Music Menu
WEDNESDAY 1.19American Plague – This Knoxville-based rock quartet loosen their 70s punk rock foundations with added layers of fast and furious southern rock. Along the way, the band gives props to Motorhead, Stooges and the Ramones. It’s all about yelling “One, two, three!” into the mic and blasting out of the gates. Milestone (Shukla) Andy…
Graveyard Shift
The Machinist has a plodding, chiller plot that can’t decide if it’s highbrow or low as it moves between Kafkaesque navel-gazing and Twilight Zone supernatural.The most startling aspect of the film is not its storyline, with echoes of Hollywood schlock such as Jacob’s Ladder. Its most remarkable distinction is purely physical: the stylized looks of…
Rockin’ For Relief��
Here at the stately Loaf offices on Old Pineville Road, we are smack dab in the middle of a bustling Latino community. The fastest growing minority group in the region, Latinos have quickly made the area their own, opening all sorts of businesses, shops, salons and restaurants (I’m especially happy about the latter since troughing…
View From The Couch
THE FIFTH ELEMENT (1997). This gonzo sci-fi outing, set in 2259, proves to be a messy amalgam – a motion picture with the body of a mainstream blockbuster but the spirit of a trendy cult flick. And yet, for all its narrative incoherencies, visual excesses and shifting moods (it whiplashes between drama and comedy with…
Some Never Change
When I first moved to town, I signed up, with my infant son, for one of those Mommy and Me classes. Not for my son’s well-being, mind you, but for mine – I thought it would be a good way to meet other mothers and make friends. Yes, I did meet other mothers, but, unfortunately,…
Film Clips
New ReleasesTHE ASSASSINATION OF RICHARD NIXON / THE WOODSMAN Sean Penn’s reputation often exceeds his actual accomplishments (an Oscar for chewing the scenery in Mystic River? Please…), yet here’s the actor delivering one of his finest performances to date in The Assassination of Richard Nixon. Conversely, Penn’s Mystic River co-star Kevin Bacon rarely gets singled…
The Blotter
REHAB RASCALS: While being transported to a rehab facility via bus, two recovering addicts became engaged in an argument, during which time one man threatened to do bodily harm to the other. While he didn’t make good on this threat, the next morning when the two men were again boarding the bus, the same volatile…
Xbox Invades
On Nov. 9, to the delight of men across America, the sequel to Halo, the popular Xbox video game, wherein players battle in lush violence to save the universe from an evil alien race called the Covenant arrived in stores. And for those men’s wives and girlfriends, it was a day of infamy. “When I…
Partying With Hitler
Celia HabstDistribution Manager”No, he should be condemned for being a clueless little rich prick.” Jack BurrellAuto Mechanic”Oh, absolutely. It’s the most important manufactured, celebrity-driven crisis we face today.” Barry SavageWeb Designer”Yes, I believe so. Unless, of course, the party was a fundraiser for the tsunami people.” Geneva LanceLibrarian”I just think if he went to all…
The People Left Behind
Shortly before Thanksgiving 1983, a modest drug deal went down in a beauty shop in Harlem. Elaine Bartlett, a 26-year-old mother of four, agreed to carry four ounces of cocaine by train from New York City to Albany. Bartlett was not a drug courier by trade. She worked as a hairdresser and lived in one…
See & Do
JANUARY21 – FRIDAYYes, it’s a glorious thing to be a Pirate King in Gilbert & Sullivan. But if you’re an intrepid motormouth, you can become the very model of a modern Major General. Catchy words and catchier melodies distinguish The Pirates of Penzance, anchoring at Pease Auditorium for three performances this weekend. The preternaturally silly…
We Got Graphics
Most of you don’t sit through long, boring meetings like I do, and usually by the time you get the media-sanitized version of what’s going on around here, you’re pretty much left in the dark. After three mass transit “presentations” in two weeks, though, one thing is becoming increasingly apparent: the folks at the Charlotte…
Stargazer
For All Signs There are three modes of being represented in the zodiac of 12 signs: cardinal, fixed, and mutable. The fixed signs are: Taurus, Leo, Scorpio, Aquarius. They have their conflicts, but one thing these signs agree upon is the value of perseverance. The fixed signs are the most prone to complete tasks and…
Michelangelo, Take A Hike
The most famous statue in Western art history, carved by the most famous artist of the last 500 years, could never be approved as public art in Charlotte. I’m talking about Michelangelo’s statue of David, which was commissioned by the city of Florence, Italy, and placed in the Piazza della Signoria in 1504 as a…
Everybody’s All-American
We’re Still Here: American Indians In the South is a collection of lost family portraits. Here are the first faces of our American Family, faces frequently witnessed but more often unseen, or merely forgotten. Photographer Carolyn DeMeritt and writer Frye Gaillard reintroduce us to the Native American branch of our family tree.But they’re not really…
Now Please Welcome . . .
With WBTV shoring up its anchor job holes, one hire looks particularly promising: the addition of Jamie Boll as 5pm and 5:30pm anchor. This is the slot that has been bad voodoo since Jon Robinson left, Michael Scott was a bust, and Dave Stanley imploded. Boll, 37, has been the main anchor for over a…
Broadway Lives!
