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In a disappointment that is uncharacteristic of Baltimore's biggest theatre company, CenterStage has flopped with its latest production of Jerome Hairston's a.m. Sunday. The production lacks vitality and is a waste of mounds of dramatic and literary talent at the hands of irresponsible direction.
Every musician is basically trying to do the same thing when they perform live. They want to transport you somewhere else, take you beyond the theater or the arena, show you a place you've never seen before. When they fail, it's easy to tell why: you've already been there, because you've already heard the CD. But when they succeed, as Gillian Welch and David Rawlings did on Sunday night at the Recher Theatre in Towson, it's something to see.
Come on, darling, don't look that way. Don't you know when you smile I've got to say that you're my honey-pumpkin lover, you're my heart's delight, don't you want to go out tonight? You're such a pretty lady, you're such a sweet girl. When you dance, it brightens up my world. So come on darling, put a pretty dress on, we're gonna go out tonight ...
It's a freezing-cold Saturday night in Federal Hill, but in a small dressing room above the Funk Box on Cross Street, the company is at least as warm as your average radiator. Everyone's got a Guinness draught can in hand, and they're all telling jokes, poking fun and laughing.
For a platinum-selling country singer, it must take a certain dedication to image to convince your fans that you have as little self-confidence as Gillian Welch seems to have. Welch is no stranger to success -- her work on the O Brother Where Art Thou? soundtrack earned her Grammy bragging rights and a part in the subsequent making-of movie, Down From the Mountain -- but she's often noted for her depressed, wallflower, "Whiskey Girl" persona. She rarely gives interviews, she is timid, even a bit creepy on stage and her album covers feature photos of her in plain, almost ugly house dresses, looking downright uncomfortable.
What exactly do you call the lifestyle so flamboyantly trumpeted by Baltimore-based Star & Garter magazine? Is it queer? Well, yeah, but not completely. Is it liberal? Absolutely. Is it deviant? That goes without saying!
There's been a wave, a wave, I tell you, of Will Ferrell hysteria in these, the post-Old School days. All you have to do is sing the final chorus of "Dust in the Wind," and anyone of college age within 3 miles runs over to laugh with you. So going to see Ferrell's new movie Elf, the bar was set pretty high for expected hilarity. And it's not that those expectations were not met, it's just that they were met in an unusual way.
The Coke's out in the icebox, popcorn's on the table. Me and my baby, we're out here on the floor. So Mr., Mr. DJ, Keep those records playin'. "Cause I'm a-havin' such a good time dancin' with my baby ...
The Jewish Museum of Maryland is one of Baltimore's lesser-known archives, but its current exhibit, Entertaining America: Jews, Movies, and Broadcasting proves that its content is by far some of the city's most accessible. Through two rooms of video screens, vintage radios and blown-up photographs of the Lower East Side of New York in the 19-teens, we learned first-hand about the role of Jews in the entertainment industry, from the five-cent "nickolodeon" short film theaters to the "Jewishness" of Jerry Seinfeld and crew. Here's roughly the conversation we had on the way back to campus (give or take a few words).
One can't help but wonder what happens to those college bands that we see playing in frat basements after they graduate. Is Escape Plan gonna land a record deal any time soon? Does Smiling Politely have a future on the jam band circuit? Making a serious professional commitment to rock and roll is a scary decision. It takes balls, or at least some cool haircuts.
I've seen the end of the day come too soon. Not a lot to say, not a lot to do. You played the game; you owe nothing to yourself. Rest a day, for tomorrow you can't tell; you can't tell...
Me'Shell Ndeg??Ocello is not sexy, but she seems convinced that she is. No, let the record show that Me'Shell is really just a mediocre singer who looks like Uncle Fester and is a racist at the level of the administration of Bob Jones University. She proved this repeatedly on her debut album Plantation Lullabies, warning "white men" like me that I "should always sleep with one eye open", and blatantly speaking against interracial dating and white-black interaction in general. But unlike other neo-soul singers who touch on racial themes (think India.Arie singing "Brown Skin" or D'Angelo's "Brown Sugar"), this wasn't sexy hot-chocolate-lovin' balladry; it was callous militancy.
There are very few stories that have been re-thought, re-formed, and re-done as many times as Romeo and Juliet. There are also very few adaptations as "out there" as the Theatre Project's current re-working of the Shakespeare's classic romance. How am I qualified to make such a claim? Well, for starters, this one doesn't have words.
The only disappointing thing about Gil Shaham's brilliant performance at Shriver Hall this past Sunday night is how apparent it was that most Hopkins students don't realize that such incredible concerts take place on campus. Shaham, who is the youngest contributor to a tradition of world-class Israeli violinists (the other two most notable being Itzchak Perlman and Pinchas Zukerman), performed a program of Copland, Bach, and Faure with accompanist Akira Eguchi at the second concert of the Shriver Hall Concert Series. The audience, unfortunately, was mostly townies.
Remember how it used top be cool when Puff Daddy would rip off an old soul song, or an 80s pop song, or a friggin' Led Zeppelin song, and pass it off as his own? Well last summer, he did it again with "Shake A Tail Feather", only this time, no one got it because the song that he ripped off was just obscure enough to slip past the oldies radio playlists. That song was a tune by the Five Du-Tones which was made famous by James and Bobby Purify, a paired of conk-headed southern soul brothers (actually cousins) whose singles are so infectious it's hard to believe they never made it past the Bell Records studios and the juke joints of Pensacola.
For years, we rock "n roll writers have been living in the shadow of a writer who was seemingly so much larger than life, so much cooler than we, so much more rock "n roll, that it's not even worth it to try and live up. That writer is, of course, Lester Bangs, a sloppy, irreverent cough syrup addict from San Diego who rose to fame in the pages of the Village Voice, Rolling Stone and Creem magazine in the late `70s and early `80s.
They say all BritPop sounds the same, but it seems that someone has taught Belle and Sebastian how to do the hustle.
The first time I ever heard Aesop Rock, the friend who played it for me explained that "you either like his flow, or you don't." This statement puzzled me at first, because it sort of preemptively discounted any notions of talent, originality or poise that he might possess as an MC, but after that first listen, I saw what my friend meant. There's something singular and oddly-formed about Ace's nervous, shifty, Kool Keith-inspired? raps (which alternately discuss video games and social conflict) and the way they interact with the claustrophobic beats. And I dug it.
For years, Neal Pollack has been the Greatest Living American Writer, and now he's gonna rock Baltimore like it's never been rocked before. Or at least that's what he says. This type of braggadocio is pretty typical of Neal, an Austin-based writer and one of the world's last great satirists. His entire career is basically one big self-promotion. In an interview with The Onion, he said "I'll send people my used condoms. I'll French-kiss a moose. Anything to sell my book."
The thing that's always puzzled me about the Writing Seminars graduate program (and every writers' workshop in the country, for that matter) is this: Do they actually produce great writers? Rest assured that the med school trains bright students to be successful doctors. Peabody hands out doctorates to some of the greatest soloists and orchestra-players in the world. But how many Chekhovs come out M.F.A. programs? Is the next generation of Hemingways teaching IFP, or are they somewhere in Europe, sipping absinthe and watching bullfights?