Fri. March 26 

Guggenheim Grotto - a duo from Ireland, Kevin May and Mike Lynch - hit the states last January '09 and they're back again in our parts tonight at the Real Room in Burlington Friday March 26, They began as what you might call a folk-pop duo. That's still at the core of what they do, but on their second disc, "Happy the Man" they explore suble electronic and sampling techniques as well. They're not Daft Punk or KMFDM, by any means. But if their debut, "... Waltzing Alone," was noted for its mellowness, this one will be noted for is upbeat sound and feel. This despite, well, you know, the sadness all around us. "There's a lyrical threat throughout the album," says primary songwriter May, "in that many of the songs explore our habit of holding onto things - lovers, a place in time, resisting change - and the sadness that brings us." That hit us is the the gut and in the head - 2008 was certainly the kind of year where more than a few of us wanted to hold onto things that were slipping away. But Guggenheim Grotto doesn't wallow in the sadness. They start the disc with a quote from Buddha on perfection, and then move on to detail what isn't. Like dreams dashed. But the music is softish; it often has the breeziness of a '60s Beach Boys tune, an gentle uplift that works an effective contrast. ""We wanted to sing joyfully about sadness in the world," is the way May puts it. "With this album, I made a conscious effort of working in ideas, thoughts and musings on self-awareness and enlightenment into the songs."  Reference points: Damien Rice and (from "Once") Glen Hansard. They're currently finishing up a new disc, "The Universe is Laughing." Expect to hear new songs at the Real Room.
     Here's a bit from the review I did for the Boston Herald last year when they played the Lizard Lounge ....

Thurs. March 25 - Mon. April 1

We've been embarrassed; we've been grossed out; we've been titillated and, yes, on occasion bored. (The latter is the real failure in this world.) But this year, theorganizer of Boston Underground Film Festival (BUFF) Anna Feder promises, "This event is going to be mind-blowingly good." She does warn the semi-quesy out there that the most outre films, like "Life and Death of a Porno Gang" show at midnight. Remember, we're not talking "Sundance" here. Characters tend to be sex-crazed, violent, drug-addled or all of the above. Good behavior is rare.
  The 12th annual Boston Underground Film Festival - started by old JSInk pal David Kleiler Sr. - runs Thursday March 25 through Monday April 1, at the Kendall Square Cinema in Cambridge. They include some of what are considered festival highlights, including several genre sections (grindhouse cinema and queer cinema), as well as special guests, including actress Mink Stole and fabled underground filmmaker George Kuchar. The festival gets into high gear with a free preview party on Tuesday March 9, from 6:00-8:00 PM at the Stuart Street Playhouse in Boston. (Open to one and all, no VIP begging needed.)

   Feder's choices: "Perhaps the most notable grindhouse film is the East Coast premiere "Stuck," (in photo), writer and director Steve Balderson’s homage to grindhouse era women-in-prison films, featuring an appearance by Mink Stole, who performs in the film with Karen Black, ex- Go Go guitarist Jane Wiedlin, and belly dance goddess Pleasant Gehman (aka Princess Farhana)." JSink note: Yowee. The voluptuous horror of Karen Black indeed! Note 2: Mink Stole will receive the festival's first "Underground Lifetime Achievement Award.  "The film faithfully reproduces the genre with a modern, tongue-in-cheek twist that features all the hallmarks of a classic prison movie, complete with a wrongly accused heroine, hard boiled dames, diabolical alliances, forbidden love, cat-fighting cuties, a sadistic warden, and corrupt prison guards. Both Balderson and Mink Stole will attend the screening.

Wed. March 24

Howard Zinn - historian, activist, friend - appeared a number of times in this space, as regular readers know. Most recently, it was about the screenings of Zinn's "The People Speak" movie, the celeb-studded doc he maded with Chris Moore. It aired on History late last year. (Down lower in this item, I've included a version of a piece I wrote about the readings Zinn and company staged at the Cutler Majestic Theatre in late 2007.) Zinn, who died Jan. 27 at 87, was, of course, best known for his revisionist history, "A People’s History of the United States."

   The book, Bruce Springsteen told Rolling Stone,"had an enormous impact on me. It set me down in a place that I recognized and felt I had a claim to. It made me feel that I was a player in this moment in history, as we all are, and that this moment in history was mine, somehow, to do with whatever I could. It gave me a sense of myself in the context of this huge American experience and empowered me to feel that in my small way. I had something to say I could do something. It made me feel a part of history, and gave me life as a participant.”
   It’s exactly what Zinn  - Boston University Professor Emeritus - tried to instill in his students going back to the 1960s. And over the past few decades he attracted liberal musicians – like Springsteen, Billy Bragg and Eddie Vedder - and actors to his work. Few things help spread an intellectual’s work as celebrity endorsement. Especially when the celebrity has credibility in his or her own right. And Zinn - as passionate as he was about his beliefs - was a kind and generous man. He didn't live in a left-wing ivory tower. He didn't consider himself the Authority and his followers as his fan base. (Anyone who's followed political theorists or any stripe know this is not often the case.)
   One thing not as well-known about Zinn is that he was a playwrite. He wrote three plays, about Karl Marx, Emma Goldman and the arms race, and they're going to be packaged in a book, "Three Plays: The Political Theater of Howard Zinn" and released mid-March. Also, at Suffolk, there's "A Tribute to the Theater of Howard Zinn," March 24 at 6, with actors Chris Cooper, Anthony Estrella, Will LeBow, Catilin Langstaff, Elise Manning and Dossy Peabody reading from the plays. Zinn's son, Jeff, who runs the Wellfleet Harbor Actors Theatre, will have an onstage discussion about his father's work as a playwrite with my former colleague at the Globe, theater critic Ed Siegel.

I asked Ed his take: "How does Howard Zinn measure up as a playwright? He could never have given Roy Cohn the great lines that leftist playwright Tony Kushner gave him in 'Angels in America.' He couldn’t have made moral ambivalence a virtue the way that Tom Stoppard does in 'The Real Thing.' Or left the audience with the sense of dread that Edward Albee does in play after play.