Fri. March 12

 It could be argued that with the Velvet Underground (in photo) having spawned an army of VU-influenced punk and post-punk bands, the last thing we need is an official tribute to Lou Reed, John Cale and company. (That company once included the late Nico, someone I interviewed several times and got to really like. And, hey, I've been fortunate enough to spend some quality time - as a critic and interviewer - with Reed and Cale, too. No complaints.) But the VU are long gone, and the music is still high on everyone's playlist so the urge to put together a tribute show is hard to resist. Tonight, Friday March 12 Asa Brebner, Kenne Highalnd, Natalie Flanagan, Charlie Leger, Robzilla and Count Dude & His High Horse are playing the Center for the Arts at the Armory in Somerville at 7:30. It's in their 52-seat Armory Cafe. There's film, too. We have no idea how this will turn out but if you've loved "Pale Blues Eyes," "I'll Be Your Mirror,"  "Sweet Jane," "Heroin," "Beginning to See the Light," "Ocean" and others it's well worth the gamble. These are quality musicians on the bill and it's likely to be a sterling show. It's called "An Evening of Velvet Undeground Music and Film." Tickets: $8.

191 Highland Ave., Somerville, 617-718-2191 www.artsatthearmory.org

Fri. March 12 -Wed. March 17

It's a St. Paddy's Day tradition: The Dropkick Murphys play to packed houses on Lansdowne Street. Maybe a dozen or so years ago, there was some skepticism about Dropkick Murphys. Ok, hometown Celtic/punk modeled on the Pogues, but concerning issues not of England or Ireland, but the local environs. Could work. But, derivative, you know. Well, any thoughts like that have been blown away partially because the Murphys have become huge locally and internationally and they so credit the Pogues. For their part, the Pogues return the favor by saying the Murphys constant name-dropping helped revive their band and helped them develop a new audience. Also: the Murphys are more of a punk band with a Celtic flavor and the Pogues tip the scales the other way. Plus the Pogues Shane MacGowan has sung with the Murphys on a record.

The Murphys are back on Lansdowne Street Fri. March 12 - Wed. March 17 - seven shows in six days at the House of Blues. I did an interview with Ken Casey ffor the Boston Phoenix on last year's skein and amended and added to it here. I also reviewed one of the shows and have an edited version of that, too.

 Review:  If Dennis Lehane has a rock ‘n’ roll equivalent, it’s Dropkick Murphys. And just as Lehane, author of “Mystic River” and “The Given Day.” deserves his props, so do the Murphys, the 14-year-old Celtic punk band. Has there ever been a more parochial rock entity? And we don’t just mean the Red Sox-and Bruins-identified anthems, “Tessie” and “I’m Shipping Up to Boston” – although those were obvious highlights of their hour-and-45 minute set.

 ongoing - April 2

The Boston Wine Festival, kicked off with a whiz-bang party Friday Jan. 8.  It was a wonderful party. Great food, great wine. No surprises there. Yum.  But, as grand as the night was, Daniel Bruce’s 21st annual festival is not just a weekend spurt. It goes on three to four nights a week through April 2 (we're going March 12) and features a different winery and menu each night. Dinners are capped at 78 people, seated at tables up to eight. Their website, www.bostonwinefestival.net will give you particulars of the myriad dinner-wine nights, but we talked to Bruce – who orchestrates the pairings and is cooking every night – about the heart and soul of it all.

“The ‘wine festival’ name may be a misnomer,” says Bruce, “because you think of tables and wine poured at multiple levels. We do have the opening reception [where that happens]. But the essence of what the festival is is winemaker-and-owner joining us at dinner. It’s an intimate setting, a round table, which allows for conversation to take. You may buy a ticket with two or four people and sit with people you don’t know.”

