|
| |
| |
|
|
Edited by Carly Carioli
thursday |
friday |
saturday |
sunday |
monday |
tuesday |
wednesday |
thursday
THURSDAY 2
ROCK
New Bedford's A Wilhelm Scream - third
runners-up for "Best Local Punk" in this year's Best Music Poll - are
back from recording with All/Descendents vet Bill Stevenson in
Colorado, having completed a new album, Ruiner, that's due in
July on Nitro. Expect pop-punk-as-speedmetal ear candy, and a batch of
new songs, when they play the International Community Church with
Chicago booze punks the Lawrence Arms, who will themselves be
previewing a new disc on Asian Man, Cocktails and Dreams. The
Methadones and Dead Ellington open. It's a 6 p.m., all-ages show, and
the ICC is at 557 Cambridge Street in Allston; call (617) 782-8120.
Also tonight: the Sea and Cake's Sam Prekop brings a solo band to the
Middle East's downstairs with Scottish indie-folk newcomer James
Yorkston. That's at 480 Massachusetts Avenue in Central Square; call
(617) 864-EAST. Around the corner, Chicago country gentleman Robbie
Fulks headlines T.T. the Bear's Place, 10 Brookline Street, with tunes
from his new Georgia Hards
(Yep Roc); call (617) 492-BEAR. And members of Kicked in the Head,
Suspect Device, the Skels, and Dropkick Murphys lend their voices to
"Chords and Discourse: Hank Williams," the local punk scene's answer to VH1 Storytellers, with acoustic renditions of Hank's hits, at O'Brien's, 3 Harvard Avenue in Allston; call (617) 782-6245.
FILM
It's hard to think of Humphrey Bogart as an artist poised between genius and homicidal insanity - which might be why The Two Mrs. Carrolls
(1947) hasn't gone down in the canon of his great performances. All the
more reason to see this soapy, noirish exercise in suspense and
outlandish behavior as he plays a painter who gets it into his head to
paint the first Mrs. C as the Angel of Death and then . . . Another
reason is Barbara Stanwyck as the second spouse, who's first beguiled
and then bewildered by Bogie's offbeat charms and inclinations. Peter
Godfrey directs. It screens for free at 6 p.m. at the South Boston
Branch Library, 646 Broadway; call (617) 268-0180. CLASSICAL
Those who heard the staged performances of
Bach's Cantatas Nos. 82 and 199 Lorraine Hunt Lieberson gave in 2001
with Emmanuel Music (Peter Sellars directing) can attest to their
almost unbearable intensity. Cantata No. 82 (Ich habe genug) was
presented as the final tormented hours of a terminally ill patient,
Hunt Lieberson appearing in a hospital gown and with an IV tube. Now
Emmanuel is reviving the production for performances in New York and in
Europe. But there'll be one preview, at 8 p.m. at the Cutler Majestic
Theatre. Regular tickets are $45 to $75; call (800) 233-3123. There's
also a limited number of Patron tickets for $200 to benefit Emmanuel
Music; a portion of that is tax deductible, and Patrons get to attend a
reception with the artists after the concert. For those tickets, call
(617) 824-8000. THEATER
Stoneham Theatre endeavors to build a
better Mousetrap when it takes on the venerable Agatha Christie
thriller that's been running in London for 50 years. Directing is
Elliot Norton Award winner Adam Zahler, who has among his cast those
Lunts of local theater, Paula Plum and Richard Snee. The show continues
through June 19 at Stoneham Theatre, 395 Main Street in Stoneham, and
tickets are $32, $27 for seniors, $16 for students; call (781)
279-2200, or visit www.stonehamtheatre.org.
[back to top]
FRIDAY 3
CLUBS
When P. Nice and the Audiovandal came up
from Providence last month to jump-start the earthbound party version
of Certified Bananas' on-line indie/crunk mix tape, the line stretched
down the street, and the dancing inside was edging from R-rated on up
toward NC-17. We're still a little fuzzy on the details - it was that
kinda evening. But if you're planning on hitting round two at Enormous
Room, you might wanna get there early. The June "CB Radio" mix is up
for download at their site (www.certifiedbananas.blogspot.com),
and they've outdone last month's screwed-and-chopped Three Six
Mafia/Modest Mouse blend with an equally fiery Clipse/Lightning Bolt
blast, a Hrvatski/No Limit battle royal, and more. (See "Download.") Enormous Room is at 567 Massachusetts Avenue in Central Square; call (617) 491-5550.
