Off The Record, Beastie Boys’ 5 Boroughs
September 14, 2004
The Beastie Boys, how sweet the sound. They once were lost, but now they're found. It's been almost two full decades since the 1986 release of the Beastie Boys' classic album License to Ill. Group-members MCA, Ad Rock, and Mike D exploded onto the hip-hop scene with their funky New York City white bo...
Off The Record
September 11, 2004
7L and Esoteric have been big players in the Boston hip-hop scene since the summer of 2000 release of the Speaking Real Words EP. The duo's blend of 7L's high quality eclectic production and creative use of samples combined with Esoteric's innovative delivery of perfectly on-beat complicated polysyllabic rh...
Off the Record
April 12, 2004
Last weekend I purchased the new cd from Los Angeles rapper Murs. The West Coast's eccentric version of Old Dirty Bastard, Murs is known for his crazy antics as well as his work with groups like Atmosphere and Living Legends. Murs manages to blend the strictly West Coast style of Souls of Mi...
Hidalgo Is A Hit
April 12, 2004
In Hidalgo, Viggo Mortensen plays a Pony Express courier for the US cavalry that witnesses the destruction of American Indian populations circa 1890 in the American frontier. Since his parentage is both European and Indian, Frank T. Hopkins (Mortensen) reacts strongly to the Indian genocide and tu...
White Lines, Black Roads, Grey Album, Nothing Important
March 8, 2004
Recently I bought one of those tape-player CD adapters for my car stereo. I think it was one of the best purchases I made all year because now I can finally take my two old Sublime and Big Pun tapes out of permanent rotation and listen to music that has been released since I graduated from seventh gr...
WRUV DJ Profile
March 1, 2004
Name: Brad Desmond Show name: The Conflict Theory Time: Saturday 10-12pmGenre of Music you play:Desmond says, "These days with all the merging styles of music and influences it's hard to classify anything into just one category. I play music from the broad genre labeled 'electronic' (RPM, IDM...
The Passion of the Christ
March 1, 2004
While watching The Passion of the Christ I had to remind myself that I was viewing a film and not a documentary of Roman torture methods. This film, directed by Mel Gibson, was the most brutal and grotesque film that I have ever seen. It surpasses all war movies, including Saving Private Ryan, in go...
21 Grams Pulls Up 7 Short
February 9, 2004
"21 Grams" is the new film starring Sean Penn, Naomi Watts, and Benicio Del Toro. The film comes from the new-to-Hollywood director Alejandro Inarritu (with various accents to accent his foreignness). All the performances are pure and driven; however, the emotions they play out are over-dramatic and de...
New Hampshire and Back
Cathleen Alison Murray
February 2, 2004
Manchester, New Hampshire is waking up. Reporters litter the streets, cameras dangling around their necks, poking microphones into faces, and scribbling in notebooks. Locals and tourists walk by clutching copies of Manchester's The Union-Leader or the New York Times. The sidewalk is frozen, clumps of...
John Brown’s Body: So Good You Should Travel To See Them
Michael David Spies
January 26, 2004
When I arrived at Higher Ground on Friday, November 21st, to interview John Brown's Body, I had the same pre-conceived notion as many other people and critics - Here is the white reggae band. I sat down to talk with Chris (trumpet) and Tom (drums) of John Brown's Body, and was not only swayed, but al...
The Matrix: Revolutions Opens
December 8, 2003
This week an epic story came to an end (yeah right; that's what they said about Star Wars). The Matrix: Revolutions opened in theaters around the world this past Wednesday simultaneously. East coasters enjoyed the film at 9:00 in the morning, while those on the Pacific coast received a screening at...
Kill Bill: Vol. 1
December 8, 2003
I'm sure you've heard that Quentin Tarantino is up to his insane tricks again; that is, making avant-garde films seemingly conceptualized by the darkest aspects of man's psyche. Tarantino transforms this macabre inspiration into his clever and entertaining satires of American and human culture. T...
