The Great Pixelated United States

America in one flashed blur, from New York City to Arizona's Sonoran Desert. Shot over the first week of November 2014 on the open road in a big black car with a phone. Music by Native Bells.

//

Time - Location

00:01 - New York City, New York, USA

00:28 - Somerville, Massachusetts, USA

00:36 - Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA

00:41 - Hairpin Turn, North Adams, Massachusetts, USA

00:46 - North Adams, Massachusetts, USA

00:54 Indiana (somewhere), USA

01:01 - Chicago, Illinois, USA

01:07 - Willis Tower, Chicago, Illinois, USA

01:26 - Cheyenne, Wyoming, USA

01:39 - Denver, Colorado, USA

02:10 - Sonoran Desert, Arizona, USA
//
First Song: "Blissed Out" (segment) off Side A
Second Song: "Maze/Your Mind As Puzzle" (segment) off Falling Into You

Somerville Scout (Jan/Feb)

Not Ashamed

Matt Ganem wades through addiction, comes out slinging poetry.

Ganem reflects on his past in the Massachusetts town where it all began.  Photo by Michael Rose.

**

SOMERVILLE, MA---The high was always good--a straight shot to the heart, an immediate cooling of the blood and a washed out invincibility that pushed it all away. For Matt Ganem, it was an escalating drug addiction. Drug deals, court dates, lost friends--a general erasure of one's good standing imprint on society. But the high was always good.
     He wasn't born in Somerville, but for Ganem the city was a series of mazes to get lost in, escape from and eventually return to clean. Raised in a broken home, Ganem and his sister dealt with the effects of their parents' divorce. His mother, over-burdened by raising two children and sick of seeing Ganem come home with bad grades and a worse attitude, told him to get out. "It's hard being a woman trying to raise a rebellious man," he said with a grin and an aching laugh. He was 16.
     During our interview Ganem spoke candidly and bluntly about his struggle with addiction, often referring to himself as an addict as if it were his official title. He's unafraid to talk and write every aspect of his drug problems. With his first book of poetry, In the Shadow of an Addict, he hopes that slammed-down honesty will help others to open up, and those on the outside to understand. "Addiction has no color, creed, social class or sexual preference," Ganem stated. "It attacks everybody the same."
     Ganem won't say where he's from originally, except that it's in the Greater Boston area. He said he doesn't want to assign addiction to any specific locale. But soon after being thrown out and falling in Somerville he discovered the pleasant buzzing of Oxycontin. "When I first started it was with other people at a party," he said. Friends would split pills, dice them up on the counter, snort them, feel good, and live to see another day. Ganem entered the fray without much thought of consequence. "When you're doing it with other people it seems socially acceptable," he explained. No stranger to drug culture at the time, he said, "It was the Oxys that grabbed a hold of you and didn't let go."
     Ganem slid into a bubble--this wasn't relaxing with friends anymore. He began hoarding and snorting all alone. "Once you physically need it, you're willing to do anything to get it," he said. He began selling just to keep his own blown-up habit going. He was arrested, dodged the law, skipped court dates. Eventually there wasn't a crime he wouldn't commit to keep up a "couple hundred dollar-a-day habit."

