Alabama

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Review: The Black Power Mixtape 1967-1975

A collage of privileged documentary moments
In the era when the Black Panther Party was its most powerful and off-the-pig-threatening and separatist, there was little interest in even conversing with whitey, unless whitey was from somewhere other than the ultra-racist USA.
By GERALD PEARY | September 27, 2011

The schizoid stronghold of Iwrestledabearonce

Metal hedge
The experts claim irony is dead, but the experts are stupid morons. Irony is an abstract concept. It was never alive, therefore cannot die.
By BARRY THOMPSON | August 03, 2011

Grilling sessions

The senator is a supreme putz; General discontent; in praise of Byrd
P+J have just finished watching the second day of the televised Senate Judiciary Committee hearings on the confirmation of Elena Kagan to the Supreme Court.
By PHILLIPE AND JORGE | June 30, 2010

A Rhode Island filmmaker’s tribute to the Good War

Heroes
Amid the moral ambiguity of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan — the handwringing over weapons of mass destruction, drone attacks, and the rights of detainees — there is something startling about the raw patriotism of the documentary Navy Heroes of Normandy .
By DAVID SCHARFENBERG | June 02, 2010

Review: Best Worst Movie

Exploring Troll 2 's fascinatingly watchable badness
Best Worst Movie offers a strong argument for why certain objects of kitsch are adopted by eccentric fans.
By CHRISTOPHER GRAY | June 02, 2010

Fighting back

Two cases in federal court here in Massachusetts could help turn the national tide against DOMA
Thanks to a federal law that codifies discrimination against same-sex couples, more than 15,000 legally married couples (and an untold number of children) are being denied basic benefits, such as the right to file their taxes jointly, or Social Security payments and health-insurance subsidies.
By DEIRDRE FULTON | June 04, 2010

Bettye LaVette | Interpretations: The British Rock Songbook

Anti- (2010)
Bettye LaVette’s previous two albums had titles that required a little digging to unpack.
By MIKAEL WOOD | June 01, 2010

The Black Keys | Brothers

Nonesuch (2010)
Once just another guitar/drums garage-blues duo, Dan Auerbach and Patrick Carney have moved beyond the garage and the blues and are now making quintessentially American music that’s knee-deep in funky R&B.
By ZETH LUNDY | June 10, 2010

Cool killer

Ace Atkins runs down Machine Gun Kelly
Ace Atkins’s new novel is what the movie Public Enemies should have been.
By CHARLES TAYLOR | May 18, 2010

Phosphorescent | Here’s To Taking It Easy

Dead Oceans (2010)
What was once an aching, drowsy fireside croon fest (2007’s Pride ) has taken a blatant leap into hoedown territory on singer/guitarist Matthew Houck’s latest effort.
By CARRIE BATTAN | May 11, 2010

Springtime for Militia

Gun nuts from around the country converge upon the murder capital of the nation, Washington, D.C.
I’m scrubbing my armpits in the campground bathroom at Fort Hunt Park in Virginia. It’s taken more than 20 hours for me to get here for today’s firearm-friendly Restore the Constitution rally, which is supposed to commence shortly.
By CHRIS FARAONE | April 21, 2010

'Tea' is for terrorism

When even the most ‘legitimate’ voices of the right validate dangerously unhinged anti-government rhetoric — DUCK!
A year ago, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) produced a memo outlining the growing threat posed to this country from right-wing extremists. It compared the situation to that of the early 1990s — which culminated in the 1995 bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Building in Oklahoma City, killing 168.
By DAVID S. BERNSTEIN | April 12, 2010

Reality bites again

Getting a jump on the year in documentaries at True/False
At the tail end of February, for the second consecutive year, I (barely) escaped a late-winter hurricane to enter a Midwestern oasis of grass-fed beef, cheap cigarettes, Johnny Depp impersonators, and some of the finest documentaries you might just see this year.
By CHRISTOPHER GRAY | March 31, 2010

The good old days

Max Raabe & Palast Orchester, live at the Paramount Theatre, March 6, 2010
As if it weren’t enough that the venerable Paramount Theatre on Washington Street was open for the first time since 1976, the Celebrity Series of Boston brought in as the initial act to play the new 600-seat mainstage Max Raabe and his Palast Orchester.
By JEFFREY GANTZ | March 11, 2010

