navigating you to underground, above-ground and all around awesome happenings in the greater boston area The T Extends Its Service Till 3am Guess what? The MBTA is now running service until 3am on Fridays and Saturdays. Really. This is already happening. We as a populace who are interested in the nightlife of Boston, Cambridge, Somerville (and beyond) need to vote with our feet on this. YOU, ME, WE need to ride the T late at night to support this initiative. The T tried late night service before, the Night Owl, back in the early to mid-2000s. But they botched it. Buses ran instead of trains, different stops were used in some cases. It was confusing. This is DIFFERENT. All of the T’s subway lines (including Green and Silver lines) and 15 bus routes (the 1, 15, 22, 23, 28, 32, 39, 57, 66, 71, 73, 77, 111, 116, and 117) will run later!!! Get the facts and plan accordingly. We must remember our complaints about not being able to get home (for <$25)
from that show in Central Sq because we live in JP, or not being able to close out that bar in Allston for that birthday blowout, because we live in Davis Sq. Etcetera, and so forth. Now, this T til 3am business is only a yearlong PILOT PROGRAM. It’s a test. An experiment. We are the guinea pigs and we must spin our stupid wheel. The city of Boston needs this. You and I, the residents of Greater Boston, need this. Our nightlife and its accompanying industry needs this. Our art, music and film culture needs this! The metal horde, the indie pop kids, the punks, the weirdos, the late-night workers, the artists, the geeks, the midnite movie freaks, all people of all ages NEED THIS. We can all get together on this. It must succeed, and to do so the late night T must be used by the masses. VOTE WITH YOUR FEET MY PEOPLE. - Dan Shea
UP IN THIS ISSUE ART BLAST................................................PAGE 2 100% FREE calendar for the stoked and the broke
FILM FLAM................................................PAGE 3 Bowie & Babies, Gang Fights, IFF Boston, Kids, and Three Amazing Directors In-Person
THE TARDY EAGLE..................................PAGE 6 Romance, Butts, Class War, Meow, Romance, Butts, Other things also...
BOSTON HASSLE BRIEF..........................PAGE 7 Buttercup, Peder Mannerfelt, Burnt Skull, Personnel, Native America and more
The Boston Compass is produced by the Boston Hassle Email us at ThatBostonCompass@gmail.com Visit us online at BostonHassle.com
New APP LOVE From ARTMORPHEUS
Magic, when you find kindred spirits in Boston who believe in making meaningful experiences accessible to everybody. Folks at NEW ART LOVE & Artmorpheus live to spread the holy word on all art-things happening in our city. They’ve got a great resource up their sleeve, soon in your pockets. ArtApp Boston+ a free download available for tablet/IOS & android phones, reveals what our art scene has to offer through a clean, interactive platform full of: exhibitions, events & locations. A marriage of tech and art. Type in artappboston. org on your phone’s browser or scan the QR code to see what’s up! - Nabeela Vega
Heart Of The Commonwealth—A Worcester/Lowell Pocket Planner
The Lowell Son, Central MA’s favorite one-page garbage herald, is teaming up with yours-trulies at the Compass to birth something totally awesome. Heart Of The Commonwealth is our Son-picked 2x2 microguide to righteous happenings in Worcester, Lowell, and the generally contentious trashcloud known as “Central Mass.” Within the meridional belly of our state lies a goshdang trea$ure chest of killer bands and DIY spaces oft overlooked by us more-easterners. Seek the Son and Tony’s tiny square in this rag to get yourself to a radical show in middle Mass real soon. You simply must. Plus Eab’s back. - Zach Peckham
Eldritch Blasphemy Finds A Home On The Web
Announcing PHOBOS MAGAZINE, a new ‘Weird Tales’-centric smallpress ‘zine which has reared it’s hoary head o’er the blasted heath to bellow “FEED ME YOUR BABIES!” (which translates roughly as “Send us strange stories, poems or artwork and we’ll give you money”). Pickled brainchild of Robert Corry, Luke St. Germaine, and Adam Guy Halterman, this pulp fiction venture is currently accepting submissions for it’s second issue: EMERGENCE. Interested in checking it out? Try Harvard Book Store or Trident Booksellers. If you’ve been hoarding strange fruit in the subterranean reaches of your hard drive, time to bring that fruit to market! PhobosMagazine.com - James Moore
New England Nod: Sister Providence Calls Your Name
It can take over an hour to get from one side of Boston to the other, but you can go EVEN FURTHER in an hour. Exotic PROVIDENCE, RI is only a train ride away! Take the commuter rail from South Station, Back Bay or Ruggles directly into the sprawling warehouse wonderland of artist spaces, show venues and more. Bring your bike! Bring your dog! Without having to switch trains or busses at all, you can focus on taking a nap, enjoying the New England scenery, making your shirt into a crop top, or listening to Cyndi Lauper’s greatest hits 1.5 times. Go! - Erica Sutherland
header art by al marantz
NIGHTLIFE SAVER:
Welcome OM: New Community-Run Yoga In Allston
The people who publish this very newspaper are starting a brand new Pay-What-You-Can Yoga program! It’s called WELCOME OM YOGA and the idea is making Yoga affordable and accessible to the community. All are welcome! New students and aspiring instructors are particularly encouraged to use this completely independent and grassroots movement to begin or further their practice. Learn to teach! Teach to learn! Practice to practice! Find peace of mind and hold your bod in high regard. Classes will take place in Allston beginning the second week of April. Email us to sign-up: ThatBostonCompass@gmail - Sam Potrykus
PILE HAS SEVEN MORE INCHES ON YOU After a month-long rock bender touring with Speedy Ortiz, Pile is back in Boston with two more killer track-narratives and a new 7” to prove it. Their latest, “Special Snowflakes” and “Mama’s Lipstick,” pick up where Pile left off with an effortless mixture of dynamic vocals and hard-core instrumentation. Coupling noise with sentiment, it’s an endless flow of lulling intensity as can only be done by Pile. The Matts, Kris and Rick grace the lower level of The Middle East club with their presence Friday 4/25— get a copy or forever mope in a pile of regret. Pile.Bandcamp.com
STON BUFU FEST ROCKS BO Do you like to rock out? Boston-based music label BUFU RECORDS knows you do--and that’s why they put together an awesome music fest 4/25 & 26 for all the true rebels. They’re packing over 20 of New England’s wildest noise makers and mellow groovers into the Cambridge Elks Lodge for a weekend of true aural, all-age delight. So practice your fist pumps and get down to clown—BUFU FEST is gonna rock you. Lineup includes Happy Jawbone Family Band, Juan Wauters, Krill, Guerilla Toss, B L A C K I E, LovechIld, Bugs & Rats, In Heat, Free Pizza, The Channels, Dylan Ewen & way more. - Chris Collins - Abby Ringiewicz
BUFU Records Unleashes The Channels Debut Cassette
“Do I like sleazy-dank-funk-bass grooves? Whattabout jangled, frenetic, repetitious 80s-style guitar riffs? Virtuosic tag-team drums? Smooth, lethargic, sometimes childlike vocal utterances?” I know you ask yourself these questions daily. We all do. And your reply? “Why yes!” Well then, my friend check out THE CHANNELS! Rippin’ it big time around Boston, this supergroup of sorts features 4 of the baddest cats in town. Their magnificent, eclectic debut Lo Fruit is a brilliant combination of ‘no wave aesthetics’ and 21st century musical awareness. It’s the answer to those hot burning questions. LoFruit.Bandcamp.com—slap that in yer google chromezone. - Luxardo
Onomatopoeic KLYAM Slams The Slime
Abbreves are all the rage these days, as your friends at KLYAM duly justify. Such is the acronymized call-sign of Kids Like You And Me, a blog, record label and organization of power-doers devoted wholly to the uppest crust of garage and punk stuff seeping from Boston’s stinky pores. Shout “KLYAM!” into the webvoid and ye shall be served a worthy helping of reviews, show listings, and slime-time what-have-yous in the style described above. Step further through the portal to wrap thine talons ‘round the Fat Creeps, Nice Guys, and Miami Doritos 7”s out on the eponymously named KLYAM Records. - Zach Peckham
Undercover Artist Offers A Glimpse Into The Pro-Life Movement
What is pro-life? Madeline Burrows (local activist, thespian, drummer/ singer in TOMBOY) went undercover to find out. Equal parts exciting and shocking, her one woman show MOM BABY GOD explores the rhetoric of anti-abortionism and its effects on young people, particularly women. Already touring around the US, this performance makes its way to the @DavisSquareTheatre 4/5-4/7. Boston Hassle is proud to co-sponsor this event! Get tickets now before they sell out! For more info check out MomBabyGod.com and an excerpt from a Q&A with Madeline in this month’s Art Blast. - Ari Shvartsman
WISE WORDS FROM THE BASEMENT
MAGGIE CAVALLO REFLECTS ON UNDERGROUND SPACES, LIVING ART AND BUILDING HISTORY
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12-1pm ARTIST TALK: Luisa Rabbia @Carpenter Center Room B-04 (Harvard U) 12:30 ARTIST TALK: SMFA Visiting Artist: Manjari Sharma @Alfond Auditorium (MFA)
7 cont. FLASH OF AN INSTANT @New Art Center (Newton) 4/5-5/9 Expand your mind, and reconsider what you think you already know with this group show curated by CAITIE MOORE and SARAH POLLMAN. The multi-media exhibit explores and questions photography’s ability to accurately document our experiences. On display are photographs by JOHN STECK JR.,ROBIN MYERS, MARK DORF, SAM A. HARRIS and SHARON HARPER. There are also kinetic sculptures by ANNE LILY that mark and change the space they occupy, hidden paintings by JOHN C. GONZALEZ and THOMAS WILLIS and an interactive installation by PABLO GNECCO. Get on the green line and get out there! www.NewArtCenter.org - Joe Difazio
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12pm LECTURE: David Bindman: Image of the Black in Western Art, Vol. 5, parts 1 & 2 @Harvard Thompson Room, Barker Center (Cambridge)
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12:30pm ARTIST TALK: SMFA Visiting Artist: Philip Taaffe @Alfond Auditoriuim (MFA) 5-8pm OPENING: Really @Harbor Gallery (Umass Boston) Now-5/1 5:30pm CURATORIAL TOUR: Final Thoughts on three exhibits on view now-4/6... Sonia Almeida: Forward/Play/Pause @Hayden Gallery (MIT List Center) Hourly Directional: Helen Mirra and Ernst Karel @Reference Gallery (MIT List Center) Hans Op de Beeck: Staging Silence (2) @Hayden Gallery (MIT List Center) 6-7pm ARTIST TALK: Diane Burko: Polar Investigations @Tufts Alumnae Lounge (Somerville) 6-8pm OPENING: Michael Gleason: Striving for Fine Furniture @Uforge Gallery (JP) 4/3-4/27
OPENING: Proof of Purchase @Samsøñ Gallery 7-9pm on view 4/4 11 am–8 pm | 4/5 11 am–6pm This year, Samsøñ will host SMFA’s super clever fundraising event PROOF OF PURCHASE. All works are postcard-sized (4x6) and priced at $50 a pop. The catch is that each piece is displayed anonymously. With submissions ranging from prominent artists to students to art enthusiasts, both local and global, you have no idea whose talent you’re viewing until you take it home. www.SMFA.edu/Proof-of-Purchase - Scout Hutchinson
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12:30 ARTIST TALK: SMFA Visiting Artist: Scott Mcarney @Alfond Auditorium (MFA) 5pm ARTIST TALK: Giuliana Bruno—Surface: Matters of Aesthetics, Materiality and Media @Harvard Carpenter Center B-04 7-9pm Watertown Makes! @Watertown Free Public Library (Watertown) FRESH MEDIA @Nave Gallery 4/4-4/11 Back for their annual exhibition, MassArt’s DYNAMIC MEDIA INSTITUTE has curated an interactive exhibition featuring students of design, engineering, computer programming and visual art. Proudly showcasing the works of 16 artists, this exhibition will include interactive and dynamic works ranging from new media art to aural soundscapes to data visualization. www.NaveGallery.org - Caitie Moore
5-8pm FLASH OF AN INSTANT @New Art Center (Newton) 7-9pm Decadent Banality: A Retrospective of the Local @Craft House (Somerville)
