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Back in the 1970s, one of the major bands leading the welcomed revival of Celtic music was Planxty, a group that recreated the original energy in what could have been musty old tunes and forms and thereby revitalized Irish music. Singer Andy Irvine incorporated Eastern European elements into the band, and he later co-founded another all-star Irish band, Patrick Street, which he continues to front. Continue reading
The play’s refrain echoes over the audience, as though repeating the words enough times will make it true: “Make it so life ain’t printed on dollar bills.” Continue reading
The dirty streets of London crawl with vermin and their lousy human counterparts. Victorian England is a great place to get rich, a terrible place to be poor and the perfect place for Charles Dickens’ imagination to run wild with an orphan in search of hope. Oliver! The Musical is more than memorable songs like “Food, Glorious Food” and “Consider Yourself.” It is a dark, Dickensian story. A successful production takes skill, bravery and a heap of children. Continue reading
Just how bad is Exploding Love, the play? It is so miserably and flatulently bad, in fact, that it’s nearly inconceivable Exploding Love, the actual current LCC student production directed by Michael Watkins, could not also be bad. We’re talking inevitably, ineluctably bad, as in lipstick-on-pig bad. Not just ungood, but bad. Awful. Continue reading
Click any image to view the complete Beats Antique gallery. All photos by Rob Sydor. Continue reading
Make It Stop Only you can stop audience abuse. By not going to this movie. by Molly Templeton Continue reading
Nerds (said with love, people; I am one, OK?) sometimes come back from nerd conventions talking about having caught “con crud,” an unavoidable illness caught while in the company of so frakking many other people. I woke up on Friday with what I’ll call “festival funk.” I blame everyone, no one and my own late hours. Take your vitamins, SXSW campers. Or at least drink your vodka with orange juice. Festival funk will screw with your days. Continue reading
What all the excited, giddy, half-drunken tweets from SXSW don’t tell you is how much time you’re likely to spend walking from venue to venue and/or waiting in line for shows you may or may not get into. I’m not complaining. I’m just telling you why I feel like a total slacker for how few bands I’ve seen the last two days. Goddammit! My scheduling powers are no match for the distance between the Cedar Street Courtyard and the Scoot Inn! Continue reading
You know what I would like? I’d like for St. Patrick’s Day not to fall during SXSW. I overheard my first “Where’s your green?” conversation before noon. Sixth Street doesn’t need this. Drunken music fans + drunken, green-garbed college kids = double the mayhem. I expect to see piles of green, and I don’t mean shiny green leprechaun money. Continue reading