Reviving Two Bergman Works on Stage
For being the centennial of Ingmar Bergman’s birth, there seems to be very little evidence of the Swedish director's work around. It's hard to find even his best known films;…
They Might Be Giants at the 930 Club
High school pals John Linnell and John Flansburgh have pretty much stayed true to their eccentric approach to pop music, as a guitar and accordion duo singing about science, history…
Turning ‘Tommy’ Into a ‘Bluegrass Opry’
Recording bluegrass versions of pop or rock songs goes back nearly half a century, to the days when the Country Gentlemen made Manfred Mann’s “Fox on the Run” their own…
Long, Laudatory Look at The King
As if to save him from the knick-knack shelf of American kitsch, the lengthy “Elvis Presley: The Searcher” (HBO, 8 p.m.) spends three and a half hours celebrating the musical…
Jim White, Sylvie Simmons at Hill Country
It was no wonder David Byrne signed Jim White to his Luaka Bop label nearly 20 years ago. The two kind of look alike, have the same set of social…
Jason Isbell Headlines Folk Benefit
As the prevailing king and queen of Americana, it’s more likely you’ll see Jason Isbell and Amanda Shires amphitheaters or headlining big summer festivals. It’s rare to see them together…
I’m With Her at the 9:30 Club
They blushed and smiled as if they couldn’t believe it. Their debut had come out less than a month before, yet here they were playing all these new songs before…
Survey of American Music in Drag
The Kennedy Center kicked off its multidisciplinary contemporary cultural assault with something thought to embody the approach, Taylor Mac's “A 24-Decade History of Popular Music (1776-2016).” Had the cabaret history…
Noel Gallagher’s Birds ‘n’ Beatles
Much as he wants to get away from it, the Beatles thing continues to dog Noel Gallagher, long after his band Oasis has broken up. Of course, that group got…
First Aid Kit Come Fighting
The strongest anthem for the #MeToo movement was written and released by a couple of Swedish sisters in their mid-20s, months before Harvey Weinstein revelations in the New York Times…