Cover of The Shadow of an Addict

     His body had grown so accustomed to the rubbery comfort provided by a few pills that quitting cold meant throwing his body into the clamping industry of withdrawal. Tightening nerves. Unforgiving anxiety. "I didn't sell it to make money and look nice. It was so I could feel right," he said.
     "The interesting thing about Somerville," said Jasen Sousa, whose own J-Rock Publishing is behind The Shadow of an Addict, "is that you can't always see what goes on above the surface." Sousa's Fancygirl tackles the story of a teenage single mother using the Internet and her body to make ends meet. "Drugs plague the youth of Somerville. It's important to have artists like Matt, who have lived and experienced it," convey their story so others can relate.
     With so much happening around Ganem, it seemed someone was always close by waiting to take advantage of the vulnerable. "Somebody can come up to you and say, 'I have this little bag and it'll make you feel better.' You don't even care what's in it," he told me. "And that bag was heroin." Stronger, dirtier and cheaper; the high would continue.
     His dependency strengthened, leading him, one day, toward Arthur D. Healey School (5 Meacham St.) where he waited to make a deal and wound up arrested. Bailed out, broke and intolerably junk-sick, Ganem had to play economics again and convinced himself shooting the drug would be the most cost effective way to maintain his high. Shrouded from society, paranoia leaking into his skull, he left Somerville fearing the cops had it out for him. He moved in the shadows, slept in the streets, in the Boston Commons, until ending up sleeping head-to-toe with another struggling friend in South Boston. He paid rent in dope.
     When his friend left the rooming house to get help at the Boston Hamilton House in Dorchester, Ganem realized the walls were closing in. "I looked in the mirror and my skin was sunken, black under my eyes. I looked defeated," he said. "If I keep going like this," he thought then, "my life isn't lasting."
     Knowing he had to move on from where he was, but not exactly focused on quitting dope, Ganem went to St. Elizabeth's in Brighton for detox. "I showed up with my bags thinking I had a bed when [it was only] an interview," he said. "I didn't know any better." The house director gave Ganem eight hours to see how he could handle it. Thinking he'd wait it out and get high afterward, he bided his time, sat in on a few classes, waiting, and to his surprise was given a room.
     That pivotal moment was the first step in the climb to his recovery. "When you're an addict, getting high is easier than getting clean," Ganem said. "The insanity you go through getting high--the vicious cycle--it's easier to keep repeating."
     The house provided him with something that slipping away in the doze of heroin doesn't afford: structure. "It reorganized my life," he said. Ganem was expected to follow a rigid schedule with 20 or 30 others in the same space. One hour each day was spent studying addiction, where he picked apart his behaviors and summoned the courage to move forward. Now 27, Ganem has been sober six years.
     As a kid Ganem wrote poetry in the classroom and raps at recess. When his body first felt the full awakening shot of sobriety those early wordplay drills came rushing back. "Once you first get clean there's a lot of emotion you deal with. You hold all your pain [while using]. I bottled a lot of stuff," he said. "As an addict, you're ashamed. Nobody wants to be an addict. Nobody wants to admit to their parents, their friends, to people. You end up getting high because you're ashamed. You isolate yourself [and] a lot of stuff starts coming out. I started writing just to get it out."
     The Shadow of an Addict is made up of six chapters and walks the reader through Ganem's tribulations. There are some painful scenes, each one upfront with the simmering details. "I write ugly," he said. "You'll walk in my shoes as you read the book." Sousa, the publisher, added, "Matt's poetry is very lyrical and has a hip-hop style." The book is available on Amazon and in 30 cities, he said, scattered among bookstores. Ganem has also hit the road to deliver books around New England and has personally mailed copies out. He now hustles books.

Ganem up against the fence.  Photo by Michael Rose.

