Leisure

Reviews and think pieces on music, movies, art, and theater.

Leisure

Silver reflections of a District long past

Volkmar Wentzel’s camera captures stunning images of Washington: street lights glisten through the fog of late-night D.C. and reflect off the rain-slicked streets, giving familiar sights a mysterious quality.

By November 9, 2006

Leisure

Joanna Newsom: Ys

It is difficult to write a review, in the conventional sense of the word, of Joanna Newsom’s sophomore release, Ys, because it’s unlike any other record you’ll hear this year, this decade, or perhaps even your life. At least until Ms. Newsom releases her third album, that is.

By November 9, 2006

Leisure

Trail of Dead: So Divided

The Austin-based band brought post-punk to new musical and conceptual depths with their thought-provoking musical and lyrical mosaic Source Tags & Codes. But So Divided suggests that the band’s struggle to find new meaning in these depths has proved futile. The entire journey has left the group unsure of whether to continue searching or resign and conform to everything it used to love to hate.

By November 9, 2006

Leisure

Isis: _In the Absence of Truth_

Ever since heavy metal’s inception at the hands of four young men from Birmingham, that is to say Black Sabbath, the visionaries have pushed the genre’s boundaries. Isis have cemented their place among such visionary artists with the release of their latest album, In the Absence of Truth.

By November 9, 2006

Leisure

Chinese triathlon: three dishes, three restaurants, one winner

Branching out can be a tricky step when it comes to trying new delivery places. When it’s Chinese, perhaps the wiliest beast on the fast food delivery circuit, there’s reason to be suspect.

By November 9, 2006

Leisure

Running with Scissors trips up

With sex, drugs, smutty language and a slew of one-liners, Augusten Burroughs’ memoir Running With Scissors has all the ingredients of a great blockbuster. However, films rarely live up to their literary counterparts, and Nip/Tuck director Ryan Murphy has clearly made some nips and tucks that have left the story dull.

By November 2, 2006

Leisure

Lez’hur Ledger: Snoop Dogg’s grizzeat American novizzle

Awww, shizzle. Snoop Dogg wrote a novel. He’s ready to make an entrance on the literary scene, so back on up.

By November 2, 2006

Leisure

Mask and Bauble give it an Earnest try

Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest is a play that consistently resists any attempt to add seriousness or gravity to the production. Mask and Bauble’s lively and entertaining production, running through Sunday, falters when it tries to imbue this terminally frivolous play with pathos and drama.

By November 2, 2006

Leisure

Death Cab: a band with serious Plans

“An album is only a snapshot of where a band is at a particular moment,” Nick Harmer, bassist for Death Cab for Cutie, said in anticipation of the band’s show at DAR Constitution Hall on Monday, Nov. 6. “The next time we make a record, we’ll be in completely different spaces.”

By November 2, 2006

Leisure

Ordering your ‘06 picks

When the gentle rustling of autumn leaves begins to sound like the white noise of radio static, it can only mean one thing—it’s time to start compiling your Best Of 2006 album lists.

By November 2, 2006

Leisure

Ivri Lider: Israeli hero

“I’m what you call a pop star in Israel, and I’m gay and I’m out, so that by definition makes me an activist.”

By November 2, 2006

Leisure

Chatting with Blake Sennett of The Elected

Blake Sennett was basking under the sunny blue skies near Lake Arrowhead, CA, when The Voice caught up with him earlier this month to talk about music, DVDs and cuisine.

By November 2, 2006

Leisure

Borat urges you to touch his “khram”

There are very few movies I would unreservedly recommend before seeing them. Even fewer are so well publicized and eagerly anticipated that they aren’t in need of such recommendations. Borat accomplishes the impressive feat of fitting into both of those categories.

By November 2, 2006

Leisure

The Voice goes on a date with the dietitian

A new face in Leo’s is living behind the fro-yo machine. In an unassuming office ironically close to the tempting dessert section, you can now find Georgianne Belknap, R.D., L.D., Georgetown University’s Dietitian.

By October 26, 2006

Leisure

Tapes ‘n Tapes Interview

It’s hard to take Tapes ‘n Tapes seriously. They may seem like the latest ‘bloggers’-choice,’ over-hyped band of the moment, but where’s the drama, the attitude, the extraneous noise pollution? It doesn’t make sense—can this really be an indie band?

By October 26, 2006

Leisure

Sordid Lives gets naked

Three half naked cowboys in boxers take the stage in a small black room with a low ceiling with two pissed off, outrageously dressed southern women holding a shot gun and a revolver. A loud BANG follows and one of the lights goes out. “I said DANCE!” Sound like the next Quentin Tarantino film?

By October 26, 2006

Leisure

A Presidential assassination of the future

On October 19, 2007, President George Walker Bush was assassinated on his way out of a conference in downtown Chicago.

By October 26, 2006

Leisure

Decemberists: a major label band with an indie mindset

When The Decemberists announced that they would release their fourth full-length album with mega-label Capitol Records, indie music-loving eyebrows around the world shot up in surprise. Visions of peeling back the cellophane packaging on The Crane Wife only to find a pepped-up, TRL version of the band mingled with self-righteous cries of “sell-out” from high school cafeterias around the nation. Yet a month after the release of The Crane Wife, it would seem that those people can safely shut up.

By October 26, 2006

Leisure

Circular revolutions with line-breaks

Mark Z. Danielewski’s highly anticipated “Only Revolutions” shocked his loyal readership when it hit shelves. Three hundred and sixty pages of bright text with jagged linebreaks and sentence fragments make for dazzling if intimidating read.

By October 26, 2006

Leisure

Wrens land at Bulldog

The only thing better than an afternoon concert is a free afternoon concert. Indie rock aviators the Wrens are set to play at Georgetown’s Bulldog Alley this Saturday at 2:30 p.m. before heading down to the Black Cat to play a show at a more conventional time—9:30 p.m.

By October 26, 2006