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Edited by
Carly Carioli
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THURSDAY
ROOTSThe young Canadian alterna-country phenom
Kathleen Edwards sings boozy tales of heartbreak
with a rockist propulsion that recalls the
rough-and-ready bombast of Whiskeytown and the boozy,
smoky sensuality of Lucinda Williams. This evening at
5:30 p.m., she plays a free show outdoors in Copley
Square Park, in front of Trinity Church, as part of
WBOS's after-work concert series. Call (617) 931-1111.
MEMORIALFor nearly 25 years, DJ Mai Cramer's
Blues After Hours radio show on WGBH 89.7 FM was
the heartbeat of the New England blues community. The
void left by her death in February 2002 has yet to be
filled. For the second year running, some of Cramer's
musical friends will gather to celebrate her birthday at
Squawk Coffeehouse in the Harvard-Epworth Methodist
Church, 1555 Massachusetts Avenue in Harvard Square,
from 9 p.m. till midnight. Her husband, guitarist Peter
Ward, and brother-in-law, Handy-nominated bassist
Michael "Mudcat" Ward, join pianist David Maxwell,
singers Shirley Lewis and Grayson Hugh, and Squawk's
house blues band, which is led by Lee Kidd. Call (617)
868-3661.
JAZZ Marcus
Roberts's knowledge of jazz piano extends back to Jelly
Roll Morton and the pre-jazz of Scott Joplin up through
Ellington, Monk, Bud Powell, and Wynton Kelly. And
unlike a lot of post-bop keyboard ticklers, he uses the
entire range of the instrument, employing an uncommonly
sensitive touch and ear for color. He's capable of lyric
depth, just as he's willing to let himself get carried
away with rhythmic explosions (we can recall a stunning
solo version of Ellington's "Shout 'Em Aunt Tilly" from
a live performance at the Hatch Shell some years back).
Roberts opens a two-night stand at Scullers tonight with
bassist Roland Guerin and drummer Jason Marsalis. That's
in the DoubleTree Guest Suites Hotel, 400 Soldiers Field
Road at the Mass Pike; call (617) 562-4111.
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FRIDAY
FILMBoys will be boys in this week's movies. In
Bad Boys II, Michael Bay returns from
Pearl Harbor infamy to direct this sequel about
two raffish Miami narcs played by Will Smith and Martin
Lawrence. Proving that bad (or at least stupid) male
behavior is not limited to these shores is Johnny
English, in which Rowan Atkinson plays a
buffoonish secret agent in a spy spoof also starring
John Malkovich and directed by Peter Howitt (Sliding
Doors). The trend of bad-boy behavior continues Down
Under in Alex Proyas's Garage Days, a
broad farce in which a Sydney band look for a big break,
or at least an easy score. Equally deluded, it seems,
are the guys in Northfork, Michael and
Mark Polish's new film about a bunch of stragglers who
refuse to leave a small town about to be flooded for a
new dam; it stars Nick Nolte, Peter Coyote, Daryl
Hannah, and James Woods. Trying to put a stop to such
macho foolishness as war is the Lapp woman in The
Cuckoo who befriends a Finnish and Russian
soldier during World War II. More female common sense is
demonstrated in I Capture the Castle, an
adaptation of Dodie Smith's novel about an eccentric
British family in the 1930s and the levelheaded teenage
heroine who keeps everyone grounded. More disillusioned
is the teenage heroine of How To Deal,
director Clare Kilner's adaptation of the novels by
Sarah Dessen: noting the chaotic relationships around
her, Mandy Moore gives up on love -- at least until she
meets someone special. Things weren't all that different
back in 19th-century Tokyo, where a young prostitute
finds reason to believe in love when a handsome samurai
comes to her brothel in The Sea Is
Watching. Kei Kumai directs from an Akira
Kurosawa screenplay.
