Mod crashes Newbury Street

Mod life crashes down on Newbury Street, breaking out of the Allston Village and Central Square pockets for the stylized masses on the stylized strip. (And with it comes my first professional photo credit... cause bylines are just so 2007!)

Images from Maud Night at G2O Salon

Last night I was on Newbury Street covering (and, uh, boozing it up at) the G2O Salon's "Maud Night" fashion show (the 338 building on the Mass Ave side of Life), featuring the stylized head work of new hair designer Alexander James Maud. My "review," if you will, will appear in tomorrow's Herald, but I was granted permission to post the photos the paper didn't want in my blog. Yes, I'm now taking photographs as well.

Panthers player slashed in neck by skate blade

Last night in Buffalo, the Florida Panthers' Richard Zednik was slashed in the throat by the errant skate blade of teammate Olli Jokinen. He's in stable condition in a Buffalo hospital, but as the photo below shows, this could have been deadly.



The whole ordeal was eerily reminiscent of the night almost 20 years ago when Clint Malarchuk has his throat slashed by a skate blade. That gruesome event also happened in Buffalo, and Malarchuk needed 300 stitches to close the gash in his neck. He missed I believe a few months, but played the final five minutes of the last regular-season game in Buffalo to show he was OK. Goalies would soon protect their necks.



And because we're in the great U. S. of A., Malarchuk's semi-Daniel Pearl was commemorated through a Todd McFarlane action figure! Will Zedsy get the same treatment? Was Kyle McLaren behind all this? These are my Monday Morning burning questions...

AUDIOGASM coming next month

If you've been to the pill in the past few months, you'd likely heard me deviate from the standard Britpop and Modern Indie playlist in favor of some dirty electro goodness. Well, aside from short 25-minute increments, that shit really doesn't align with the pill's tried and true formula, so I'm branching out to start an all-electro dance party, with rotating DJs alongside me at various venues around town.

Though I enjoy the Middlesex Lounge nights and a lot of what the Basstown peoples do, I still haven't found a night that's seamlessly crossed the new French/UK electro-house revival with this new wave of synth-driven indie. No hip hop, no samples, just straight-ahead big-beat anthems. So fuck it, I'll try it myself.

The deets:
Michael V. and Brigid the Fierce present:
AUDIOGASM
(|(electro dance party)|)
Tuesday, March 18 at O'Brien's
3 Harvard Avenue, Allston MA
live guest: ADEPT (Dutch noise pop)
guest DJ: Driftski (Cooler Than Smack)
9 pm / 21-plus / $6

Adept is a sick, punk-fueled electro-noize band from the Netherlands, and I'm unsure Boston is ready for this. DJ Driftski has deep roots in the local house and hip-hop scenes, so I'm psyched to have him in on the launch. O'Brien's is mad intimate, so the idea is to pack it out with sweaty, smelly bodies and build a cool word-of-mouth dirty dance scene. More details to come...

Rick Astley turned 42 yesterday

If the world ever needed a comeback from a true pop icon, it's Rick Astley. Yesterday's birthday boy, who gave us the immortal Top 40 dance floor hits "Together Forever" and "Never Gonna Give You Up," has toiled in relative obscurity over in England most of the past 15 years. If he knew how much he meant to the Woburn Advocate staff (read: me and my reporter) back in 2004 or so, he might be inspired to serenade us with his deep, brotha-ly baritone once more.

This is an oldie, but a goodie. Happy birthday Rick:

Bonnaroo-ined

The lineups for the fairly dismal Bonnaroo Music & Arts festival were announced yesterday, and needless to say I won't be riding down to Tennessee to see Pearl Jam or Metallica. Could New England ever pull something like this together? Who knows, but I polled some local event planners about their festival ideas in today's H to the E to the R to the ALD.

Best Music Poll to the Pavilion

With Lansdowne Street a ghost town, the FNX Best Music Poll festival will relocate to the Bank of America Pavilion. Not a bad deal, though having several bands performing at once will be missed. Last year's show featured, among others, Bloc Party, Clap Your Hands, Bon Savants and an insane Silversun Pickups show at now-DOA Axis.

Patriots lose, I blame the Globe

Damn. So I'll admit to never really being a big pro football fan, though since I moved to Boston in 2000 I have taken to the Patriots for two simple reasons: 1) they were just getting awesome, and shit went to a new level with the arrival of my boyfriend, erm, I mean new QB Tom Brady, and 2) as a native NYer, the Pats were really the only team I could root for (I hate basketball, screw the Bruins and growing up a Yankee fan, I respect the rivalry too much to ever openly root for the Red Sox despite my wanting to see "Boston," as a city, win).

So yesterday was a monumental disappointment on several levels. I had never invested so much in each week of a football season, and compounded by the New England Vs the U.S. shit (from SpyGate to the Pats' arrogance to the widespread hatred of Brady, Rodney, et all) and the riveting subplot of "Perfection," this was a letdown of epic proportions.

So who to blame? Brady, for playing like shit? Josh McDaniels, for getting raped by the Giants' relentless D? Asante Samuel, for not corralling that would-be interception late in the 4th? Belichick, for wearing RED instead of his trademark gray?

No, blame the Boston Globe, for this abortion-in-print:

If it's in the papers...

And now on to today's Herald, where there was a whole lot of Michael Marotta goin on:

- Bands on the run to the Hub:
NYC musicians with Boston roots come home for the Pats; the Information reprazents
- Photo gallery on Seamless: Though my review is only in print -- buy a newspaper, kids
- Infamous moments in Super Bowl history: From Al Hirt to Hollywood Henderson to Barrett Robbins
- Hotline: Scamper's last show, Dropkicks TV

Wonderful Spells @ the pill tonight

Much presence in the ol’ Herald this morning. But before I link myself to death, just a friendly reminder that the Wonderful Spells play the pill tonight. Good times are guaranteed.

From thepillboston: After only a few months away from the Great Scott stage, Boston newest melody makers, the aptly named Wonderful Spells, return this weekend to the pill. After turning heads and swaying shoulders with last year’s catchy-as-the-cold debut EP, “The Prophecy of Smarmulous Rex,” 2008 stands to be a breakout year for the Spells’ dapper young lads. Performing together since high school, their ‘60s and ‘70s acid-tinged psych rock is rife with sing-along choruses and anthem-ready hooks, showing the city you need not a drum machine and synthesizer to get the kids dancing like mad. They’ve recently opened for everyone from the Stills to Apollo Sunshine, but the future arrives with a headliners call. Shit, these blokes are even better looking than your boyfriend.