     Sharing his experiences has been a way to open up the dialogue on addiction and confront it head-on. "I don't want to go to NA or AA because it's anonymous. Not many people speak out about it and show that it could be you, could be me," he said. "I want to change the stigma and not be ashamed."
     Before going to print with his book  Ganem wanted to share a dedication page to those affected by addiction. "I know a lot of actors or hip-hop artists forget their fans [after] they first start," he said. "I wanted people to have a piece of my book." He took to Facebook opening up the offer to print any names of loved ones shaped by the struggle, in memoriam. The gesture was honest, but negative feedback seeped in, with some people seeing the move as exploitative. Ganem was rattled. "I didn't do this to be put on a pedestal," he said. "I'd rather be successful in that I've touched people's lives and helped them get through a hard time." Past the piercing negativity, though, Ganem is finding success.
     Last year Ganem was nominated for Performer of the Year by arts organization RAW Boston. He's been performing across the region, opening hip-hop shows and competing in poetry slams. The live performances are an avenue he didn't account for but enjoys. "I try to open eyes every time I touch the mic."
     Ganem stays defiant and focused on his addiction, but a pull in his voice when he discusses it suggests it's not as easy and redemptive as it seems. When I ask Ganem to tell the most rewarding part of his recovery he does not hesitate. "Not dying. I should've been dead." His face turns stone. "The last months I was getting high I just wanted to die."
     He thinks back to the eight hours he spent waiting for an interview at the halfway house to our interview six years later in Bloc 11 (11 Bow St.). "You don't think life is beautiful until you get out of it. I like fresh snow falling on trees," he said before trying to pull the statement away. "I like very stupid little things you wouldn't expect to notice." His slight embarrassment quickly turns thoughtful. "I could only focus on one thing for so long. When you get high, you get high with whatever problems you have. Now I just gotta face them."
     The Shadow of an Addict is available at http://www.tinyurl.com/shadowaddict.
     from Somerville Scout (No. 19--January/February)

MattGanemThePoet.com
Michael Rose Photography

SOMERVILLE SCOUT (Nov./Dec.)

Ferranti and King. Photo @ duppyconquerors.com.

The Reggae Solstice

Yellow And Green Suns Rise Above Union Square

 

"I feel so good in my neighborhood." -- Bob Marley in his song, "Kaya."

     The ghost of Bob Marley soars above Somerville, raining drops of positivity on Union Square below. Most assuredly, the Jamaican-born, reggae legend wasn't thinking of this neighborhood when he sang the above quote, but if his ghost truly lingers here it ought to feel pretty good.

