tuesday, march 16th
bacchus king
croquet
cathy cathodic
the ugly fucklings
@ the middle east upstairs
wednesday, march 17th
joanna newsom
@ the sanders theatre, harvard
wednesday, march 17th
henry rollins (spoken word)
@ the somerville theatre
thursday, march 18th
TOURFILTER DJ NIGHT!
when tourfilter's chris +
the almanac's brad (aka, me)
spin songs by bands coming to
the boston area sometime soon
9pm sharp @ river gods
thursday, march 18th
apollo sunshine
drug rug
@ the paradise
friday, march 19th
i, pistol
mascara
planetoid
forgetful jones
@ tt the bears
saturday, march 20th
the whitehaus family blastfest
needy visions, manners,
morgan shaker, avi jacob,
and many more
@ cambridge ymca theatre
saturday, march 20th
air
am
@ berklee performance center
sunday, march 21st
the clientele
field music
@ great scott
wednesday, march 24th
extraneous noise presents...
golden spurs
spirit kid
some say fire
the novel ideas
@ the middle east upstairs
thursday, march 25th
"thursday night alright!" with
the beatings
aloud
action camp
hello ninja
@ great scott
thursday, march 25th
the donnas
@ the paradise
friday, march 26th
eldridge rodriguez (the beatings)
ryan lee crosby
ted billings (age rings/hot protestants)
@ the somerville armory
friday, march 26th
basia bulat
marissa nadler
lady lamb the beekeeper
@ tt the bears
saturday, march 27th
your say party! we say die!
the new collisions
static of the gods (cd release)
@ tt the bears
saturday, march 27th
the big pink
a place to bury strangers
magic magic
@ the paradise
saturday, march 27th
spoon
deerhunter
@ the house of blues
sunday, march 28th
beach house
bachelorette
@ the paradise
monday, march 29th
the soft pack
nodzzz
beaters
@ great scott
tuesday, march 30th
shearwater
wye oak
hospital ships
@ tt the bears
tuesday, march 30th
manchester orchestra
the features
biffy clyro
o'brother
@ the paradise
wednesday, march 31st
japandroids
love is all
girlfriends
@ the middle east downstairs
wednesday, march 31st
miike snow
delorean
@ the paradise
wednesday, march 31st
a sunny day in glasgow
pants yell!
bearstronaut
@ great scott
thursday, april 1st
girls
dum dum girls
@ the paradise
friday, april 2nd
the xx
jj (late show only)
two shows @ the paradise
friday, april 2nd
drive-by truckers
lucero
langhorne slim
@ the house of blues
saturday, april 3rd
cassavettes
the grownup noise
kingsley flood (cd release)
spouse
@ the middle east upstairs
saturday, april 3rd
black rebel motorcycle club
alberta cross
@ the house of blues
saturday, april 3rd
nada surf
dawn landes & the hounds
@ the paradise
sunday, april 4th
serena maneesh
depreciation guild
black fortress of opium
@ tt the bears
tuesday, april 6th
wilco
@ the orpheum
tuesday, april 6th
ben fold & a piano
kate miller-heidke
@ the house of blues
wednesday, april 7th
florence & the machine
@ the paradise
wednesday, april 7th
rocky votolato
brooke waggoner
@ great scott
thursday, april 8th
faces on film
hands & knees
st. claire (cd release!)
mr. sister
@ tt the bears
thursday, april 8th
thom yorke + atoms for peace
flying lotus
@ the citi/wang theatre
friday, april 9th
midlake
@ the paradise
saturday, april 10th
xiu xiu
tune-yards
@ the middle east downstairs
saturday, april 10th
ted leo & the pharmacists
obits
screaming females
@ the paradise
saturday, april 10th
pissed jeans
confines
sqrm
@ great scott
sunday, april 11th
fanfarlo
lawrence arabia
robert francis
@ the paradise
monday, april 12th
the wedding present
play their 1989 lp 'bizarro'
with openers girl in a coma
@ the middle east downstairs
monday, april 12th
titus andronicus
the babies
@ great scott
thursday, april 15th
jakob dylan with guests
neko case + kelly hogan
@ the wilbur theatre
thursday, april 15th
red sparowes
doomriders
@ the middle east downstairs
friday, april 16th
guillermo sexo
freddie t and the people
(ex-june of 44 / hoover)
travels
ghost box orchestra
@ pa's lounge
friday, april 16th
have nots (vinyl release!)