FILM
If Jimmy Stewart were Swiss, short, and brooding, he might pass for
Bruno Ganz, one of the most admired European actors. The Harvard Film
Archive pays tribute to him with "Matters of Life and Death: The Films
of Bruno Ganz," a retrospective that includes work by some of the
greatest living filmmakers. It opens with what some have judged to be
Ganz's finest performance, as Adolf Hitler in Oliver Hirschbiegel's Der Untergang/Downfall
(2004), a controversial account of the Führer's final days in his Berlin
bunker. It screens at 8 p.m. in the Carpenter Center, 24 Quincy Street
in Harvard Square; call (617) 495-4700.
One of the first Oscar contenders steps into the ring this week as Ron Howard's Cinderella Man
tells the rags-to-riches story of Jim Braddock (Russell Crowe) who might
not have had a beautiful mind but did develop a good enough left hook
to step off the Depression relief rolls and take the heavyweight
championship away from Max Baer in 1935. Renée Zellweger plays his
wife, Paul Giamatti his manager. It might not be Oscar material, but
skateboarding provides its share of thrills in The Lords of Dogtown, Catherine Hardwicke's dramatization of Stacy Peralta's documentary Dogtown and Z-Boys, starring Heath Ledger, Emile Hirsch, and Nikki Reed. There's more pop-cultural competitiveness in Rock School,
Don Argott's documentary about a real-life School of Rock. And if you
want to get farther still out of the mainstream, try veteran
independent director Hal Hartley's The Girl from Monday, a tale
about a not-too-distant dystopic future in which corporate consumerism
reigns supreme and visitors from another planet try to set things
right. Bill Sage and Sabrina Lloyd star; it's at the Brattle Theatre
all weekend, and Hartley will be on hand at tonight's 7:15 p.m.
screening. That brings us to this week's foreign fare, though the
formula might seem familiar in Alexandre Aja's Haute tension/High Tension, which describes itself as "a highly evolved slasher flick with a Sapphic twist." Danish director Susanne Bier's Brothers,
on the other hand, goes where no American movies dare - to Afghanistan,
where one of the title siblings serves while the other copes with the
home front after a prison stint. ROCK
If you lived within a couple of blocks of
Zeitgeist Gallery, you might have heard Teenage Disco Bloodbath Records
honcho Jonah Livingston blasting grindcore on his (since discontinued)
Sunday-night show on the Cambridge low-bandwidth community station
Radio Pandemonium. The "not entirely imaginary radio station," as it
has been called, has been removed, Chaney-like, to a secure location -
it's a sad state of affairs when actual community radio has to go
underground to escape the detection of the FCC, but such is life in
Bush's America. Thus this benefit for Radio Pandemonium at the Central
Square VFW, 288 Green Street in Cambridge, with morbid chanteur Milo
Jones, Tigersaw, Carlisle Sound, and B for Brontosaurus. It's $5 and
21-plus; call (617) 547-9320.
Also tonight: Erasure frontman
Andy Bell leads the group on its first comeback tour since he announced
his HIV-positive diagnosis, with songs from their new Nightbird; they're at Avalon, 15 Lansdowne Street in Boston, with New York's Elkland. It's 18-plus and $35; call (617) 931-2000.
JAZZ
Whether paying tribute to Louis Armstrong
or exploring the farther reaches of the classic "second" Miles Davis
Quintet, Nicholas Payton has become one of the foremost trumpeters of
his generation, born and bred in New Orleans, and fiercely cosmopolitan
in his outlook. He brings his current quintet - with saxophonist Tim
Warfield, pianist Danny Grissett, bassist Joe Sanders, and drummer
Marcus Gilmore - to Scullers in the DoubleTree Guest Suites Hotel, 400
Soldiers Field Road at the Mass Pike; call (617) 562-4111.
Charlie Hunter has long since transcended - and outlived - the old "acid
jazz" tag of the mid '90s. His eight-string guitar playing has grown in
every way - melodically, rhythmically, harmonically - without losing
touch with the grooves on which he built his reputation. He brings his
long-time trio mates John Ellis on saxophone and Derek Phillips on
drums to the Regattabar of the Charles Hotel, 1 Bennett Street in
Harvard Square, for shows at 7:30 and 10 p.m. Tickets are $16; call
(617) 395-7757. THEATER
Christopher Durang puts his mouth where his pen is tonight, starring in his own wild-haired comedy of alienation Laughing Wild.
Durang, who played the Man in the show's 1987 premiere at New York's
Playwrights' Horizons, here plays opposite the Woman of Tony winner
Debra Monk, under the direction of Huntington Theatre Company honcho
Nicholas Martin, whose staging of the playwright's merry mayhem fest Betty's Summer Vacation
won an Obie. The play, which begins with a paranoid encounter in a
grocery-store aisle and goes on to incorporate Sally Jessy Raphaël and
the Infant of Prague, continues through June 26 at the Calderwood
Pavilion at the Boston Center for the Arts, 527 Tremont Street in the
South End. Tickets are $14 to $50; call (617) 266-0880 or visit www.huntingtontheatre.org or www.BostonTheatreScene.com.
