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 […]
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 […]
Future Islands has come a long way since its first show in 2006 at an anti-Valentine’s Day party in Greenville, North Carolina. Now based in Baltimore, the indie synth-pop group—composed of frontman Samuel T. Herring, bassist/guitarist William Cashion and keyboardist Gerrit Welmers—has busied itself touring the world and selling out countless gigs, including a show […]
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 […]
Devon Sproule The Gold String (Tin Angel) After time in Texas and England, Devon Sproule’s return to central Virginia was rightly celebrated by local fans of the Canada-born, Twin Oaks-raised singer-songwriter. On The Gold String, Sproule weaves stories rich with touching details (“Here we are, curled in the dark / The last two spoons left […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
As one-fourth of experimental pop band Animal Collective and a solo artist in his own right, Noah Lennox (who creates under the moniker Panda Bear) has been making music professionally for nearly 20 years. Along with Dave Portner (Avey Tare), Brian Weitz (Geologist) and Josh Dibb (Deakin), Lennox and the Collective made their mainstream crossover […]
While singer-songwriter Devon Sproule’s sound has evolved over time, she continues to write thoughtful and compelling lyrics. This month her eighth album, The Gold String, will be released. The record is themed on the idea of an invisible string connecting all things, and the possibility of finding “spiritual togetherness in everyday life,” Sproule says. For […]