     Down on Somerville Avenue, The Duppy Conquerors channel his spirit for their weekly Marley Monday night sets at Sally O'Brien's (335 Somerville Ave.). For Curtis King, the dreadlocked lead singer of the tribute band, performing Marley's music is an honor. "His music is not just feel-good and pure," King said, "but it's also positive lyrics." The band, titled after a song from Marley's huge discography meaning to vanquish the evil spirits, lives up to the name. "It feels good to be able to share that positivity and feel it back with the dancing and people getting into the vibe," King said. "There's a good meditation."
     The Duppy Conquerors have been a mainstay at Sally's for two years since January, but they are only one part of a reggae scene that has since steadily grown in Somerville. Across the street at the Irish pub Bull McCabe's (366 Somerville Ave.) the rest of one's Rasta cravings can be sought out with three weekly residencies in full rotation: Dub Apocalypse on Sunday, Skiffy & The Ghetto People Band on Tuesdays and The Dub Down featuring The Scotch Bonnet Band on Thursdays. The influences of each act range widely but the music comes from an honest place. Reggae is the sole source of expression. But, even more than a creative outlet, it's a form by which to live by and get lost in.
     Last September approximately 300 people rocked and swayed in the parking lot of Bull McCabe's for their second Roots to Reggae Fest. The crowd swelled over the course of the sunny day that featured six bands, with Dub Apocalypse closing it out with their more modern, psychedelic pounding strand of reggae. The concert was a success and a marker of how far this music community has come in Union Square. "It's a word-of-mouth scene," said Boston Globe rock critic Steve Morse, who's covered music for over 30 years. "You gotta know it's there." The scene is ascending, but it's ben a long time coming.
     Jimmy T, who sings and plays bass with The Dub Down, has been playing Union Square since the early 2000s. He, along with Dub Apocalypse members Tommy Benedetti and Johnny Trama, moved in and out of each other's groups. Before finding Union Square they coveted residencies in a parallel universe at Matt Murphy's, an Irish pub that hosted reggae in Brookline. After the club shut down they tried gigs out at Boston's House of Blues and a few places in Jamaica Plain, but none of them lasted. "There has to be a certain vibe in place to do what we do for people to really get it and enjoy it," Benedetti said.
     With Dub Apocalypse being nominated last year for International Artist of the Year and Best Live Ongoing Residency at Bull McCabe's for the Boston Music Awards, it seems they've found the right place. "Now I call it Reggae McCabe's," Jimmy T said. "Somerville is where it happens now," Benedetti added. "This is where the support is. This is where the vibe is."
     King reflected, "Since I came on with The Duppy Conquerors I've seen, in this area, a large uprising." Before finding Sally's, The Precinct (70 Union Sq.) hosted The Duppys for a year and the audiences then were meandering and sparse. "We were really raw," drummer Sarah Mendelsohn admitted. They've since grown more cohesive and have made an imprint as the go-to Marley cover band of the Boston area.
     "Sally O'Brien's has been their springboard," The Globe's Morse said. As he talked, he grew increasingly enthusiastic about the brewing scene and had much respect for The Duppys who opened with the rare "Small Axe." "I've never heard them play the same set twice," Morse said. "Not a lot of bands can do that in any genre." By their second song most everybody not nursing a bottle was up and dancing. A college couple swung and waltzed all over and new patrons kept leaking in.
     Weeknight sets see a variety of people all in flux. "A lot of late-shifters stop in on their way home from work," Mark Ferranti, The Duppys' bassist, said. Indeed, one eager-to-speak friend with sleepy eyes mentioned, grinning, "This is my stop between work and home."
     The lack of any significant financial benefit--shows at Bull's cost only $5, Marley Mondays are free--keeps the performers free of any pressure. "It's more community than business," said Morse. Their residencies serve as rehearsal time, allowing each act to stretch their limitations and experiment. For The Duppys, it's a chance to dig deep into the Marley songbook and not rely on the standard bong hits. They have a minimum of 80 songs in their cannon ready to go.
     Each band represents a different slice of the reggae pie. Each has their own style and every player a different background, but all know where their roots are planted. The Duppys are the quintessential reggae act, rejuvenating the back catalogue of Marley and giving each song new life. Skiffy & The Ghetto People Band play a more gritty, from-the-dirt reggae sound. The Dub Down splashes heavy beats into the rhythm with raps from MC Kabir laced throughout. They hold the longest residency of the four, since May 2010. Dub Apocalypse, meanwhile, pries open another vein with their fringe-reggae.
     "The platform," said drummer Benedetti, whose arms are covered in tattoos and who grew up on metal, "is 70s and 80s Jamaican dub...Depending on who's on the gig, the gig can take any shape." With an alternating sax section and fluctuating band members, Dub Apocalypse represents reggae's trippier side. "They have a dark dub style," Jimmy T said. "I call it gangster future dub reggae."
     Jimmy T's own Dub Down has five alternating vocalists, including Skiffy. They showcase harmonies ranging from rock-steady ska to dancehall. "We're a song band," he said. They play a half-and-half mix of bootleg bin covers and originals.
     While The Dub Down, Dub Apocalypse and The Duppy Conquerors have been constants the last two years, the addition of Skiffy & The Ghetto People Band has strengthened the scene. They snuck in last June replacing David Johnston Band who held a nine-year tenure at Bull's. "Skiffy's been a real surprise," Morse said.
     Formed from the previous band, Dub Station, The Ghetto People Band pulled together a legion of reggae soldiers. "What we really try to do is have an authentic sound," drummer Glen "The General" Grant explained with thick accent. "I try to give more of a spiritual, authentic sound because I'm from the Caribbean." Dub Station toured the U.S. throughout the 90s featuring different vocalists. Skiffy sat in for a period and formed a relationship with Grant that eventually evolved into their Tuesday night residency.
     Grant is a seasoned reggae drummer who protested nuclear power on the White House lawn the same year The Duppys' Ferranti discovered Marley in a dark room developing prints. To have come from the music's birthplace, it's been satisfying for Grant to see the scene in full swing. "If I take you to Jamaica and we turn on the radio station, we won't hear reggae. You'll hear R&B, you'll hear hip-hop, you'll hear classical music Sunday mornings," he said. "Mostly you hear music for the tourists." The foundations of the home base have risen to America to create a flavorful reggae stew--something veterans like Grant appreciate. The newer artists "came from different genres," he said. "They bring it together. It's all connected to reggae."

