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GOLDEN GIRL: It has never been accorded the weight of Tosca or La bohème, but La fanciulla del West was the work Puccini himself thought was his greatest masterpiece. Based on an American play, The Girl of the Golden West (by David Belasco, the same guy who wrote Madame Butterfly), La fanciulla might have been the first spaghetti western — set in California during the Gold Rush, it features a heroine who, when a desperado tries to hold up her saloon, turns the tables and steals his heart instead. The Boston Academy of Music is reviving this seldom-heard work with a fully staged production in Italian with English surtitles; Ellen Chickering stars as Minnie, the tough broad. Performances are March 8 and 12 at 7:30 p.m. and March 10 at 2:30 p.m. at the Emerson Majestic Theatre, 219 Tremont Street, in Boston. Tickets are $20 to $75; call (617) 824-8000.

CUT CREATORS: Coming to a silver screen near you sometime in the next couple of months is Scratch, a feature-length documentary on the art of hip-hop turntablism. The film goes back to Grand Wizard Theodore, who invented the titular technique, and follows the evolution of turntable wizardry through Afrika Bambaataa all the way to modern-day disciples, including DJ Q-Bert and Rob Swift. In the meantime, the soundtrack to the film — a dizzying display of "wrist-cramping insanity" produced by Bill Laswell — is in stores. And better yet, a live tour hits the road next month featuring Q-Bert, Dilated Peoples, Z-Trip, and, even better, Afrika Bambaataa himself — making this a rare opportunity to see the man whose "Death Mix" launched a million mixtapes. The Scratch tour hits Avalon, 15 Lansdowne Street, in Boston, on March 19. Tickets are $25.25; call (617) 423-NEXT.

NEXT WEEKEND:

Leif Garrett

To lift a phrase from Al Gore, Leif Garrett — former child TV star, Svengali-controlled ’70s teen heartthrob, sappy cover artist extraordinaire, and erstwhile Melvins collaborator — wants people to know that when he takes the stage at T.T. the Bear’s next Friday, he will do so as his own man.

"It’s rock and roll," says Garrett from his home in LA of his thus-far-unrecorded band, F8. "The closest thing I’ve been able to come up with [as a comparison] is something like Led Zeppelin and a little bit like Alice in Chains, a little bit like Stone Temple Pilots. I don’t know if anyone agrees with that or not, but the point is we’re making the music we wanna make."

That’s an important distinction for a guy whose initial fame came from performing song-and-dance routines he didn’t want anything to do with, a star held captive by the nefarious pop machinations and image control of label owners the Scotti brothers. When asked how being a rock star compares to being a pop star, Garrett clarifies things immediately: "I was a pin-up, man. I wasn’t a singer. Nobody came to me and said, ‘Hey, can you sing?’ They said ‘Hey, you wanna make a record?’ That was all based on my popularity in Tiger Beat and 16 magazines, because I was doing a TV series [1975’s adventure show Three for the Road] at the time. They saw that I was a skateboarder and surfer from California, then they used that image. They had me doing Beach Boys remakes and all that. I was basically a marionette. It wasn’t until now, really, that I’ve been able to do the music I wanna do."

But between then and now, Garrett suffered through two decades of purgatory, of sorts: a period marked by heroin addiction, a drunk-driving accident that left his buddy a paraplegic, and a string of B movies (a 1983 part in Francis Ford Coppola’s The Outsiders saw his character get killed in the first few scenes). Then, in 1999, came Behind the Music. Don’t pretend you didn’t watch it. Who could forget Garrett’s weepy VH1-engineered reunion with his paralyzed friend, Roland Winkler, after years of acrimonious litigation? Does he credit that show for the sudden, Travolta-like rise in his stock? Garrett’s response is reflexive.

"Oh, of course! I think people are interested again because I was completely honest on that show. That’s the whole point of the thing. It wasn’t like David Cassidy, where he says, ‘I only had a drinking problem. That’s it.’ Sure, pal. I remember you falling off the stage on Quaaludes in London, okay? C’mon!"

Garrett also recently upped his hep factor by collaborating with Northwest slo-core ear bleeders the Melvins. (Fans might remember Garrett jumping on stage with them last year at the Middle East, stocking-capped with spliff in mouth, to sing Nirvana’s "Smells Like Teen Spirit.") Not only did recording and touring with Kurt Cobain’s heroes pique his desire to rock out on his own, says Garrett, but it further sullied his squeaky-clean rep. "Suddenly," he says, "the jealous boyfriends who hated me because their girlfriends had my picture and stuff now went, ‘Oh, whoa. This guy was a junkie!’ or, ‘He played with the Melvins. Cool!’ So, it’s all sorta helped and worked my way, which is really cool."

But at T.T.’s, Garrett will not be spitting out novelty covers with grunge progenitors or crooning golden-ringleted versions of "Runaround Sue." He’ll be singing his own songs, with his own band. "Rock and roll. Definitely, rock and roll," he says. "Hopefully, people are gonna check out the music for what it’s worth and not just come out of curiosity." Then he pauses. "Although, I don’t care. We’ll get people in the door any way we can. If people just wanna be hecklers, that’s fine. We’ve never had that problem." He pauses again. "Except for that one time in Bakersfield. No big deal. We won ’em over. Fuck ’em."

F8 play next Friday, February 22, at T.T. the Bear’s, 10 Brookline Street, Cambridge. Tickets are $12; call (617) 492-BEAR.

BY MIKE MILIARD

 

Issue Date: February 14 - 21, 2002
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