Whats-Happening: Page 631

It’s About Time – September 2013

About Time

It’s that time of year when the birds are getting restless. Migration is stirring in their bones — hollow bones evolved for long-distance flight. We expect thousands of Vaux’s swifts to roost in the old Agate Hall chimney for a week or so on their way south. Watch for the Audubon Society’s Friday night vigils Sept. 20 and 27 when that happens. The equinox on Sept. 22 comes as the change in day length is at its greatest. After equinox the rate of change decelerates until the change is barely noticeable during the season of longest nights. Continue reading →

The Teens Are All Right

Film

Maybe the most bittersweetly delightful thing about James Ponsoldt’s The Spectacular Now is the way it captures the feeling of a drawn-out ending. For Aimee (Shailene Woodley), Sutter (Miles Teller) and their classmates, it’s the end of high school, a time when everything is bitingly vital and yet nothing matters much, since it’s all going to change in a few weeks anyway. What happens next is of the utmost importance, but no one really knows what that next thing will be, least of all Sutter, who has yet to get around to applying to college. Continue reading →

Downtempo Duo

Music

Of all the serendipitous moments in music history, Rob Garza wandering into Eric Hilton’s Eighteenth Street Lounge in 1995 is one that should not be overlooked. The happenstance meeting in Washington, D.C., propelled the two producer-musicians into an expansive Grammy-nominated career as globetrotting downtempo duo Thievery Corporation. Continue reading →

Brooklyn City Rockers

Music

Twenty-five years ago Bruce Springsteen was king of classic rock. Now, there seems to be a whole generation of young punk bands that claim The Boss as their own. And in hindsight, they just might be right. Brooklyn’s The So So Glos share Springsteen’s meat ‘n’ potatoes sound while remaining steeped in punk rock’s golden age. Vocalist Alex Levine sounds an awful lot like Joe Strummer. Continue reading →

New Metal, Old Story

Music

In a post-Miley Cyrus world, people of a certain vintage are (again) all twerked-up over young people and their pop culture landscape. It was in this context I checked out the video for “Coming Down” by L.A. nu-metal outfit Five Finger Death Punch. The video, off their 2011 release American Capitalist, tells parallel storylines: A young man commits suicide in front of his parents; a young woman violently vomits, having overdosed on pills, distraught over a sexting scandal.  Continue reading →

Big Sonic Love

Music

Picture Los Angeles. Highways, rolling hills, scatterings of high rises poking through the smog and a candy-cane striped Big Top tent coloring the skyline? The indie-folkstars Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros are joining the circus. Or rather, they are creating one in their hometown. The inaugural Big Top Festival is an experiment, says drummer and vocalist Orpheo McCord. The troupe will play under an actual big top tent on a 360-degree rotating stage with local musicians come Oct. 17.  Continue reading →

Red-Hot Honky Tonk

The Red Cane Theatre kicks off the fall season

Theater

A pair of city slickers arrives in a podunk town. They’ve come to close the local saloon, which is financially strapped. The businessmen’s trip is something of a lark; though their mission is clandestine and cutthroat, they find the saloon, and the people in it, quaint and charming. One of the businessmen starts to fall for the saloon’s proprietress, a gorgeous, lovelorn woman with a stubborn streak. Drama ensues, and the whiskey flows. Fights erupt. Hearts collide. Continue reading →