Any way you look at it, 2004 ended triumphantly on Broadway. Ringing in the New Year, the Great White Way posted its highest-grossing week ever from December 27 through January 2. Eleven of the 31 shows on Broadway actually sold out for the entire week. That capped a year that saw an all-time high in…
News of the Weird
Is it safe yet?: The head of security at Boston’s Logan Airport revealed in December that travelers continue to appear so unfamiliar with restrictions that, three years after 9/11, his screeners still seize 12,000 prohibited items per month. Nationwide, the total since 2002 is nearly 17 million, including 2,200 guns, 79,000 box cutters and 5…
Jawing About Gum
Here’s another reason to “Remember the Alamo.” After his victory there, Mexican General Santa Anna’s luck ran out and he wound up in exile in, of all places, Staten Island, NY. There, he boarded with inventor Thomas Adams, and the rest is chewing gum history. Like many Mexicans, Santa Anna chewed chicle, which is made…
Tom Jones Turns East
Over the past 15 years or so, author Haruki Murakami has become an extremely popular author among young people in Japan. It’s no wonder. His novels and stories are vividly contemporary, clearly evoking the images and moods of today’s Japan, with its gaudy commercialism and emerging sexual freedom. More important than the contemporary settings, though,…
Letters
King Saw Connections In reponse to “Remembering King by Erasing Him” (by John F. Sugg, Jan. 12): Like the old saying goes, the dead make such convenient heroes. Many people today (including those in the African/American community who sit on boards, committees and claim to honor him) would not stand with King if he were…
Citrus of a different stripe��
Ever realize there’s never a countdown to winter like there is for summer? Me, I can’t stand shorter days, colder nights, dreary skies and endless wind. The only consolation for this miserable, seemingly never-ending phenomenon is the arrival of citrus fruit. And I’m not just talking navel oranges and ruby grapefruits. There’s a groovy world…
Arts Agenda
Classical Music The Pirates of Penzance CPCC Opera Theatre presents Gilbert and Sullivan’s rollicking operetta. Jan. 21-22, 8pm; Jan. 23, 2:30pm. Pease Auditorium, CPCC, 1200 Elizabeth Ave. 704-330-6534. Prague Symphony Orchestra Presented by Carolinas Concert Association. Mon., Jan. 31, 8 p.m. $25-$65. Blumenthal Performing Arts Center, 130 N. Tryon St. 704-372-1000. Samson & Delilah Opera…
Howl at the Moon
The phrase “organic wine” freaks out most Americans, summoning up images of pot-smoking hippies living in sin. But wait until they hear about the souped-up, black magic version of organic: biodynamic winemaking. In an effort to re-capture the pure, pesticide-free soil of yesteryear, a silently growing revolution of winemakers is emerging across the globe. They…
Magnum Opus
Wine geeks have been flocking to the current hit movie Sideways. In the film, Maya (Virginia Madsen) gives a reflective assessment of wine: “I like to think about what was going on the year the grapes were growing, how the sun was shining that summer or if it rained… I think about all those people…
Good Eats
All Around Town Anntony’s Caribbean, 6434-F West Sugarcreek Rd., 704-598-6863; 2001 E. 7th St., 704-342-0749. A hint of the tropics; rotisserie chicken with Jamaican jerk sauce, ribs, Paradise Island fish special, curries, and Caribbean styled greens. $$ Azteca, 116 Woodlawn Rd., 704-525-5110; 9709 Independence Blvd., 704-814-9877; 1863 W. Franklin Blvd. (Gastonia), 704-866-7574. A favorite of…
Frank Talk
Frank Kaltsounis was born with the restaurant business in his blood. Kaltsounis, along with brother Angelo Kaltsounis and friend Stratos Lambos, maintains the status of chef/owner of Ilios Noche. Aside from his title as pastry chef and part owner, he’s just 25 years old, humble about his success thus far and with no plans on…
Rockin’ In Reykjavik��
They’ve played just a handful of shows, and yet they’re about to go to Reykjavik, Iceland, to record at Sigur Ros’ studio, Sundlaugin. While there, the quartet will receive help not just from Samuli Kosminen, a world-renowned percussionist, but musician/producer Jimmy LaValle (Tristeza, The Album Leaf, Black Heart Procession) and Sigur Ros producer Biggi Steinarsson.…
Five First Dates
While it’s true that first dates are important, if you’ve decided on dinner, the choice of a restaurant shouldn’t be that hard. A good first date place has a tiered menu with some familiar and some less familiar items as well as a welcoming atmosphere. Don’t choose a tomb. However, if this is a blind…
The Song Ramones The Same
Few bands have ever inspired the sort of fanatical following that The Ramones did.Let me rephrase that. Lots of bands have had fanatical followings — see Creed, for crying out loud — but few bands have ever inspired the sort of deep down love and affection that Johnny, Joey, Marky and Dee Dee (and Tommy,…
Soundboard
Wednesday, Jan. 19 Breakfast Club DJ Boney B Brickhouse Tavern, Davidson Kenny Floyd Double Door Inn Rainwagon The Evening Muse Andy Friedman & the Other Failures w/ Jeff Williams and Natalia Zukerman The Gin Mill Wizard’s Road Show Manchester Tavern, Rock Hill Joe Hamilton Midtown 51 Robin B and Andy Seets Midtown, Mountain Island Mike…
Sit & Spin
The Chris Stamey ExperienceA Question of TemperatureYep RocThe mutual admiration society that is Chris Stamey and Yo La Tengo has some miles on it now, going back on record to when Stamey helped produce the group’s sophomore effort, New Wave Hot Dogs, in 1987. In light of their latest collaboration, however, maybe even Stamey is…
Topical Storm Warning
Given their enviable ability to work up lathers of viewer outrage and empathy, it’s virtually impossible not to get sucker-punched by a political thriller with an international backdrop. Capable movies that center on atrocities committed in foreign lands, titles like The Killing Fields, Missing and Under Fire (heck, I even liked the much-maligned Angelina Jolie…