DANCE
Boston Dance Month may be over, but
there's still plenty of action this weekend. At the BU Dance Theater,
915 Commonwealth Avenue in Boston, Anikai Dance Company performs
tonight and tomorrow at 8 p.m. and Sunday at 2 p.m. Tickets are $20,
$18 for students, seniors, $10 for children under 12; call (617)
861-7930. Across the river in Central Square, at Green Street Studios,
185 Green Street, Jody Weber's Weber Dance performs Core Impasse, Concrete Drive/Grassy Heart, Vestige, and Revolve
tonight and tomorrow at 8 p.m. Tickets $15, $12 for students; call (617)
864-3191. And down the street at the Dance Complex, 536 Massachusetts
Avenue, a multimedia evening will include GrAce, by Callie
Chapman Korn and Ivan Korn of Zoé Dance and the short films "Phobos"
and "Admiration of the Moon," from B Roll Films. That also is tonight
and tomorrow at 8, and tickets are $17, $12 for students and seniors;
call (781) 738-3272.
[back to top]
SATURDAY 4
AIR GUITAR
Every other calendar editor in the world
gets to make fun of the Air Guitar Championships. Not us. Nope. We're
just a little more pathetic than all those hacks who'll be racking
their brains this week for new ways to belabor the obvious. That's
right: we're judging the damn thing. And screw you, we're psyched.
Let's face it: the least interesting thing about actual guitar
shredders is the notes they play. For us, it's all about the hair, the
break-your-neckbanging, the extraterrestrial facial expressions. So
let's get this out there up front: points off for untucked t-shirts.
Real air-guitar geeks show off their belts. Let's do the damn thing
right at Harpers Ferry, 158 Brighton Avenue in Allston; call (617)
254-9743. ROCK
Maybe it had something to do with "The Pill" popping up in the New York Times Sunday Styles section, but suddenly - here's a switch - New Yorkers are coming to Boston
to start a club night. Then again, once you hear the Bamboo Kids - whose
unpolished take on '70s garage punk and early '80s proto power pop
bears more than a passing resemblance to the stuff the Real Kids are
known for - you might forget they weren't born here. The Bamboo Kids
celebrate the inaugural evening of their weekly "Low Life" night at the
Abbey Lounge with guests Triple Thick, the Throttles, and Voodoo Screw
Machine. That's at 3 Beacon Street in Inman Square; call (617) 441-9631.
If the Redwalls had been signed to any label other than Capitol, they
probably couldn't have gotten away with hewing so close to Beatlemania
without threat of a lawsuit. They're in town to preview songs from
their debut, De Nova
(out June 21), at the Paradise, 967 Commonwealth Avenue in Boston, with
headliners Fooled by April and Scamper; American Minor - another entry
into the Black-Crowes-meet-Kings-of-Leon heartland-rock boomlet - open.
It's an 8 p.m., 18-plus show, and tickets are $12; call (617) 562-8800.
In addition to being pretty nifty with a camera (that was his Charms cover a few weeks back), Phoenix
photographer Eric Levin is also pretty handy with a bass guitar. His
snotty, booze-fueled pop-punk outfit Plan B have been recording with
big-time producers Paul Kolderie and Ted Paduck, and they're
celebrating the release of Welcome Generations downstairs at the
Middle East. The disc's a blast, but on the constructive-criticism
front: next time you have the perfect emo hooks, sing-along choruses,
and Hollywood debauchery in place, it might be okay to leave the ska,
Celt-punk, and funk-metal breakdowns on the cutting-room floor once in
a while. That said, we can't mess with Bloodhound Gang-worthy lyrics
like "And when you think it's time for bed/We'll kick you in the balls
and shave your head/And dump you naked in the street." That's at 480
Massachusetts Avenue in Central Square, with Cherry S/T, Lost Cause,
and 3 Feet Short; call (617) 864-EAST. AVANT
Arrived in Gold (Load Records), the
latest by the Brooklyn trio Sightings, is gorgeous, considered noise
rock, up there with '04 releases by Mouthus, Wolf Eyes, and Hair
Police, and light years beyond the group's earlier monotone salvos.
