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Navigating you to underground, aboveground and all around awesome happenings in the Greater Boston Area
THE BIG THREE HASSLE FEST 8!! 11/4-11/5 @Brighton Music Hall featuring Wolf Eyes, Girlpool, Pharmakon, Silver Apples, Guerilla Toss, Doomsday Student, Bugs and Rats, Ava Luna, Sad13 and so many more!
MUSIC
Hear ye, hear ye, come one, come all, to the next great collaborative DIY music fest of the Fall! I’m talking HASSLE FEST 8!! The latest incarnation of our underground, above ground, all around dance/bob/ slam jam of a party happening not this month but next on Nov. 4th and 5th (we wanted to give you plenty of time to realize the epicness of this year's lineup). Did I say epic? I meant friggin legendary. We got them classic, hard to nab performances by Wolf Eyes and Silver Apples (Silver Apples?!? you heard right). Girlpool’s soft rock with a Mike Tyson lyrical punch plus local ex-pats G.Toss (#needsnointro), the power hungry Bugs and Rats, Sadie Dupuis’ solo project Sad13, the celestial Ava Luna, the mind bending Surface to Air Missive (is that a flippin recorder?!) and the apocalyptic Doomsday Student (ex-Arab on Radar, WHAT?!?). Lemme drop some science on you — icebergs exist mostly underwater, you can only ever just get a glimpse of the tip. Same goes for HF8 cuz we got SO MUCH MORE coming at you...this is just the tip of the berg. Stay tuned for more announcements in the coming weeks and get advance tix now!! Already so worth it, only gonna get better. www.bostonhasslefest.comto 1960s youth culture, alive to the possibilities of vivid color, aggressive design, and Godardian editing, and as virtuosic with the infinite varieties of irony as Ozu, for instance, was sensitive to the subtleties of human emotion. Mining a then faintly scandalous but now merely fashionable fascination with underworlds and their underfolk, Suzuki’s best-known late ‘60s works (Branded to Kill, say, and Tokyo Drifter) are jazz-soaked gems set among yakuza, prostitutes and night clubs, and subject to the avant-pop tricks then in trade. — Matthew Martens
MOMENT // OF // CLARITY PLACES YOU CAN
HANG...
these rad places that supported Hassle Fest 8 FILM Presidential elections can be draining. Popular media can diminish elections to ugly play-by-plays, instead of informing viewers on the intricacies of proposed policy. The media offers back-and-forth bloodsport to consume as ideological and interest groups clash over overarching narratives. Problematically, this presentation turns us into spectators who exist to up ratings. It makes us understand our role in the likes of major social change as a television viewer. Punditry, cable news networks, and sound bites all help us feel informed every four years. However, the overwhelming nature of this coverage makes it feel as if federal elections are the end-all in enacting change that affects everyday life. Though voting in federal elections is undoubtedly important and should be encouraged, the nature of their coverage downplays the relevance of local policy, which affects immediate issues such as education, affordable housing, and cultural development. Beyond practical policy measures, psychologically, feeling like a spectator to a political drama can be demoralizing. The American public, the couch-dwelling contingent, is forever “watching from home” instead of working to make their community better. Rhetoric from major media sources often causes us to forget that we have the ability to vote and dedicate ourselves to such community improvement. There is an essential magic in movement, the cause and effect of understanding oneself as a specific impetus for change. Not everyone is a policymaker, but even a small amount of engagement with local politics can make a difference. Find Nov. 2016 local ballot measures by Googling “Mass. gov Current Petitions Filed”. Find more information about state elections here: http://www.sec.state.ma.us/
PAM GRIER, SUPERSTAR! Fri 10/7-Sat 10/8 @HFA $12
From #OscarsSoWhite to the proposed orientalization of Scarlett Johansson, representation in film has never been a hotter-button issue. It is remarkable, then, to think that one of the most bankable stars of the 1970s was a black woman working almost exclusively in independent film: Pam Grier. A strong female lead in the male-dominated, not-alwaysdignified world of blaxploitation cinema, by turns funny, soft, chilling, and extraordinarily badass — Grier could command the screen like no other. Moreover, she was simply a great actress, something Quentin Tarantino took note of when he revived her career with JACKIE BROWN in 1997. Yet, apart from a few nominations for that film, Grier, with sad predictability, has been neglected by mainstream award shows. Fortunately, Grier will get her due this month at Harvard, where she will be named this year’s W.E.B. DuBois Medalist. On Friday, 10/7, Grier will be onhand to introduce her iconic performance in FOXY BROWN (1976), followed by a conversation with the great Henry Louis Gates, Jr.; Grier will return on Saturday, 10/8, to introduce her triumphant return in JACKIE BROWN. It’s an unmissable opportunity for anyone even slightly interested in film-- and a great excuse to watch some kickass movies.set among yakuza, prostitutes and night clubs, and subject to the avant-pop tricks then in trade. — Oscar Goff
NOTES // FROM // THE // CREW
This November will mark the fourth consecutive Hassle Fest that I’ve helped to plan. I was initially asked to write this column to discuss all of the work that I’ve put into this year’s Fest (spoiler alert: it’s been a sh*tload). As I type this, it’s impossible to imagine Hassle Fest growing to this magnitude without the dedication and perseverance of dozens of volunteers, local businesses, and countless others both in--and out--of the music scene. Brighton Music Hall — and Lance Tobin in particular — have been incredible to work with. If you see Lance on the street, give him a high five. But the Fest is so much more than the venue, the lineup, or our incredible sponsors, some of whom have generously supported the Fest for multiple years. After the countless hours our volunteers spend updating our website and social media (and receiving incessant emails from me about tweaking it), soliciting sponsors, setting up our art installation, designing poster and program artwork, planning—and executing—our fundraising video campaign, and doing a myriad of other tasks that I can’t think of at the moment; it’s the sum of all the hard work that each of these people put in for months leading-up to the Fest that makes it the freakin’ awesome event that I look forward to each year (with equal parts anxiety and excitement). I’m proud to be a part of such a dynamic team of volunteers and I’m psyched to share our collective efforts with you on November 4 & 5. Rock n’ roll, Dan M.
ART Christian Marclay’s The Clock @Museum of Fine Arts Boston
On view through Jan 2017 (24hr screening Fri 10/14- Sat 10/15) In Ben Lerner’s novel 10:04 (2014), the protagonist attempts to arrive at a screening of Christian Marclay’s art installation The Clock (2010) in time for the clip from the film Back to the Future (1985) where Marty is able to return to 1985. This will occur at 10:04 pm in all three realities. But he doesn’t make it. We, the reader, anticipate the protagonist’s arrival at the film for the very reason that we already know the title of Lerner’s text, and therefore know it is important. But when the appointed time is missed, and the character readjusts his expectations and continues to watch the Marclay piece, we are left hanging in our expectation. This is the brilliance of The Clock. Assembled from thousands of film and television clips where a clock face is visible on screen, each clip corresponds to the viewer’s real time. The resulting experience breaks down the illusion of cinematic escapism and our individual desire to order our experiences of time as a linear trajectory. However, we remain caught in the addictive moment where expectation meets climax unable to become disentangled from our cultural conditioning. — Maggie Jensen