ROCKWe've got bad news, worse news, and a small
consolation. At press time, it appeared that the White
Stripes were going to have to cancel a big chunk of
their US tour -- including their scheduled gig this
Sunday at the FleetBoston Pavilion -- after Jack White
broke a finger in Detroit last week. Worse, the band had
secretly scheduled a club gig at the Middle East that
was to have taken place tonight, and that's definitely
out. In their stead, the band that would have opened up
both gigs -- Jack White protégés Whirlwind Heat
-- are playing the Middle East downstairs tonight.
That's at 480 Massachusetts Avenue in Central Square;
call (617) 864-EAST.
POPBack in the '80s, Bostonian Mike Viola and
Snap! helped shape the aggressive, smart-pop mold that
the Figgs, the Gravel Pit, Letters to Cleo, and the
Gentlemen have been pouring themselves into ever since
-- equal parts Elvis Costello and Graham Parker, with a
little Cheap Trick thrown in. Since relocating to
Manhattan, Viola's the Candy Butchers have become
cult faves thanks to their two Sony discs and his
collaborations with members of Ivy and They Might Be
Giants. The Candy Butchers set up shop tonight and
tomorrow at the Kendall Café, 233 Cardinal Medeiros Way
in Cambridge; call (617) 661-0993. Meanwhile, at the
House of Blues, ageless pop/soul singer-songwriter
Marshall Crenshaw returns with a new album,
What's in the Bag? (Razor & Tie, out this
Tuesday), which includes a cover of Prince's "Take Me
with U," and a tour featuring members of the Jazz
Passengers and Sex Mob as his backing band. That's at 96
Winthrop Street in Harvard Square; call (617) 491-BLUE.
BOOKSEven on those occasions when we've been
nonplussed by his books, Douglas Coupland has
always struck us as the kind of guy we'd like to have a
beer with. And you've got a chance to do just that
tonight as the Generation X author reads from his
new Hey Nostradamus! (Bloomsbury) -- about a
high-school massacre in Vermont and its aftermath, which
are narrated by a pregnant teenage victim, her secret
husband, and later his subsequent girlfriend and his
religious-fanatic father -- at 7:30 p.m. at the Attic
Bar & Grill, 107 Union Street (rear) in Newton
Centre. It's free; call (617) 964-6684.
BARDBoston Common becomes a Highland heath
tonight as Commonwealth Shakespeare Company offers its
eighth annual free gift of Shakespeare:
Macbeth, which for superstitious reasons
is among theater folk always called "the Scottish play."
Frequent film and television actor Jay O. Sanders plays
the upwardly mobile thane conquered by a marching forest
and Caesarean section in CSC artistic director Steven
Maler's production, which is set in a Central American
context. Also in the cast are Boston actress Jennie
Israel as the goading and ambitious Lady M., American
Repertory Theatre vet Benjamin Evett as Banquo, Robert
Walsh as Macduff, and Bill Mootos as Ross. "Tomorrow,
and tomorrow, and tomorrow/Creeps in this petty pace
from day to day" from this day through August 10.
Performances are at the Parkman Bandstand on Boston
Common at 8 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday and at 7 p.m.
on Sunday. Bring a blanket; the Macbeths will supply the
blood. For information and the (boo! hiss!) inevitable
possible weather cancellations, call (617) 532-1212.
Not to be outdone, industrial theatre -- which is in
residence at Harvard's Leverett House during school
season and in Taunton during the summer -- beats the
heat out of doors with a performance of The
Winter's Tale on the steps of Memorial Church in
Harvard Yard tonight at 6:30 p.m.; call (617) 495-9878.
Farther west, Shakespeare & Company artistic
director Tina Packer makes her way up the Everest of the
Bard, King Lear, beginning tonight in
Lenox. The production takes the acclaimed company's
"Bard Bard" form, with minimal scenery and 13 actors
taking all the parts. The excellent Jonathan Epstein,
though far from his dotage, assays the Herculean title
role of a wronged dad teetering on the brink of madness
and self-discovery. The production continues in
Shakespeare & Company's Founders' Theatre, 70 Kemble
Street in Lenox, in repertory through August 30. Tickets
are $15 to $45; call (413) 637-3353.