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5-7pm OPENING: Graphic Design Senior Show @Suffolk University Art Gallery 4/6-4/17 6-8pm ARTIST TALK: Mujeres: Iron Maidens @La Galeria at Villa Victoria Now-4/20 6-8pm OPENING: MFA Painting & Scuplture Thesis Exhibitions @808 Gallery (BU) 4/11-4/27 6-8pm OPENING: MFA Graphic Art Thesis @Boston University Art Gallery 4/11-4/27
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All Day Slow Art Day @ICA @MFA @MIT List Center @Worchester Art Museum 12-4pm SYMPOSIUM: 6th Annual SMFA Undergrad Art History @Alfond Auditorium (MFA) 1:30-3pm FLASH FORWARD FEST: Through a Lens Darkly @Remis Auditorium (MFA)
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(MFA)
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12-4pm SYMPOSIUM: 6th Annual SMFA Undergrad Art History @Alfond Auditorium 12:30-2pm INTONARUMORI: Christof Migone @SMFA also on 4/21
All Day LECTURE: Questionbridge: Black Males @Hutchin Center (Harvard U) 12-1pm ARTIST TALK: Halsey Rodman @Carpenter Center Room B-04 (Harvard U) 12:30 ARTIST TALK: SMFA Visiting Artist: Jane Marsching @Alfond Auditorium (MFA)
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6-7pm ARTIST TALK: Students Curate Students The Things We Carry: Objects in America @Courtyard Gallery (MFA) Now- 8/17
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7-9pm LECTURE: Yvonne Rainer: Where’s the passion? Where’s the politics? @ACT Cube (MIT)
FREE EVERY WEDNESDAY @MFA after 4pm FREE Admission 5:30-8:30pm ARTIST TOOLBOX CART Lecture Series @MFA 6-9pm Drawing in the Galleries @MFA 6, 6:30 & 7:15pm SPOTLIGHT TALK: Seeing Color @MFA 6:15pm GALLERY TOUR: Highlights of the Museum Collections Every Thursday 5-9pm FREE Admission @ICA Every Thursday 6pm FREE Public Tours @ICA
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2-7pm SYMPOSIUM: Public space? Lost & Found @ACT Cube (MIT) 7pm OPENING: Public Space? Lost & Found @ACT Cube (MIT) 7-9pm OPENING: Études: Kenji Nakayama @Fourth Wall Project 4/18-5/18
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GET SM’ART Join the Art Blast team and submit your listings to CompassArtBlast@gmail.com Visit the Art Blast online at BostonHassle.com/Art FREE EVERY MONTH First Thursday Opening Receptions @JP Galleries First Friday Opening Receptions @South End Galleries Third Thursday Receptions 6-9pm @Atlantic Works (East Boston) Free Art & Architecture Tours at @BPL (Copley) meet every day in the lobby at varying times Papercut Zine Library is open to the public every Friday-Monday from 2-7pm @Lorem Ipsum (Inman Sq)
2-7pm SYMPOSIUM: Public space? Lost & Found @ACT Cube (MIT)
HUM JOURNAL LAUNCH PARTY @369 Congress St, 7th Floor 7-11pm With a mission to not only share Boston artists and writers’ work but to document it for the future, HUM JOURNAL is a brand new publication coming out this month that we’ve been waiting for with bated breath! Did we mention HUM is made freeeee by it’s charitable curators ANNA LEOCHA and HOLLY COPELAND? Spend your 4/20 Eve listening to TREDICI BACCI christen this sick new Seaport spot and don’t stress how you’re gettin home as this is a Saturday night. THANKS MBTA! www.HUMboston.com - CEEK
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11am-5pm Newton Open Studios @Newton, MA
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12:15-1pm CURATORIAL TOUR: Seeing Glacial Time @Tufts Tisch Gallery Now-5/18 6:30-8:30 OPENING: Île de Ré - Île de Rêve @French Cultural Center of Boston (Back Bay) 4/2-4/29
12-8pm LECTURE: Tony Schwensen: An Alien’s History of the United States @Mobius (Central Sq) 5:30-8:30pm FIRST FRIDAYS @450 Harrison Ave (South End) 6-11pm GRAND OPENING: Tru Love @Sweetys (South End) 6-9pm OPENING: Fresh Media @Nave Gallery 4/4-4/11
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12:30 ARTIST TALK: SMFA Visiting Artist: William Villalongo @Alfond Auditorium (MFA) 6-9pm THIRD THURSDAYS: Photographic Practices: Group Show of Lens-based Artworks @Atlantic Works (East Boston) 4/17-5/3 7-9pm ARTIST TALK: Michael Gleason: Striving for Fine Furniture @Uforge Gallery (JP) 4/3-4/27
7-8pm ARTIST TALK: The Artist’s Voice: William Kentridge @ICA
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21st CENTURY COLLAGES @Outpost 186 (Inman Square) 2pm Enjoy the carefully crafted collages of two far-out cosmic beings who go by DONNA KOSSY and SETH KALLEN DEITCH. Author and zine maker Kossy is creator of KOOKS MAGAZINE and the online KOOKS MUSEUM where she archives stories of the bizarre and discredited. While Deitch is a local ‘parallel universe’ speculative fiction author and illustrator (amongst other things). ROB CHALFEN, director over @186 1/2 Hampshire St (Cambridge) is responsible for this exhibit he refers to as “a cabinet of retinal curiosities.” The 3 met in the 80’s Cambridge zine scene at SMALL PRESS ALLIANCE. www.Outpost186.com - CEEK
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Nothing is more valuable than free space. You probably have one of your own. A place that you and your close friends gravitate to; activate and are activated by. Care deeply for these spaces. Treat them as the sacred environments they are. Invest in them and the magic they unearth, and you will be paid back in full. The deepest way to experience art is to live it. Believe deeply in the mythology of artists and rituals that are occurring around you. Your communal story is likely more important to Art History than anything that’s been taught to you. Invest in each other, prioritize your projects and take your collaborations seriously. Your community is incredibly potent, and you will make change. Maybe in the city, or the world - but most importantly in each other. Everything will shift. When you experience changes in the structures you’ve built and depended on, just remember that your artistic existence is a collection of myths. Continue to take care of dedicated partners, learn to let go and identify ways to level-up your practice. Allow for growth by experimenting with new communities and collaborators, all of which will build off of the solid foundation you’ve set. Your effect is likely greater than a moment in time, your myth built off of the myths of others and having influence on the paths of those around you. Welcome your duty to develop our shared history, and dedicate yourself to making it a story worth retelling. - Maggie Cavallo find her at ZillaBoston.com SoundCloud.com/Magzilla on Twitter @Magzilla_
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9pm TREAT YO SELF: Alex Bleeker & The Freaks (mems of Real Estate, Woods), Creaturos, Emerald Comets // Glass art and 420 gear courtsey of THE HEMPEST and customized by HASSLE ARTISTS @Middlesex Lounge 21+ $8
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5-7pm OPENING: Fine Arts Senior Show @Suffolk University Art Gallery 6-8pm OPENING: Undergraduate Photography Now (Part 2) @530 Harrison Ave (South End) 4/25-5/10
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4-6pm OPENING: Members Exhibition: Intuition @Brickbottom Arts Association (Somerville) 4/24-5/25 4:30 LECTURE: Miranda July @BU Morse Auditorium
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7-9pm LECTURE: Elvan Zabunyan: Theressa Hak Kyng Cha, Translations of Memory @ACT Cube (MIT)
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12-1pm LECTURE: The Art of Peace @Lesley University (Porter Sq) 7-9pm FLASH FORWARD FEST: 20/20 Event with the Boreal Collective @Paris Room Petit (Downtown)
ongoing
Now-4/7 The Departed @The Distillery (South Boston) Now-4/12 Massachusetts @Gallery 263 (Cambridge) Figure Found @Brickbottom Arts Association (Somerville) Now-4/13 Viva Oaxaca! @Lesley University (Kenmore Sq) Brink v1 @Mills Gallery (South End) Now-4/19 Learning by Design Exhibition @Gallery 360 (Northeastern U) Now-4/25 It’s Virtue is Immense: A Pre-Vinylite Society Tribute to Script Lettering @Lot F Gallery (Downtown) Now- 4/26 William Kentridge: Universal Archive @Barbara Krakow Gallery (Back Bay) A Women’s Arms @Lincoln Arts Project (Waltham, MA) Jo Ann Rothschild: An Important Day @Hallspace (Dorchester) Now-4/27 Tanja Softić: Migrant Universe @Tufts University Art Gallery (Somerville) Now-5/9 Leonard Nimoy: Secret Selves @BU Sherman Gallery Direct/Indirect Small Works 2014 @Maud Morgan Arts (Cambridge) Now-5/11 List Projects: Pauline Curnier Jardin @Bakalar Gallery (MIT List Center) Now-5/18 David Taylor: Working the Line @David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies (Cambridge) Now-5/24 Peter Hill 360: Photographs by Meri Bond @Arnold Arboretum (JP) Now-5/30 Public Women, Private Lives @Boston Public Library (Copley) Bill Graham Presents @Gallery 360 (Northeastern U) Now-6/6 Exploring Color Through Paint and Memory @35 Channel Center (Fort Point) Now-6/8 Paris Night & Day: Photography Between the Wars @McMullen Museum (Boston College) Now-6/9 W-O-R-D-P-L-A-Y @Ponopticon Gallery (Kenmore) Now-8/22 City of Neighborhoods: The Changing Faces of Boston @Boston Public Library (Copley) Now-9/10 Kaleidoscope @Artists Group of Charlestown 4/9-4/25 Painting Area Exhibition @SMFA
Gallery, studio, and creative incubator, the CASABLANC is a cultural hub striving for progress and innovation in Boston. This space is the successor to the original BLANC GALLERY, which played host to some of the most vibrant and new art exhibitions of its time. Its premature closing, due to logistical reasons, was a disappointing blow to the local arts community. Only a few months later, in a sizable post-industrial warehouse, CasaBlanc emerged to carry on the torch. There is a common perception of Boston as being a city with great cultural potential, yet is still in a state of becoming. It is the persistent ambition of the agency’s founders, PAT DAGLE and CAIT DANAHY, to push creative boundaries and to be catalysts for artistic advancement in Boston. www.CasaBlanc.co - David Custodio
Q&A w/ MADELINE BURROWS of MOM BABY GOD 4/5-4/7 @Davis Square Theater
MADELINE BURROWS is a political activist and theatre artist. Her one-woman show MOM BABY GOD is about the anti-abortion movement and adolescence. Read the full interview at BostonHassle.com AS: What advice would you give other artists? MB: The idea that brilliant ideas happen to people is just a fiction and that they just happen in isolation, to one individual, is also a fiction. You need to have that back and forth with other artists in order to develop your ideas. That’s why that event you told me about, Cheap Seats, is so awesome – having that kind of a laboratory for people to just toss out their ideas and totally fail, but be in a supportive environment, or totally succeed. That discipline, those kinds of principles, that exist in the punk movement like: I’m just going to fuck it, put it out on stage, and see how it goes. Theatre needs that. www.MomBabyGod.com - Ari Shvartsman
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FEATURED FILM SERIES @B
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INDEPENDENT FILM FESTIVAL BOSTON 4/23 – 4/30, @Various IFFBoston.org Now in its 12th year, IFF Boston remains the area’s premier film fest, a chance for cineastes, filmmakers, and studio suits to hobnob. More important, however, is its i mpeccable lineup (check online for the soon to be released schedule), movies so new they haven’t even been marketed yet. It will likely
KIDS’ MOVIES NOT JUST FOR KIDS 4/19 - 4/23, @BRATTLE The folks over at the Brattle Theatre refuse to grow up, and thank God. For 20 years they’ve been screening Bugs Bunny marathons and to celebrate the double decade milestone the Harvard Square cineastes have hand picked their favorite childrens’ films. The series starts off with a screening of MY NEIGHBOR TOTORO, the heartfelt story of a pair of sisters encountering strange forest creatures from the Walt Disney of Japan, Hayao Miyazaki. Also included are Jim Henson classics THE DARK CRYSTAL and LABYRINTH, starring David Bowie in all his frizzy hairiness and a young Jennifer Connelly, a triple feature of THE MUPPET MOVIE, THE GREAT MUPPET CAPER, and THE MUPPETS TAKE MANHATTAN, as well as a special centennial celebration of the one of a kind animator John Hubley’s birthday and his work. The series then winds down with PEE-WEE’S BIG ADVENTURE and the modern masterpiece WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE.
