fridays, and there’s a few cool-looking things going on.

At The Bridge, there’s an opening for an exhibition of paintings by Adriana Atema. You might remember her from the old-school Tea House crew; she’s doing a two-week show at The Bridge, from what I’ve seen her paintings are inventively decorated circular portraits. There’s gonna be live music at the reception, too: Adriana’s friend Kyp Malone is playing at around 7 or 8 o’clock. You’ve most likely heard of Kyp or his famous band TV on the Radio; tonight he’s doing a solo show under the name RainMachine. It’s pretty different stuff, usually just his voice and a guitar and some delay pedals; he played under his own name at the Tea House a little over two years ago and it was pretty nice.

At The Garage, there’s a show by Dean Dass which also looks quite promising. Kate reports: For this installation, Dass has appropriated and altered photographs of clouds, springs, ash clouds, geysers, fissures, and so forth. In these pictures, it is very difficult to locate the image in relation to the surface of the print. Dass seems to suggest that nothing of importance can be understood. But undoubtedly everything is a sign, charged with a surfeit of meaning that mocks human understanding. Apparently, there are larger questions out there.   That opening is from 5 to 7.

And at Ruffin Hall over at UVa, there’s a show by Patrick Costello, Andrew Mausert-Mooney and James Dean Erickson. James has paintings, Andrew has film and video, and Patrick did a multimedia installation. That show will be up for a week, there’s a closing reception next Friday from 6-9pm.

Oh, and LaStrada’s playing at the Tea House tonight. They were at Gravity Lounge a few weeks ago and put on a great show; now’s your chance to see them in a better, smaller space.