the appreciation post
razors in the night
wicked whiskey
the swaggerin growlers
@ tt the bears
saturday, april 17th
kaki king
an horse
@ the middle east downstairs
saturday, april 17th
the morning benders
miniature tigers
@ tt the bears
sunday, april 18th
heavy trash (w/jon spencer)
the konks
the cobra-matics
@ tt the bears
sunday, april 18th
the thermals
past lives
@ the middle east downstairs
monday, april 19th
trans am
@ the middle east downstairs
tuesday, april 20th
owen pallett (aka final fantasy)
@ the ica boston
tuesday, april 20th
elvis costello & the sugarcanes
@ the orpheum
tuesday, april 20th
the low anthem
timber timbre
@ the paradise
tuesday, april 20th
quasi
let's wrestle
@ the middle east downstairs
wednesday, april 21st
the church
special 30th anniversary
acoustic career retrospective
@ the somerville armory
wednesday, april 21st through
wednesday, april 28th
the 8th annual independent
film festival of boston
@ various boston area theatres
including the somerville + brattle
thursday, april 22nd
the mary onettes
@ great scott
saturday, april 24th
graham parker with
the figgs
@ johnny d's, somerville
saturday, april 24th
los campesinos!
here we go magic
@ the paradise
sunday, april 25th
harlem
@ the great scott
monday, april 26th
echo + the bunneymen
hatcham social
@ the paradise
wednesday, april 28th
gogol bordello
devotchka
jesse malin
st. mark's social
@ the house of blues
thursday, april 29th
frightened rabbit
@ the paradise
friday, april 30th
the everyday visuals
the lights out
the flying machines
aloud
@ tt the bears
friday, april 30th
corinne bailey ray
@ the house of blues
friday, april 30th
the album leaf
sea wolf
@ the paradise
wednesday, april 28th
little boots
dragonette
fan death
@ the middle east downstairs
saturday, may 1st
white rabbits
here we go magic
@ the paradise
monday, may 3rd
yeasayer
sleigh bells
@ the paradise
tuesday, may 4th
gregory & the hawk
lady lamb the beekeeper
@ tt the bears
tuesday & wednesday
may 4th & 5th
public image ltd.
@ the royale (formerly the roxy)
wednesday & thursday
may 5th & 6th
jonsi (from sigur ros)
@ the house of blues
thursday, may 6th
shout out louds
@ the paradise
friday, may 7th
ok go
earl greyhound
robert francis
@ the paradise
saturday, may 8th
local natives
@ great scott
tuesday & wednesday
may 11th & 12th
dr. dog
deer tick
@ the paradise
thursday, may 13th
small brown bike
bridge and tunnel
your skull my closet
wallcreeper
@ great scott
saturday, may 22nd
killing joke
@ the paradise
tuesday, may 18th
spectrum (featuring sonic boom
from spacemen 3 + e.a.r.)
