Boston Music - Boston Concerts Clubs and Live Music Reviews

WFNX dies before it gets old
Radio Silence BY MICHAEL MAROTTA

Radio Silence

Blurring gender lines with Speedy Ortiz
During a recent Allston basement show performance with her loud, grungy pop band Speedy Ortiz, Sarah Dupuis found herself surprised.
Homegrown trans rocker Evan Greer keeps her music political
Last month, when Tommy Gabel of Against Me! announced via Rolling Stone that she's transgender (and will now go by Laura Jane Grace), I immediately wondered what Evan Greer might be thinking.
Queering the party with the DJs of Nu Life
Growing up gay on Long Island, Brian Friedberg went out dancing almost every night: at all-ages clubs, raves, dancehall nights, gay hip-hop nights, gay clubs, straight clubs, and late-night joints. But he couldn't find the party he was looking for.

Community Music (2012)

Grass Widow | Internal Logic
There is stuff not to like about Internal Logic: a pair of instrumental interludes probably don't need to be there, and the drums aren't as gleefully chaotic as they were on 2010's Past Time.
Scissor Sisters | Magic Hour
"Twist and shout/Boobies hangin' all out," sings Scissor Sister Ana Matronic on the futuristic sci-fi funk of "Keep Your Shoes On," her robo-tastic chirp swallowed in a maze of mind-numbing video-game synth runs and digital blips.
Shadows Fall | Fire From The Sky
Are Shadows Fall still feeling the fan backlash from two albums ago?

Sophisticated primitives

The 2012 New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival
New Orleans Notes
Esperanza Spalding’s “Society”
The first time I was knocked out by Esperanza Spalding, she wasn't even playing — she was talking.
Walt Whitman via Fred Hersch
The pianist and composer Fred Hersch first encountered the poetry of Walt Whitman as a student at New England Conservatory in 1976.

Home bass

Photos: The Fringe at the Boston Conservatory Theater
The Fringe perform live at the Boston Conservatory Theater on May 12, 2012.
Photos: Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros at the Orpheum Theatre
Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros perform live at the Orpheum Theatre on May 12, 2012.
Photos: Boysetsfire at Brighton Music Hall
Boysetsfire performs live at Brighton Music Hall on May 17, 2012.

Where’s Freddie?

The Big Hurt: Platinum League vs. Yo! MTV Raps Trading Cards
I spied an exciting story on XXL magazine's website: "Platinum League Releases First Ever Hip-Hop Trading Cards."
The Big Hurt: This week in strategic promotional partnerships
Art can't reach its full purity until it's been smelted in the crucible of commerce.
The Big Hurt: Dodging the IRL horseshit at the World’s Lulziest convention
I've braved some gruesome events in the line of making-fun-of-stuff duty: anime conventions, comic conventions, and even a furry convention. Only one of them approached genuine hell on Earth.

Higher definition

Haitink and the BSO, Zander and the BPO, the Emerson Quartet, the Vores Violin Concerto, and Donald Teeters’s farewell to Boston Cecilia
Sometimes you know it the minute you hear it, sometimes it takes a while, sometimes it never happens at all.
Roman Totenberg's last bow
Roman Totenberg is teaching a lesson.
The Metropolitan Opera live telecasts
Given the high cost of productions and, therefore, the high price of tickets, opera companies have a hard time staying in business.