Notes on Jim's Big Ego, Campaign for Real-Time, and, um, Mayor Menino
By JIM SULLIVAN | June 12, 2007
Jim's Big Ego |
Jim Infantino of JIM’S BIG EGO is describing The Ego & the Oracle, a show he’s been staging Sundays at Jimmy Tingle’s Off Broadway. “It’s an improvisational music theater piece where the magic eight-ball meets the iPod shuffle.” Sort of. What actually happens is that audience members submit questions on cards, one of 30 Jim’s Big Ego songs is randomly chosen from a spinning wheel, Jim’s Big Ego play the song, and then a medium explains how the song answers the question. “Some people take it seriously and ask real questions, and sometimes it’s ‘Butter or margarine?’ ” There’ll be 11 or so encounters over a 90-minute show. At the end, Infantino reads all the questions and the trio do a blues-jazz vamp over them. The tunes? “A lot of the songs are funny, ironic observances, kind of philosophical. About 15 percent are political, really angry.” The last show on the docket is June 17, but Infantino says he’d like to start up another run down the road.
If you’re at Faneuil Hall Marketplace July 2 at about 10 am, watch for an older guy in a suit smashing an electric guitar outside the new Hard Rock Café. Pete Townshend? Try MAYOR THOMAS M. MENINO. He’ll join 70 other axmen — some with more cred — in “The Smash Heard Around the World,” a guitar-destruction exhibit signaling the opening of the new restaurant/club at the old Rack/Pizzeria Uno space. BLUE MAN GROUP, various radio and sports jocks, and actual Boston guitarists are expected to join. The Hard Rock wants you to know that it’ll be donating a new guitar to music schools for each one that gets busted. The restaurant opens at noon. Look for 850 Zildjian cymbals behind the bar. Look for the “Boston Room,” where all the memorabilia will be local. And in time, at night, you’ll see bands playing the 500-capacity concert room . . . The CAMPAIGN FOR REAL-TIME’s Brendan Quigley reports that CRT are back from LA, where they “cranked out nine songs in 11 days at the Hobby Shop Studios with super-producer Mudrock” (Godsmack) and engineer Ai Fujisaki (Wu-Tang Clan). Playing what he calls “post-iPod playlist dance rock,” the band will support Robby Roadsteamer at the Paradise June 23.
Related:
Frighteningly good, Annals of termination, Marx in Somerville, More 
- Frighteningly good
Charlestown comedy team the Walsh Bros. are ready for prime time.
- Annals of termination
George W. Bush is guilty of a lot of things. But in her just-released book, former federal prosecutor Elizabeth de la Vega gets specific.
- Marx in Somerville
Howard Zinn meets Jimmy Tingle Who would brave Arctic weather to watch Karl Marx pontificate?
- Morrissey and Crimmins
The parallel but separate career paths of New England folk icon Bill Morrissey and edgy political satirist Barry Crimmins, both of whom began their assent in Boston’s 1980s club scene, intersected for shows May 5 and 6 at Jimmy Tingle’s Off Broadway in Davis Square.
- Jeff Cohen on the weird and disturbing world of CNN, Fox, and MSNBC
In his new book, Cable News Confidential: My Misadventures in Corporate Media , Jeff Cohen writes about his years with cable news channels as a pilgrim who’s returned from a strange and hostile land.
- Different Strokes?
I feel bad for Julian Casablancas, as strange as that may sound. Slideshow: The Strokes at Bank of America Pavillion Slideshow: The Mess Hall and Wolfmother at Bank of America Pavillion
- Dinosaur rock
Hooray for Earth singer/guitarist Noel Heroux spends so much time at his band’s Allston rehearsal space, you could imagine he practically lives there. And in fact he does, sleeping on an air mattress among broken guitar parts and empty beer cans. Hooray for Earth, "Simple Plan" (mp3)
- Nouvelle Vague
If it’s possible to give a one-trick pony legs, then French producers Marc Collin and Olivier Libau have found the secret.
- Crossword: 'POW!'
That old familiar sound
- Sing the song!
What’s the deal with Madeleine Peyroux? Slideshow: Madeleine Peyroux at Berklee Performance Center, November 1, 2006
- Cinematic trends
If it seems there’s a glut of good shows around town this week, that’s because hundreds of bands have converged on the Northeast for New York’s answer to South by Southwest, the CMJ Music Marathon, which wraps up this weekend.
- Less
Topics:
New England Music News
, Entertainment, Music, Pop and Rock Music, More
, Entertainment, Music, Pop and Rock Music, Wu-Tang Clan, Tom Menino, Performing Arts, Jimmy Tingle, Theater, Robby Roadsteamer, Godsmack, Less