with the broken river prophet
@ the middle east upstairs
tuesday, may 25th
the smittens
allo darlin'
one happy island
hearts!attack
a smile and a ribbon
horowitz
@ the lizard lounge
wednesday, may 26th
reverend horton heat
cracker
miss derringer
@ the house of blues
friday, may 28th
mono
the twilight sad
@ the middle east downstairs
wednesday, june 2nd
kings of convenience
franklin for short
@ the paradise
wednesday, june 2nd
ryan bingham & the dead horses
@ tt the bears
wednesday & thursday
june 2nd & 3rd
the national
@ the house of blues
friday, june 4th
brian jonestown massacre
@ the paradise
friday, june 18th
reigning sound
movers & shakers
triplethick
@ tt the bears
saturday, june 19th
james taylor
carole king
@ the garden
sunday + monday
june 20th + 21st
isis
melvins
totimoshi
@ the paradise
thursday + saturday
august 19th + 21st
tom petty + the heartbreakers
my morning jacket
@ the comcast center
visit tourfilter for more shows
|

|
Tuesday, April 10, 2007
Coming: The Indie Film Fest of Boston
 One of my most favorite signs of early spring: The announcement of the full schedule for the annual Independent Film Festival of Boston. This year marks the fifth edition, and while I've attended every one so far, this is the first year I've purposefully left my social schedule open between April 25th and May 1st. No conflicts, no out-of-town trips, no rock shows to get in the way. The only choices I'll have to make are between films I want to see that happen to conflict with each other. Of the long list of this year's films, both narrative and documentary, here's one from each day that jumps out at me... Wednesday, April 25th, 2007The opening night film this year is director Hal Hartley's latest, Fay Grim, with Parker Posey in the title role. If the character's name sounds familiar to Hartley fans, it's because the movie is a sequel to his 1997 film Henry Fool, with Posey reprising her character. Co-star James Urbaniak, who will be appearing at the opening night screening, also reprises the role of her brother Simon Grim. And while Urbaniak's imdb listing is lengthy, I'm most psyched to see the man who voices Dr. Venture on the animated Venture Bros. series on Adult Swim, and a guy whose blog I read regularly. Thursday, April 26th, 2007The world premiere of On Broadway on the fest's second night will be the quintessential Boston-flavored affair, as the film couldn't be any more locally connected. It's set here, was filmed here, and most of the cast and crew are from here. The screening is sure to be a party, with director Dave McLaughlin and some of the cast in attendance, including former New Kid Joey McIntyre, Watertown native (and, yes, leather-pantsed vampire slayer) Eliza Dushku, and (cue " The Final Countdown") Arrested Development's low-voiced puppet-master, Will Arnett. No doubt much of the crew will be in the audience as well, and I'm sure tickets will disappear shortly. Hell, I'd stop reading this right now and go get yours if I were you. Friday, April 27th, 2007Friday night at the Brattle brings the documentary Punk's Not Dead, about the current and ever-evolving state of the over 30-year-old punk rock movement. Tons of bands and musicians in this thing, o'course: Fugazi, Dead Kennedys, Circle Jerks, X, Black Flag, NOFX... the list goes on and on. Director Susan Dynner will be in town for both screenings of the film, and I'm sure she'll have some stories to tell. Saturday, April 28th, 2007There is no film with a higher geek-factor this year than documentary The King of Kong, which means, of course, that I am compelled to attend. Seriously, an entire movie about the original world record-holder of the Donkey Kong high score, and the man who threatened to dethrone him 20 years later? Total arcade generation gold. (also screens on Friday night) Sunday, April 29th, 2007Sunday night I'll be at The Ten, directed by David Wain of The State comedy collective, and of the sadly departed Stella TV series. Apart from the Stella episodes and shorts, I believe this is the first film he's directed since 2001's Wet Hot American Summer, which had a pretty great cast... but this one might just top it: Paul Rudd, Famke Janssen, Winona Ryder, Justin Theroux, Liev Schreiber, Gretchen Mol, Rob Corddry, Janeane Garofalo, Adam Brody, and Jessica Alba. And that's not even a complete list of recognizable names. The film is a series of ten (duh) short stories centered around the ten commandments, and word is that someone from the cast will make it to one or both of the screenings (there's another the previous day as well). Monday, April 30th, 2007During the Silver Jews tour of Israel in the summer of 2006, filmmaker (and blogger) Michael Tully followed David