They headline the Central Square YWCA, 7 Temple Street in Cambridge,
with Twisted Villagers Heathen Shame, Coughs, and Grey Daturas. It's a
17-plus, 7 p.m. show; call (617) 491-6050. SHEDS
The immensely popular Britpop trio Keane
have been accused of riding Chris Martin's coattails, but to us their
piano ballads sound less like Coldplay for dummies than like Freddy
Mercury covering Wings. To be on the safe side, they're squeezing in a
few last shows before X&Y comes out. They headline Bank of
America Pavilion on Northern Avenue near the World Trade Center; if
their career goes south, perhaps they can pawn their ivories to opening
act Regina Spektor, the ascendant Russian-émigrée indie-cabaret singer
who will be the first call every A&R person makes when the Dresden
Dolls go triple platinum. That's a 7:30 show and tickets are $29.50;
call (617) 931-2000.
Also tonight: Jam'n 94.5's annual "Summer
Jam" extravaganza is officially sold out, but those in possession of
copious quantities of weed and/or booty may be able to work out a deal
at the back door tonight at the Tweeter Center in Mansfield, where the
blockbuster line-up includes Snoop Dogg, the Game, Lil' Jon and the
Eastside Boys, T.I., reggaeton kingpin Don Omar, and a bit of eye candy
from Mashonda, Amerie, and Brooke Valentine. Or call (617) 931-2000 to
see whether Ticketmaster will release any scalper-foiling tix just
before show time. JAZZ
Erik Lindgren is the kind of musical
polymath who seems peculiar (in both sense of the word) to the Boston
scene. A curator of '60s garage and psychedelic rock as well as
"incredibly strange music" on his Arf! Arf! label, he's also an
accomplished composer in all media, including solo piano, chamber, and
orchestral pieces, jingles, and TV commercials. As a performer, he's
probably best known as a founding member of pan-genre group Birdsongs
of the Mesozoic. Lindgren celebrates his 50th birthday with
performances by Birdsongs and his Sonare Wind Trio plus special guests
and a visual presentation of some of his better-known commercial work
for the Christmas Tree Shop, Waltham Camera & Stereo, WBZ, and
others. (Did we mention that he has a great sense of humor?) That's at
Longy School of Music, 27 Garden Street in Harvard Square, at 8 p.m.,
and it's free; call (617) 876-0956. ART
East Boston isn't known as an artists'
mecca, and it's a bit off the beaten track - but the annual East Boston
Open Studios makes up for that by offering a free water taxi (sorry,
"Art Ferry") from Christopher Columbus Park in the North End, adjacent
to the Marriott Long Wharf Hotel. Once it takes you across to the
Boston Harbor Shipyard & Marina, you can catch a free Art Bus
that's ferrying folks among the 22 studios that make up the event. Or
if you're taking the T, pick up a map at Tony's Realty, 37 Maverick
Square, at the Blue Line MBTA station. For more info, call (617)
780-6988, or visit eastbostonartistsgroup.org.
PRIDE
The 35th annual, week-long Boston Gay
Pride festivities kick off at Faneuil Hall Marketplace with the arrival
of the Names' Project Foundation's AIDS Memorial Quilt. Unveiled in
1987 with just under 2000 panels - each commemorating a life lost to
HIV - the quilt now comprises some 44,000 panels. It's on view
beginning today from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., with performances by the
women's chorus Voices Rising and the New Hampshire Gay Men's Chorus.
That's in the Rotunda at Faneuil Hall at Quincy Market, and it's free;
call (617) 262-9405 or visit www.bostonpride.org.
[back to top]
SUNDAY 5
MEGAMIX
SUNDAY, TUESDAY, WEDNESDAY: You know how it goes: band spend years
recording debut CD, band book CD-release show, band send CD off to
pressing plant . . . band realize CD won't be back by date of show. So
it is with the eagerly awaited (by us, anyway) album by Plunge into
Death, in which the pseudonymous Mark E. Moon and Area D combine their
love for Miami bass, basement-brat punk, Atari teenage riots, and goth
kids who rap. You can't get their CD at any of the three PID-related
gigs this week, but you can download a couple of songs as part of Mark
E. Moon's Crunkin' Donuts mix tape. (See "Download.")
Sunday, they do their stripped-down "pLounge into Death" set with the
Moves' Sara Cooper and Wisteriax at the Washington Street Arts Center,
321 Washington Street in Somerville; call (617) 623-5315. Tuesday,
full-bore PID hit "Electrosocial" at ZuZu, 474 Massachusetts Avenue in
Central Square; call (617) 864-3278, extension 237. And Wednesday, Area
D hosts his new weekly "Musk" dance night at the Midway Café, 3496
Washington Street in JP, with guests Cassette; call (617) 524-9038. INDIE
Countless indie bands have walked
countless miles down the trails that Sonic Youth blazed, but very few
of them have a singer who's fit to carry Kim Gordon's dirty boots.