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SATURDAY
FILMJeff Silva and Alla Kovgan of the
ever-innovative Balagan Film Series have put together a
selection of films for Somerville's ArtBeat Festival
called "Present: Spaces/Places: A Program of Local
and International Documentary, Experimental and Fiction
Film and Video." Among the work represented is local
filmmaker Brian Papciak's Met State, as
well as films by Joris Ivens and Reynold Reynolds. It
screens at 9 p.m. at the Somerville Theatre, 55 Davis
Square; call (617) 625-5700.
JAZZThe husband-and-wife team of
saxophonist/flutist Lew Tabackin and pianist
Toshiko Akiyoshi have been splitting their time
between Japan and the US for more than 30 years (more
than 40 if you count Toshiko's late-'50s stint at
Berklee). As a composer, Akiyoshi has crossed
progressive big-band swing with Gil Evans/Asian
impressionism. Tabackin, meanwhile, has an engaging,
Rollins-esque gruffness on tenor sax and an Eastern
flair with the flute that makes him the perfect foil for
her tunes. They're at the Isabella Stewart Gardner
Museum tonight in a quartet with bassist Boris Kozlov
and drummer Mark Taylor. It's part of the "Concerts
Under the Canopy" series at 8 p.m. That's at 280 the
Fenway, and tickets are $15, or $10 for students; call
(866) 468-7619.
ROCKOn the final two Come albums, Chris
Brokaw stepped forward to take lead vocals on the
occasional tune, and those efforts ranked alongside the
band's finest. Although Brokaw's solo debut was an
all-instrumental affair, his new album, Wandering As
Water (on Germany's Normal Records), recorded live
by Paul Kolderie earlier this year, parallels the live
solo sets he's been performing while touring with (and
opening for) Evan Dando lately -- a mix of instrumentals
and vocal tunes played on acoustic guitar, including
superb, stripped-down renditions of Come's "Shoot Me
First," "Recidivist," and "German Song," plus "My Idea,"
a song he wrote with Lemonheads collaborator Tom Morgan
that ended up on Dando's Baby I'm Bored, and
covers of enlightened folkies Fred Neil and Jorma
Kaukonen. The disc is available as an import, but Brokaw
will have a few tonight when he plays the Paradise
Lounge (the joint's new front room), 969 Commonwealth
Avenue. The gravel-voiced art-song/C&W/punk
singer-songwriter Milo Jones opens; call (617) 562-8814.
POETRYThe long, hard road to the National
Poetry Slam competition, which will be held later this
summer in Chicago, runs through the Cambridge Center for
Adult Education, where in tonight's Team Poetry
Slam four-person teams representing four Boston-area
slam hotbeds compete head-to-head. The all-women Amazon
Slam takes on the Bridgewater Slam and two Cambridge
teams, the Cantab Lounge and the Lizard Lounge,
beginning at 8 p.m. at 56 Brattle Street in Harvard
Square. Be warned: if you go, you could be impaneled
(maybe commandeered is the word) out of the audience to
judge. Admission is $10; call (617) 547-6789.
COMEDY
There are
plenty of comedians who aren't funny, but few since Tony
Clifton have made as much of a career of it as Neil
Hamburger, whose performances are so perverse that his
appearance on Jimmy Kimmel's late-night talk show last
month confounded shock-jock Howard Stern. On a string of
albums including his seminal America's Funnyman,
his "live" disc Left for Dead in Malaysia, and
his most recent Laugh Out Lord, a religious-yuks
effort (all on the indie-rock label Drag City),
Hamburger has never been anything less than completely
unfunny -- a state of affairs that can have a
cumulatively hilarious effect. He plays an early show at
7:30 p.m. at T.T. the Bear's Place, 10 Brookline Street
in Central Square; call (617) 492-BEAR.
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SUNDAY
DANCEBoston Ballet dancer Gianni Di Marco shows
off his choreographic skills tonight with a presentation
of his Moses, a "contemporary work about
the 3500-year-old story of the Hebrew Exodus, with
comparative modern-day themes"; the music is by composer
Walter Robinson. It's presented tonight at 7 at the
Martha's Vineyard Performing Arts Center, on Edgartown
Road in Oak's Bluff. Admission is $25; call (508)
693-5266.