Fri. March 12 & Fri. March 26

It's my theory that no female solo singer has a last name anymore. Or if it's a last name it's, like, Gaga. So bothersome. It is that universe that French-born, Berklee-schooled singer-songwriter Violette appears. She's mixes jazz, funk and soul; her heroes include Duke Ellington and Ella Fitzgerald. She also sings, mostly,in English. Violtte - who plays the Stork Club Fridays March 12 and 26, has just released her second album, "Joie de Vivre." We'll turn further informing over Michael Diamond, a San Francisco based musician and writer: "The title of this, Violette’s second CD, is most appropriate and harkens back to her first 'official' commendation – the 'Joie de Vivre' award she won in kindergarten while still living in her native country of France. Translated as “Joy of Living”, a quality that is reflected in her music to this day. The title song opens with the sound of children’s laughter as it moves into a jazzy vibe and Violette’s buoyant voice scarcely able to contain the “joie” within. Multi-tracked vocals on the chorus lift the song up to another level altogether...

ongoing

Martin Scorsese’s "Shutter Island" is a well-crafted mystery – though likely not a film that will be remembered as one of his very best.  Some critics seem eager to blow the whistle when a master takes a step to the left or right, incorrectly dubbing it a step backwards. This film is not a giant leap forward, but it is hardly a significant regression of any kind.

One of the strengths of the movie is that Scorsese allows the developments to occur very deliberately. There are no rushed conclusions, and events unfold at a tantalizing yet satisfying rate. Too often psychological thrillers make leaps in assumptions that detract from the story by forcing the audience to simply accept what they are told, logic and reason be damned.

Fri. March 12

It's been 55 years since jazz great Charlie "Bird" Parker left this mortal coil. To the day. Has his groundbreaking reputation diminished? We'd say not. What wouldn't we give for a chance to see him live? Jeff Robinson - playwrite, actor and saxophonist - no doubt thought about these things when he wrote "Live Bird," a one-man play about Parker. It's at The Cambridge Multicultural Arts Center, one night only, Friday March 12 at 8.

The play is set in a bar in Harlem where Bird reminisces about his life and music and plays some of his own tunes.  Robinson researched the play in Parker's old neighborhood in Kansas City, Missouri. In Jazzis magazine Ed Hazell wrote: "Everyone's agreed on what Charlie Parker did for jazz.  The arguments start when anyone talks about who he was.  But there's a remarkable consensus - even among people who knew the alto saxophonist - that Live Bird, Boston-based Jeff Robinson's one man play about Parker gets him right."

Saturdays

First, there is the smell.Familiar. Intoxicating. Some say ED-preventing.Then, just when you can barely take anymore, a smiling head pops through the door - “Anybody want some chocolate?”
 
Welcome to two-and-a-half hours of educational heaven, aka the Taste of Chocolate Workshop.
 
Run by the folks who have been bringing the legendary Mystery Café to Boston and beyond for years and hosted in the Elephant and Castle Pub in Downtown Boston (the same site as one of the most popular Mystery Café dinners), the Workshop tells you perhaps more than you ever wanted to know about chocolate (pretty much right down to the molecular level) and then lets you get into it up to your wrists (at least) through a hands-on truffle-making party.

Wed. March 17

  Rock ‘n’ roll is such a fragmented entity these days, a huge field populated by many sub-genres. Here’s one – power pop – that’s made a comeback, of sorts, lately. Folks got a heaping helping when I last saw the Luxury, last year at the Paradise, celebrating the release of their second CD, “In the Wake of What Won’t Change.” They play Great Scott Wednesday March 17.  Now, ower pop was a term that came into vogue during the early-‘70s with bands such as Big Star, Badfinger and Raspberries, and it continued into the ‘80s with Cheap Trick, the Yachts and the dBs. At its best, it had heavenly vocal harmonies and glue-sticking melodies, backed by rock-ribbed rhythms. Sweet sounds delivered with punch and, sometimes, spiked with cynicism. And it had lots of pep. But, as the hip alt-rock world got more dissonant, power pop slipped to the sidelines.