Bull McCabe's where reggae can be heard three nights a week.

     Collaboration breeds creativity and when the backdrop is the looseness of reggae, the results can blossom into new forms, new sounds. "We're not just trying to be a traditional roots reggae band by any means," Benedetti defended. "You keep it pure and it's a sincere thing--it's not contrived. It's just us up there playing the music that comes naturally to us."
     Last October, Bull McCabe's celebrated its fourth anniversary in business. "These bands have done so much work to guild the nights into what they are," owner Brian Manning said. "They're a [big] reason for our success. The biggest part of what we do is music. It's a pleasure to bring people in for that."
     The respect is mutual. "Brian's super supportive of the music we all play," Benedetti said. "You can't have a successful residency if the venue isn't behind you." "No man is an island. It takes many people together" to build a scene, Grant said.
     Everyone talks of the vibe and there is no doubting its pervasiveness. The shows lack the stiff-necked pretension usually found in rock and roll rooms. "It's not competitive," Morse said. "Rock bands, a lot of times, can get competitive. Reggae bands put the vibe first." Nobody is there to prove anything because the only thing to prove is a slick and shuffled groove. "It's the tradition of Bob Marley," said Morse.

          from Somerville Scout (No. 18--November/December 2012)

Duppy Conquerors
Bull McCabe's
Sally O'Brien's

SOMERVILLE SCOUT (Sept./Oct.)

BAR THERAPY
Brendan Boogie takes pause before embarking on new route with new band

     The circumstances in which I meet Brendan Boogie are the same circumstances that thrust the idea for his monthly Internet interview show, Rock Therapy, into his head. “It started with me having really good conversations with musicians at bars,” the singer-songwriter said. “During load-in or after the show, [I’d talk] to them for hours about music and life and all these things.” Leaning over the bar of an empty Radio (379-381 Somerville Ave.) in early July, Boogie eats a slice of pizza as I gulp beer and we play role reversal – me interviewing him. Our discussion veers into the new music he’s been writing, his new band,The Broken Gates, Louis CK,Tennessee Williams and – naturally – all these things.

     Boogie has kept busy the last few years in Somerville collaborating with many musicians from the area. Since 2008 he’s been recording under his stage name and has amassed a handy chunk of music, but that’s all in the past. He’s recently been hit by a wave of writing that led him to the Gates.This new chapter comes at the end of a motivated, if not overwrought, period with his previous group,The Best Intentions. “Last year I did six EPs in six months and did a bunch of shows with [them],” he said. “Whenever you do something ambitious, you end up burning out everyone that once loved you.”The statement,if attempted poetically, came out flat and inconsequential. Sometimes it’s necessary to wipe the slate clean for the sake of a creative leap.“Instead of trying to replace irreplaceable people, I just decided to throw out all the music I made.” If you’re keeping count that’s six EPs, plus two full length records all down the drain. CDs cracked in pieces and thrown in the trash—gone (though streaming still online). “I don’t [play] any of them live anymore,” he said. “I just decided to start writing music and see what happened.”

     What happened was a more refined focus and a sense of direction. “I’ve got a totally different arrangement,” Boogie said of his new group,. Helping him accomplish that sound are Kevin Mahoney (guitar, vocals), Scott Kremer (bass), Phillip Ouelette (drums, vocals), Chris Coughlin (keyboards, vocals), Scott Miller (sax) and Jess Fox (sax, violin, vocals).

