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April 26 – Sept 4, 2017 @ICA
THE BIG 3
Currently on view at the ICA, the ambitious exhibition Nari Ward: Sun Splashed presents fresh, bright, colorful, and playfully complex and engaging works of art that blend the personal, everyday experience with pointed references to issues of power, politics, and history in society. As a native Jamaican who immigrated to Harlem in the early 90’s, Ward is able to employ a playful, innocent, and occasionally naive perspective as a newcomer to his new home. Ward’s exhibition begins with Happy Smilers: Duty Free Shopping, 1996, a noisy yet welcoming room filled with the sound of incessant chirping and squawking of parrots repeating simple, cartoonish phrases over and over again. The entrance of the room is constricted by low ‘walls’ of fire hose wrapped around discarded car tires, window fans, and other household objects. A full scale fire escape hangs from the ceiling in the center of the room, its black bars and steps representing both the possibility of escape, and the suggestion of danger and imprisonment. Perhaps the most arresting work is Sky Juice, 1993, a shredded red Coca-Cola umbrella attached to an iron fence jampacked with a huge mass of worker’s gloves encrusted with the faded crystalline residue of dried up ‘Tropical Fantasy’ soda that Ward had poured over them. His subtle, nuanced use of soda bottles as a historical allusion to Jamaica’s sugar trade and his use of the now empty, discarded worker’s gloves simultaneously Nari Ward, Sky Juice, 1993. echo both the presence and the absence of a person, a worker, or someone departed or deserted. ~~~ Maryam Yoon
Moment Of Clarity FREE EAR PLUGS FOR ALL It’s not easy to admit but I’ve ignored the warnings for too long. As of last month I’ve finally come around to the need.. for earplugs. We hosted a show at Studio 550, that was, in true Hassle fashion, a complete melee of fringe music from the extreme ends of the timbral spectrum. We had minimal loop-pop, dark solo soul, heavenly freak-folk and...the super heavy and challenging rock band GOLD DIME. I personally enjoyed every moment but I realized that it’s not enough just to have ear plugs available for sale.. at the table..if anyone asks. We need to offer when appropriate and provide when necessary. Even with a warning, attendees could not possibly know what they were getting themselves into.. This was a truly important moment of clarity for me both as a show booker and as a music fan. As a music fan I simply decided that it’s stupid not to protect my ears, but as an organizer, it’s my responsibility to protect everyone at the show to the best of my ability from harmful forces—including, but not limited to, extreme volume! So I wanted to take this opportunity to remind my fellow Compass readers the importance of wearing ear plugs (those fitted ones rule) and to officially announce that BRAIN Arts will now give out FREE EAR PLUGS at all of our shows moving forward. Sure, wearing them is still optional (get with the program you purists) but let’s not let $1 be a deterrent to your own auditory well-being. www.brain-arts.org ~~~ Sam Potrykus *See the extended version of this column online for minor commentary from The Owens’ Randy Owen!
Unless otherwise indicated, the Compass is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License (CC BY)
In the Heat of the Night (1967) dir. Norman Jewison - screens 8/11 & 8/18
Nari Ward: Sun Splashed
FEED YOUR HEAD: FILMS FROM 1967 Fri 8/11 - Sat 9/2 @MFA
Fri 8/11 New England Rock BBQ: Ovlov (CT), Lina Tullgren (ME), Washer (NYC), and Rick Rude (NH) @The Marsh Post (Cambridge, on the river!) 7pm hang 8pm show All Ages $10 adv $12 dos. It’s cookout season, friends, and what better place to throw some shrimp on the barbie than on the shores of the mighty Mississip..err Charles River! BYOF (that’s food) and we’ll facilitate your grillin’ and chillin’ with some tenacious tunes for this midsummer night’s dream. We’ve got several flavors of ROCK for you to sample, from the honest, comforting campfire serenades of Lina Tullgren to the pine tree punk of Rick Rude, who’re leaving behind the New Hampshire wilds to sonically strip us of our inhibitions with their meandering sludge. Get down with it! Plus Exploding in Sound’s Washer will down some of their post-hardcore-fueled, pickup truck lullabies alongside label mates Ovlov whose slacker rock (on speed) paints an emotional and uncompromising picture. It’s rock, it’s fuzz, it’s outdoors. Blow off some steam and bathe in the starlight. ~~~ Mike Achille