ROCKDrag queens have exerted a heavy influence
on rock and roll since glam, and among the founding
class of CBGB's was at least one male-to-female
transsexual -- Wayne (later Jayne) County -- so it's
curious you don't see more of this sort of thing: a
"T-Girl Band Night" devoted to transgender
outlaws of all stripes. The guests of honor are Lisa
Jackson and Girl Friday, whose frontperson once fronted
something called the Steve Friday Band. Ms. Jackson
belts hits of the '80s from Blondie, Joan Jett, and
Cyndi Lauper; no word on Aerosmith's "Dude (Looks like a
Lady)." Also on the bill are locals Porn Belt, the
Electrolytes, and Maggotzoid. The Milky Way is at 405
Centre Street in Jamaica Plain; call (617) 524-3740.
HIP-HOP Boston B-boys
and B-girls finally have a reason to celebrate this
summer, as City Hall throws a massive block party to
celebrate the first annual Hip-Hop Peace & Unity
Fest, a weekend-long shindig featuring concerts and a
conference (see "Arts News"). The main event is this
afternoon's free gig on City Hall Plaza at Government
Center. KRS-One headlines, amid a furor over his latest
disc, Kristyles, which Koch rushed into
production before he was finished with it -- omitting,
among other things, his planned tribute to the late Jam
Master Jay. Also on the bill are old-school legend and
Juice Crew alum Big Daddy Kane ("Ain't No
Half-Steppin' "), Boston hip-hop godfather Ed O.G.,
and current underground stars Illin' P, Reks, Shuman,
Pharoahe Monch, the internationally acclaimed duo of
Insight and Edan, and many more. Presented by the city
in conjunction with the Boston-based production
collaborative Inebriated Rhythm and its Grit Records
home base, the gig runs from 4:30 to 8:30, and it's
free; call (617) 635-3911.
MYTHOLOGICAL![Joao Gilberto]()
Brazilian guitarist and singer João
Gilberto is sometimes simply referred to as "The Myth."
Since 1958, when he recorded the single ("Chega de
Saudade," backed with "Bim-Bom") that launched what
would become known worldwide as the bossa nova,
Gilberto's whispered vocals, surprising chord voicings,
and slow and profound sense of swing have for many
people been synonymous with Brazilian music itself.
Tonight the Myth and his guitar perform solo at the Wang
Theatre, and it's an opportunity not to be missed --
apart from Fred Astaire, there may be no greater master
of the subtle displacements of time. His most recent
studio album, João Voz e Violão (Verve), which
was produced by his fan Caetano Veloso and won a Best
World Music Grammy in 2001, is proof enough that the
master hasn't slowed down any more than was necessary to
swing even deeper. The Wang is at 270 Tremont Street in
the Theater District, and tickets are $25 to $55; call
(800) 447-7400.
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MONDAY
FILMPhoenix "Film Culture" maven
Gerald Peary does the introductory honors for the 7:15
p.m. screening of Bad Day at Black Rock
(1955), the first film in the Brattle Theatre's
"Genre Film of the '50s" series. Spencer Tracy
puts in an enigmatic performance as the sinister
stranger who shows up at the desert town of the title
asking a lot of questions about a missing
Japanese-American resident. John Sturges directs this
taut and tough-minded look at the ugly side of '50s
conformity and racism, which also stars Robert Ryan,
Walter Brennan, and Ernest Borgnine. It also screens at
3 p.m. That's at 40 Brattle Street in Harvard Square;
call (617) 876-6837.
Don't let such whitebread versions of the Arabian
Nights as the recent Sinbad: Legend of the Seven
Seas discourage you from seeing the real McCoy.
