ARTS Pick: Kat Somers

Local singer-songwriter Kat Somers has been performing and writing music since sixth grade. Her earnest, original tunes float on sunny melodies, acoustic picking and lyrics sung from the gut in a voice that powers its message through. The recent college grad embarks on a busy summer schedule that finds her booked throughout the region, thanks […]

Breakers dabbles in the fifth dimension on new album

On a warm Monday evening, the four members of Breakers sit comfortably on wicker couches under a covered porch in Belmont. In the glow of multicolored Christmas lights, they share beers and take turns snuggling Batman, drummer Vicente Arroyo’s dog, clad in a red, yellow and green collar, in their post-practice ritual. It’s where they […]

Alien: Covenant fails to perpetuate the franchise

When a movie crash lands due to its own misguidedness, the common question is, “What were the filmmakers thinking?” In the case of Alien: Covenant, we know exactly what Ridley Scott was thinking because he won’t stop broadcasting the film’s metaphors or applauding the foreshadowing long enough to let it tell a worthwhile story. If […]

ARTS Pick: Goodnight Desdemona (Good Morning Juliet)

In Goodnight Desdemona (Good Morning Juliet), literature scholar and self-described old maid Constance Ledbelly has reason to believe that two of Shakespeare’s iconic tragedies, Othello and Romeo and Juliet, were not originally written as tragedies at all. Too timid to show her skeptical boss her findings, Constance withdraws into her subconscious mind and the two […]

ARTS Pick: Charlie Mars

Some scour the beach for shells, Charlie Mars went looking for songs. Called to the ocean on his latest album, Beach Town, Mars takes inspiration from the Gulf Coast in depicting salty characters, lost lovers and a search for redemption along the sandy fringes of our Southern border. His songwriting carries such vivid themes that the […]

ARTS Pick: [title of show]

With an open script and generic name, [title of show], the “musical about two guys writing a musical about two guys writing a musical,” by Jeff Bowen and Hunter Bell, has become a work-in-progress with each production crew adding updates and changes based on its experience. The one-act play takes a comical look at the […]

Movie review: “Snatched” gets all dressed up but goes nowhere

Be wary of any comedy with such a conspicuous amount of talented performers as Snatched. Maybe it’ll be the star-studded movie event of the decade, but more than likely it’ll be an exercise in coasting, with a few laughs here and there but occupying much of the running time with mugging and lesser gags hogging […]

Takin’ care of backstage business at area music venues

If Gary Green does his job well at the Paramount Theater, nobody will know. As the theater’s audio production manager, he analyzes how sound waves produced by artists will be affected by rising temperature and humidity as audience members fill the space. He knows how voices sound in each microphone, and where the Paramount’s resonance […]