Since J. M. Synge's 1903 play The Shadow of the Glen portrayed a corpse awakening onstage to find his "widow" cavorting with a homeless tramp, Irish dramatists have favored narratives that juxtapose the hilarious and the macabre. Conor McPherson, a Dublin-based playwright, screenwriter, and director whose film The Eclipse opens [...]
Setting up shop on stage Monday night behind a neon tape-covered table of gadgetry and next to his ubiquitous sidekick, a glowing green skull raised like an effigy atop a metal pole, Dan Deacon stepped into a non-traditional frontman's role. Not content with simply running through a set of his loopy, structurally complicated but always [...]
Given Pogues frontman Shane MacGowan’s storied relationship with booze and drugs (a relationship which has sidelined him on occasion during his own band’s performances), the moment when he emerged onstage at the 930 Club Wednesday night for the last of three D.C. shows came as something of a pleasant shock. Throughout the Pogues’ long and [...]
Eric Earley of Blitzen Trapper
Around 11:45 p.m. last night, I heard it straight from the horse’s mouth—the horse being, in this case, Marty Marquis of Blitzen Trapper: the crowd of fans who braved last night’s ice-capped sidewalks to see BT and Alela Diane perform at the Black Cat was…"yeah, pretty stiff."
