With the advent of reality TV and the latest push of talent and game shows, it seems entertainment is about to meet itself coming around the corner. See, back before there was an idiot box in every living room, audiences flocked to the theater for their dose of distraction. And from the 1880s through the […]

Lifting words from Loretta Lynn’s Jack White-produced, Grammy-gilded 2004 album Van Lear Rose — on which she wrote every song — here’s a call-and-response of sorts, knitted together with Doc Watson’s Third Generation Blues. Watson recorded that 1999 album with his grandson, Richard, on guitar — and thus Van Lear Rose and Third Generation Blues […]

“Goths and comic-book fans are not your normal targeted market, but everyone should know and love dance,” says Heather Maloy, artistic director of Terpsicorps Theatre of Dance. Her troupe’s latest offering, a balletic interpretation of Edgar Allan Poe’s Masque of the Red Death, promises to lure just that audience via animated projections, horror elements and […]

Ever since American Idol first infiltrated our TV sets back in 2002, most of us — or at least way more of us than would readily admit it — have come under the spell of those would-be chart-topping crooners. In the four years since Kelly Clarkson, Ruben Studdard, Fantasia Barrino and Carrie Underwood were crowned […]

“Snobbishness helps no one,” announces National Public Radio commentator/concert violist Miles Hoffman during a recent phone chat with Xpress. He goes on to reveal that the two words he’s most stringently avoided in his 16 years on air are: “of course.” As in: “The Marriage of Figaro was one of Mozart’s most famous operas, of […]

“Place Your Illogical Hand,” by Gabriel Shaffer Gabriel Shaffer isn’t cranking out serene watercolors, cuddly critters or rosy-hued commissioned portraits. Still, do Close Encounters-style faces and gangly, disproportionate limbs a rebellious folk artist make? Not quite. Bold assertions in his artist’s statement to the contrary, “I don’t consider myself an outsider artist,” Shaffer recently confessed […]

Though many people trained in creative fields are making their livings carrying trays, Joseph Nilo is actually working in his medium of choice: film. As project manager at local Bclip Productions, Nilo clearly loves what he does, and raves that the company supports its employees’ after-hours endeavors. But, like most nine-to-fivers, Nilo often finds it […]

Had I not tried it, I wouldn’t have believed that Flamenco music went with Nutella-filled crepes, or Pier One-inspired decor, or the metrosexual bar scene. But it does. In fact, Flamenco — at least the updated version performed by local sextet Cabo Verde — is probably the perfect accompaniment to any evening out. This isn’t […]

This is the story of twins raised separately, who, when reunited — unbeknownst to each other — dissolve all ensuing situations into hysteria. No one knows which twin is which, people get blamed for things they didn’t do, impish events take place, parents are reunited against their will … oh wait, that’s Disney’s The Parent […]

It used to be that “classical” automatically equaled frumpy. Classical music was performed in stuffy, ornate halls complete with gaudy chandeliers. “The classics” referred to dusty, boring tomes of yore, unless they were musical hits from your grandparents’ generation, in which case they were just embarrassing. Classical art, classic cars: all stuff to be filed […]

“Instrument players had a sexual style unique to their instrument,” dishes author Blair Tindall in her memoir Mozart in the Jungle: Sex, Drugs and Classical Music (Atlantic Monthly, 2005). “French horn players, their instruments the testiest of all, could rarely get it up, but percussionists could make beautiful music out of anything at all.” In […]

The Brevard Music Center’s 69th annual festival continues through Sunday, Aug. 7, in venues at and near BMC. Among the performances not to be missed: • Saturday, July 9, H.M.S. Pinafore, Janiec Opera Company; Whittington-Pfohl Auditorium This swashbuckling musical was Gilbert and Sullivan’s first blockbuster. 7:30 p.m. $23-$33. • Tuesday, July 12, Emmylou Harris, Whittington-Pfohl […]

Back in the U.S. for the first time in a few years, singer Luciano is doing what he does best — spreading revelations, and with considerable charm. “The message I came to deliver, I realized, is a mission,” he enthuses to Xpress. “In Jah [God] we are rewarded in higher regions. I realized people needed […]

Go ahead, race the masses to the bookstore for Goldie Hawn’s confessional A Lotus Grows in the Mud or chick-lit machine Jane Green’s latest, The Other Woman. Summer reading has a tendency toward the syrupy — after all, who wants to crack open War and Peace along with a cold one? But a quick glance […]

Chanting to a town near you: Kundalini Express. From Mongolian overtone chanting to Peruvian nose flutes to Catholic masses and Indian ragas, “music is part of every spiritual tradition,” Ananda Marga monk Dada Nabhaniilananda recently reminded us, via e-mail, from the road. Maybe so — but not every spiritual musician is blessed with an appellation […]

“A Herd Moving,” part of a traveling exhibit of 100 pieces of John Lennon’s artwork that will make a three-day stop here. At right, John and Yoko in the 1970s. It was 1966 when Beatle John Lennon sang back up and played guitar on Paul McCartney’s “When I’m Sixty-Four.” Lennon was, at the time, 26. […]

Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra bassist Fred Bretschger thinks rock lovers “just need to be reeducated on what chamber music is” in order to be converted. Of course, it didn’t happen for Bretschger (an alleged former rock fan) that way. He met a girl who played cello, and that was that. Still, without the benefit of […]

“Pop culture is amazing,” muses Jonathan Bree, songwriter with Kiwi indie-pop outfit the Brunettes, by e-mail. He adds, rhetorically, “Is it strange to [fill] your heart with it and sing of the inspiration it brings? Most of life’s heartfelt moments and experiences come via the TV or movie screen, right?” — and then concedes: ” […]

“I read somewhere that everyone on this planet is separated by only six other people,” muses rich New Yorker Ouisa Kittredge in John Guare’s famous play-turned-Will-Smith-movie Six Degrees of Separation. Ouisa goes on: “I find that: A) tremendously comforting that we’re so close, and B) like Chinese water torture that we’re so close.” It’s an […]

I’m procrastinating writing about Six Degrees of Separation by searching for now-obscure ’80s film stars online. I look up Anthony Michael Hall, only to find out that, after beefing up, the former nerd played — see where this is going? — one of Will Smith’s conquests in Six Degrees. It’s like everything’s connected, man. Actually, […]