Lauren Larson, of the Texas power trio Ume, is an exception: her boots
were made for walking, and on her band's debut, Urgent Sea
(Pretty Activity), she backs up her raspy wail with slow, deep,
dissonant guitar riffs that verge on metal before spinning way out of
control. Ume is at Great Scott with Decahedron, who haven't let the
departure of Fugazi's Joe Lally from their line-up stop them from
cranking out Dischord-ian indie punk the old-fashioned way. That's at
1222 Commonwealth Avenue in Allston; call (617) 566-9014.
Memphis's Lucero paint the same kinds of pictures as their alt-country
brethren, they just use a cooler palette. Raised on DIY shows and
Mississippi River sorrow, they've got a singer who doesn't know how not
to sing at the top of his lungs, and they couldn't fail to kick your
ass if they tried. After a bunch of well-received indie discs and
near-constant touring (most of it with punkier punk bands), they've
issued the Jim Dickinson-produced, Warner Bros.-distributed Nobody's Darlings,
which focuses their best traits - a gruffness and a vulnerability that
remind you of the Replacements, Jawbreaker, Springsteen, and early
Social Distortion all at once - into one of the year's most blistering
and bittersweet albums. They're upstairs at the Middle East with
frequent touring companions the Honorary Title. That's at 472
Massachusetts Avenue in Central Square; call (617) 864-EAST.
Also tonight: the British post-punk girl group Electrelane are at the
Middle East, 480 Massachusetts Avenue in Central Square, with a new
album, Axes. (Michael Alan Goldberg's interview is in Music.) Call (617) 864-EAST.
QUEER-EYED
If you thought the Curse of the Bambino
provided endless fodder for Yankees boosters, wait'll you see what
chants they come up with now that your World Champion Red Sox are
getting the makeover treatment from the Queer Eye for the Straight Guy
crew. It'll be worth the taunts, though, to see what grooming tips
Carson and the ladies have for Mr. Damon, and we're hoping Jai's
"culture" recipe for Bush leaguer Curt Schilling included removing the
right-wing stick from his ass. The episode, not to be confused with the
current SpeakEasy Stage production of Take Me Out, airs Tuesday on Bravo, but tonight the Queer Eye cast are in town to screen snippets and party Pride-style at Club Café, 209 Columbus Avenue in Boston; call (617) 536-0966.
GAY AND LESBIAN
With Gay Pride week in full blaze, it's easy to forget that not everyone
on the homo side of the fence feels included under its rainbow banners.
One of the alternatives to the mainstream Pride celebration is the
annual Dyke March. This year, that'll take place June 10 at the Parkman
Bandstand, and as a benefit for it, Aliza Shapiro's Truth Serum
Productions is putting on "The Revolution Requires Dancers," a dance
party in which the drag-king cast from Shapiro's weekly TraniWreck
variety show (including her own alter ego, Heywood Wakefield) will be
joined by hula-hoopers the Galaxy Girls, plus-sized hip-hop dance
troupe the Phat Fly Girls, Systyr Act (an acoustic rock group of
habit-ed drag nuns), and no fewer than three burlesque troupes:
Northampton's Femmetastic Fatales, Providence's Foodie Burlesque, and
the local gals from Thru the Keyhole Burlesque. That's at 8 at the
Milky Way Lounge and Lanes, 405 Centre Street in Jamaica Plain.
Suggested donation is $7 to $10; call (617) 524-3740. CLASSICAL
Early June means Chorus pro Musica's
annual concert-opera presentation, directed by the man our own Pulitzer
Prize winner, Lloyd Schwartz, deems Boston's best Verdi conductor,
Jeffrey Rink. Only hitch is, CpM isn't doing Verdi this year but rather
Camille Saint-Saëns's Samson et Dalila. Well, we're betting
Rink and company will be just as good at Saint-Saëns. That's at 3 p.m.
at Jordan Hall, 30 Gainsborough Street in Boston, and tickets are $30
to $60; call (617) 267-7442.
[back to top]
MONDAY 6
INDIE
Pavement's Stephen Malkmus ditched the "and the Jicks" from his latest solo disc, Face the Truth, but they're back behind him at the Paradise, 967 Commonwealth Avenue in Boston. (Malkmus talks to Franklin Soults
in Music.) Call (617) 562-8800. Next door at the Paradise Lounge, 969
Comm Ave, Cracker's Johnny Hickman headlines with the Ike Reilly
Assassination and roots-rocking gal LP; call (617) 562-8814. FILM
A film with the title Damn Yankees!
