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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“Seductive Subversion: Women In Pop Art”

By Chelsea Spear

Exhibit at The Aidekman Center for the Arts
Medford, MA

Free association: When I say the words “Pop Art,” what comes to mind? Screen-prints of Brillo boxes and Campbell’s soup cans, Ben-Day dots on comic-strip women, cartoon collages. And pop artists? Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein, Richard Hamilton, maybe Jasper Johns and Robert Rauschenberg. Like most art movements, Pop Art is considered to be a boys’ club. “Seductive Subversion” seeks to turn this misconception on its head.
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Portrait of a Reputation: The Woodmans

By Chelsea Spear

The early months of 2011 find artist Francesca Woodman in the spotlight. After numerous solo shows throughout the United States and Europe, the photographer will be the subject of a career retrospective at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. Her work changes hands for hundreds of dollars. Established photographers like Cindy Sherman and Photoshop illustrators such as Rosie Hardy cite Woodman’s ethereal self-portraits as a key influence.
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The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie: Sleep It Off and Doll In The Box by Cristina

By Chelsea Spear

Picture it: the Lower East Side, early 1980s. ZE Records had become the hot indie label, renowned for their tweaking of the nascent disco and no wave genres. The label incubated up-and-coming talent like James Chance and Kid Creole and the Coconuts, and helped spur the Waitresses on to trivia-question status with both of their hits.

While all of these artists have remained in the spotlight, one of the most interesting and peculiar talents got lost in the shuffle: Cristina. This one-named wunderkind of Brechtian disco pastiches, Lieber and Stoller covers and later, an album worthy of comparison with Marianne Faithfull’s Broken English, all but disappeared after her second album, Sleep It Off, barely got released in the States. A few years ago, the reformed ZE reissued Cristina’s discography. How does it stand up, after thirty years?
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