Arts: Page 252

Bedtime Stories

Art, truth and murder collide in LCC’s production of Martin McDonagh’s The Pillowman

Theater

On the surface, Irish author Martin McDonagh’s plays are foul, transgressive affairs, full of piss and vinegar and erect middle fingers. In the tradition of his literary forbears Swift, Joyce and Beckett, McDonagh is a relentlessly physical writer given to depicting all manner of human grotesquery — violence, perversion, degradation, deformity and compulsive cussing of the worst kind. Continue reading →

The Spectre of Mediocrity

Film

James Bond is a real son-of-a-bitch. Emotionally withdrawn and given to bouts of depression, the agent known as 007 is a classic anti-hero — sadistic, taciturn and misanthropic, he is an assassin driven by the icy requisites of duty but given to the thrill of stepping outside the lines when he smells a rat within his own intelligence organization. Continue reading →

American Noise

You can join a band even if you can’t play an instrument

Music

Fun fact: You can join a band even if you can’t play an instrument.   “When we started the band I did not play any instruments,” Mallory Graham of Nashville’s The Rough and Tumble tells EW. “And I was terrified to do so.” Graham says her college friend Scott Tyler convinced her that if she agreed to play music with him, her lack of musical experience wouldn’t be a problem.  Continue reading →

Music x MECCA

The songs of Brooklyn-based quintet Lucius

Music

The songs of Brooklyn-based quintet Lucius range from alt-country ballads and ’60s psychedelic to percussive pop with beguiling melodies and dance rhythms. But it’s the powerful harmonizing vocals of lead singers Jess Wolfe and Holly Laessig that really separate their sound from the mainstream. Listening to the band’s acclaimed debut album Wildewoman (2013), it’s easy to assume there’s just one singer, such is the impressive vocal union of Wolfe and Laessig.  Continue reading →