(1958) should be a perennial favorite in these parts. In this case,
though, it's the lowly and now defunct Washington Senators (now the
Minnesota Twins, and replaced this year by the Washington Nationals,
formerly the Montreal Expos) who bear a grudge against the Bronx
Bombers as a diehard fan makes a deal with the Devil to have his team
win. George Abbott and Stanley Donen adapt the Broadway hit with songs
by Richard Adler and Jerry Ross and choreography by Bob Fosse. Tab
Hunter is the fan, Ray Walston is Mr. Let's Make a Deal, and Gwen
Verdon is "Whatever Lola Wants, Lola Gets." It screens for free at 6
p.m. at the Boston Public Library, 700 Boylston Street in Copley
Square; call (617) 536-5400 extension 2212.
The Unbelievable Truth (1989) about Hal Hartley is that a decade
and a half after his acclaimed debut, despite the commercialization,
corporatization, and general dumbing down of American cinema, this
thorny, deadpan independent filmmaker is still going strong. Sort of.
You can decide for yourself after seeing "Trouble + Desire: The Films
of Hal Hartley" this week at the Brattle Theatre. It opens with the
above-mentioned feature, a romantic absurdity about a college girl
obsessed by nuclear war who falls for an ex-con with a history of
homicide. Adrienne Shelly and Robert John Burke star; screenings are at
5:30, 7:30, and 9:30 p.m. It'll be followed by Amateur (1994) at 5:15 and 9:45 p.m. on Tuesday (along with a program of shorts at 7:30 p.m.), No Such Thing (2001) at 7:30 p.m. and Book of Life
(1998) at 6 and 9:45 p.m. on Wednesday, and Henry Fool (1997) at 4:15,
7, and 9:45 p.m. on Thursday. All are at 40 Brattle Street in Harvard
Square; call (617) 876-6837. PARTY
Celebrating its 20th anniversary,
StageSource, the area alliance of theater artists and producers, holds
its annual bash at the Hotel Marlowe, where local thespians will gather
to see Elliot Norton Award-winning director (and head of Brandeis's
Office of the Arts) Scott Edmiston receive the 2005 Theatre Hero Award.
The evening will also feature live music by Hush and lots of
opportunity to network. The Hotel Marlowe is at 25 Edwin H. Land
Boulevard in Cambridge. Tickets are $19 for StageSource members, $25
for non-members; call (617) 720-6066, or visit www.StageSource.org.
PROMOTION
The American Repertory Theatre holds a soiree tonight to introduce two new works about itself: Marilyn Plotkins's The A.R.T. Reference Book: The Brustein Years and Tim Jackson's feature film Chaos and Order: On Making Theatre.
Plotkins will talk about her book and later sign copies, and area
musician and teacher Jackson's film, which is narrated by Tony-winning
ex-ART member Cherry Jones, will screen. The event starts at 6:30 p.m.
at the Loeb Drama Center, 64 Brattle Street in Harvard Square, and it's
free and open to the public.
[back to top]
TUESDAY 7
ROCK
The Phoenix/FNX
Best Music Poll celebration puts major-label indie rock on smash. Sure,
the Bank of America Pavilion is sold out - fans of the Killers,
Interpol, Louis XIV, and Robbers on High Street should stay plastered
to FNX 101.7 for the giveaways - but there are still a few tickets left
for the Lansdowne Street blowout with Lost City Angels, the Unseen, and
Sage Francis at Bill's Bar, the Raveonettes and the Futureheads at
Axis, and Kaiser Chiefs and the Dresden Dolls (just off tour with Nine
Inch Nails and toting a killer version of "War Pigs") at Avalon. (In
Music, Mikael Wood interviews the Killers' Brandon Flowers; Matt Ashare rounds up Louis and Robbers.) A $10 ticket gets you into all the Lansdowne Street clubs (space permitting, and they're 18-plus); call (617) 931-2000.
We can't imagine you'd want to do anything but go to our Best Music Poll party tonight, but if you must, consider that Phoenix
"Out" columnist Will Spitz's indie-punk band Slater are playing their
farewell gig at the Middle East, 472 Massachusetts Avenue in Central
Square, on a bill with the Sterns, AM Stereo, and Ketman. It's 18-plus
and $8; call (617) 864-EAST. Around the corner, the local hardcore
label FNS Records throws a riot with Clockwork Orange-obsessed
street punks Lower Class Brats plus Clit 45, For the Worse, Wednesday
Night Heroes, and Pure Impact. That's at the Massasoit Lodge of Elks,
55 Bishop Allen Drive. It's a 6 p.m., all-ages show and admission is
$8; call (617) 354-0404.