With the notable, if somewhat dubious, exception of THE TRIP, Roger Corman’s classic contribution to the cinema of crass, corny psychsploitation (on which he collaborated with Jack Nicholson, Peter Fonda, and Dennis Hopper, who would get it right the next time), the films the MFA has rounded up to commemorate the Summer of Love’s 50th anniversary have little, if any, connection to the hippie counterculture that gripped the nation’s imagination in 1967. Although the era was awash in avant-garde head-fuckery (think Anger, Brakhage, Snow, inter alia), the focus here is on mainstream films consensually regarded as iconic, covering a wide range of styles and subject matter, from Mike Nichols’ literary, proto-New Hollywood THE GRADUATE and the snapshot of interracial relations provided by Stanley Kramer’s GUESS WHO’S COMING TO DINNER, through war (THE DIRTY DOZEN), Bond (YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE), murder (IN COLD BLOOD), Disney (THE JUNGLE BOOK), anti-conformism (COOL HAND LUKE), and even the tawdry, glorious melodrama disgorged by VALLEY OF THE DOLLS. The real outlier, and only non-English language selection, is Jean-Pierre Melville’s LE SAMOURAÏ, an ice-cold cocktail of Gallic noir starring the imperially blank Alain Delon as a man chasing rabbits across chessboards, starving his head. ~~~ Matthew Martens
Notes from the CREW
PLACES YOU CAN HANG Some North Shore beaches you might enjoy. Most accessible by car but the MBTA, a bike or a combination thereof works too. Stay sandy, my friends: GAS HOUSE BEACH, MARBLEHEAD (all the way down Gas House Ln off of Orne St.). Gas House Lane looks like a private driveway, but it opens up on an adorable beach in a cove. The neighborhood also features a Civil War Prison/Fort and some beautiful colonial burial grounds if you like to rub. HP Lovecraft loved this town for a reason. Cheap refreshment is a short walk back downtown. (Blue Line to Wonderland 442 bus to Marblehead, get off at the last stop) EISMAN’S BEACH, SWAMPSCOTT (Puritan Ave. opp. Smith Ln.) My favorite part of this spot is going rock climbing during from beach to beach starting here and heading north to Marblehead at low tide. Swampscott is a bourgeois food desert but Mission on the Bay seems to be running a decent pub food happy hour. Park a quarter mile away on Humphrey to avoid lot fees. Commuter Rail to Swampscott or Blue Line to Wonderland and 442 bus to Swampscott). WAIKIKI BEACH SALEM (At the End of Winter Island Road past the Plummer Youth Promise campus) This beach is adjacent to the Winter Island camp-ground which technically costs money to park and camp at, but is free on foot if you park by the Willows. A pretty path winds around the whole place leading to plenty of great make-out and 420 spots. Head to one of the willows Chinese Joints for a classic chop-suey sandwich and then play some skee ball. (Commuter Rail to Salem 450/451 us to Salem Willows/Winter Island) ~~~ Nadav Havusha
It's been 4 months since I moved to Boston, and I already feel like I can proudly say "don't hassle me, I'm local!" I've been volunteering with the Boston Hassle pretty much since I got here and I'm so grateful for the community I've gotten to know. As someone who was embedded in their local music scene back in Vermont, I was eager to find my place in the "big city", so on my first night here I went to see Xiu Xiu play at the Elks Lodge. Little did I know I would be coordinating the Hassle's volunteers just a couple of months later. I have been so impressed by the passion and pride this crew has for the Hassle and for Boston. Music has shaped my life and it brings me joy to bring it to the community with such an awesome group of people!!W If you wanna hassle us, please join us at OTTOs Pizza on August 21st! A portion of each sale will be donated to us so we can put on some dope shows, like this fall’s Hassle Fest! See you there! ~~~ Karla Noboa
THIS PROGRAM IS SUPPORTED IN PART BY A GRANT FROM THE BOSTON CULTURAL COUNCIL, A LOCAL AGENCY WHICH IS FUNDED BY THE MASSACHUSETTS CULTURAL COUNCIL, AS ADMINSTRATED BY THE MAYOR'S OFFICE OF ARTS + CULTURE
THIS PAPER IS AN ONGOING PROJECT OF BRAIN ARTS ORGANIZATION, INC., A 501(C)(3) NONPROFIT. PLEASE CONSIDER DONATING TO, VOLUNTEERING OR OTHERWISE SUPPORTING US: BRAIN-ARTS.ORG OR BOSTONHASSLE@GMAIL.COM