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.

ongoing - March 28, 2010

It would arrogant of us to say we understood anything of what being in a real war is like. What we've learned, we've learned from books, music and movies. Particularly wrenching are the spate of books written from soldiers' perspectives during the first two World Wars. Music? "Death, blood and horror," Eric Bogle sang about Gallipoli in "And the Band Played Waltzing Matilda." He accomplished something just as powerful in "The Green Fields of France" about WWII. (The Pogues did killer versions of both.) There's "Saving Private Ryan," the opening scene. There's "Platoon." And there's work set in museums, like "The Veterans Project," new large-scale video installation by Krzysztof Wodiczko (in photo) up at The Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston Nov. 4 and running through March 28. It focuses on the experience of war in Iraq. Based on the artist's conversations with soldiers who have returned from Iraq as well as Iraqi civilians, the new work builds on their memories of the chaos and confusion of war. Since 1980, Wodiczko has created more than 80 projections of politically-charged images on civic buildings and monuments worldwide.

Fri. March 19

There aren't that many CAN'T MISS events we stress here at JSink, because there really are so many viable options out there. But this is one: The 2009 return to Boston of the Feelies, the Haledon, NJ-band that made the late-1970s and 1980s so much more wonderful with its mix of jangly (pre-REM) guitar, nervous, twitchy rhythms, inspired covers (the Beatles' "Everybody's Got Something To Hide Except for Me and My Monkey," Velvet Undeground), and a mix of resignation, bitterness, ennui and, yes, joy. They're playing two sets at the Middle East Downstairs tonight, starting at 10. It's "An Evening with the Feelies." The crazy rhythms drove you one way, the intertwining guitar lines of Glenn Mercer and Bill Million another and despite the subtext of anxiety and angst, there was a palpable sense of excitement. The Feelies reunited for a show July 1, 2008 at their old stomping grounds of Maxwell's and have, tentatively, at least, kept it going. 

A chat with guitarist-singer Glenn Mercer:
JSink: You broke up in 1991. Why do you exist now?
GM: There’s no easy cut and dried answer. Conversations Bill and I had over the years, there seemed there was more interest in the band recently. We’ve had a lot of requests for licensing the songs, and with the Internet it’s a lot easier to keep tabs on the fan base. So, it’s an evolution of conversations we’ve been having. It probably would’ve happened a lot earlier, but the main thing was Bill [Million’s] son had a major illness (he’s now recovered) preventing him from doing it, and there were logistics. Bill was in between houses in Florida. (He works as a locksmith at Walt Disney World.) Brenda’s in Pennsylvania. Everyone but Dave [Weckerman] has family. We don’t have the desire or logistics to do tour … When we first broke up we didn’t have much contact. In 2001, Bill and I talked again.

Thurs. March 18 

Club Passim has not always been called Club Passim, but the spot on Palmer street in Harvard Square has been a go-to place for folkies for, oh, five decades. For the past fifth of those storied 50 years, local singer/songwriter Alastair Moock has been inviting his friends to Passim for a free-form song swap and mutual admiration society he calls "Pastures of Plenty." On Thursday March 18 , PoP will celebrate its 10th anniversary with a special show featuring Moock, along with featured guests"Roots music was always synonymous with community for me," Moock explains. Giests include Jeremy Lyons, Kellen Zakula and Sean Staples.

"That was the main attraction. The first folk concerts I saw were collaborative shows by Pete Seeger and Arlo Guthrie where everyone participated in everything.You didn't just sit and watch; you were part of it. It was a wholly different experience than I'd had at other shows. When I started playing, I tried to make my own shows that way too. I still do. In addition to being communal and collaborative, the Patures shows are also greatly improvised which adds to the energy and flow between and among the performers and audience members.

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.