Michael Powell's The Thief of Bagdad
(1940) captures the exhilarating magic and
exuberant color of this tale of a noble thief and a
usurped prince's struggle against a wicked vizier to
regain a stolen princess. It screens tonight and
tomorrow at 7 p.m. at the Harvard Film Archive. A
usurped people strike back in Peter Weir's The
Last Wave (1977) as a lawyer defending
Aboriginal tribesmen in Australia glimpses the stirrings
of an apocalyptic cataclysm. The newly outed Richard
Chamberlain stars. It screens both nights at 9 p.m. The
HFA is in the Carpenter Center, 24 Quincy Street in
Harvard Square; call (617) 495-4700.
POPDanny Wood is not quite as well known
these days as some of his fellow former members of New
Kids on the Block, but he's out to rectify that with a
new solo album, Second Face, on the
BMG-distributed Damage label, that hits shelves
tomorrow. He's been trying to drum up support with
appearances at baseball games and Disney themeparks and
on morning TV shows, and tonight he'll play an
honest-to-goodness club date at the House of Blues, 96
Winthrop Street in Harvard Square. Call (617) 491-BLUE.
R&B
On his
latest single, the lead track from P. Diddy's soundtrack
to the drag-racing flick Bad Boys II, Nelly takes
a cue from classic R&B backfield motivators Andre
Williams, the Five Du-Tones, and Ike & Tina. With
help from Diddy and Murphy Lee, the pride of St. Louis
urges you to "Shake Your Tailfeather" -- a
siren-whooping cut inspired, Diddy has said, by a St.
Louis dance craze called the chicken head. The track
also manages to sneak in a shout-out to the vintage
Japanimation series Voltron. Is this the best
thing to happen to Band-Aid sales since "Hot in Herre"?
Take your best stab at the chicken head tonight when
Nellyville relocates to the Wang Theatre, 270 Tremont
Street in the Theater District, where Nelly and his St.
Lunatics -- including Lee, whose debut is due shortly --
hold court on their "Up Close and Personal" tour. It's a
7 p.m. show, and tickets are $38 to $58; call (800)
447-7400.
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TUESDAY
DOO-WOPThanks to a series of PBS specials and a
pretty great Rhino box set, the stars of doo-wop are
again on the cultural radar. A few years back, oldies
archivist Harvey Robbins inaugurated the concept, if not
an actual location, for a Doo-Wop Hall of Fame, and the
induction ceremonies have drawn crowds to Symphony Hall
every year since. Tonight, Cape Cod's WMOR hosts recent
inductees the Cleftones ("Little Girl of Mine,"
"Heart and Soul") along with previous inductees the
Belmonts (Dion's boys) and the Flamingos
("I Only Have Eyes for You") at the Cape Cod Melody
Tent in Hyannis. Showtime is 8 p.m., and tickets are
$10; call (800) 921-9667.
FILMOne of the hits of this year's Sundance
Film Festival and the winner of the top prize was
Shari Springer Berman & Robert Pulcini's
American Splendor, a skewed docudrama
about underground-comic-book artist (and occasional
Phoenix contributor -- his review of Charlie
Mariano's Deep in a Dream is in Off the Record,
in Music)
Harvey Pekar that sounds like a cross between Crumb
and Ghost World. Paul Giamatti and Hope Davis
star. You can get an early look at the film at this
sneak preview at 7:30 p.m. at the Brattle Theatre, 40
Brattle Street in Harvard Square; call (617) 876-6837.
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WEDNESDAY
POPThe former ringleader of the Incredible
Casuals has for the past few years been leading
something he calls the Chandler Travis
Philharmonic, which is billed as "the world's only
alternative Dixieland band." That should give you an
idea of the playful exuberance this outfit is capable of
-- and the line-up includes some of the best musicians
in town. Chandler and company open the MFA's "Concerts
in the Courtyard" series with Brooklyn-based
alterna-geeks Ladybug Transistor headlining.
That's at 7 p.m. at the Museum of Fine Arts, 465
Huntington Avenue. Tickets are $24, or $20 for students
and MFA members; call (617) 369-3300.
