Leisure

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

Leisure

There’s bad taste … and there’s this

Once, John Waters was a director who existed on the fringes of culture. Now, he has a hit show on Broadway. From the underbelly of artistic legitimacy to the pinnacle of commercial acceptance, John Waters’ current status provokes only mouth-gaping confusion when one is confronted with what is considered his debut film, Pink Flamingos.

By the September 5, 2002

Leisure

Chomsky meets Kaplan in strange new book

It’s fair to say that recent events have not treated Marxism very well. Communism as a global ideological force has long since collapsed, replaced by the triumph of global capitalism. Ten years ago, Francis Fukayama took a page out of Marx and Hegel’s book and declared human society to be at the “end of history.

By the September 5, 2002

Leisure

Indie label offers its young

We’ve all seen them: Fluorescent bubble letters explode onto our television screen, followed by snippets of videos, catching impassioned artists shooting sultry looks. Brittany, Kylie, Hanson, even K-Ci & JoJo. An announcer shouts that this $20 disc is the key to a sweet party.

By the September 5, 2002

Leisure

Q&A: this is for U

As I cruised down the streets of Gainesville, Fla. during a summer road-trip with John, my long-time best friend, one question plagued us. We’d roll down the windows, hang out of them and blare either the Yeah Yeah Yeahs or the Faint while we checked out the people walking to and from the University of Florida campus.

By the September 5, 2002

Leisure

NME gushes; we vomit

In art as in life, the problem with being ahead of your time is that you tend to wallow in poverty and obscurity because the rest of the world doesn’t care about you. In our day and age, the problem has been partially remedied. Between the magic of the Internet and the compulsions of hipsters who have nothing better to do with their lives, there are seemingly millions of people spending all of their time trying to find the next obscure, unknown and unloved but nonetheless culturally significant “big thing.

By the September 5, 2002

Leisure

Attention coffee quaffers!

Coffee has become for college students what Nicorette gum is for most smokers?a hyper-addictive drug with the bonus of flavor that can be a heavy hitter on the pocketbooks. It may not be so palatable at first, but once you’re hooked, you’re hooked. With coffee’s promulgation into the mainstream comes coffee snobs who refuse anything but the bitterest and darkest of roasts and to which sugar and cream is a godforsaken blasphemy.

By the August 29, 2002

Leisure

A spliff too far

The fanfare surrounding rock’s “latest trend” transcends garage rock’s stripped-down sound and careless attitude. Kids these days are bringing back the tight ripped jeans, staying away from the shower and cutting their own hair if the scissors are dull enough.

By the August 29, 2002

Leisure

Party People after the party’s over

Like few others in rock history, Tony Wilson was a genuine impresario. He possessed a personality so charismatic and larger than life that, without him, his show?the legendary and influential Factory Records?could not have gone on. Thanks to Michael Winterbottom’s new film 24 Hour Party People, Tony Wilson comes fully out of the shadows of Factory’s great bands to take his place next to Bill Graham in the pantheon of rock’s great promoters.

By the August 29, 2002

Leisure

With new LP, Mann remains within safe Space

Knives wrapped in silk. That is an Aimee Mann song. Beautifully harsh, each one conceals the most piercing lyrics within catchy melodies and Mann’s unique voice. Who knows how many times she has been jilted or what romantic tragedies have befallen her? We would, however, like God to bless each and every one of them.

By the August 29, 2002

Leisure

Wilco: the band, the myth, the album

In the music business, a sure way to foster interest in an artist (and thus sell records) is to build a mythology?a drama to underscore, if not transcend, the music. Typically, the most expedient way to mythologize oneself is by dying?to which still-robust catalog sales for Jimi Hendrix, Nick Drake and Lynyrd Skynyrd attest.

By the August 22, 2002

Leisure

RJD2’s Deadringer: Everyone loves it but us

So-called underground hip-hop has gotten big pushes from New York’s Definitive Jux records, the home of DJ and producer RJD2. RJ has done some great work in the past; his remix of “The F-Word” pushed the envelope of Harlem rap act Cannibal Ox’ murky, moody machine funk, while “June” brought heartbreaking guitar to what was possibly Copywrite’s only introspective moment on the mic, ever.

By the August 22, 2002

Leisure

Summer books gone wild!

Prague by Arthur Phillips Random House, $24.99 In his posthumously published memoirs of life in 1920s Paris, Hemingway wrote, “You’re an expatriate. You’ve lost touch with the soil. You get precious. Fake European standards have ruined you. You drink yourself to death.

By the August 22, 2002

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 August 22, 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 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

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 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 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