     Big into the grassy heartland songwriters like Tom Petty, Elvis Costello and Wilco’s Jeff Tweedy, Boogie follows one key rule: “Ultimately, I’d like the song to be front and center,” he said. “I think there are bands that are really into sounds—and that’s cool—but, I’m more into the song.”

     In the two hours after our interview Radio crawls to capacity as The Broken Gates ready for their debut show. Boogie and his cohorts fill the stage. He remains centered, neatly gruff and under the shadow of his hat’s brim. They start right in without hesitation.

     The new songs are well structured and lively, outsourcing folk, pop-rock, burning blues and psychobilly to create a hot Southern grass-in-your-teeth sound all their own. “Lonely Girl,” three songs in, is a rowdy surf rock slicer that could be climax music for a Tarrantino movie. In my memory there are flames rising from the stage. The full lineup bulks up Boogie’s songs. If he’s the architect, then the Gates are the construction workers laying the pipe and setting the brick.The horn section, filled out by Miller and Fox, takes on a Springsteen-like importance and embraces the new-found emotion with every raw, sliding note. Fox frequently switched from sax to violin during songs, reshaping them. There is great spirit on the stage and great streams of sweat coming from everyone.

     On display is Boogie’s full understanding of the ins and outs of songwriting. On impact each song has a classic familiarity before revealing its own originality. What really set the Gates apart live,though,was when Boogie loosened his tonsils. Out comes the ghost of Roy Orbison howling across the deserts of time. It may be something Boogie himself is not even aware of yet, but it’s there. Other times his vocals are a lowly grumble steaming with exhaustive percussion. He warbles, spits, moans and growls.

     Lyrically speaking, the frontman is “all strung-out on love,” a “god-fearing man” and gets “born again.” One number he calls “an unapologetic love song.”The move to tackle stronger subject matter is Boogie using his pivot foot.This is Boogie taking a sudden left turn.This is Boogie getting real.“I’ve decided to go in a different direction lyrically and be less ironic,” he said. “I have a lot of songs with humor in them and I’ve decided I’m done with that.”

     His past recordings have a kooky, if not awkward, charm to them. “Jenna Haze,” from The Cassingles, is a fist-pumping rock ode to the porn star. “I always liked humor songs as a way to express rage,” Boogie explained. “The best comedy is by real angry people: Bill Hicks, George Carlin, Louis CK now.” But as the humor drops out, all that’s left can be cold, hard reality, right? “I’m going to get real, real negative.” Might there be a twisted darkness uncoiling in the depths of one Brendan Boogie? Only time will spell that out.

     Boogie and the Gates showcased, easily, an album’s worth of new songs, but plans of any type of release have not yet been conceived. For now a three-song EP from the debut is offered on the group’s Bandcamp page. Right off the bat they’ll have a chance to work these new songs into a lather with their monthly residency, the Rock & Roll Radio Revue, at Radio, where he invites other local bands to share the stage with him.

     It’s those same local connections that allowed Boogie the comfort to start a program like Rock Therapy, the interview show. Often he’ll have previously collaborated with his guests making the atmosphere friendly and wide open. He keeps it loose, injecting humor where he can, but also steers his guests to the heart of their work. As he put it,“I’m going to climb inside [their] heads.”

     Boogie often refers to the show as “a little mom and pop thing.” It’s a modest start, but presence is everything.The show’s audio can be streamed live on Boogie’s website and can be downloaded from iTunes when it ends.

     Rock Therapy is a chance to promote the thickly connected mass of musicians doing work in Somerville, he said. “These interesting, talented people are right here in our backyard.”

[ROOT]

Comic Wyatt Cenac Teases Somerville

SOMERVILLESCOUT.COM--Wyatt Cenac, the stand-up comedian, traveled from Brooklyn—“the Somerville of New York City,” he teased—for his show at Johnny D’s Uptown Restaurant & Music Club (17 Holland St.) last Friday night. His smile grew with the jab and the audience could only laugh bashfully at the inside joke.