BOSTON VIEWFINDER http://www.bostonviewfinder.com
STOM SOGO 4/16 at 8pm @MASSART MassArtFilmSociety.BlogSpot.com “Those are just mental eye candy that it taste sweet first, seizure second.” MassArt Film Society presents the films of Stom Sogo, a Japanese experimental filmmaker whose accidental death at the age of 37 has inspired a number of traveling programs organized by his US friends and admirers. This show is curated by Andy Lampert of Anthology Film Archives in NY and features such intensely colorful and dizzyingly flickering images that it’s impossible to look away even as one’s brain begins to sizzle in a visual experience closely resembling an epileptic seizure. Combining the constraints
Kurt Russell, doing his cheekiest John Wayne, must descend beneath Chinatown to rescue his friend’s fiancé. Carpenter and Russell made a trio of great genre pastiches in the 1980’s, and this wacky send-up of martial arts films is easily the silliest. Also screens on 4/5.
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of lo-fi video and Super 8mm in strange ways, Sogo has imbued what seems to be banal imagery with a tense energy that sustains momentum from start to finish. And for anyone who hasn’t yet, this show is a great opportunity to get acquainted with MassArt Film Society, a staple of the Boston experimental film scene, lovingly and faithfully crated by Saul Levine for many years. - Mariya Nikiforova
Donald Rumsfeld, our era’s most masterful manipulator (and accidental poet) of the fog of war, meets Errol Morris (appearing in-person tonight!), whose reputation rests on his relentless, ambiguity-rich attempts to cut through that fog.
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De Niro in one of his greatest roles—Travis Bickle, a disgusted taxi driver turned vigilante gunman. It’s hard to know whether or not Travis is a hero as he’s pretty disgusting himself, but the movie is a cinema masterpiece.
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DARKLY: BLACK PHOTOGRAPHERS AND THE EMERGENCE OF A PEOPLE (2013) @MFA DIR. THOMAS ALLEN HARRIS
The director and artist explores the long unexposed history of photography as a tool of social empowerment in the African American community through the lens of the family photo album.
The quintessentially French story of a troubled teenage boy. American viewers might not know the title refers to an expression meaning “to raise hell.” Incredibly fitting for an incredible film. HEARTS AND MINDS (1974) @BRATTLE DIR. PETER DAVIS
A veteran of the Romanian New Wave, Porumboiu visits Cambridge to discuss his latest — a film about making (and not making) a film, a la Truffaut, Fellini, and, especially, Hong Sang Soo.
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This lyrical tale about a loaded topic — the fallout of the Six-Day War for a Palestinian family — follows a young boy, separated from his father and alienated from his mother, who forges tenuous new bonds with a rebel militia. BASTARDS (2013) @HFA DIR. CLAIRE DENIS
(1988) @BRATTLE DIR. HAYAO MIYAZAKI
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Jim my Ste war t lob bie s ear nes tly ami dst ram pan t cyn icis m. See dem ocr acy in act ion , as 193 0s ide alis ts env isio ned it may be, one day wor king .
20 LADIES OF LEISURE (1930) @HFA Dir. Frank Capra
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Two young sisters move to the countryside with their father to be closer to their hospitalized mother and embark on magical adventures with the mystical creatures of the nearby forest — including a Catbus and the eponymous Totoro. LISTINGS NOTE Below is the theater abbreviation key: Harvard Film Archive - HFA Kendall Square Cinema - KENDALL Museum of Fine Arts - MFA
A lesser-known gem from a director that embodied the American Dream. An aspiring artist, backed by his affluent family, meets a party girl (Barbara Stanwyck’s breakout role). They fall in love and his family tries to drive them apart. Classic. MUPPET MOVIE (1978) @BRATTLE DIR. JAMES FRAWLEY Kermit the Frog leaves his swamp-crooning days behind him to pursue his Hollywood dreams on a cross-country trek. Along the way, he recruits a motley crew of Muppet mayhem while dodging the clutches of a frog hungry, fast-food tycoon. THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS (1991) DIR. JONATHAN DEMME @SOMERVILLE
WHEN I SAW YOU (2013) @MFA DIR. ANNEMARIE JACIR
Claire Denis joins her fans in-person tonight when the HFA screens her latest film. A noir of sorts, lauded as a Parisian counterpart to Chinatown and Taxi Driver, it provides a tour through select shadows cast within the City of Light.
n Terry Gilliam’s Orwell-via-Pytho cyberpunk masterpiece is alternately dazzling in its and swooning dream sequences , soul-crushing in its nightmarish bureaucratic future.
(1939) Dir. FRANK CAPRA
Maybe the most widely seen European film ever, Fellini’s classic provokes many interpretations. It’s a love-letter to Rome, a melancholic character study, a condemnation of “café culture” in postwar Italy, and more. However you slice it, it’s damn beautiful.
19 MY NEIGHBOR TOTORO
(1985) Dir. TERRY GILLIA
@HFA 4/21
@BRATTLE DIR. FEDERICO FELLINI
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TO WASHINGTON
13 LA DOLCE VITA (1960)
Reviled by conservatives, adored by Michael Moore, this political documentary about the Vietnam War still resonates due to striking humanism and insightful interviews from the men who guided the conflict.
@ B R AT T L E
MR. SMITH GOES
WHEN EVENING FALLS ON BUCHAREST OR METABOLISM (2013) @HFA DIR. CORNELIU PORUMBOIU
THE 400 BLOWS (1959) @COOLIDGE DIR. FRANCOIS TRUFFAUT
BR AZ IL
Screening 4/18 & 4/19 @Coolidge @Midnite. More intriguing to this desperate seeker of new film experiences is 1976’s THE DEVIL’S EXPRESS (aka GANG WARS) also screening @Coolidge @ Midnite on 4/11 & 4/12. Directed by Barry Rosen (um…the producer of QUARTERBACK PRINCESS), it’s a low budget, martial arts/blaxploitation/ horror film hybrid that’s actually supposed to be pretty fun as it showcases its decline of western civilization New York-style surroundings. Demons in the subway (ahead of GHOSTBUSTERS II by a decade plus)! Also, the top billed actor’s name is Warhawk Tanzania. So, there’s that! Haven’t seen it! But how could I miss something so relentlessly Psychotronic?! How could you? - Dan Shea
@SOMERVILLE DIR. MARTIN SCORSESE
DR. STRANGELOVE OR: HOW I LEARNED TO STOP WORRYING AND LOVE THE BOMB (1964) @SOMERVILLE Dir. Stanley Kubrick Stanley Kubrick brilliantly made nuclear annihilation into something to be laughed about, concluding with a cowboy riding a bomb to his death to “save” his country. Need I say more?
PSYCHOTRONIC MOVIES IN OUR ZONE 1970s NYC. That time/place has a famous overarching film aesthetic that practically screams: gritty, neon, a nasty Times Square, dirty subways, crime, persons of the night, and even grindhouse films themselves (“Going meta!”). Many movies, grindhouse variety or not, have merged in the collective consciousness to create these tropes and set pieces that now get trotted out whenever a period piece calls for them. CAN YOU DIG IT? Walter Hill’s wild and almost cartoonish THE WARRIORS is right up there in influence on this stinking pile of ideas. The 1979 film is a perennial favorite on the midnight circuit, telling the story of a pan-NYC gang unification summit that breaks down. Like real bad. A colorful classic of gang movie cinema strewn across the MTA! If you haven’t seen it, or haven’t seen it on the big screen, then GET ON IT.
11 TAXI DRIVER (1976)
THE UNKNOWN KNOWN (2013) @COOLIDGE DIR. ERROL MORRIS
- Pablo Torroella
be your earliest chance to see a good chunk of the bubbling-under art-house fare that probably won’t come through town again until fall (if at all). Case in point: FAT, the debut feature from Boston’s Mark Phinney. Featuring a slew of Boston folks in supporting roles and a soundtrack full of Boston bands, FAT made a splash at Toronto and now comes home. - Jon Meyer
BIG TROUBLE IN LITTLE CHINA (1986) @COOLIDGE DIR. JOHN CARPENTER
Easily the most balls-out crazy movie ever to sweep the Oscars – and honestly, one of the best. Admit it: Hannibal and his friends forever changed the way you interact with lotion, Chianti, and your friends who sew. Hello, Clarice!
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PEE-WEE’S BIG ADVENTURE (1985) @BRATTLE DIR. TIM BURTON The debut of both Peewee Herman and Tim Burton is a sugar rush of a movie, as P.W. careens from one hysterical set piece to another in search of his bike. It’s like a sweater someone keeps knitting... and knitting...