JAZZSaxophonist Cercie Miller soaks up
some Boston history when she's joined by special guest
Herb Pomeroy (who besides spending an illustrious
career teaching at Berklee also played trumpet with
Charlie Parker back in the day). Pianist Tim Ray,
bassist Dave Clark, and drummer Bob Savine complete this
fine band. They're at the Regattabar in the Charles
Hotel, 1 Bennett Street in Harvard Square. Shows start
at 8:30, and tickets are $12; call (617) 876-7777.
At Scullers, young saxophonist Eric Alexander
-- who placed second behind Joshua Redman in the 1991
Thelonious Monk International Saxophone Competition and
has released an increasingly impressive string of albums
on Criss Cross, Delmark, and Milestone -- comes to
Scullers with Harold Mabern on piano, John Webber on
bass, and Joe Farnsworth on drums. That's in the
DoubleTree Guest Suites Hotel, 400 Soldiers Field Road
at the Mass Pike. Shows are at 8 and 10, tickets are
$14; call (617) 562-4111.
FILM![42nd Street]() As films
like Chicago abundantly attest, they don't make
them the way they used to. For those who remember the
musical as the genre that features memorable music and
dance and uplifting spectacle, there's Lloyd Bacon's
42nd Street (1933), in which hardworking chorines
Una Merkel, Ruby Keeler, and Ginger Rogers try to hoof
and sing their way to stardom in the troubled
Broadway show Pretty Lady. The Busby Berkeley
production numbers include "Shuffle Off to Buffalo" and
the title classic, and they'll be made even more magical
by the floral grounds of the Isabella Stewart Gardner
Museum, where the film is being screened at 8:30 p.m. as
part of the Gardner's centennial-summer "Open Air"
programs. The museum is located at 280 the Fenway;
call (617) 566-1401.
ARTIn the 17th century, printmakers were the
photojournalists of their day, and among the finest --
in the estimation of the Museum of Fine Arts, the
finest -- was Jacques Callot, who produced more than a
thousand etchings depicting everything from dwarf
musicians to the horrors of war. The MFA's "Callot and
His World: Princes, Paupers, and Pageants" collects 150
images from Callot and his followers, in a companion
exhibit to the museum's forthcoming Rembrandt
blockbuster, which arrives in October. The Callot
exhibit is up through January 25 in the MFA's Trustman
Gallery, 465 Huntington Avenue; call (617) 267-9300.
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THURSDAY
ROCKFrom Oxford, Mississippi, Tyler Keith is
the former guitarist of a wild and perilously unhinged
outfit called the Neckbones whose pungent, barbed-wire
riffs often came closer to a Stooges-like jailbreak than
to the ancient blues of their Fat Possum labelmates.
Following the Neckbones' demise, Keith has returned as
the frontman of the Preacher's Kids, whose output
is more tuneful -- their sense of melody, like that of
fellow enlightened garage punks the Reigning Sound,
reaches back past the Stones to Buddy Holly -- but no
less volatile. Out in support of their second album,
Wild Emotions (Get Hip), they're at the Abbey
Lounge, 3 Beacon Street in Somerville; call (617)
441-9631.
JAZZThe excellent local jazz singer Shelley
Neill returns to the Regattabar, this time with
long-time-no-see pianist Bevan Manson (formerly of the
Either/Orchestra), violinist John Blake, bassist John
Lockwood, and drummer Yoron Israel. That's in the
Charles Hotel, 1 Bennett Street in Harvard Square, at
8:30. Tickets are $14; call (617) 876-7777.
HILLBILLY Nashville
psychobillies th' Legendary Shack*Shakers are pretty hot
on disc -- their Cockadoodledon't (Bloodshot)
sounds like the sort of hillbilly band that might've
resulted if Jerry Lee and Carl Perkins had been raised
in the era of T-Model Ford, Jon Spencer, and Nashville
Pussy -- but that doesn't compare to their live-band
reputation, which includes reports of frontman "Colonel"
J.D. Wilkes setting himself afire and menacing the
audience with some of the gnarlier redneck martial arts.
Tonight the Shakers hit T.T. the Bear's Place, 10
Brookline Street in Central Square. Call (617) 492-BEAR.
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