If you’ve seen The Daily Show with John Stewart in the last three years or so, chances are good you’ve witnessed the dry, race-flavored segments of correspondent and writer Cenac. He’s been on the show since 2008 after being passed up by Saturday Night Live when they went with Fred Armisen’s Barack Obama impression rather than his.

Immediately Cenac came out and reminded the audience of his hatred for Massachusetts’ sports teams, most especially the Red Sox. Given his heritage, he couldn’t help but take a couple swipes at the faltering team. Dressed in plain neutral colors and with an afro reaching for the ceiling, Cenac had a calm presence. He looked out from half-closed, uncaring eyes and scanned the crowd effortlessly. His delivery was cordial, even while joking about the Klu Klux Klan and their early monikers.

Cenac is highly aware of the world and culture he lives in and dissects it intelligently. He expressed disappointment that Kim Kardashian, on the merits of a sex tape alone, was now forever locked in the Zeitgeist. What’s the point of Twitter, he argued, when he can get a group of people together, charge them ridiculous amounts of money and read Twitter posts to them aloud? One example: I want to open a racist bakery and name it Cake Cake Cake. Tunneling inward, he discussed disillusionment with the nightclubs of the world. They were pointless, he argued. You’re charged an entry fee even if you won’t be dancing and before long the place becomes atrociously uncomfortable when all the ladies seem to leave at once.

He is not a simple one-dimensional comic ready to hand out one-liners. He stews in the moment and leads his audience into a trap of absurdity. At one point he sounded more like a columnist in Time magazine than a comedian when he philosophized on the potential backfire of over-sharing on the Internet, something everybody does, but him. He predicted political attack ads in the very-near future would only consist of the secret nude online photos of candidates and nothing more. When Cenac brought up the election he found a sweet spot when the room screamed for President Obama and only a couple hands clapped for Mitt Romney. He held frustration and befuddlement that the election was so close and used the alarming contrasts between the two men to his comedic advantage.

Jermaine Fowler, also from Brooklyn, broke the crowd in early hitting them hard with race and slave jokes. The laughter quivered at first but roared by the end for the up-and-coming comic, who relied mostly on personal tales growing up on the streets. Both comics took pleasure in pushing the boundaries for what was a mostly (probably) white audience. Indeed, much of the humor came from the discomfort of the crowd squirming in their seats, but still, it was nice to be recognized.

[ROOT]

Brian James obscures reality in "Headstone"

SOMERVILLESCOUT.COM--“The story you will soon come to be acquainted with is in part truth and in part fiction,” Brian James warns in the foreword to his short novel Headstone: October 27, 1915—August 30, 1984, “a large percentage of it is fact-based, while a significant portion is pure bullshit.” Over the course of reading the book those percentages fluctuate wildly creating a narrative of pure fact-based bullshit. It’s a quick, magic ride through eras: father and son, builder and inheritor. [READ ON]

"Nibble" Paints Union Square in Delicious Colors

SOMERVILLESCOUT.COM—Union Square, with its farmers markets and art fairs, has come to represent the point in Somerville where all things food and art flow into. Nibble: Exploring Food, Art, and Culture in Union Square—and Beyond presented by The Somerville Arts Council looks to connect the dots between the two worlds. Primarily the 132-page book acts as a local recipe guide while weaving the reader through the stories behind the dishes and the restaurants they come from. What’s presented is a wide look at Union Square with food goggles. Make ‘em say, “Mmmm.” [READ ON]

SOMERVILLE SCOUT (July/Aug.)

Lopez shoots a scene for At Dawn. Photo from Lopez.