APRIL NEW RELEASES 4/4 - THE UNKNOWN KNOWN (2013) Dir. Errol Morris @COOLIDGE 4/4 - THE MISSING PICTURE (2013) @KENDALL Dir. Rithy Panh 4/11 - A BIRDER’S GUIDE TO EVERYTHING (2013) Dir. Rob Meyer @COOLIDGE 4/11 - WATERMARK (2013) Dir. Edward Burtynsky & Jennifer Baichwal @KENDALL 4/18 - THE GALAPAGOS AFFAIR: SATAN CAME TO EDEN (2013) Dir. Daniel Geller & Dayna Goldfine @KENDALL
CINEMA ROLL
Join the Film Flam team and submit your listings to BostonHassleFilm@gmail.com Visit Film Flam online at 3 BostonHassle.com/Film
Tuesday 4/1 Listen, fool. Stop by @Deep Thoughts’ 1 year anniversary party at some point today and celebrate this hub of strange sounds’ first year in JP. May they have many more and may you expand your various obsessive collections. With entertainment on the hour, every hour, plus a store wide sale, there’s a good chance you will get lost in fun for an extended period of time. 11am-11pm All Ages Free Hear some funny mo fo’s spewin’ sass and talkin’ trash at the Whitehaus Residency Comedy Night @Midway Cafe this fine evening. Hear from known local comedy thugs Angela Sawyer, Guitler Raphael, Kofi Thomas, Jesus Vio, Jasmine Taibi and more 8pm 21+ $ome cost Jazz and Contemporary Improvisation Honors Ensembles @Jordan Hall at NEC 8pm All Ages Free And out in Worcester there’s a bit of a pop music meltdown going on with Great Valley, Cult & Leper, Granny Frost, and Giseli Vasconcelos @Distant Castle 9pm All Ages $5 donation Wednesday 4/2 OK so here’s something really great that’s happening: 3 extremely well-thought out-pop ensembles are playing a concert together in Central Square. Cult & Leper will transport you back in time with their synths, Great Valley will send you into the future high on reverb, and Tredici Bacci will send you straight to a hot date in Italia. Thanks to pRIMORDIAL sOUNDS for always taking us places @Middlesex 10pm 21+ $3 Illegally Blind has a night of noisy indie rock featuring Carsick Cars and White+ all the way from Beijing alongside local rippers Young Adults and Lady Bones. Sick. @Middle East (up) 8pm 18+ $10 Wallop of a Worcester show: Screaming Females, GNaRDS, Fat Creeps, and Secret Lover @The Firehouse. Need I say more?? 8pm All Ages $8 Thursday 4/3 Philly rad noise head Unguent is coming to town with Oakland’s Cube. They’ll be joined by infamous locals Andrea Pensado and Double Awake. There will be a series of shredding electronic pulses throughout the evening, good shit @Deep Thoughts 9pm All Ages Donate Know some good punk jams? Do you wanna? Either way DJ Dan Wars Presents That’s Cool That’s Trash tonight @Sally O’Briens (Union Sq) and all scumbags are welcome 11pm 21+ Free For some truly out there performance catch the seasoned pair of poet Susan Howe and musician David Grubbs deliver their latest collaboration WOODSLIPPERCOUNTERCLATTER @Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum 7pm All Ages $15/$5 student Avant-Indie group Bent Knee is @Middle East (up) w/ Mals Totem, Beauchene Skulls, Connector 8pm 18+ $8adv/$10dos Or visit the NH Seacoast why don’t you? Our very own Lady Bones with be throwing down with New Legs (NH) and Me In Capris (NH) @Red Door (Portsmouth NH) 8pm 21+ $5 How about some JAZZ!? The Next Generation is @Brown Hall at NEC 8pm All Ages Free Friday 4/4 The coolest show tonight is happening just below our already below-the-radar radar - it’s Tani, Couples Counseling, Colby Nathan, The Rising Sun, Markhor, and Rainbow Wizrd but that’s all we know so don’t ask We also have The New Limits, The Screw-Ups, The Allstonians, The Copacetics and DJ Nate EaseUp of Rude Sounds @ Midway Cafe 8pm 21+ $6 And The Brain Trust presents Goldfish and Drunken Doja Monkey @Middle East (down) 8pm 18+ $15adv/$17door Saturday 4/5 Boston HASSLE NIGHT is thrilled to have the DOT WIGGIN BAND, the new project of insanely radical and long-dormant lead singer of New Hampshire’s own THE SHAGGS, in town! Paired nicely with a ferocious punk fit thrown by Providence’s IN HEAT (BUFU Recs) this promises to be a legendary live music experience for you to take in. So do it. @Lilypad 10pm All Ages $5-10 Sliding Scale And for something a little different check out MOM BABY GOD-a one woman show exploring the rhetoric of anti-abortionism and its effects on young people by Madeline from Tomboy @Davis Square Theatre 8:30pm $13Adv/$18dos HEAVY MEADOW: Souped up grind, hardcore, and black metal show out in W/ Mass w/ Lunglust, Autolatry, Eaten and Mold Spores @ The Heartland (Hadley) 8pm All Ages $5 outdoors Equally brutal but free from the confines of typical rock instrumentation, find all the harsh noise and punishing electronics you can handle at SPRING REVERBERATIONS w/ Hot Guts, Max Noi Mach, Nearest, Brown Recluse, Alpha and Soft Target. Brought to you in collaboration with Annihilvs, Power Electronix, Existence Establishment, and Force Of Nature. Thanks dudes @ Dusk (Providence) 9pm 21+ $8 And for the 4th New England state worth visiting this evening we give you, Dover NH. Psych pop/rock group People Skills are having an album release @Fury’s Publick House w/Pat & The Hats. How about that? 9pm 21+ $5 Sunday 4/6 Eye Design has a hell of a gig with Cincinnati gnarly TWEENS, punk brats White Pages, moody vibe pushers Fat Creeps, and Rye Pines to mellow you out @O’Brien’s 9pm 21+ $8 Psychotically sick show in JP tonight too, what with DC’s PRIESTS and Good Throb (UK) in town. Local freak punks No Sir, I Won’t, Leather Daddy, and Bad Idea will be the support bands but don’t be surprised if they’re some of the destructive ones too @Spaced Mountain 7pm All Ages Donate The totally tight and undefeated indie pop team Bent Shapes takes on Orca Orca, celebrating the release of their 7”, Abadabad, and Catenine all in one night! Seems like a fair and anticipated matchup. But hey, it’s not a competition. Or is it?? @Great Scott 9pm 18+ $9 Zakir Hussain and Masters of Percussion are @Boston Symphony Hall tonight. Legendary shit. “Most nastiest tabla player ever” -Toby Aronson (NNA) 7pm All Ages MOM BABY GOD continues @Davis Square Theatre 2pm $13Adv/$18dos And out in wacky Western Mass see New England psychedelic improv/folk dudes Chalaque and Dredd Foole RIP it up @Feeding Tube Records 9pm All Ages Donate.
TWEENS @ O’Bri
ens 4/6
4
Monday 4/7 Gilmore Tamny expresses herself @Weirdo Records for The Series 8pm All Ages $5 requested donation After The Series head in one direction and find a bumpin rock show thanks to Fast Apple w/ Springsteen, Grave Ideas, Big Buck Hunter, and Julius Earthling @Charlie’s 9pm 18+ $5 Head in the other direction and you will come upon Rad Castle night @Zuzu. Another staple of the Monday night rock show scene they have another solid show for you tonight with Bellwire and Future Spa. Check it out, it’s free 10pm 21+ Free Elsewhere in the building you will find 3 of the sickest out of towners plus one local who can totally hang with the caliber of TIGHT pop to be delivered this evenin- Mac DeMarco (CAN), Juan Wauters (NYC), Amen Dunes (NYC) and Vundabar are @Middle East (down) 8pm 18+ $13adv / $15dos Plus learn something for once and scope Madeline from Tomboy’s one woman show: MOM BABY GOD @Davis Square Theatre 8pm $13Adv/$18door
Tuesday 4/8 Tonight RadioBDC presents the pride of Cleveland indie-pop Cloud Nothings and the pride of Cleveland dark, surfy post-punk Pleasure Leftists w/ DJ Carbo @ Brighton Music Hall 7pm 18+ $18.50 Wednesday 4/9 Porter Ricks, the duo of dark ambient pioneer/multimedia artist Thomas Köner and sound engineer Andy Mellwig, are known for having helped define the sound of techno/dub techno. Let these veterans of sound define your night, courtesy of NonEvent @Goethe-Institute 8pm All Ages $18 or $15 members and students Thursday 4/10 Bodies Of Water shows is proud to bring world-renowned North East drummer Kid Millions’ project Man Forever back to town to play with up and coming weird-wave crew The Channels, a new duo featuring Pete Negroponte (Guerilla Toss) and Fat Bobby (Oneida), and our own (via Binghamton) beloved Dog @Fine Dit Food Court (Allston) 9pm All Ages Don’t hate, donate Meanwhile up in New Hampshire scope Lisa/Liza (Portland, ME), The Dying Falls, and Ben Troy (Dover) @Red Door (Portsmouth) 8pm 21+ $5 Friday 4/11 It’s Friday night in the big city so get out and have some fun at a concert. You’ve got plenty of choices. Down in JP get in for a free jazz freakout of mind-bending proportions. BOW Shows bring ya deep mystical sax sounds from Italy’s Jooklo Duo along with Western Mass guitar noise-smith Bill Nace. Manchester UK garage groan blueser Chalaque with members of Albany’s Burnt Hills. Moshi Moshi I Am the Decider, and deep sax head Andy Allen complete this sweet bill @Deep Thoughts 9pm All Ages $5-10 sliding scale For experimental electronics, get up in Somerville to catch dark and stormy synth meister Vehement Cares, Worcester’s Abdul Sherzai, lush chopped drones of Gorgeous Suntan, and mellow female vocalist Sri @Washington St. Arts Center 8pm All Ages Donate Hulking Midwest riffers Protomartyr spin heavy rock grooves with Spray Paint @Democracy Center 6pm All Ages Free Somewhere nearby, dig some feline tomb feels with new experimental show series PVSYCRVPT. Upstate New York female three-piece Palberta bring the dark punk funk, with NYC performance duo Autumn Ahn, new psyched out duo Grumpy Ghost (mem. Rabbit Rabbit and Cruise Whisp,) itinerant noisemaker Nathan Ventura, minimal psych pop crooner Liana’s Fire, and Jamie McLaughlin @LRT 9pm All Ages Donate And who could forget about Record Hospital Fest, a major two-day celebration from WHRB 93.5fm late night institution for subterranean sounds. Featuring Golden Pelicans, Guerilla Toss, Tinsel Teeth, and much much more @Democarcy Center. Check in with BostonHassle.com for more details as they become available. Saturday 4/12 It’s easy to show hop with the T running till 3:30am and so many rocking shows to go to. Tonight is no exception. Eye Design provides a soulful folk pop soirée with As the Sparrow, Minimus the Poet, Summer of Aden, and Grumpus @Plough & Stars 10pm 21+ $5 If the term ‘indie rock’ don’t ruffle your feathers, you’ll surely dig supercharged power-poppers Varsity Drag, reverb psych groungers Suicide Dolls (CT), dreamy post-punk groovers Bedroom Eyes, and The Atom Age (CA) @O’Brien’s 8pm 21+ $8 Check in at Violent Party vol. 57 and get your face smashed in by Blazing Eye (CA), Anasazi (nyc), new sick band Animal Mother and Sadist @The Labyrinth 7pm All Ages $7 Opensound keeps Somerville weird with Western, MA brain tickler Ben Hersey, free noise ensemble Egg, Eggs, JP warped record looper Foom and Young and Restless @Third Life Studios 7:45pm All ages $8 Earlybird hardcore thrasher in JP with Risk, Class Struggle, Neighborhood Shit, Insidious, Reason To Fight @Midway Cafe 4pm All Ages $7 Meet your friendly neighbors in nearby Worcester, where some free psych jazz dabblers Mothguts (NJ) pound minds into a tasty mush with speed demons Dot Gov and jazz slop-semble Language of the Universe @Distant Castle 8pm All Ages Donate And Record Hospital Fest continues into Day 2 with White Suns and many more sick bands @Democracy Center. Sunday 4/13 Local freak Nick Neuburg (Dog Suicide/Aykroyd/Cactus Truck) is known for bending ears and sounds in very strange ways. From noise to jazz to rock and everywhere in between, dude’s got it. Catch his Senior Recital at NEC: Particulars (his newest project) and Social Ladder (solo act) @Pierce Hall, NEC 8pm All Ages Free Get into a wicked mood at that most holy JP haus - Baltimore duo Sick Din spin ominous synth beats with melodious chant moans, Western Mass performer Frida Precariat gets all grumbly and clattering, DJ Day Glow plays deep cuts from your middle school dance with a tasty 21th century spin, and Ballpit keeps things playful and fun @Haus that CD-r’s Built 9pm All ages Donate Get truly heavy with seminal UK industrial metal pioneers Godflesh back to remind Boston of the sleazy beauty in drilling riffs and crushing clattering scuzz (like we needed a reminder). They’ll be tearing apart ears like so much shrapnel @Royale 9pm 18+ $25 The producer/DJ who once made ‘Ghostwriter’ is still alive and kicking the smooth, hip-hop-laced electronica; The Brain Trust hosts RJD2 @ Paradise 7pm 18+ $18 Monday 4/14 Start of the week is always a wild night for shows, so get used to it. Over in Harvard Square the promoters at Eye Design give Fast Apple the night off from their residency @Charlies Kitchen with San Francisco fuzzballs Couches with ecstatic post hardcore brawlers Sneeze, Grass is Green, and the garage slop goodness of Idiot Genes 9pm 21+ $5 On Mass Ave The Series @Weirdo Records keeps you guessing with Brad San Martin presenting his piece “Oh James!” 