Leisure

Brothers of invention

For those of us whose late-summer cultural highlight was the premiere of Blue Crush, it is none to soon to be back in the District. A good jumping-off point for live shows this fall will be next Wednesday, Aug. 28, at the 9:30 Club, when the Soledad Brothers open for Hope Sandoval and the Warm Intentions.

By the Voice Staff August 22, 2002

Leisure

Scorcese’s The Last Waltz a forgettable relic

In 1976, The Band played its last show together at the Winterland theater in San Francisco after 16 years on the road. Filmmaker Martin Scorcese showed up to film the star-studded farewell show and somehow managed to create what many regard to be the finest rock concert film ever.

By the Voice Staff April 25, 2002

Leisure

Student films showcased at festival

There was no popcorn saturated in delectable globs of canola oil. There were no Sour Patch Kids to throw half-chewed at the screen in the event of boredom. And no one’s feet adhered mercilessly to a layer of slime on the floor. Instead, hosts and ushers in formal dress greeted the audience members upon arrival at the ICC Auditorium last night, for this was no ordinary evening at the movies.

By the Voice Staff April 25, 2002

Leisure

Wilco returns at long last

It’s nice to think that behind every great album there’s a great story, maybe even a great drama. Wilco endured a bona fide epic in its attempts to release its new album, Yankee Hotel Foxtrot. Here’s the short version: Wilco recorded the follow-up to 1999’s remarkable Summerteeth and presented it to Reprise Records, who freaked over the record’s “uncommercial” sound and refused to release the album without extensive remixing.

By the Voice Staff April 25, 2002

Leisure

Moby tries to recreate Play‘s success

18, the soon-to-be-released record from electronic pop all-star Moby, has all the symptoms of a crappy second record. It’s a boring, transparent stab at repeating the magic (and commercial success) of the multiplatinum-selling album that established him in the public’s eye.

By the Voice Staff April 25, 2002

Leisure

‘Danse’-ing queens

Surrounded by a motionless group of uber-indie rockers at a basement party in Pittsburgh, I realized it was sink or swim. My life jacket? The Faint’s Danse Macabre. Only minutes after slipping the shiny disc into a lifeless, tapped stereo that was previously playing some cochlea-combusting trance, new life was synthesized into my soon-to-be dance buddies.

By the Voice Staff April 25, 2002

Leisure

Oedipus wrecks drama stereotypes

If there are two concepts that get more bad press than “Greek melodrama” and “minimalist theater,” I don’t know what they are. Visions of overwraught harpies shrieking as they flounce around a bare stage to the strains of cheesy synth music are enough to make even the strong shudder.

By the Voice Staff April 18, 2002

Leisure

Promise Ring’s Wood/Water lacking elements

Many scenesters of the emo-pop persuasion might consider the Promise Ring demigods. You know?mythological, godlike creatures not quite divine, but still a step above mortal. Well, the Ring (as they are known casually to their fans) rode in on the emotional explosion of pop bands, when others such as Braid and Sunny Day Real Estate dried their tears and folded their handkercheifs.

By the Voice Staff April 18, 2002

Leisure

About a great soundtrack

by Marsha Chien

Radiohead, Starsailor, Muse, Oasis, Charlatans, Coldplay, Gomez, Travis, David Gray, Stereophonics, Belle & Sebastian, Ballboy, Stone Roses and Badly Drawn Boy are proof that despite declaring independence, Americans still find a place in their hearts for their relatives across the Atlantic.

By the Voice Staff April 18, 2002

Leisure

Imitations of rawk

Last week, MTV2 viewers were treated to a mini-marathon of vintage Nirvana clips to celebrate, what else, the eighth anniversary of Kurt Cobain’s death. Not only did this probably cause nostalgic sighs across suburban America, but it also likely sparked laments over the spawn of half-ass imitators the band inspired.

By the Voice Staff April 18, 2002

Leisure

Osbournes bites head off clich?s

Eleven years after The Real World introduced the idea of reality TV, the form has come to dominate television. Most of these shows, The Real World included, consist of contrived scenarios that have become sordid at best. Fear Factor and Survivor, for example, are goal-oriented; the cast members are pitted against one another in sometimes nasty competitions for money.

By the Voice Staff April 11, 2002

Leisure

Gomez peppers new LP with sundry influences

It’s hard to tell whether Britain is a conqueror or the serially invaded, imperialist or napkin for every culture’s coffee spill. No wonder they really love Gomez over there. The third proper full-length album from these Manchester lads, In Our Gun, continually stalks the fine line between being influenced by other artists and blatantly ripping them off.

By the Voice Staff April 11, 2002

Leisure

Goya’s still got it

The exhibition, Goya: Images of Women, is an outstanding show at once witty, sensual and highly thoughtful. Displayed first in Spain, the exhibition comes to the National Gallery from Madrid’s premier art museum, El Prado. You might only recall Goya (Francisco Goya y Lucientes) from his celebrated paintings, two of the most stunning in the exhibition?the Maja Desnuda (Naked Maja) and the Maja Vestida (Clothed Maja).

By the Voice Staff April 11, 2002

Leisure

Voices carry on 14th

This week, grab that $1.10 and take the G2 Metrobus down to 14th Street. Strong and exciting women’s performance nights are just springing up all over the place there, and I suggest you catch them while they last. The first of the two, Mothertongue, is a women’s spoken word night.

By the Voice Staff April 11, 2002

Leisure

Obsession, madness and murder

The opening, pre-show minutes of A Devil Inside set a mood: Anonymous skyscrapers are silhouetted against a chartreuse sky. Actors playing the plain and the pathetic do stage business in a seedy laundromat. The jangling and discordant sounds of Miles Davis’ “Pharaoh’s Dance” fill the air.

By the Voice Staff April 4, 2002

Leisure

They got wet: Mulleted madman pleases fans

An extreme close-up of a young man’s face with long dirty hair flowing past his shoulders and copious amounts of blood streaming down his face and neck: Such is the highly controversial album cover art, and image, of Andrew W.K., the newest rock shocker to appear on the pop scene.

By the Voice Staff April 4, 2002

Leisure

Panic Room hits buttons

Ah, the lives of rich eccentrics! With plenty of expendable capital, they’re free to do such strange things as build secret steel-clad “panic rooms” designed to protect them just in case their Upper West Side “townstones” are ever invaded. Not only does this provide some measure of security to these senile financiers, but it also serves as a fantastically convenient plot device in the new movie Panic Room.

By the Voice Staff April 4, 2002

Leisure

Up, up, and away

As seems to be regularly the case this time of year, musical offerings in the Washington area over the next week largely range from inanely innocuous (The Big Wu, Dave Matthews) to the inadvisably incessant (Ani DiFranco) and on to the irredeemably intolerable (Dashboard Confessional).

By the Voice Staff April 4, 2002

Leisure

The Voice picks the Oscars

April showers are approaching, which also means it is that time of the year when movie buffs, fashionistas, idol worshipers, bookies, insomniacs and the entire southern half of California turn their eyes to the oncoming rush of the Academy Awards. So, get some friends and a bag of low-fat rice cakes together on Sunday night and mock away.

By the Voice Staff March 21, 2002