Leisure

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

Leisure

The Plan dismembers

With all four members of Dismemberment Plan sporting beards as they took they stage, lead singer and guitarist Travis Morrison was the only one who seemed particularly displeased with his. Just returned from a New Hampshire shanty where he had been writing songs for his solo career, Morrison maintained “Everyone’s ugly in New Hampshire,” during his between-song banter.

By the March 20, 2003

Leisure

Pimpin’ for the 9:30

I know it’ll be hard to pull yourself away from the television this weekend, what with televised Iraqi carpet bombing and the NCAA men’s basketball tournament to brighten our days. While the prospect of late nights with Lute Olsen and Wolf Blitzer will certainly be enticing, I recommend getting your ass off of the couch and heading down to the 9:30 Club on Friday and Saturday for a cheap pair of concerts that blow Saddam-watching out of the water.

By the March 20, 2003

Leisure

Nomadic Theatre sets ‘Angels’ ablaze

As the United States’ diplomacy grinds to a halt, historical relationships become the guiding force for the future. Likewise, in the search for progress, Angels in America II: Perestroika declares and wonders, “The great question before us is: are we doomed? ... will the past release us? ... can we change?” The play is Tony Kushner’s sequel to the Pulitzer Prize-and-Tony Award-winning Angels in America: The Millennium Approaches.

By the March 20, 2003

Leisure

2003 World Championship for Global Hegemony

By the March 20, 2003

Leisure

Ninjas! Ninjas! Ninjas!

The state of online, student-made ninja films is deplorable. There, someone needed to say it. Luckily, we have The Tenchu Reel Ninja Film Contest, found at www.ninjafilmcontest.com, a competition sponsored by Activision which features some of the best homemade ninja films by college-age directors around.

By the March 6, 2003

Leisure

‘Hearts of Oak’ full of heart, good music, lacks oak

As unrelated as a British naval hymn and the Ghanaian national soccer team might sound, Ted Leo and the Pharmacists allude to both in the title of their latest release Hearts of Oak. The band appears clad in lime green soccer jerseys on the cover, paying an oblique tribute to the “Hearts of Oak,” a poor Ghanaian team that went on to win international soccer championships.

By the March 6, 2003

Leisure

‘The Guide’ to loneliness

Gabe Fischbarg claims that men should never act vulnerable, because girls can smell desperation. What he hasn’t taken into account is that girls can also smell a sleaze a mile away, and his The Guide to Picking Up Girls emits a stench similar to that of month-old sea bass.

By the March 6, 2003

Leisure

Colonics for everyone

Upset that your friends are all traveling to exotic locales this spring break while you rot at home? Why not take a trip up your own ass? If you weren’t blessed with a colossal colon of your own, then be sure to check out the Colossal Colon, a four-foot-wide, 40-foot-long replica of the human colon on display in Freedom Plaza through Saturday.

By the March 6, 2003

Leisure

They aren’t Tatu

Forget Michelle Branch, forget Vanessa Carlson and for the love of God, forget Avril Lavigne. So much is made of these studio-molded young female musicians that most have forgotten that girl pop can actually be sincere and cute, but still have attitude beyond the dark eyeliner.

By the March 6, 2003

Leisure

Cabaret brings noise, occasional funk

This isn’t your grandmother’s cover band concert. Assuming your grandmother has a cover band. And she’s not dead. It’s Cabaret, Georgetown’s long-running, annual variety show featuring performances by campus singers and musicians.

By the February 27, 2003

Leisure

DC Improv the only game in town for stand-up

Looking for a good time that doesn’t involve smirking ironically at rapping kangaroos or enjoying a mean-spirited laugh as the Capitol Steps fumble obvious political humor? You won’t find it on the Hilltop—but you might find it down a narrow set of steps in a tucked-away nightclub called the D.

By the February 27, 2003

Leisure

Recording like the pros

Listening to the professional sheen of Spacecamp’s new Grog’d EP, you’d swear these guys were major-label pros, rolling in a big advance reveling in heavy MTV rotation and airplay on modern-rock radio stations nationwide.

You’d be wrong. Spacecamp, composed of five Georgetown students, is a lot like many other garage bands—unsigned, little-noticed and hungry for success.

By the February 27, 2003

Leisure

Cowboys and pudding

Listen up, you pasty, drug-addicted prostitute of a student: I know how you feel. It’s February, perhaps the worst month of the year. Spring Break seems far away. It’s cold and snowy, and there is nothing to do in this city unless you’re going to see Liza Minelli on Friday night at the MCI Center.

By the February 27, 2003

Leisure

Quixotic quest ends in failure, fun

Video killed the radio star, curiosity killed the cat and bad luck and a lack of funds killed The Man Who Killed Don Quixote, the latest would-be joint from offbeat director Terry Gilliam. The only thing that remains of the director’s vision for a film version of Cervantes’ Don Quixote is Keith Fulton and Louis Pepe’s documentary Lost in La Mancha—a detailed account of the dissolution of one director’s dream.

By the February 27, 2003

Leisure

‘One Acts’ offer quick, dirty theater

“Because television sucks” is the slogan for Mask & Bauble’s Donn B. Murphy One Acts Festival this year. But even if you don’t want to watch television that sucks, decent actors trying to pull off plays that suck may not be enough to draw you off the couch.

By the February 20, 2003

Leisure

Bourke-White exhibition shows the unexpected

You’ve seen her photos before. The picture of Gandhi sitting by his spinning wheel, those snapshots of DC-4s traveling high above Manhattan or the one of a female photographer kneeling on a skyscraper gargoyle. That last one’s actually not a picture she took, but a picture of her.

By the February 20, 2003

Leisure

Kickin’ it with Cody ChesnuTT

Donray Von, the cousin-turned-manager of rocker Cody ChesnuTT, sat silently backstage at a table eating buffalo wings an hour before ChesnuTT was to perform at the Birchmere in Alexandria, Va. earlier this month. The Birchmere’s promoter sat down on a couch next to the table and talked with Von for a few minutes.

By the February 20, 2003

Leisure

’80s bands, again

Bands from the ‘80s are pissed. Wouldn’t you be if a bunch of ex-hardcore and emo kids hijacked your sound and called it their own? Maybe that’s why such groups as Wire, Television and Mission of Burma are reuniting. It can’t be for the cash, right? In any case, this Friday all the kids under 30 who never got to see Mission of Burma in the band’s heyday can drag their young butts down to the 9:30 Club and watch the aging legends roll out some classic tunes.

By the February 20, 2003

Leisure

Mr. Lif gets political

Independent emcee Mr. Lif is an emerging underground rapper who is making a name for himself by incorporating political awareness with his purist hip-hop formula of rapid-fire, innovative lyrics and hard-hitting beats. His latest LP, I Phantom on Definitive Jux records, has received critical acclaim and is his best-selling to date.

By the February 20, 2003

Leisure

‘100th Window’ gives view of band’s decline

Pioneering British electronic act Massive Attack has finally released the follow-up to 1998’s critically acclaimed Mezzanine. The new album, 100th Window, is a disappointing record that tries in vain to recreate Mezzanine’s sound.

That sound was a sensual mix of slowed-down hip-hop beats, throbbing, insistent bass lines and the occasional foray into churning storms of guitar.

By the February 20, 2003