8pm All Ages $5 requested donation Then mosey further down the road to catch Somerville’s Stephen Konrads & The Eternals rock smooth and savory with Spenser Gralla of psych-pop outfit CreaturoS @ Zuzu 10pm 21+ Free Across the Charles, Allston swarms with melodious pop punk with Chicago’s YEESH, Kiss Concert, and Cult Fluorescent @O’Brien’s 9pm 21+ $8 Remember the Cardigans? Of course you do, so take a nostalgic stroll with Nina Persson with ethereal pop princess White Prism and local DJ Carbo @Brighton Music Hall 7pm 18+ $25 Tuesday 4/15 If you wanna know about that true underground ‘noise rock,’ best get wise to the good vibes in the true heart of Allston. Just sit back and let Skimask, Buttercup, Lair, and OJ show you a damn fine time @A spot 9pm All Ages Donate Metal heads of Violent Party deliver an upcut with vol. 58: blistering Nordic hardcore muts Infernöh (Malmo, Sweden) rattle skulls with raw punks Nomad (NYC), Green Beret, Aspects of War, and Zipperhead. Plus punk DJs and free pool all night @Ramrod 9pm 21+ $10 Avant-garde enthusiasts Non-Event pair cafe with mind-prickling music. Veteran improvisational artists Michael Rosenstein (amplified objects + processed electronics) and Howard Martin (sax, clarinet, trumpet) combine forces for a far out ride @Cafe Fixe 8pm All Ages $5 Or enjoy some kick ass punk tunes via KAPOW! with DJs Kathleen and Tyler @River Gods 9pm 21+ Free Wednesday 4/16 Now here’s something special. Those heavy rock lovers of Fast Apple branch out from their monday night residency into midweek territory, and we like it. It’s a night for the punks with lighting fast Ancient Filth, New Coke (FL), Sandratz (SF), and White Pages @Charlies 10:30pm 18+ $5 If you don’t know ‘bout the Coathangers, you best get googling. This all-female garage rock 4-piece has more headspinning riffs and
raw attitude than you can probably handle - but give it a shot. With CA garage pop trash Audacity (California) @Great Scott 9pm 18+ $10 Down the block @O’Brien’s get into a slower, psychedelic trip with heavy Providence groovers Queen Elephantine (RI), with Modern Voice and Glacier 8pm 21+ $8 Seminal experimental musician (and pf of Charalambides) Mr. Tom Carter conjures intricately textured terrains that meander through folk, ambient, motorik and far beyond. He’s joined by rippling noise freak Kyle Clyde (NOLA) and local groove fiends Lair gettin’ all rowdy @Deep Thoughts 9pm All Ages Donations Thursday 4/17 If you revel in blasting power electronics and head-crushing harsh noise mixed with dark demonic forces, look into what Existence Establishment has cooking. Tonight in Allston, they bring out the ghouls: Crowhurst (CA), Xiphoid Dementia, Uncle Frank, MPHIAT, and more @TBD $5 Singer songwriter and pianist White Hinterland brings a refreshing pastoral breeze, with soothing, intricate folk-pop of S Carey (WI) @ Great Scott 9pm 18+ $12 Those perennial purveyors of hip-hop Leedz Edutainment bagged a good one: living legend KRS-One gives some lectures in proper rapping @ Middle East (down) 8pm 18+ $20 adv/ $25 dos A couple classical concerts for the high minded tonight. For those in the mood for a throwback, catch A Far Cry w/ pianist Phyllis Chen performing pieces by Ives, Mendelssohn, Phyllis Chen, Mozart, & Ingram Marshall @Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum 7pm All Ages $15/$5 student For those more inclined to the cosmic, experience the astral rays emanating from the Sun Ra Centennial Concert @Jordan Hall, New England Conservatory 8pm All Ages Free And up in Portsmouth, NH, get on that deep psych rock trip with Gorgon (Burlington VT), Teacher Mother Secret Lover (Boston), more TBA @The Red Door 8pm 21+ $5
Tuesday 4/22 Tuesday night is pretty reliably the second night of the week. Unless of course it follows one of those Monday-only holidays. In those cases it is the first. That doesn’t happen this week but I thought I’d point it out for next time. OK. Cool. On this second night ya better not miss a top-notch punk rock show w/ Casanovas In Heat, Criminal Code, Sunshine Ward, and Stranger @O’Brien’s 9pm 21+ $8 If good ol’ American punk rock ain’t your game then head instead a block over to psych thyself on the electro-expressive prowesses of Avey Tare’s Slasher Flicks, Dustin Wong, and DJ Carbo @Brighton Music Hall 7pm All Ages $18.50 Meanwhile Sick Din (Baltimore), Frida Precariat (Western MA), DJ Day Glow, and BALLPIT get slick @Y Theatre in Central Square 7pm All Ages $10 Go long for Riff Raff and Grandtheft @Paradise 6pm All Ages $20.
- Brian Connolly
Wednesday 4/23 This Wednesday’s gonna be weird. Embrace it before you deface it. We for one cry awesome at the prospect of absorbing the deep acoustic explorations of Endguys (Matt Samolis and Steve Norton) aside works in the visible light spectrum curated by Tom Pisek @Mobius 8pm All Ages Donation $ituation Over in JP meet up with Antti Tolvi (all the way from friggin’ Finland!) to be taken on a portable organ journey through time and space with more acts TBA @Whitehouse.
Blevin Blectum @
Lilypad 4/18 - Nicole Deponte
Friday 4/18 As we embark on yet another weekend stacked with awesome shows of all colors, take a just a moment to reflect on how awesome this city truly is, and all that it gives to us each day. Now that you are sufficiently grateful, let’s explore your options. Boston Hassle has the experimental electronic set all hooked up tonight with Providence hi-tempo skreech-tech beat-masher Blevin Blectum, piano-focused ambient glitch sonatas of Sontag Shogun (NYC), W. MA quirky instrument improviser Bromp Treb, and alien exotica blowout grease-beats of Homeworld @Lilypad 10pm All Ages $5-10 sliding scale Down in Central Square catch Julianna Barwick (NYC) layer loops of her ethereal voice with occasional percussion and piano for an enchanting, rural choir feel. With fellow minimal singer Vasillus, and local dreamweavers Animal Hospital, all thanks to Illegally Blind @Middle East (up) 8pm 18+ $10adv/$12dos If you prefer guitar-rooted sounds to the electronic variety, peer past the endless shelves of great records @ Deep Thoughts for this BOW showcase. Acoustic finger-picker Daniel Bachman (NC) (formerly Sacred Harp) lifts the soul, Paper Castles (VT) carry you along with pillow-soft pop ballads, Bad History Month balances with unfettered inner turmoil, and folk singer Avi Jacob croons the night away at this emotionally resonant soirrée 9pm All Ages $5-10 sliding scale And down in Worcester get on that electronic tip as Airspray presents DJ European Hustle @Electric Haze 8pm 21+ Free
Saturday 4/19 The weekend continues with lots more fun all over the place. Get out to the Seaport district to catch the launch party for new Boston-oriented arts journal HUM. Catch 13-piece Tredici Bacci as they explore the dark underbelly of Italia lounge exotica, bounce with the groovy tunes of JP’s best DJs Hot Company, see some fine art, and grab a free copy of this exciting new publication! @A Loft 7-11pm 21+ $5-10 sliding scale (+ free journal) Seminal N.E. free-improv musicians Steve Norton (reeds, processed electronics) Matt Samolis (flute) and Teresa Czepiel (movement) come together as Chorizo3 for a dance-themed evening with more TBA @Cambridge YMCA Theater 8pm All Ages $ome cost Ebullient, intelligent, off-kilter pop is the name of the game in JP tonight, with hardworking folk songsmith Jason Anderson, Skyjelly (EP Release), Harmoos (tour kick-off), and Jonathan Donaldson @The House that CD-R’s Built 8pm All Ages $5-10 Sliding Scale Illegally Blind hosts the return of dirge-heavy late 80’s UK drone psychers Loop. They’re paired nicely with sprawling reverb fiends Ghost Box Orchestra, and high-minded psych pop zoomer Doug Tuttle @Middle East (down) 8pm 18+ $14adv/$16dos If gripping prog-adelic synths are your thing, tune in to the rare cosmic funk frequencies of Cult and Leper as they dazzle Allston with Sentry, Palm Springs Life, and Twin Radio (Baltimore) @O’Brien’s 9pm 21+ $8 Or grab a slice and kick back with some gripping pop courtesy of Knucklewagon, Pet Jail, Oculesics, and Autocatalytica @Roggie’s 7pm 18+ $5 Fans of unfettered, plainspoken rock will relish the return of prolific Black Lips, with Natural Child @Paradise 8pm 18+ $16
/21 @Roggies 4 e c n le io V Stoic Thursday 4/24 Two full floors of tonight’s leaning tower of trea$ure come courtesy of BOW shows. First ya got a holy WFR showcase with the return of Greg Mullen, Maryann, Old Wave (ft. Pancho Kidd), and Richard Album @The House that CD-Rs Built 8pm All Ages Donate BOW’s second blow of the eve lands squarely in Allston @SBC for a full blast of sweet pop action with Skinny Bones, DRGN KING, Fume Hood, and Vundabar 9pm All Ages $5-10 Sliding Scale Peak dogs Illegally Blind top off the monolith with Yamantaka // Sonic Titan (Toronto), Perfect Pussy (NY), Green Dreams (Rochester, NY), Parasol, and The Fagettes @Middle East (down) 7pm All Ages $12adv/$15dos Our brothers to the north remain heavy as ever. Find Queen Elephantine (Providence, RI/NYC), Green Bastard (Dover NH), Black Norse (Kittery ME, Dover NH), and one TBA @Red Door Portsmouth NH 8pm 21+ $5 Or hold down the fort back in Cambridge. It’s mellow with Mount Peru, The Green Fields (Philly), and Jonathan Donaldson @Plough & Stars 10pm 21+ Free. Friday 4/25 I’ll be damned if Cambridge doesn’t fall into the earth tonight. First off BUFU FEST gets up and running with a stacked billing. Juan Wauters, Free Pizza, Funeral Cone, Sneeze, Zebu!, Gymshorts, Nice Guys, The Channels, Skinny Bones, Idiot Genes and more @Cambridge Elks Lodge 6pm All Ages $10-15 A few streets down demonic rumblings shall commence, taking the the earthly form of Paint the Walls Vol. 8: Full of Hell (ON), Column Of Heaven (PA/MD), Nyodene D (PA) and Cleansing Wave @ MIT Senior House 7pm All Ages $10 suggested donation ILLEGALLY BLIND touches down again for Mean Creek (record release), Heliotropes, Thunderbloods @Middle East (down) 8pm 18+ $8 adv/$10 dos In the midst of all that you may find yourself taken by the traditional Russo-Mongolian instrumentation and throat singing of Huun Huur Tu @ First Church in Cambridge Congregational. See what I mean? Saturday 4/26 Get out your crop top and get ready to rock! BUFU FEST continues with Day 2 featuring Guerilla Toss, Krill, Hurricanes of Love, Fat Creeps, Bugs & Rats, B L A C K I E, In Heat, Lovechild, Dylan Ewen, Acidosis, Cult & Leper and much more @Elks Lodge 4pm All Ages $10-15 sliding scale Max out your heart’s melody meter with Forts/Gainesville, Stephen Konrads & the Eternals, Ravi Shavi (RI), and Audrey Ryan @The Loft 8pm 21+ $5-10 Or go the opposite route: weird is the word @Washington St. Arts Center in Somerville when Jesse Kenas-Collins, Gang Clan Mafia, LSDV, and Id M Theft Able converge for a night of intrigue, installation, and intangibly deep sound-building that begins at 8pm All ages Donate!
