ongoing - 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 through  - 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.”

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.

Thurs. March 18

Let's see, we played war, cribbage and gin rummy in our younger days ... and then pretty much left the world of cards, only to be curious when we read about the players or the game or see movies (hello, David Mamet) about poker, card-counters or card cheats. Fascinating, up to a point, but not to the point where, when late night poker comes on telly after the chat shows, we sit up and go, "Oh, boy, more reasons not to go to sleep!" Our friends who indulge in the cards/gambling world tell us that Blackjack is your best best out there, in a world where, yes, the odds are always with the house. The casino industry is like the insurance industry (in more ways than one). But just look at the extravagant buildings that house casinos (or insurance companies).

Thurs. March 18

Our pal, promoter and sometime promoter Billy Ruane, has been raving about Drug Rug for, well, centuries or so it seems. Sometimes, we’re late to the party, and that certainly was/is the case with Drug Rug, whom we finally caught last year at the Middle East. We liked. They’re at the Paradise March 18, sharing the bill with psychedelic Boston popsters Apollo Sunshine.
    We reviewed Drug Rug for the Herald last year. A distillation of our thoughts … Sarah Cronin used to mix sound at the Middle East Upstairs. Tommy Allen still tends bar there occasionally. But here they were Downstairs, the singing-and-guitar-playing duo was headlining the larger club, fronting the band they call Drug Rug, celebrating the release of their second recording, “Paint the Fence Invisible.”
    There was a little bit of country, a little bit of psychedelia, a little bit of the back-and-forth vocals swaps favored by X’s Exene and John Doe. And their harmonies could bring to mind the Mamas & the Papas and late-‘60s California pop.

Sun. March 14

Duncan Wilder Johnson has made quite a bit of noise in Boston, both with his now destroyed metal band, Destrut-a-Thon and his spoken word act. It's the latter persona that Johnson - and others - will embody, beginning Sunday March 14 at 3 p.m. at O'Brien's. Johnson says, "'The Spoken Word Hangover' is a once a month series celebrating the oral tradition that's been past on generation after generation since the Vikings scorched the earth. Storytellers, poets, comedians, and performance artists will grace the stage in Allston Rock City's den of destruction, O'Brien's."
A tradition going back to the Vikings (not the Minesota football team)? Let's put in the context of today's best-known punk-metal-spoken word artist Henry Rollins. How does is compare to Henry?

   "Well," says Johnson, "although I am obviously a fan of his and I am in a band and I do spoken word like Henry, I've been trying to distance myself from that for one main reason: I don't do what he does.  Henry's work lately is for the most part, conversational, politcal, and editorial." (JSInk note: Henry does run on at the mouth. Even if you're with him he taxes your endurance level and prompts inner cries like "Editor!") "My work lately is more pre-scripted and refined as I perform them. They tend to not be politcal, but more social comentary while critiquing myself and hopefully getting a few laughs.  Pieces like 'That Girl Can Take A Shit In My Car Anytime"' - JSInk: Sounds like a weepy moment - "and 'Jungblood Just Wanted To get Drunk' are more slice-of-life bits. I've also been working on a new release titled 'The Worst of Duncan Wilder Johnson,' where I'll re-release some old stuff for digital download with some brand new stuff.  When I had the idea to do this [series], I listened back to my old stuff and thought, 'This is good, but this other track could be better.'  So, I'm re-performing some old pieces with my older/wiser/better performer self and exploring the differences, while also recording brand new stuff."

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 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. 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. They played the Wilbur late last year opening for Sonic Youth and they're headlining at Middle East Downstairs Friday March 19. Opening bands TBA. Tickets: $20.

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.

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.