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The Overdub Tampering Committee

How a group of Boston musicians exacted their weird price from the world of online music sharing — without actually doing a thing
Armed with an idea, a hastily written manifesto, a press release, and some software to disguise my computer's IP address, I was able to raise the question, "How do you know that what you're illegally downloading is the actual music it claims to be?" This is a story about how my pop-music infatuation led me to fabricating a web of lies I called the Overdub Tampering Committee.
By RYAN WALSH | February 15, 2012

Out: Preparing for one H.E.L.L. of a weekend in Cambridge

Protecting your interests
Next weekend at the Democracy Center in Harvard Square, Vermont DIY label Get Stoked! Records and bike safety group Helping Everyone Live Long (H.E.L.L.) will co-host a weekend with a stacked line-up of Northeast punk, hardcore, indie rock, pop-punk, and emo bands.
By LIZ PELLY | February 15, 2012

Helios Early Opera's Charpentier; plus, the BSO's Mendelssohn Lobgesang

Hello, Helios!
There's a new group in town doing Baroque opera — not an easy ambition.
By LLOYD SCHWARTZ | February 01, 2012

Out: Lube coats Charlie’s Kitchen in distorted garage-rock goodness

Getting messy on MLK Day
Among other off-point celebrations this past Martin Luther King Jr. Day was a gathering of homegrown rock and roll at Charlie's Kitchen in Harvard Square.
By ALI DONOHUE | January 24, 2012

Review: Catalyst Restaurant

Some wonder sprinkled amid the uncertainty
So you have this very high-end chef, William Kovel, running a fancy hotel dining room, Aujourd'hui at the Four Seasons.
By ROBERT NADEAU | January 25, 2012

Review: A Separation

Family drama
Somehow, despite an increasingly repressive regime that has jailed many prominent filmmakers, including the world renowned auteur Jafar Panahi, Iranian cinema continues to produce some of the world's subtlest and most illuminating films about the relationships between men and women, and the conflicts inherent in all social units, starting with the family.
By PETER KEOUGH | January 26, 2012

Waiting to exhale

Breath the buzz
A nervous little chill ran through me as I stared at the Chapstick-size tube sitting on my desk.
By CASSANDRA LANDRY | December 28, 2011

Photos: Solstice Circus welcome winter at Plough & Stars

Solstice Circus | Plough & Stars | December 22, 2011
Solstice Circus celebrated this year's winter solstice at Plough & Stars in Cambridge on December 22, 2011.
By DEREK KOUYOUMJIAN | December 30, 2011

Pretty Things turns 21, in Dog Years

Old enough to drink
There's something so very Somerville about Pretty Things Beer & Ale Project.
By CASSANDRA LANDRY | November 30, 2011

Visualizing the experimental sound of Leisure

Green Light go pop
A few days before Halloween, Cambridge pop trio Leisure released the YouTube video for "Green Light," their new 7-inch single off San Francisco indie label Crash Symbols.
By MICHAEL MAROTTA | November 16, 2011

Papercut Zine Library & the Lucy Parsons Center re-open

Radical reading
Zinesters perused hand-stitched books and photocopied pamphlets on topics ranging from punk politics and parenting to feminism and freeganism, while local musicians played folksy tunes on acoustic guitars, mandolins, and cello between floor-to-ceiling shelves of used books.
By LIZ PELLY | November 09, 2011

Cambridge moves to Boston in Before I Leave You

Autumn garden
Fear of mortality is a domino in Before I Leave You, the play with which 72-year-old dramatist Rosanna Yamagiwa Alfaro, who has been flexing her inky fingers in Cambridge for 40 years, enters the big time.
By CAROLYN CLAY | November 02, 2011

Photos: East Cambridge Damian Festival

East Cambridge Damian Festival | September 11, 2011
The East Cambridge Damian Festival takes over Cambridge Street on September 11, 2011.
By DEREK KOUYOUMJIAN | September 15, 2011

Music venue movement

Rock and Relocation
For Cambridge's All Asia Café, the afterlife will feel a bit like Valhalla.
By MICHAEL MAROTTA | August 31, 2011

Boston's last congressman?

