Powered by Google
Home
Listings
Editors' Picks
News
Music
Movies
Food
Life
Arts + Books
Rec Room
Moonsigns
- - - - - - - - - - - -
Personals
Adult Personals
Classifieds
Adult Classifieds
- - - - - - - - - - - -
stuff@night
FNX Radio
Band Guide
MassWeb Printing
- - - - - - - - - - - -
About Us
Contact Us
Advertise With Us
Work For Us
Newsletter
RSS Feeds
- - - - - - - - - - - -
Webmaster
Archives



sponsored links
- - - - - - - - - - - - -
PassionShop.com
Sex Toys - Adult  DVDs - Sexy  Lingerie


For Boston
The Dropkick Murphy's plan for St. Paddy's Day, and more

Dropkicking

Dropkick Murphys bassist and main man Ken Casey is checking in with us from LA, where he’s just handing in the group’s forthcoming album, Blackout, due June 10 on Hellcat/Epitaph. The group’s annual St. Patrick’s Day weekend multi-night homestand at Avalon, March 14 through 17 — which ballooned this year from three shows to four — has just sold out. But if you’re without tickets, Casey’s got good news: the Dropkicks are playing a semi-secret benefit show at the Rack next Friday, February 28. Tickets are $25, or $100 for VIP tickets that include a spot in a celebrity pool tournament; call (617) 725-1051.

And the following afternoon, on March 1, Casey — a long-time Bruins season-ticket holder who played classic B’s footage before last year’s Avalon concerts to get audiences riled up — will lace up his skates alongside the Bruins Alumni team for the Microsoft Celebrity Hockey Challenge at the FleetCenter (the game immediately follows the 1 p.m. Bruins/Flyers match-up). "I’m in the process of shaking off a good bit of rust," Casey quips, "but hopefully I’ll take a pass or two from Ray Borque." Proceeds from the show and the game benefit the Franciscan Children’s Hospital and the Boston Bruins Alumni charities, and both will be attended by Bruins alumni as well as celebs, including Denis Leary, Mike O’Malley, and Alan Thicke.

As for Blackout, the band completed the 14-song disc over the past few months with Jim Siegel at the Outpost in Stoughton, the same set-up as with their last studio effort, 2001’s Sing Loud, Sing Proud. Unlike that disc, though, this one has no guest appearances from Celt-rock royalty: "We’re still scarred from working with Shane MacGowan the last time around," Casey laughs. But the disc’s title song, "There’s Gonna Be a Blackout Tonight," does feature an unlikely collaborator: their fellow working-class-radical populist, Woody Guthrie. Nora Guthrie, Woody’s daughter and the driving force behind the Guthrie archives (she spearheaded the Wilco/Billy Bragg Mermaid Avenue discs), contacted the Murphys a year ago about the possibility of the band’s setting some of Woody’s unpublished lyrics to music — an opportunity that’s been afforded to the very select few. (See "Performance," for our interview with Woody’s granddaughter Sarah, who’s in town this week.) The Guthrie archives were in the process of being transferred to microfilm, but Casey got there in time to put on the white gloves and pick through the actual scraps. "He wrote on so many different topics," Casey says, "and from the way he wrote them, you could see his state of mind. Some were neatly typed out, and some looked like they’d been scribbled in the dark on a boxcar: you can barely read them."

Casey picked through piles of Guthrie’s lyrics, and hopes at some point to record an album’s worth. The band has recorded two thus far. One, which may surface as a B-side, is called "Shipping Off to Boston." "I don’t know what it’s about," says Casey, "but it’s very lighthearted. The lyrics are, ‘I’m shipping off to Boston to find my wooden leg.’ So it sounds like he lost a leg up here or something." "Blackout" will be the new disc’s first single and video: "It’s about air-raid stuff in London in World War II, where the man says to shut your lights out when the sirens go off, or someone’s gonna get blown up." Any resonance with current events is purely coincidental, Casey says. "When we picked the lyrics it was almost a year ago, but yeah, it seems kinda ironic now."

Blackout will also contain a bonus disc with a trailer preview of the long-awaited Dropkick Murphys DVD. Originally planned as a live document of last year’s St. Patty’s shows, the DVD has blown up into a full-scale documentary, with footage stretching from the band’s first US tour up to the making of the new album. And you can keep an eye out for at least one other Dropkick item soon: Epitaph has been circulating a limited-edition run of Chuck Taylor–model Converse sneakers with the Dropkick Murphys’ shamrock logo on the side (full disclosure: we got a pair). Unlike the plaid Bosstones model Converse marketed during that band’s heyday, the Dropkick model is currently promo-only. But keep your eyes peeled online. Says Casey: "I’m gonna wait and sell mine on eBay in a couple of years."

