There is no mistaking The Walkmen for another band. With ragged melodies, vintage musical instruments, rattle-and-hiss production and caterwauling of lead singer Hamilton Leithauser, the quintet has forged a distinctive path in indie rock. The New York-based band’s output belies faint traces of many recording artists ” Leonard Cohen, the Pogues and Joy Division, to […]
Phil Bacharach
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Documentary ‘Food, Inc.’ pulls back veil on food industry
The documentary “Food, Inc.” begins, appropriately enough, in a grocery store, its brightly lit and vaguely antiseptic aisles stocked with name-brand cereals, soups and salad dressings. The expanse of labels boasts illustrations of inviting red barns, rolling hills of green grass, smiling farmers. It’s a familiar and comforting image, but one that the filmmakers suggest […]
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Heart has pulsed for more than 30 years, continues to rock
Nancy Wilson clearly remembers the first time she heard her band, Heart, on the radio. It was 1976 in Vancouver, British Columbia. She and her older sister, Ann, had just picked up some groceries and were driving back to the house they shared with their bandmates. “The local radio had started playing a couple of […]
Posted inMusic
Documentary ‘Food, Inc.’ pulls back veil on food industry
The documentary “Food, Inc.” begins, appropriately enough, in a grocery store, its brightly lit and vaguely antiseptic aisles stocked with name-brand cereals, soups and salad dressings. The expanse of labels boasts illustrations of inviting red barns, rolling hills of green grass, smiling farmers. It’s a familiar and comforting image, but one that the filmmakers suggest […]
Posted inMusic
Heart has pulsed for more than 30 years, continues to rock
Nancy Wilson clearly remembers the first time she heard her band, Heart, on the radio. It was 1976 in Vancouver, British Columbia. She and her older sister, Ann, had just picked up some groceries and were driving back to the house they shared with their bandmates. “The local radio had started playing a couple of […]
Posted inMusic
Sonic Youth returns to its indie roots for 16th album, ‘The Eternal’
It is nearly impossible to imagine alternative rock without Sonic Youth. Since its founding in the early ’80s, the New York-based band has been as uncompromising as it is influential, with its cacophonous guitars and avant-garde sensibilities inspiring an entire generation of indie rockers. The group’s merging of the corrosive and the celestial is a […]
Posted inMusic
Sonic Youth returns to its indie roots for 16th album, ‘The Eternal’
It is nearly impossible to imagine alternative rock without Sonic Youth. Since its founding in the early ’80s, the New York-based band has been as uncompromising as it is influential, with its cacophonous guitars and avant-garde sensibilities inspiring an entire generation of indie rockers. The group’s merging of the corrosive and the celestial is a […]
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Lucinda Williams writes what she feels, gets what she wants
The rap on Lucinda Williams has long been that she’s a gifted songwriter ” perhaps the finest of her generation ” but also a maddening perfectionist and control freak. NO APOLOGIES SPECULATION There’s a perfectly good explanation for such exacting behavior, said Williams, who takes the stage Thursday night at Diamond Ballroom. She points to […]
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Woman in an unhappy marriage finds life in ‘Everlasting Moments’
At first blush, “Everlasting Moments” might sound like a litany of art-house film clichés. Set in Sweden in the early 20th century, its saga of a quiet, strong-willed woman and her lout of a husband is pretentious enough to starch a collar, but the film transcends the sum of its well-worn plot. The great Swedish […]
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The B-52s still dancing ‘Rock Lobster’ around
When The B-52s began work on their first studio album in more than 15 years, the bandmates expected to whip up their singular brand of vibrant, dance-happy kitsch. What they didn’t anticipate was how, well, horny the songs would sound. And the resulting album, last year’s “Funplex,” is chock full of references to belly-licking, G-spots […]