Also tonight: Spoon (Mikael Wood's interview
is in Music) are at the Paradise, 967 Commonwealth Avenue in Boston, but
for college-radio wastrels, the main draw is a rare visit from London's
the Clientele. It's an 8 p.m. show and tickets are $17; call (617)
562-8800. And the vicious Montreal group We Are Wolves, another band of
cryptic, spastic indie kids armed with spaced-out keyboards and drum
machines, are at Great Scott, 1222 Commonwealth Avenue in Allston; call
(617) 566-9014. BOOKS
The literary patron saint of record geeks (High Fidelity), English football punters (Fever Pitch), and Hugh Grant (About a Boy), Nick Hornby is the most adaptable former rock critic (for the New Yorker, briefly) in the screenwriting diaspora. His forthcoming A Long Way Down
(Penguin), about four would-be suicides who meet by chance on a London
rooftop, has already been optioned, and Johnny Depp is co-producing.
With How To Be Good in production, and movie versions of Fever Pitch
having been released on both shores (the recent Drew Barrymore/Red Sox
picture was more of an adaptation), Hornby may soon enjoy the
distinction of having written five novels that have been made into six
films. At 6 p.m., he'll read at the Coolidge Corner Theatre, 290
Harvard Street in Brookline. Tickets are $2 and available through
Brookline Booksmith; call (617) 566-6660.
[back to top]
WEDNESDAY 8
FOLK
The first (and only) time we saw the
Canadian chanteuse Jorane was at a festival in Québec City, where she
was all the rage - a cello-playing waif with Mélisande-like tresses
wailing away at her instrument and singing impassioned, Tori Amos-like
tunes informed by folk, classical, and rock and sung in English,
French, and her own "jabberwocky." Jorane opens for Charlotte Martin at
the Paradise Lounge, 969 Commonwealth Avenue in Boston, in an 18-plus,
9 p.m. show (doors at 8). Tickets are $10; call (617) 562-8814. JAZZ
Back on the 2004 release of his Marsalis Music debut, Ceremonial,
Miguel Zenón was already being hailed as a next big jazz thing for his
command of alto sax and Afro-Latin fusions. Even so, his new Jíbaro
(also on Marsalis) is a giant leap forward - an ambitious exploration of
the jíbaro folk music of his native Puerto Rico mined for its rich
melodies and rhythms and adapted to a modern jazz quartet. The music
straddles the thump of dance/roots music and abstract jazz - not unlike
Thelonious Monk's funky, brainy compositions. Zenón, with pianist Luis
Perdomo, bassist Hans Glawischnig, and drummer Henry Cole, is at
Scullers, in the DoubleTree Guest Suites Hotel, 400 Soldiers Field Road
at the Mass Pike. Call (617) 562-4111. ROCK
Los Angeles thrashers He Is Legend sneak a hint of Sunset Strip metal into their new deathpunk concept album I Am Hollywood
(Solid State), and their producer, Killswitch Engage's Adam D, makes
sure their emo choruses and thrash breakdowns flat-out rip. They're on
a bill with From First to Last, Emanuel, and Halifax at the
International Community Church, 557 Cambridge Street in Allston. Doors
are at 6; call (617) 782-8120.
Slummerville has a new nickname,
at least for the night: it's "Strummerville" to the Clash City rockers
over at the Abbey Lounge, where Far From Finished, the Pug Uglies,
Drago, and the 007 Hundred Club perform to benefit the Joe Strummer
Foundation for New Music. That's at 3 Beacon Street in Somerville; call
(617) 441-9631 Meanwhile, Willie Alexander, the Fighting Cocks' Jamie
Severens, and the Downbeat 5 are among the groups performing at Johnny
D's to benefit Right Turn, a non-profit substance-abuse-treatment
organization founded by Del Fuegos drummer Woody Geissmann. That's at
17 Holland Street in Somerville; call (617) 776-2004. And honorary
Boston power-pop vets the Figgs are back serving as Graham Parker's
backing band (and his opening band) downstairs at the Middle East, 480
Massachusetts Avenue in Central Square; call (617) 864-EAST. POPS
We already know that Keith Lockhart has
LeAnn Rimes on his speed dial. And this week, the Boston Pops continues
its country-crazy spring season with a visit from the Wayfaring
Strangers, Matt Glaser's sophisticated Americana big band, who essay
bluegrass, folk, and Western swing with twists of jazz and klezmer, and
has the added attraction of an A-list front line of female vocalists
including Boston alt-rock siren Tracy Bonham. The nine-piece group join
the Pops tonight through Friday at 8 p.m. at Symphony Hall, 301
Massachusetts Avenue in Boston, for the second half of a program that
also includes some Gershwin/Copland/Bernstein chestnuts and a tribute
to Artie Shaw. Tickets are $16 to $72; call (617) 266-1200. FILM
The Dickensian specter of child labor returns in Stolen Childhoods
(2005), an award-winning documentary about the exploitation of the
innocent in sweatshops around the world directed by Len Morris and
narrated by Meryl Streep. The New England Women's Initiative will
present a special preview screening of the film at 7:30 p.m. at the
Coolidge Corner Theatre, and proceeds will benefit CARE and UNICEF
projects on behalf of the 246 million children who live in virtual
slavery. The Coolidge is at 290 Harvard Street in Brookline; call (617)
734-2501.
