Drive-By Truckers frontman gets personal on new solo album

The songs of Patterson Hood often tell vivid stories, even if they’re not always about the brightest subjects. Over a decade and a half and nine studio albums later, the Drive-By Truckers frontman has tackled rural economic plight, cancer clusters, and killing a banker to avoid foreclosure. His modern gothic tales are usually enhanced by […]

ARTS Pick: “If I Sing”

With more than 40 area theater productions under his belt, Doug Schneider can be called an institution. The UCLA-trained actor/singer/director/teacher is putting his star to good use as he mounts If I Sing, a two-night, showtune-studded cabaret featuring Greg Harris and the Tom Collins Trio, with all proceeds going to support Live Arts. Friday and […]

Film review: Lawless

With more precision and presence of mind, Lawless might have pitched itself as an origin story of the whole gangster-movie genre. But like the transparent moonshine its backwoods brooders guzzle down in just such a way as to remind us it’s fake, the movie itself seems conspicuously diluted, more water than fire. Sourced from Matt […]

TV previews: “The New Normal,” “The X Factor,” and “Revolution

“The New Normal” /Tuesday 9:30pm, NBC You can’t peg creator Ryan Murphy. He’s been behind the seedy “Nip/Tuck,” the ridiculous “Glee,” the brilliant “American Horror Story”—and now he tries his hand at an unconventional conventional sitcom with “The New Normal.” The show follows the de facto family that emerges after Goldie, a small-town single mom, […]

The Bridge PAI explores the art of sound in Audio September

In 2008, The Bridge PAI hosted a month of sound-related programming entitled Audio January. The next year, January seemed unfeasible, so the Belmont-based arts organization followed up with Audio February. The joke amongst Bridge staff was that the annual event would cycle through the months of the year, and for three successive years (including Audio […]

ARTS Pick: The Battle of Chile

Half a decade of global cold war left us with no lack of dramatic subjects for documentaries. To wit, on September 11, 1973, a U.S.-backed counter-revolution and coup in Chile resulted in the assassination of the democratically elected president Salvador Allende. Chilean director Patricio Guzman chronicles the political tensions and outright violence of the events […]

Chris Corsano blurs the borders between jazz and noise

Chris Corsano is one of most restlessly inventive of contemporary improvisers, a jazz drummer reminiscent of Max Roach, whose work is thoughtful and open-minded enough to collaborate with noise and rock musicians as well as more traditional hard bop players. Corsano made his name as part of a loose scene from Northampton, Mass, attracting notice […]

TV previews: “Robot Chicken,” “Katie,” and “The Voice”

“Robot Chicken DC Comics Special” Sunday midnight, Adult Swim Meanwhile, at the Hall of Justice, a bunch of nerds and geek-loving Hollywood stars teamed up to bring us the dorkiest TV show this side of “Who Wants to be a Super Hero?” The permanent teenagers behind stop-motion pop-culture comedy show “Robot Chicken” have gotten official license […]

Dan Deacon taps your inner glee through crowd participation

I can vividly remember hearing Dan Deacon for the first time. His debut full-length album, released in the spring of 2007 (with the unfortunate title of Spiderman of the Rings) begins with a dense burst of buzzing electronic harmonies and sampled Woody Woodpecker sound-effects, and I was instantly a fan. Deacon’s music is exuberant and impossible […]