Dave Martin, Natural Selection

By Chelsea Spear

In the ’80s and ’90s, Dave Martin cut his teeth as a member of the beloved Boston rock band O Positive. His role as a sort of band factotum—in which he played numerous instruments and worked on the band’s onstage sound—filled out the quintet’s angular, shimmering, new wave arrangements. Since O Pos disbanded in 1995, Martin has put forth a prolific solo career, recording a trio of solid, folk rock-influenced solo records. His most recent album, Natural Selection, mines the contemplative vein of his previous albums, and also finds him introducing some new sounds and arrangements.
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Theresa Andersson, Street Parade

By Chelsea Spear

Theresa Andersson’s 2008 breakthrough album Hummingbird, Go! was no small accomplishment. Serving as a one-woman band, Andersson spun hummable, soulful tunes brimming with hard-won optimism. The straightforward production and elaborate arrangements became even more impressive once listeners knew that she’d performed all the instruments herself, using effects pedals to create loops. (The video for her song “Na Na Na,” in which she demonstrates her one-woman band setup, attracted 1.2 million views on YouTube.) How do you top a left-field critical and artistic success like this?
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Maggie and Terre Roche, Seductive Reasoning (Reissue)

By Chelsea Spear

One could pinpoint 1975 as one of the first years of “The Woman in Rock.” Patti Smith’s Horses had just hit the racks; Heart released their first single and began recording their debut album; and The Runaways and Blondie had just formed. All these artists and bands created fierce and highly idiosyncratic rock, and their various images—tough, cathartic, slightly cartoonish—would inspire many girls to start making music.
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X: The Unheard Music: The Silver Anniversary Edition DVD

By Chelsea Spear

To the layperson in the early ‘80s, punk rock was an atonal mess of a sound made by destructive adolescent boys with an all-consuming hunger for amphetamines and an allergy to shirts. In the documentary X: The Unheard Music, director W.T. Morgan and the punk band X challenge these stereotypes by focusing on the creative process and the day-to-day experiences of a working band trying to find their audience.
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Top Five 1970s Films Directed by Women

By Chelsea Spear

If your knowledge of the American New Wave begins and ends with the studio films of the era and Peter Biskind’s Easy Riders, Raging Bulls, you may regard 1970s Hollywood as a roiling cauldron of testosterone. The pictures of the day may have featured more complex female protagonists, and may have ushered in an era of unconventional actresses like Shelley Duvall, Ellyn Burstyn, and Barbara Streisand. However, the exploits of Altman, Bogdanovich, Hopper, and Scorsese and their second-string peers left little room for emerging distaff talent.

As any good artist does, however, the female directors of the 1970s found a way around the system and were able to make feature films. Many of these saw distribution at mainstream houses, while others languished, undiscovered until recently. Here are five features helmed by intrepid lady lensers during the Easy Riders/Raging Bulls era.
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Blinded By Library Science: Michael J. Epstein Memorial Library/Nervous But Excited

By Chelsea Spear

Club Passim, Cambridge MA
November 6, 2011

Photo © Kelly Davidson

What has 18 legs, 15 instruments, eight pairs of cat-eye glasses, and one handlebar mustache? No, it’s not the latest electronic edition of Paste or the next Diablo Cody movie, but rather the Michael J. Epstein Memorial Library.

Boston music wunderkind Michael J. Epstein has assembled a chamber ensemble to perform his opulent, melodic cache of tunes. Live performances by the MJEML take the “memorial library” concept to its logical extreme by populating the stage with eight comely lasses in red, black, white, and bifocals, shushing a talkative audience in unison and reminding their listeners that “You might get a ticket for speeding . . . but you won’t get a ticket for reading.”
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T Bone Burnett, The Speaking Clock Revue

By Chelsea Spear

Writing a negative review of an album like The Speaking Clock Revue is an almost painful thing. The album comes with an impressive pedigree, drawn as it is from a concert organized by T Bone Burnett to benefit arts education. Most of the assembled artists—among them Elvis Costello, Neko Case, the Secret Sisters, and Jeff “Lebowski” Bridges—are almost above reproach. The production is clean and listenable, and the money raised from the sale of the CD goes to a good cause.

All of this is noble and worthy, to be sure. But the well-regarded clutch of artists and the laudable cause aren’t enough to make the whole experience anything greater than snooze-worthy.
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Beirut, The Rip Tide

By Chelsea Spear

Zach Condon, the jet-setting mayor of indie pop band Beirut, knows how to set a mood. Before listeners hear so much as a note of his latest album, The Rip Tide, the song titles suggest a travelogue instead of a mere collection of tunes. They are named for locations both exotic and quotidian; the ones that aren’t suggest a skyline broader than that of his Santa Fe home. Which journeys does Condon invite his listeners on with this album?
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The Feminist Mystique: Joan Holloway, Peggy Olson, And Protofeminism In Mad Men

By Chelsea Spear

Hey Mad Men fans, let’s play a word association game. When I say to you “Peggy Olson,” what comes to mind? Of course you’d think of the plucky, ambitious copywriter of Sterling Cooper, a Cinderella out of nowhere who’s made a name for herself both through her skill with words and her dogged pursuit of every opportunity that comes her way. Thoughts of Peggy’s unfortunate wardrobe might also cross your mind, as you think about her fondness for mustard yellow and those ridiculous fluffy bangs she rocked in the early episodes.

Okay, so let’s try this again, this time with “Joan Holloway.” Two words might pop into your head: Hotchie and/or motchie! Yes, Joan is the series’ breakout character, beloved by voluptuous women and drag queens everywhere for her jewel-toned wiggle dresses, her red hair, and her way with a bon mot. True, she’s saved the bacon at SC and assisted in building the new ad firm Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce, but who are we kidding? She’s as well known for her sex appeal as she is for her efficiency and professionalism.
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Saddle Shoes and Winnipeg Tuxedos: Fashion In Twin Peaks

By Chelsea Spear

Watching Twin Peaks from a remove of over twenty years conjures a rush of emotions: The tragedy of an innocent’s brutal murder, the suspense of unraveling the mystery, the fear of the uncanny, and the occasional revulsion at the wardrobe. Holy angora, viewers may think. Did people actually dress like that in the early ’90s?
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