[back to top]
THURSDAY 9
DANCE ROCK
He invented the Rapture, not to mention dance punk as all you skinny
little hipsters know it. His DFA remixes have rescued otherwise
unsalvageable singles by famous people like N.E.R.D. and Nine Inch
Nails. He made those two Canadian kids with the fake moustaches change
their name. But James Murphy saved his best tricks for LCD Soundsystem.
You want a recap? That'd be like trying to explain who James Brown is.
Suffice to say that though he may look as if he were losing his edge -
he's got the pudgy body type and the dad face of a middle-aged guy who
makes dance records - he learned how to kill people with a rock band by
touring as Six Finger Satellite's soundman, and he hasn't forgotten any
of that shit. Least of all crushing intensity and punishing volume.
He's put together a touring group that's one part Kraftwerk and two
parts Stooges (see "Movement," then multiply by an hour), and they're
going to destroy you. M.I.A. opens. Show of the year right here, kid:
18-plus, 7 p.m. at Avalon, 15 Lansdowne Street in Boston. Tickets are
$15; call (617) 262-2437. ROCK
The rockers bellow that Robby Roadsteamer
was robbed. Pavement fans still can't believe Furvis didn't win. Cynics
moan about "the Dresden Dolls effect." This, as Rumble winners past
might whisper to this year's champ, Reverend Glasseye, is what the
Rumble Curse feels like. But for now, the monocle'd man with the
magical medicine-show menagerie is on top of the world. Fresh off a
victory lap through the nation's heartland, the right Reverend makes
his first appearance since winning the Rumble upstairs at the Middle
East, 472 Massachusetts Avenue in Central Square. The Flesh, the
Valhalla Kittens, and the Self-Righteous Brothers open; call (617)
864-EAST. FILM
A lottery winner thinks her luck is on a
roll when she falls for a mystery hunk. But hubby proves a bit
suspicious after the wedding, and it looks as if he might be after her
money, if not her life. Richard Whorf's Love from a Stranger
(1947), the second adaptation of the Agatha Christie story, might not
break new cinematic ground, but it elicits its share of chills and
hisses. Starring John Hodiak and Sylvia Sidney, it screens for free at
the South Boston Branch Library, 646 Broadway; call (617) 268-0180.
Aspiring auteurs need all the encouragement they can get, and plenty is
available at the Boston Filmmakers' Expo, an all-day series of
workshops focusing on key issues like "Technology," "The Business of
Filmmaking," and "Marketing and Distribution." Shouldn't there be a
class on "How To Make a Good Film?" No doubt the many guests from the
industry will address that topic as well. The event takes place from
noon to 10 p.m. at the Filmmakers Collaborative, 397 Moody Street in
Waltham; call (781) 647-1102. ART
Not hard to figure how the local music scene regards Asa Brebner: during
his three-night record-release blowout in March, he was joined by local
rock legends (Dennis Brennan, Twinemen), roots-music guys (Session
Americana), blues disciples (Chilly Kurtz, the Scissormen),
first-generation Boston punks (Mickey Clean), and even Peter Wolf, who
presented him with his own Academy Award - a bottle of Jack Daniel's.
What's not so well known is that in addition to majoring in rock,
Brebner also minors in painting. This month, his gonzo creations will
be on display in "Sideshow: New Line Drawings by Asa Brebner," at the
Paradise Lounge, 969 Commonwealth Avenue in Boston, and he'll be
playing with the Family Jewels every Thursday night. It kicks off with
a reception at 7 p.m.; call (617) 562-8814. THEATER
Guantánamo: Honor Bound To Defend Freedom,
by British journalist Victoria Brittain and writer Gillian Slovo,
played to sold-out audiences in London before moving to New York last
summer. Based on spoken and written testimony, it "focuses on the
stories of five British detainees in Guantánamo Bay." The play will be
given readings tonight at 7:30 at the Community Church of Boston, 565
Boylston Street in Copley Square; on Friday June 10 at 6 p.m. at
Freedom House, 14 Crawford Street in Dorchester; and on Saturday June
11 at 7:30 p.m. at the Family YMCA, 820 Massachusetts Avenue in Central
Square. All the readings are free and will be followed by discussions.
(Sponsors include the ACLU, Cambridge Peace Commission, the Community
Church of Boston, and Freedom House.) Call (617) 482-3170 extension
314, or visit www.aclu-mass.org.
[back to top]
Back to the Events table of contents.
|
|
|
| |
|