25 Hip-Hop acts to see at SXSW 2010

The best boom-bap on tap in Austin
As usual, I've got you covered.
By CHRIS FARAONE | March 12, 2010

Booking it

Fiction, non-fiction, poetry
Spring fiction goes international, starting with a whiff of the Caribbean.
By BARBARA HOFFERT | March 11, 2010

Interview: Max Raabe

Killer cabaret: bringing Berlin to Boston
"It was so crazy in the '20s, in the Weimar Republic. Everything was so open-minded and wide, and that is why I love that period so much."
By JEFFREY GANTZ | March 02, 2010

The next Scott Brown?

John J. Loughlin’s suddenly high-profile campaign to oust Patrick Kennedy
Republican Scott Brown's victory last month in the race for the late Ted Kennedy's Senate seat has every two-bit GOP hopeful in the Northeast claiming the mantle of the pick-up truck populist.
By DAVID SCHARFENBERG | February 10, 2010

History plays

The Good Negro from Company One; Harriet Jacobs in Central Square; Indulgences at New Rep
Tracey Scott Wilson manages to knock off Martin Luther King Jr.'s halo without removing the glow.
By CAROLYN CLAY | January 29, 2010

Creating a legend

How Little Round Top made Chamberlain a hero
The soldiers of the 20th Maine Regiment marched quickly into the night, moving west from Hanover toward Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, on July 1, 1863.
By DONALD G. FULTON | January 06, 2010

RISD tunes up its moonbuggy

Space Travel
At the Rhode Island School of Design’s NASA-sponsored industrial design studio, the evidence of late-night activity is aplenty: granola bar wrappers, an empty Orangina bottle, and a crumpled potato-chip bag.
By ABIGAIL CROCKER | December 23, 2009

Doing the right thing

2nd Story’s inspiring To Kill a Mockingbird
There are plenty of stories that harken back to a Golden Age, but Harper Lee's 1960 novel To Kill a Mockingbird was different.
By BILL RODRIGUEZ | November 24, 2009

Patrick's patchwork

Plus, Massachusetts needs a DNA-testing law
The folks on Beacon Hill deserve credit for crafting a budget in this extraordinarily challenging fiscal climate that will hopefully sustain services at a level just short of disastrous.
By EDITORIAL | July 02, 2009

The blessing of abortion

Pro-choice provocateur: Meet Cambridge divinity dean Katherine Ragsdale
Abortion is dominating the headlines — and giving new resonance to the radically pro-choice gospel of Katherine Ragsdale, dean of Cambridge's Episcopal Divinity School.
By ADAM REILLY | June 12, 2009

Right-wing terror

The murder of Dr. George Tiller
Conservatives scoffed in April when the Department of Homeland Security warned that the United States could face another wave of homegrown attacks.
By EDITORIAL | June 03, 2009

Mr. Populist?

Populism has many faces . . . but Obama's not one of them
Barack Obama is an inspirational leader, a potential realigner, and a racial trailblazer.
By STEVEN STARK | March 25, 2009

Soul survivors

A short list of gospel essentials
Gospel recordings go back to the 1920s, the beginning of commercial recording.
By TED DROZDOWSKI | March 23, 2009

Holy rollers

The Blind Boys of Alabama and the Preservation Hall Jazz Band
The double bill of the Blind Boys of Alabama and the Preservation Hall Jazz Band at Symphony Hall on Friday is a match made in New Orleans.
By TED DROZDOWSKI | March 24, 2009

Losing a Brown basketball legend

Plus a mad money man, off-color comics, and a Laffey-Chafee gaffe
On the sadness front, while P+J missed our chance to say the sporting old boys hereabouts were grieved to learn of the passing of former Brown basketball star Eddie Morris on March 5.
By PHILLIPE AND JORGE | March 11, 2009

Verbana Darvell: Unmasked

The return of Verbana Darvell
South County screamo quartet Verbana Darvell recently finished their latest EP, Brought Out the Waiting , produced by studio whiz Mike Poorman at Strangeways Recording in Providence.
By CHRIS CONTI | January 13, 2009