Leisure

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

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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 March 21, 2002

Leisure

Dramabad Zinda-great

Gaston Hall was charged on Saturday night with a level of energy and pride one seldom experiences at theatrical events on campus. The first annual Dramabad Zindabad, a showcase of South Asian-American performing arts, had just begun, and the sense of accomplishment was nearly palpable.

By the March 21, 2002

Leisure

Intriguing idea goes astray on soundtrack

Following in the tradition of such bizarre soundtracks as those of Spawn and Judgement Night, the Blade II soundtrack features pairings of artists who would never work together otherwise. Also in the tradition of those two soundtracks, Blade II is awful. After the wannabe-Bond-music “Theme from Blade,” the album gets down to business with “Cowboy,” featuring Eve and Fatboy Slim.

By the March 21, 2002

Leisure

Folk dancers brighten dour days

Despite the gloomy drizzle outdoors as of late, inside the Walsh Black Box, there’s a fiesta?literally. What else, then, to better welcome these early spring showers than Ballet Folkl?rico Mexicano de Georgetown’s annual Fiesta Mexicana. Complete with brightly hued costumes, gleaming swords and blaring mariachi music, the BFMG gracefully steps, twirls and kicks away any thoughts of a soggy evening.

By the March 14, 2002

Leisure

Death and Dismemberment overtake 9:30 Club

Despite the dismal imagery that accompanies death and dismemberment, when both hit the 9:30 Club, as they did Tuesday night, there’s nothing of the sort. Add some Cex to the mixture, and you’ve got the makings of the next Evil Dead movie?or, maybe just a relucant indie band and some hometown pop-rockers trying to fool their unsuspecting admirers.

By the March 14, 2002