2.5 Hatchets Be honest. Who thought they’d ever hear Robert DeNiro say, I’ve got nipples, Greg. Why don’t you milk me? The once mighty and powerful Raging Bull has thrown his hat into the comedy ring, and he’s not half bad. DeNiro takes on his third major comedic performance in the screwball, slapstick farce Meet […]
For nearly two decades, the Boston band Either/Orchestra has been churning out innovative, distinctive big band music. The 10-piece band prides itself on playing a broad range of material. At times, Either/Orchestra blows with the contemplation of John Coltrane, the eloquence of Duke Ellington and the spaced-out playfulness of Sun Ra. Still, Either/Orchestra has its […]
5 hatchets During the past few years film restorers have flung open the doors of movie studio vaults, rushing to save the fading, crumbling prints of forgotten movie classics. Too many old films are ruined by the damages of time. In 1996, Robert Harris and James Katz restored Alfred Hitchcock’s haunting masterpiece Vertigo to its […]
PHILADELPHIA – The second-hottest team in the Atlantic 10 took a five-game winning streak, a three-day old victory over the best of the West, and a chance to go over .500 into Tom Gola Arena Saturday evening. After the GW men’s basketball team fell back to Earth with a humbling 77-68 loss to La Salle, […]
Last July, the Boston music scene lost one its most creative and loved members. Mark Sandman died on stage of a heart attack in Italy during a show with his innovative band, Morphine. Morphine created a dark, dreamy, noir-ish sound out of an unusual trio of saxophone, drums and two-string slide bass. Lead singer and […]
From the bowels of 20th Century music comes a brilliant, anguished, humorous, grandiose-yet-understated recording from a talented Chicago-based quartet, Andrew Bird’s Bowl of Fire. Oh, the Grandeur! (Rykodisc) is a compelling follow-up to an equally intriguing 1997 debut album, Thrills. The group’s sound can be described with little hyperbole as a hybrid of jump blues, […]
Allison Anders and Kurt Voss, the writer/director team behind Sugar Town (October Films), want you to feel sorry for aging glam rockers of the 1980s. The once glorified performers with over-styled hair of the sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll generation have become the fortysomething forgotten performers with sob stories on VH1’s “Behind the Music.” […]
Portishead coined the pugnacious genre of “trip hop” with its 1994 release Dummy. Then the band left scores of angst-driven fans waiting nearly three years for the band’s next release, a solid self-titled album. With its latest release, Portishead shows how well its innovative sound translates into live performances on PNYC (Polygram), a live recording […]
The men from Unkle – hip-hop collage melder DJ Shadow and Mo’Wax label founder James Lavelle – have crafted a moody, textured soundtrack for a post-apocalyptic universe on Psyence Fiction (Mo’Wax/ London). Psyence Fiction lives up to the media hype surrounding its release. Many accredited guests bring their own polished styles to the deep, multi-layered […]
Jah heard this before – yet another “formative” Bob Marley reissue. No doubt, true Marley fans have encountered recordings such as “Corner Stone,” “Soul Shake Down,” “Go Tell It On the Mountain” and “Mrs. Brown.” This group of early Wailers songs appears on only a smattering of bargain albums that spotlight the formative years of […]