Berman & company around to document the noteworthy trip, and the results are the film Silver Jew. As a longtime Joos fan who was very glad to see them play here in Boston that year, I'm really looking forward to this one, especially with director Tully in attendance at both screenings (the film also screens on Sunday night). The music geek in me won out over the baseball fan on this particular night of the fest, but I've gotta mention the documentary Rumbo a Las Grandes Ligas, which I'd be seeing if it wasn't for Silver Jew. It takes an in-depth look at baseball in the Dominican Republic, where for many kids it's more a religion than a pastime. Our own Big Papi, the Red Sox David Ortiz (who, as I type this, has just hit a couple homers), appears in the film , and both director Jared Goodman and producer Eran Lobel will be at the screening. And hey, the Sox are off that day, and will be back in town to play Oakland... wonder what the chances of Ortiz showing up at that screening are? Hmmmm... Tuesday, May 1st, 2007The film that will officially bring the 5th annual Independent Film Festival of Boston to a close is the world premiere of Brooklyn Rules from Rhode Island-born director Michael Corrente. He'll be at the final night screening of the movie, which stars Alec Baldwin, Freddie Prinze, Jr., Scott Caan, Jerry Ferrara (Entourage's Turtle), and Mena Suvari. And that hardly scratches the surface of this year's lineup, and as the fest gets closer I'll no doubt add a bunch more to my "gotta see" list (especially some of the "late night" screenings). Check the full schedule to make your own list, and get on those tickets (or better yet, a festival pass) before they're gone... every year too many film fans are shut out who wait until the last minute, so don't be one of 'em. A few IFFB links... Befriend the IFFBoston on MySpace.
For more on all the films, visit the excellent new Unofficial Guide to the 2007 IFFBoston. Apparently the 5th year anniversary gift for a film festival is your very first fansite.
Check out this little feature on Boston.TV about the premiere screening of the Mission Of Burma documentary that took place at last year's IFFBoston. Randomly, Amie and I can be spotted in the crowd for a micro-second, and it was good to see my old friend Dan (who used to sell me lots of records at Pure Pop in Burlington, Vermont) interviewed briefly, saying "I'm a huge Burma fan, absolutely".
A final footnote: Just when I thought the festival couldn't be improved, I discover that the Somerville Theater now serves beer on tap. Nothing better to wash down the ol' popcorn. Labels: movies
posted by brad at 8:31 PM | direct link | rss (1:2)
|
$blog_id=9120647969357160223;
$blog_mail="bsearles@gmail.com";
$file_name=$PHP_SELF;
global $blog_id, $blog_mail, $file_name;
include ("blogkomm/module/blogkomm_show_link.php");
?>

Sunday, December 10, 2006
Mp3s: David Lynch at the Brattle
 First, an admission, and I don't think too many people who aren't married to me know this: I was a total Twin Peaks geek. I don't just mean your average "love the show, bummed when it got cancelled" fan... there are no small amount of those. No, in 1991 I wasn't just a card-carrying member of "C.O.O.P." (Citizens Opposed to the Offing of Peaks)... I was, in fact, the Vermont chapter president. Seriously. I actually sat in a hallway of UVM's Billings Student Center and collected signatures, bundling them up to send to David Lynch's production company, who would send them on to the network. Go ahead, picture it and laugh a little inside, as if you aren't already. Now, keep in mind, this was back in the early 'net days, when fans communed through Usenet and email discussion lists, when we sat in front of monochrome monitors and sent amber-texted messages through what may have been an actual series of tubes. When Twin Peaks was put on hiatus and in danger of disappearing during its second season, C.O.O.P. chapters started popping up all over the country, with members petitioning, spreading the word, organizing fan-events and letter-writing campaigns. I ended up, by default, becoming my state's lead representative, and I wasn't alone... my fellow volunteers might even be out there reading this. Don't worry, I won't out any of you... you can do that yourself in the comments (I'm looking at you, Mr. Vice President). Weird thing was, all that effort actually paid off, at least for a little while. ABC listened and brought the show back for six more episodes, just enough to finish off that shaky second season, but no more. The follow-up-that-wasn't of a film, " Fire Walk With Me", answered none of the hanging questions from the series, most importantly: " How's Annie?!". Later that