Sontag Shogun @
Lilypad 4/18
- Mika Gagne
Sunday 4/27 The Brain Trust rolls it out @Middle East (up) on this regal Sunday evening for MIND SPRAY, a hip-hop showcase and open mic whose sole mission is to organize killer performances and facilitate networking and collaboration between artists. Sound cool? It gets cooler with Psalm One (Chicago) and Mark Merren (Dorchester). The night is hosted by Boston’s own GreyScale & Latrell James and kicks off at 8pm 18+ $10
Sunday 4/20 These days smoking weed is so mainstream it seems almost unnecessary to have a special holiday dedicated to tokers, but hey, whatever man. There are a lot of sick shows to compliment those verdant herbs, so get off the couch already and get rocking. West Coast denizens of partying hard and keeping it real, White Fang return in all their hard rocking, 40-chugging glory. Nashville bar bluesers Denney and the Jets duke it out with local pop meisters Earthquake Party!, outrageous party punks Nice Guys, and righteous boppers Free Pizza for this truly stacked show by Illegally Blind. Don’t sleep on this one @Middle East (up) 7pm 18+ $10 Boston Hassle & Eye Design present their monthly music-art love-in Treat Yo Self with Americana jammers Alex Bleeker & The Freaks (members of Real Estate), with fuzz freaks Creaturos, and Emerald Comets, along with visual art and free munchie-friendly snacks @Middlesex Lounge 9pm 21+ $8 BOW Shows delivers the experimental noise rock goods in Allston with explosive psych demons Les Rhinocéros (DC), psychedelic big-band jazz jammer David Dominique, Particulars, and Cult & Leper @The Womb 9pm All Ages $5-10 Sliding Scale And whoa what’s this? Pizza Underground, Macaulay Culkin’s cheesy homage to the VU comes to Providence with a blast of noise rock: New Bedford’s Baylies Band (20th anniversary show), Six Star General, and the skrontastic Guerilla Toss @The Met (Providence) 8pm All Ages $12. Monday 4/21 You’ll be knee-deep in more punk grime than your physical form can stand when VIOLENT PARTY VOL. 59 gets started @Roggies w/ No (UK), Stoic Violence (CA), Dry Hump, and Flaccid 6:30 -10:30pm 18+ $8 Rad Castle kicks up some mystical dust in Cambridge where the psychotropic manifestations of Moontower and Wakes inspire wonder @Zuzu 10pm 21+ Free A few blocks down, Robin Lohrey makes it all somehow make sense via de-classified classical and noise scramblings at the temple of @Weirdo Records 8pm All Ages $5 requested donation. No guarantees as to potential impact on the projected hologram version of yourself.
Monday 4/28 It’s that time again. The totally insane, utterly surreal, multi-textured fall-down-and-die laughsperience known as the Wham City Comedy Tour hops off the bigtime, grown-ass, Adult Swim arena circuit to put us smug cats back in our stitchplaces. This show is brought to you by Illegally Blind and will feature one musical guest TBA @O’Brien’s 9pm 21+ $7 A performance by the aptly named Lolcat (Nick Neuberg) coincidentally happens @Weirdo Records 8pm All Ages $5 donation. I lol’d. A little. For a shape more familiar, catch a toppy poppy rock show via Fast Apple with Future Days, The I Want You, The Doublestops, and Steep Leans @Charlie’s Kitchen 9pm 21+ $5 And if none of that warms your chili then saddle on up to Central Sq. where Rad Castle has Coyote Kolb and Old Hat on tap to help you sally forth into the sunset. Tuesday 4/29 Jeez, you don’t look so great. Kinda bummed. Kinda bored. Kinda whatever. Here’s an idea: get those jazz hands out of your pockets and start waving ‘em around. That’s right. Just like that. Now tonight you can put those meathooks to good use at one of TWO highly hyped jazz happenings in our city. One is a performance of the Jazz Composers Workshop Orchestra, directed by Frank Carlberg @Jordan Hall (New England Conservatory of Music) 8pm All Ages Free. The other is Mission Creep (Boston sax shredder Steve Norton) and guitarman Tony Savarino and the Savtones @Midway Café 8pm 21+ $ome cost. Feel better now? Good. Wednesday 4/30 A Wednesday is a but an island in a sea of workdays. Let’s let this one be oh so special. Hey speaking of islands, Connan Mockasin (NZ) and Kirin J. Callinan (AUS) visit us all the way from the land where the current season is the opposite of what it is now to spread some dark psychedelic and industrial material onto your meager mind-toast. DJ Carbo presides @Brighton Music Hall 8pm 18+ $15.50 If the import-export game’s got you all in a tizzy then shop local with Streight Angular, Idiot Genes, Chandeliers, and Kangaroo Court @O’Brien’s 21+ 9pm $8. For last minute shows, additions and changes, follow our Chosen Shows calendar on BostonHassle.com & on da Boston Compass FascistBook page whether you LIKE it or not, it’s out there. SEND SUBMISSIONS TO: ThatBostonCompass@gmail.com Show Submission Deadline 4/22
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Your Guide To A Perfect Baby-Themed Wedding By LILLIAN DEVANE
Spring is here and that means it’s high time you decided your wedding theme! Forget the Baroque barbershop nuptials of 2013, or the Siege of Sarajevo craze from last fall; right now it’s all about babies! Not having a baby (yet!!!)—but letting them crawl, spit, and gush fecal matter all over your special day! Mostly metaphorically!
♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥
KATIE MCCARTHY / TARDY EAGLE STAFF
You’ll go ga-ga for this bridalwear! Available at Clyde’s Furniture Farm.
FOOD & DRINK What do babies love most? Breast milk! This may be one of your biggest unexpected expenses, so be sure to budget for the roughly 50 lactating women you’ll have to hire to produce fresh breast milk for the champagne cocktail toast! You’ll want the milk to be slightly above room temperature, so an excellent bridesmaid’s job would be to guard the milk holding containers and test the temperature on her sensitive wrist flesh.
“BUTT”
IN MY GMAIL INBOX ARRANGED AS 2 POEMS By ALEX FEINSTEIN i feel like butt but not super butt i’m tired. my butt is sore i didn’t even know a butt could bruise like that and now my butt is on fire not all butts are ready to use touching butts will have to be delayed a few hours i’ll take the butt touching but no thanks on the taco bell only butt pain. also the weather is butt i’ll lend you my butt scarf
Hello. It’s very nice to meet you and your cat Pinky. I see he has some behavioral problems. It’s clear from the dryness of his hiss that he is stressed; in addition, his tensely arched back indicates he feels this home is not his territory.
Whether it’s a “Dreamy Premie” or a “Full-Term Fling” we know you’ll find fun, creative ways to make your special day gushing with gestational joy! So stick a thumb in your mouth and give a belly raspberry to Aunt Gina, because here comes the airplane—all the way down the aisle!
I have found my higher brain functions are impeding my transition into professional cat. I will rectify this problem by drinking industrial strength cleaning products (I will need you to go out and purchase them, as I no longer acknowledge the concept of currency).
By RYAN DOUGLASS and KEIRA HOROWITZ I am working on a group project led by a total maniac. As the final date approaches, he becomes more tyrannical with his bad ideas, and no one on the team agrees with him. What do we do?
Last week I found a message board that mentioned myself and a co-worker. I don’t work in a Yelp-able place, so I was really surprised to find people talking trash about our office on the Internet! What should I do?
- Befuddled in Brookline
- Abused in Admissions
KEIRA: How high are the stakes here? If you want or need to see this succeed, can you work around him (while letting him think he’s still captain of the SS Crazy Group Project)? The not-fun, but totally grown up way to handle it may be to confront this guy. Be a hardcore grown up and confront him with constructive criticism about the project rather than focus on what a tool he is. But if the stakes are pretty low for you, why not let it play out? Embrace the shit show, let go of the stress and start working on your resume.
KEIRA: I’m aware of a trend in popular music where singers reference “haters.” Please find these songs. Once you’ve gathered the best of the haters canon, put these songs on your headphones. Listen to these songs on the way to work. Upon arriving at work, place all thoughts of haters where they belong (to the left I think? Basically away from you). Get to work like the magical creature you are.