Musical chairs dept.
At the moment, neither the Senate president nor the Speaker of the House lives in the city. And in two years, the unthinkable could become reality: Boston might not have a single congressman residing in its borders.
By DAVID S. BERNSTEIN | August 31, 2011

Review: Griff the Invisible

Downtrodden superheroes
Like Kick-Ass and Super , Leon Ford's Griff the Invisible reaffirms the notion that superheroes exist to provide the meek and marginalized with an empowering fantasy.
By PETER KEOUGH | August 23, 2011

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Review: How to Live Forever

Wexler mocks the "anti-aging marketplace"
Take the most depressing movie imaginable, add The Golden Girls , multiply by Cocoon , and that's How To Live Forever .
By CHRIS FARAONE | August 16, 2011

Review: Senna

Chronicling Ayrton Senna's career
The story of Brazilian Formula One champion Ayrton Senna sounds, well, just like a movie — Le Mans , maybe, or Talladega Nights without the comedy.
By PETER KEOUGH | August 16, 2011

Paul Lieberman's Brazilian accent

Bilingual
How did a middle-class Jewish kid from New Jersey become a first-call session musician in Rio de Janeiro?
By JON GARELICK | August 22, 2011

A study in anarchy

With no campus, accreditation, or heirarchy, Corvid College thrives underground
Named after a family of birds that is markedly playful and diverse, Corvid is a benevolent underground anarchist institute fostering eclectic inter-disciplinary thought.
By CHRIS FARAONE | August 01, 2011

Review: Floating Rock

Spicy Asian that rises above the rest
If summer brings an urge for spicy Asian food, this is a splendid place to get some, despite a few chili-pepper compromises.
By ROBERT NADEAU | July 27, 2011

Review: Tamarind House

A gentle step down from our fiercest traditional Thai restaurants
Tamarind House perhaps shows too restrained a hand with its cuisine's boldest flavors, but it's a useful step up from the bowdlerized meekness of the suburban Thai run-of-the-mill.
By MC SLIM JB | July 20, 2011

Fun with Matt & Ben at Central Square

Bosom buddies
A couple of young women, Brenda Withers and Mindy Kaling (the latter born in Cambridge before graduating to the role of Kelly Kapoor in The Office ), decided to have some fun with the idea that two seemingly unformed guys — one kind of loutish — could strike show-biz paydirt so quickly.
By ED SIEGEL | July 12, 2011

Review: Septien

A magnificent exorcism
What can be done with this unhappy home? Enter a self-appointed minister with messianic impulses.
By GERALD PEARY | July 12, 2011

massachusetts scandal with house of representatives

In the wake of the latest corruption scandal, let's just torch the offending chamber

Burning Down the House
Burning Down the House
By DAVID S. BERNSTEIN | June 22, 2011

The best of Boston's mobile cuisine

Truck nuts
Summer in Boston traditionally means exploring the city, getting sunburned, and ironically (but totally seriously) drinking Mike's Hard Lemonade. But now that meals-on-wheels mania has put the boot on our fair city, it also means chasing down every food truck in town.
By DAVID EISENBERG | June 09, 2011

Review: The Maharaja

Postmodern roadhouse Indian by way of London
The three owners of The Maharaja have done a very good job redecorating the already handsome upstairs space in Harvard Square that was formerly Bombay Club. They are much less clear about marketing the menu, which has all kinds of the usual Indian restaurant dishes and a few new ones.
By ROBERT NADEAU | June 01, 2011

Review: Camie's Bakery

A friendly neighborhood Haitian joint you don't want to overlook
If you're keeping an eye out for quality cheap eats, the car and the MBTA are not always your friends. While drivers focus on the road and buses retrace the same main-drag routes, it's only pedestrians who get off the beaten path to notice the kind of joints that quietly thrive on neighborhood trade.
By MC SLIM JB | May 25, 2011

the minuteman bike trail in cambridge, arlington and lexington

A trek through the Minuteman Trail

The Road More Travelled
Years ago, when I was a completely out-of-shape cycling novice, I had a vague dream of someday riding my bike the entire length of the Minuteman Bike Path — a 10-mile trail that starts in Cambridge, winds through Arlington and Lexington, and ends in Bedford.
By RYAN STEWART | May 09, 2011