Invitation Not to Join

Dorchester’s Strand Theatre and the Huntington Theatre Company team up on February 27 to present a community event titled "Girl Gangs: Get Out While You Can." Part theater preview, part cautionary tale, the program, which is at the Strand, begins with actors from the Huntington’s upcoming production of Kia Corthron’s Breath, Boom reading scenes from the play, which is billed as "an unflinching portrait of life in a girl gang." Also in the performance vein, Urban Improv, a violence-prevention program for young people that uses structured theater improvisation to teach empowerment to youth, presents a short play about gang violence that incorporates participation by young people in the audience. The performances will be followed by a Q&A moderated by Charles "Poncho" Brown, CE prevention and education/outreach coordinator for the Upham’s Corner Health Center. The panel includes Dr. Deborah Prothrow-Stith, an associate dean, professor, and director at Harvard’s School of Public Health; David Singletary and Neva Grice of the Boston Police Youth Violence Strike Force; an ex-female-gang member; and Letta Neely, education and development coordinator for the Boston Glass Community Center.

"We are working with the Huntington because the issues dealt with in Breath, Boom are critical to our audience and our community," says Victoria Jones, executive director of the Strand. The play, which debuted in 2000 at London’s Royal Court Theatre, traces 14 years in the life of a tough young woman named Prix, whose journey takes her from leadership of an African-American girl gang to jail and back to the streets. Also dealt with in the graphic and lyrical work are issues of neglect and abuse.

At the Strand event, there will be representatives from various community organizations dispensing relevant information. Dinners by Keith’s Place will be for sale before, during, and after the program. And all attendees will be given a coupon good for a $14 ticket to Breath, Boom. The Huntington has also implemented a "Pay Your Age" program to encourage people aged 15 to 35 to attend.

The community event takes place at the Strand Theatre, 543 Columbia Road, in Dorchester. It’s at 6:30 p.m.; the doors open at 5:30 p.m. There is a suggested donation of $5 to benefit the Strand. For more information, call the Strand box office at (617) 282-8000. For information about Breath, Boom, which the Huntington presents March 7 through April 6, call the Huntington box office at (617) 266-0800.

Digging

Every five years, the Associazione Internazionale di Archeologia Classica (AIAC) comes together to present new research and discoveries from classical archaeologists, historians, conservation scientists, and scholars. This year, from August 23 through 26, the Harvard University Art Museums will host the XVI International Congress of Classical Archaeology of the AIAC, the group’s first-ever meeting in the United States.

The last meeting of the AIAC was held in Amsterdam, and it was there that the possibility of the Harvard museums’ hosting the next congress was first discussed. "Representatives from Harvard were there in Amsterdam and talked to members of the organization’s board," explains Amy Brauer, associate curator in the Department of Ancient and Byzantine Art and Numismatics at the Harvard Art Museums. Boston seemed an appropriate locus for the congress because "universities and museums in Cambridge and Boston represent one of the cradles of classical archaeology and art history in the Western Hemisphere," according to the AIAC Web page.

This year’s theme, "Common Ground: Archaeology, Art, Science, and Humanities," will bring together scholars and authorities across the disciplines to offer new perspectives on topics including architecture, ancient technologies, magic, religious practices, and education. Over the three days, 250 papers will be presented during six simultaneous sessions. "It’s an interdisciplinary endeavor," said Brauer. And sessions on topics like "Polychromy in Imperial Roman Portraiture: The Copenhagen Caligula," in which the original appearance of a statue of notorious Roman emperor Caligula is reconstructed through scientific processes, reflect the trans-disciplinary nature of the congress. Brauer estimates about 1000 attendees. "When we agreed to host this, it was five years ago. People don’t travel as much now, and who knows what the global situation will be this summer, but we’re expecting many Europeans to come," she said.

Besides hosting papers, presentations, and colloquiums, the meeting will be surrounded by exhibits. The Fogg Art Museum will present an exhibit on the Archaeological Exploration of Sardis, a program of research and excavation at the historical site in Turkey that Harvard has been a part of for the past 30 years. And the Hood Museum of Art at Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire, will host the exhibit "Coming of Age in Ancient Greece," the "first major exhibit to explore childhood in ancient Greece" through images of birth, family life, education, mythology, and death, according to the AIAC Web page.

The XIV International Congress of Classical Archaeology of the Associazione Internazionale di Archeologia Classica will take place August 23 through 26 at the Sheraton Boston Hotel, 39 Dalton Street, in Boston. Registration is required, and the fees have yet to be decided. For more information, see www.aiac.org.

Issue Date: February 20 - 27, 2003

Back to the Editors' picks table of contents.

 









about the phoenix |  advertising info |  Webmaster |  work for us
Copyright © 2005 Phoenix Media/Communications Group