RYAN: Succumbing to the powers of an egomaniac can be surprisingly freeing. I would follow him and his destruction because it could encourage them to start a cult which you would no doubt be a charter member in. And, if you think you don’t want to be part of a cult, then what exactly is it you’re looking for in this life? Morals and efficiency? Get bent.
RYAN: “Throw dirt on me, grow a wildflower/ And it’s fuck the world, get a child out her” is what Lil’ Wayne said about people throwing shade like that. Either way, it’s probably an ex of yours that you wronged when you were 23 because you didn’t know how to handle emotions and never apologize. So reach out to them now, make your peace, and this smack talk about your office will go away.
Need advice? Write to Keira and Ryan at tardyeagle@tardyeagle.com.
did you guys talk about my butt? like, if his butt actually spoke a lady’s butt? my own butt. my entire butt. also yes re: touching butts two hearts touching butts be a butt libertine, dude touch his butt touch his butt some more and put stuff in his butt and probably your butt and rub crystals on your butt no butts have yet broken them in touch his butt pretty soon may the butts part for thee
STARS AMONG ME by TD SIDELL
HEY BACKWATERERS, In case you forgot, TD Sidell moved to NEW YORK CITY, and therefore has seen many celebrities. He figured that you guys were sick of trading stories about seeing Joe Perry angrily sorting his recycling or Amanda Palmer shopping for an iPhone case or whatever and that he would ENRICH YOUR LIVES with some tales of all the amazing celebs he got to see with his own eyes RIGHT IN FRONT OF HIS FACE. This list should appear monthly or until all celebrities leave New York.
BILL MURRAY
Roebling Tea Room, Williamsburg
CODY PETTENGILL
KENNY ROGERS: TOMB OF THE UNKNOWN LOVE (VOL. 3) By JESSICA CAMPBELL, Canadian He picked up the receiver and let out a heavy, sensitive moan.
February, as we all know, is the crappiest and shortest month so there was less reason/time to go outside and see all the famous people here in THE GREATEST CITY IN THE WORLD (to get yelled at on the subway (or in a Subway, look February stresses everybody out) in). ANYWAY, this month I had to reach into the archives for a couple of these so if you treat this column as all outward appearances, seemed legitimate. He did have one predilection, however; one that only a crime scene investigator’s ultraviolet light wand would detect. Yes, you’ve got it: he was replacing all of his massage oil with vials of his own ejaculate. “Deep glute,” the voice immediately responded, “and pigtail...”
“Do you have a masseuse available?” A deep but anxious voice inquired on the line.
Kenny Rogers was stumped for a second. “Pigtail? Wait, Willie Nelson, is that you? What in the butt?”
“I might do. What kind of massage you looking for?” Kenny tried not to sound too excited, though it was hard to control himself when his clientele requested his favourite character. “The masseuse” was a certified massage therapist who, by
Willie Nelson cackled on the other end of the line. “Caught you now, masseuse! I saw your ad on ‘menwholooklikekennyrogers.com’ and the Google Map image showed our street. I knew it was you.”
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By WAND CLEMENTINE, Professional Cat Trainer
ENTERTAINMENT For an authentic baby-themed wedding, the entertainment must be subtle and never over-stimulating. One wrong Raffi deep cut could lead your entire wedding down a garish and upsetting road. Why not ditch music altogether and instead opt for a friendly gentleman dangling his car keys? One of the grander displays we’ve seen so far is a large, handcrafted mobile installed above the dining area, creating a peaceful and mesmerizing ambiance. You can keep tabs on how the party is going through tasteful monitors in a variety of festive colors.
PERSPECTIVES
SEARCH RESULTS FOR
Cat Training Tips
a guide to where celebrities are, and you totally should, don’t go to these places now because they are so over. When I saw Bill Murray a month before I moved to New York, I was super super excited. We’ve all heard the stories about the fry stealing and the spontaneous bartending and the whole “no one will ever believe you” thing, but Bill Murray did none of these things when I saw him. When I saw Bill Murray, he put earplugs in after he sat down at his table, this was the most exciting thing Bill Murray did. We shouldn’t expect so much from Bill Murray, he’s getting pretty old and seriously, the excuse he used for appearing in the Garfield movie sucked.
NATE BERKUS
A charity event I worked, Williamsburg Nate Berkus was the celebrity guest at a charity function I bartended. He’s apparently a kind of famous person? I saw his talk show on one of the crappy TVs at my gym once or something; like I said, it was a slim month for starwatching. The SoulCycle-toned but poorly dressed wealthy people in attendance liked his pitch and gave this charity a lot of money but were suspiciously cheap when it came to tipping on the open bar. CLASS WAR!
As moaned to KATIE McCARTHY and NICK ORTOLANI
To help you both further, I will move in for the next 13-14 years. I’ve been a professional cat trainer for years, but now it’s time for me to become a professional cat.
Since you are adopting me, please note that I am already spayed. This led to some difficulties with Tidler Clementine, my former husband. But no matter. In about 2 weeks, I will cease communicating in human language and will start communicating in other ways. For example, I expect you to clean my waste; if you do not, I will hide it in unexpected places to let you know I’m angry or stressed. My agitated groan indicates I don’t like your new wife; hence I must rub my scent all over your bedroom. To discontinue this threatened behavior, spend more time with me. Some games I like to play include mousies, featherstick, and hiding my feces. I know I just said I did that to indicate displeasure, but sometimes I like to do it for play. You’ll learn the difference in time. It seems have lost my favorite mousie toy, and I expect you to locate it and return it to me. I am insulted by your attempt to trick me with a new and different mousie toy. I will now voice my displeasure by vomiting on your W2 forms. Your attempts to discipline me with a spray bottle are, frankly, tyrannical. This place is a prison. I feel constricted in your living room. There is nowhere for me to jump and survey the territory. This impacts my confidence. I will need you to build elevated platforms for me. I have some preferences for the construction material: no wood, please. I don’t want splinters lest I become very cross and spray your toddler with my urine. Expensive tapestries will also do. Note that I hate synthetic fibers; I’m not a peasant. I have some concerns about your hunting skill. You will see I have placed various rodents and birds on your pillow; do enjoy them. I would be happy to show you how to hunt; best times for me are between 3:30-6:00am. I’ll let you know I’m available by scratching on your bedroom door throughout that period. Doors are confusing. That being said, I appreciate your willingness to go forth with this. I shall nuzzle my head against your leg in appreciation. If I am shocked by static, though, I will bite you. Please get off the computer and pay attention to mewtfiwgksbcje727ID WP9B3289’89[323F2WQN
Things you can Do with $2 • Buy lipstick that comes off in 5 secs and doesn’t even taste good • Take a subway ride to the dentist • Get 3 candy bars and some pennies • Drop it in the sink by accident • Buy 3 lbs. of bedbugs • Donate it to Boston Hassle
Dokebi, Williamsburg
Boston Hassle is a non-profit providing you with this, The Compass, the best underground arts coverage in Boston. If everyone reading this donated just $2 a month, it would help us sustain and grow our arts community.
I saw the former host of my favorite radio program at a Korean restaurant.
patron21.com/users/bostonhassle
TOM SCHARPLING
Kenny Rogers suddenly remembered the ad, and that his son had shown him how to link to Google Maps and then he promptly forgot how to unlink it. Still, he had thought that by advertising himself as a man who both looked AND sounded like Kenny Rogers, he would have sloughed off suspicion like a layer of dead dick skin. It was just too obvious to be true. But what was now becoming even more obvious was that Country Music’s biggest trickster could not be sloughed off easily, no matter how hard you jerked. He sighed. “So...What do you want?” “Look out your window and into my yard.” Kenny reluctantly looked out the small window,
Donate here:
only to see Willie Nelson standing in the middle of his yard, wearing nothing but a bandana, one not very strategically placed. He knew instantly what Nelson wanted. “You keep my secret, and I’ll keep deflecting the IRS.” Willie cackled again. “You know the only thing I want deflected is my jism--off of your barrel chest.” With that, the two began furiously masturbating, which continued, silently, for the next two or so hours. After they were drained, Kenny dazily wandered downstairs, sat down at the kitchen table and began plowing through some Malaysian roasted chicken. His wife chortled, “My my, we certainly have worked up an appetite tonight, haven’t we!” And she was right.
Butter Cup
Pucker Up self-released (2014) This is some frustrated shit. NATHAN VENTURA likes to break things, be that through a gypsy train of overblown clarinets or the thrashing of some garbage harp. For PUCKER UP, he’s also smashing some of his own songs, joining with LEE HALPIN (Saralee) to kidney-punch previous arrangements. The result is an assault of blunt rhythms, blunt lyrics, and muddled, shifting riffs. First, the string instrument – it’s some kind of heavily modified guitar, detuned to sonic decay points (and perhaps with objects inserted between the strings), making notes more purely percussive and widely bendable. This allows for both the more straight-ahead postpunk in the meat-and-potatoes of “Utopia” and the bouncing nonsense whine of its solo. Ventura’s vocals chant about cum and self-loathing in dissonant, double tracked reciting tones, microtonally hovering and clashing around notes much like the springy strings. Halpin grounds everything with relentless pounding – “Knocking on My Skull” is the adult equivalent of a young boy repeatedly crashing Tonka trucks together with hissing spittle. The best moments are the least subtle. In “Cowboy of My Dreams,” Ventura endlessly sneers, “I’ve been feeling down” over lax trampoline vibrations, muted, metallic plucks, and brokenmic snare and cymbal. Then there’s the most effective cigarette path-clearing set closer I’ve ever heard, “Music Makes Me Hate Myself.” They’re moments of deep anxiety delivered like lit farts – this record would perfectly soundtrack Trash Humpers (thanks for that reference last month’s Film Flam). - Patrick Collins
Peder Mannerfelt
Lines Describing Circles DIGITALIS (2014) Last time we heard the word “blood” repeated this many times we were gazing through Angus Andrews’ hazy red eyes. PEDER MANNERFELT’s slow, purposeful backdrop comes off as the inverse of Liars’ twitchy fin-de-siècle post-punk, and all the better for it. This right here is a new age, both for listeners and for Mannerfelt. His new record, LINES DESCRIBING CIRCLES, is the culmination of a purposeful break from his former identity as half of the electronic duo The Subliminal Kid, whose credits included production for Knife-side project Fever Ray. Now he is solo, and naked as his name. So why the visions of blood? As the only “vocal” cut on the disc, “Evening Redness in the West” certainly carries some weight on an already heavy-as-hell LP. Verbally, the lead-up is cinematic, a classic, post-digital Leone set-up: BARREN...HORIZON...FILTH... MESA...BOWIE KNIFE...and of course, the infinitely endless BLOOD. Dirty west in spirit, but fetishistic in object repetition, “Evening” reads like the psychoanalysis session of a sideman that slipped through the cracks, away from the gunfire to see open wastelands fill with trash and flesh, the flash of knives and pounding of hearts echoing through buzzing, dusty synths. First looks might lead some to think of Lines as a thematic continuation of Mannerfelt’s collaboration with Malcolm Pardon in Roll the Dice. But most of that project thrives on spacious improvisation. Solo, Mannerfelt seems far more concerned with a controlled chaos, something pulsating, breathing, contorting, and reconfiguring, and all within very confined quarters. Like Pan Sonic’s best experiments, this is the sound of blood boiling over in a sterile lab, an observation of entropy that remains undiminished by its objective distance. - Matthew McBride
Native America
Bad Weed/But Still Weed self-released (2013) I feel like the guys from NATIVE AMERICA recorded this whole album with shaking hands – there’s a jittery quality in these recordings that does wonders for their alt-pop/powerpop/ shoegaze sound. Take “Habits”: that jittery touch makes the trio fall head-first into a tambourine-driven groove injected with fiery blues-rock, before cutting the phrases short and letting that chaos simmer. Similar rhythmic stalls fuel “Lonely Tonight”, where thick, chugging guitar interludes are cut at just the right moment to propel the song forwards. But what’s truly interesting to me is how the Native America crew weaves together a myriad of textures, sometimes within the same song. The vocals of “Heroine” hum in octaves, and the bass and drums lay down a basic 2&4 (again, with that shaking tambourine), but the trio darkens those pop elements with deftly placed crash cymbals and tension-soaked chords; “Digital Lobotomy” lurches into ratty Krill-esque pockets but slides into a Motown waltz, complete with walking bass and swinging drum accents. As “Lull / Fate, TX” slowly rises from a jazzy moonlight ballad to gritty inverted power chords, it becomes clear that these guys aren’t afraid to cross genre boundaries – I think they relish it, actually – and as the bass flicks on the overdrive and the guitar falls further back into a whirling rotary smokescreen, all those textures coalesce into a sound that is surprisingly menacing. Stream this zinger on the Hassle website, follow the band on their website, and let this release spin your top. - Dean Antonio
I can see “When I Come’s” fanfare replacing stick clicks as standard count off procedure. If it sounds like someone picking up a guitar for the first time, maybe that’s the point - it’s as if Palberta became a band the moment it occurred to them to start one. They came down from Annandale-on-Hudson for their first Boston show last month, and totally exceeded the already high expectations you couldn’t help bringing to the occasion. They brought the vibe and the noise as much as anyone, but the mystery raised by their record of who does what only got more complicated. My Pal Berta, their one full length so far, is as balanced a chemistry as you’ve heard - three voices totally distinct yet totally balanced all going at once. Yet it turns out live, Ani, Lily and Nina switch instruments like every three songs. True expansion of the body. It left me wondering whether this all represents the new difference between a band and a group of dudes who get together once in awhile to play rehearsed material together. The clincher was that not a breath between tunes was wasted on banter; the skits between tunes practically stole the show. But it’s nice to come back to the record, which is as raucous as it as minimal - as much space between the sounds as the sounds themselves. Which leaves room for you.