year, long after the final episode of Twin Peaks came and went, I received an unexpected envelope in my mailbox from the production company. Inside was a personalized thank-you note, written and signed by David Lynch himself, along with a crisp one dollar bill, as he said, "to buy yourself a damn fine cup of coffee." As a hardcore Lynch fan, one who started watching Twin Peaks thanks to a love of " Blue Velvet", and counted the more-recent " Wild at Heart" among his favorite films ever, there couldn't have been anything cooler. ( not cool: watching as that framed letter went up in fast-spreading flames just a few months later. An almost Lynchian image, but that's another story). While his output has varied a bit in the years since, I've never missed seeing his films as soon as they hit theaters, for Lynch succeeds far more often than he fails. With all his work, even if I think he comes up short creatively, the ideas and images still resonate for days afterwards. It had been five long years since his last theatrical release, the excellent " Mulholland Dr.", so when I found out that his newest film was coming to Cambridge's Brattle Theatre, I knew I'd be in line. What I didn't know was that tickets for the very first showing last Sunday, December 3rd, which would include a Q&A with the director himself, would sell out before I had a chance to get them. Even Craigslist searches proved fruitless, with far more fans looking for tickets than those with extras to offer. I'd given up long before Ashley dropped me an email a few hours before the screening to say she had two extras. Aces. It'll come as no surprise to David Lynch fans that " Inland Empire" is a hypnotic, twistedly confusing time-bender of a film. At three hours, it's pure, unfiltered Lynch, full of disturbing, dream-like imagery, role-switching, life-sized rabbits (one supposedly played by a masked Naomi Watts), and almost indecipherable symbolism. And as lengthy as it was, there wasn't a single moment that had my mind wandering, and it was tough deciding when to break for the Brattle bathroom. He mines his dependable stock of previous actors (Harry Dean Stanton, Justin Theroux, Diane Ladd, Grace Zabriskie), and adds some new ones (Jeremy Irons, a William H. Macy cameo), but it's Laura Dern's film. We haven't seen enough of her on screen lately, and she's just amazing in this. After we left the theater, we were trying to figure out what a marketing team's plot summary would possibly say, and Lynch's own tagline of "a woman in trouble" is really the only thing that works. And while Dern is easily the female lead, it's hard to say she's actually the woman in question.  Here's David Lynch's question & answer session with the Brattle audience after the credits rolled, as well as a pre-film intro that included some improvisational viola and a bit of poetry... Y'know, I still can't listen to Lynch speak without thinking of Gordon Cole. In response to a question about the long-awaited DVD release of the second season of Twin Peaks, he answered with a fairly definitive "spring" ( update: April 10th! Season 2 set artwork here). Finally, just a few cold months away. And as unoriginal and unanswerable a question it would have been, I was seriously tempted to ask "Sooo... how's Annie?"... A few related links... The YouTube-hosted trailer for "Inland Empire".
Also over on YouTube, watch Lynch (and a, um, live cow) hang out on a random Hollywood street corner promoting the film, and asking passers-by to "consider Laura Dern". For what exactly, only he knows. If he did indeed mean an award nomination, I only wish we lived in a world that would recognize her.
Salon has their own conversation with David Lynch about the film. If I still had that dollar bill that he sent me 15 years ago, it'd be fitting if I spent it on some of "David Lynch Signature Cup" brand coffee. Yes, the director has his own new line of organic brews, including espresso, house roast, and decaf french roast. He made it available for free at our screening, along with "Inland Empire" t-shirts and coasters. The DL coffee line's motto? " It's all in the beans... and I'm just full of beans." Sounds like something one of his characters might say, doesn't it?... Labels: movies
posted by brad at 3:01 PM | direct link | rss (1:2)
|
$blog_id=116523395806869418;
$blog_mail="bsearles@gmail.com";
$file_name=$PHP_SELF;
global $blog_id, $blog_mail, $file_name;
include ("blogkomm/module/blogkomm_show_link.php");
?>

|
|

sparklehorse
live at the paradise
in boston, mass.
on monday, february 26th, 2009

recent posts on the 'nac...
latest comments...
on the screen
on the nightstand
other boston-area music blogs
boston live show / event info
surf-worthy
|