Wed. March 17

KISS is the greatest marketing machine the rock world has ever known. I glimpsed this back in the mid-'70s when I first saw KISS live, bought the "Love Gun" album, with its cardboard gun and its groan of a metaphor. At the time, I was a young semi-rebellious teen in the pre-punk era and KISS served up horror movie spectacle and god of thunder rock - plus an anthem about getting buzzed on gin, which I could relate to. I first met the guys in the band in 1976, doing a feature on them for a long-defunct music magazine called Sweet Potato. It was my first run-in and I mean that in a good way. I didn't ask patronizing questions and they didn't give pat answers. KISS - especially bassist Gene Simmons - was pretty upfront about the desire to make money. Hey, he was living in a material world and he was a material boy. Simmons was a big captialist and a big hedonist. Oh, there were lots of things we didn't know, things that later came out in his bio, like he was born in Haifa, Israel and named Chaim Witz a lot about his attitude toward women, which couldn't help make you wince. And the anti-drink and drug attitude he and co-frontman singer-guitairst Paul Stanley have always had. I'm not so sure if it was a demand for mental clarity or the knowledge that being messed up might lead you to make business mistakes and let the opportunity to license a KISS doll pass you by - or worse, agree to have it made and not get enough of a cut.

Wednesdays in March

 The biggest band on the Cape - well,they certainly have a lot of players - is at the Midway Cafe on Wednesdays, the month of March. This wild bunch is known as the Chandler Travis Philharmonic. What gives the CTP its appeal? Says Travis: "The Chandler Travis Philharmonic is a band that has grown accustomed to being detained. Their magical mixture of Ray Davies' steadfast provinciality, Charo's gelatinous combustibility and Hopalong Cassidy's swarthy good looks has been drawing the kind of crowd that prefers unpredictability to being set aflame and cast into a pit of angry rodents." Some of this maybe true, some not. Travis continues, "The band is concentrating more lately on frolics, rhumbas, and  indecipherable mumbling, and that the horn section (the June Trailer Dancers, led as always by maverick saxophonist Mark Chenevert), has been paying a lot more attention to its gardening, despite the nasty weather. The band has just come off the cancellation of a tour to Memphis, in which they almost played in Washington DC, Asheville, NC, and Worcester, MA; as usual, the condition of drummist Rikki Bates is described as "stable, with squirrels." Do you need more enticement?" Let's just say jazz, pop, lounge music and all kinds of genres get scrambled up in the CTP's hands and the singer can be counted upon to be barefoot and pajama clad. Ready for bed it migh seem, but not really: This is his stage uniform. He's ready to perform.  Tickets: $10. Of the St. Paddy's Day gig, Travis says, "We have some history with this oh-so-special holiday: the very first Chandler Travis Philharmonic album was 'Raw Blarney,' an all-St. Patrick's Day Calamity .. We intend vengeance for every listening of "The Unicorn Song' suffered over our long histories." JSInk note: As a wee child, we thought it was cute! So was "Lily the Pink," Then we grew up and realized good Irish music was about scrappin' and drinkin' and lovin' and losin' and getting up the next day to do it again. CTP shows start at 8:30. Cover: Don't know. Called the club, they didn't know.

3496 Washington St., Jamaica Plain, 617-524-9038 www.midwaycafe.com

Thurs. March 18 

"Songs You Should Know" is the name of a musical program Thurs. March 18 put together by two members of the Tufts University music faculty, Rabbi Jeffrey Summitt and Paul D. Lehrman. (Paul, in photo, is a friend and a former Boston Phoenix writer. We played softball on the Boston Phoenix team I was on back in the '80s.) Now, you might have some reservations called "Songs You Should Know." Should is that kind of word that makes you think, wait, I don't like to be told I should do anything. But the  subtitle here is ( " ... and still matter.") It's a concert of music from the 1960s featuring songs that defined the issues and political climate of the time.  The artists whose music they will play include Bob Dylan, Phil Ochs, Pete and Peggy Seeger, Malvina Reynolds, John Prine, Tom Paxton, Donovan, Joan Baez, and many more.  They did this at Tufts earlier this year and are kicking it up again at Johnny D's.

It came about when composer and music technologist/guitarist-keyboardist Lehrman sat down to jam with ethnomusicologist/guitarist Summit at a Tufts music department party not long ago. They realized they had something powerful in common: a great love for and knowledge about the “protest” songs of the 1960s. And they also found they shared a strong desire to teach their students about these songs, the era that spawned them, and why they were so important—both during the social upheavals of their day, and to the music and political struggles of today.