Burnt Skull Sewer Birth 12XU (2014)
Like a way-groovy version of The Body? I’m failing at bands to liken this to though, really. Melvins and Nirvanas come to mind also I guess. Noise rock this is, but the vocals are blackened to an unholy splotch that rests upon the rarified industrial sludge factory that constitutes rhythm section and riff manufacture. Boston heads, are you a Bugs and Rats fan?? Well, here you go. Raspberry Bulbs fans, yeah you want to hear this now. This is some fucking fantastic HEAVY music. Best I’ve heard in some time. “Infinite Flesh” is pummeling. Oh my god people must mosh to this so hard. That mid-tempo stomping beat. A main riff so heavy in a way that I thought was perhaps impossible to achieve in this day. So heavy that I have my suspicions that they must have been digging a very deep hole somewhere, and in that hole they accidentally stumbled upon THE THING, The riff. And this is the source of their power. That’s a deep hole riff man. “Infinite Flesh” wow. The most banging power sludge tune I may have ever heard. Maybe it’s just the freshness of all of this talking, but those chord changes on the verse and bridge? You never hear that kind of move in music this starkly, and heavily EVIL. “No Cross” is a minute and a half of heavy punk bliss. Raging! Here sounding like a heavier and less recorded-from-inside-a-toilet Crazy Spirit, I only wish this song was longer. More killer riffs. Pure unholy smash you in the face terror rock. Early 2014 fav for sure. - Dan Shea
Personnel
EP Doubledotdash (2013) Simple, charming, raw post-punk from these Brits. These guys come out of the English tradition of raw, shambling postpunk that popped up after some forward-thinking members of the underground turned their focus to amateur recording and unexpected sounds. Whenever stuff influenced by this UK DIY scene immortalized by the Messthetics comps pops up, it’s always refreshing; it seems as if there is a subversive and understated sense of humor embedded in the music, adding a deep listenability to it despite its more out-there idiosyncrasies. I’m thinking of post-punk royalty like Desperate Bicycles, The Homosexuals, and Scrotum Poles as major touchstones for PERSONNEL’s sound, but mixed in with these bands is a distinctly more American influence; you can hear the the Minutemen as well as noisy no-wave in the guitar playing and I would be surprised if these guys weren’t very into The Urinals as well. The raw recording that sounds like they put a microphone in the middle of a living room lends a sense of open space to their sound; it’s clearly lo-fi but has a certain amount of precise clarity as well – everything is on the surface here. The first two tracks are the hits for me; opener “consumer electronics” is an oddly compelling, plodding, talk-sung, and angular song on social disaffection, and second track “modern drab,” mines the same lyrical territory (but it works) and is a more melodic tune with ringing arpeggios and slashing chords. Pick it up from Doubledotdash Records. - Greg Witz
GREAT VALLEY
Lizards of Camelot NNA Tapes (2013) Sometimes, it’s easier to write songs about lizard knights on a mystical quest than to always draw directly from the same personal well of sentiment all the time. Peter Nichols (guitarist of GREAT VALLEY) said something like this to me after a performance when I spoke briefly with him about their latest release LIZARDS OF CAMELOT (cassette and digital now on NNA Tapes, LP soon on FEEDING TUBE RECORDS). There’s a joy of the hunt here amidst the artfully lyric imagery, and the production is clean without burying the album’s essence in flaring bombast. As a writer for NNA put it, this is “ultimate bedroom fantasy,” meaning, presumably, that you are meant to lie back in your bedroom, light up some incense, and let your mind’s eye follow along with the adventure. What will you find on this trip? NOT TELLIN’! But the journey is worth it all by itself, being richly textured with well-paced sensorial soundscapes that evoke other worlds in a friendly bubble of floating psychedelic imagery. Hearing about this project, lots of groovy folk wanted to contribute (who wouldn’t?), and the Brattleboro duo of Peter Nichols and Jo Miller-Gamble welcomed plenty of Vermonter friends into the circle (Chris Weisman, David Lineal, Christine Brown, Luke Csehak, Francis Carr, Zach Phillips and Ruth Garbus). Of particular note is the wonderfully old-schoolbook cover art, inked by John Broadley, reminiscent of illustrations from the inside of those fantastical library books that absorbed you so before you’d even learned to read. Prepare to be so absorbed again. - James Moore The Boston Redevelopment Authority’s (BRA) Urban Renewal policies in the 1950s and ‘60s dramatically affected Boston’s cityscape and culture. Dense low-income neighborhoods were labeled unhealthy outdated slums. Gradually they were demolished, their residents displaced, and replaced with largescale public and luxury housing, government, commercial and industrial complexes, and highway infrastructure. On April 27, 1968 activists occupied a South End lot, a former residential block slated by the BRA to be redeveloped as a highrise parking garage. Led by Mel King, the Community Assembly for a United South End (CAUSE) rallied 400 people to camp there and refuse to leave until their demand was met for the site to be developed as much-needed affordable housing. Within their self-proclaimed Tent City, protesters chanted, sang songs, played music and danced; painted and hung signs; and ate food donated by Boston Celtics star Bill Russell who owned a restaurant nearby. The festive spectacle of Tent City and the vigilance of the occupiers drew in many passersby and garnered strong media attention. Within three days public support for the protest had swelled and the BRA conceded to halting their redevelopment plans.CAUSE continued to advocate for the housing rights of South End residents and 20 years later, on that lot, the Tent City mixed-income apartment complex was dedicated. Sited across from Back Bay Station and Copley Place in a highly desirable area, Tent City houses over one hundred units for families of a broad income range, serving as a successful planning model that privileges diversity and access over homogeneity and isolation. King was raised in the South End’s New York Streets “slum” district, which was razed in 1955 for the Herald Traveler plant, later known as the Boston Herald. He is a former State Representative, MIT Professor, and founder of the South End Technology Center for community-based education. Neil Horsky · horskyprojects.com
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CHEAPO RECORDS 538 Massachusetts Ave. Cambridge, MA Located at 538 Mass Ave in Central Square, Cheapo has a long and venerable history of doling out new and used vinyl for 60 years, and the place has a vibe unchanged since I started frequenting it sometime in the early 00’s. Even after a massive upheaval in 2006 (where it moved a block and a half away), it somehow maintains its classic clutter-bug aesthetic. Just follow the sound of early 70’s Philadelphia soul blaring from the world’s most blown out exterior speaker. You’ll be led to a paradise for time-wasters and record-diggers old and young, novice and advanced. There is always something to uncover and discover. As a bonus, if you stay more than ten minutes, I can guarantee you’ll soon be overhearing one of the most bananas conversations you’ll have ever heard in your time on earth. I have yet to locate it, but there must be a tractor beam (perhaps located in the sealed country section?) that draws in the most unhinged and wayward souls that Central Square has to offer (and bear in mind, young readers, Central Sq has A LOT to offer in this regard). And once they have materialized between the record stacks, they are allowed to hold court, free from censorship. - Nick Branigan
Aries
christina scott
Obsidian. Blackout. The power ball. 69. 420. 311. Only spit once, never spit twice, never look back. Deftones. Try throwing a kegger, get this month. Slam dunk. Keep it up, bro4.
Taurus
Obsidian. Darkness. The deepest depths. As the oceans part, we look back on our daily darkness: the blackest stone. Be a lil pimp and not a lil simp, have ice in your drink. You're drink. Never give up. - Rory MacMurdo
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CONTRIBUTORS
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Sam Potrykus PRODUCTION MANAGER Jay Mobley MANAGING EDITORS CEEK, Ari Shvartsman, Dan Shea, Katie McCarthy LAYOUT TEAM Rose Parry, James Staub, Ev Dimmig, Anya Kanevsky, Doug Katz CONTRIBUTING ARTISTS Patrick Maloney, Mona Maruyama, Ciara Wright, Amit Yehuda, Ellen Adams, Stephen Hrycenko, Ian Matthews, Sam Malabre SHOW BLURBS Chris Collins, Zach Peckham FILM FLAM CONTRIBUTORS Sydney Kinchen, Oscar Goff, Stefan Grabowski (Boston Viewfinder), Mike Madden, Matthew Martens, Jon Meyer, Alex Schab, Pablo Torroella TARDY EAGLE CONTRIBUTORS Christine An, Chris Braiotta, Nick Branigan, Patrick Bryant, Keira Horowitz, Angela Sawyer, TD Sidell COPY-EDITORS Jonathan Donaldson, Mick Theebs, Jeremy Marx, Drake Sherman, James Moore
ollie mikse
jamie espino
lindsey boss sylvie mayer
sara baier
dan nott