Climbing Rope:Rodrigo Lopez trudges through the secret jungles of filmmaking for his first major production, At Dawn.
   Rodrigo Lopez doesn’t waste time. When he gets an inkling, he goes. “I got this idea that I wanted to do something,” he said, looking out from a pair of sunglasses on a bench in Davis Square. “I blindly went into it and asked questions later.” The idea in question is the short film, At Dawn, currently in clockwork production and representative of Lopez’s giant creative leap forward. [READ ON]

Scout Profile//Jasen Sousa

Jasen Sousa Puts the Company on his Back

Cover of Jasen Sousa's novel-in-poems, "Fancy Girl"

SOMERVILLE//Jasen Sousa, a Somerville native whose novel in poems, Fancy Girl, will be published in September by his own imprint, J-Rock Publishing, fell into the role of writer unintentionally. He’d pass along stories to friends in juvenile detention centers and mental hospitals as a way of keeping them in tune to the outside world. “I used to bring them little wraps of writings of things that were going on in the neighborhood,” he said. The recipients were grateful and repaid him with compliments and encouragement to continue writing. “As I did more research I noticed a lack of urban literature out there.”

            Thus, a void he sought to fill. Fancy Girl deals with the livelihood of Deanna Keight, a teenager, as she turns to prostitution in a wholehearted attempt to save money for her and her daughter. She is driven by the choking desire to leave Somerville and the characters of her life behind. There is no holding back. Sousa keeps the story believable and is able to spool out compassion from moments of degradation. For him, writing in the voice of a female call girl provided the biggest challenge, but was offset by being the biggest reward. “Their life is tough to most people,” he said of his protagonist. “[I was] trying to be authentic and accurate as possible, tell their type of story, what they go through on a daily basis and how they do what they have to in order to keep their family together.”

            Deanna walks the tightrope of single-parenthood, leaving her daughter in the care of Johnny J, who may still harbor some past love for her, while she scuffles in bedrooms all over. Meanwhile, Machinegun Mike, the father of Deanna’s daughter, is about to be let free from jail. As her corrosive journey shifts, the people in her life uncoil right along with her. The reader travels along in the girl’s mind, experiencing bouts with doubt, humiliation, self-righteousness, misguided love and triumph. Sousa succeeds tremendously at bringing this more-common-than-you-might-think tale come to life.

            Fancy Girl has been available as an ebook through Sousa’s own website and Amazon.com since July. Come September it will be available in print form from J-Rock Publishing, the company Sousa started with the purpose of providing a platform for urban youth to stretch their literary desires. At age 17 tragedy put a dent in Sousa’s life when a close friend died from a drug overdose. “I felt that if he had an outlet to tell what he was going through then maybe he wouldn’t have come to that outcome,” he said. The loss helped Sousa to push J-Rock, which he’d start a few years later while still a teenager, into existence.

He sensed a lack of opportunity within the city for kids beyond high school, especially within the arts. “I wanted to create this small publishing house just to give kids an opportunity in a field they would normally be shut out of,” he said. “The whole point was to build this literature for urban teenage readers [and] to create this environment that urban kids from everywhere can relate to.”     Sousa looks to employ anyone with a solid interest in the market at J-Rock. “Even if you weren’t necessarily interested in writing you could do graphic design, photography for book covers, marketing. You could get experience in all these areas.” All work is done on a contract basis. Interested applicants need only email Sousa through his website.

            When sitting down to pen Fancy Girl, Sousa asked himself an important question: “How can myself, as someone who writes for teenagers, create a product that would get them interested in reading when they come from a family history where books are not in the household?” One answer was to feed them the story, line by line, in poem form, an idea he got while at Pine Manor College, where he earned his MFA in Creative Writing. He also has a Bachelor’s Degree from Emerson College.

“Teenagers are more receptive to things that are fast. I wanted [Fancy Girl] to be hard-hitting, easy to read for a teenage audience and something to introduce kids to books.” The book consists of brief one or two page poems, each one carrying the story along, each one a story in itself, and is divided by chapters. Often when a teenager is folded up into a book these days, it’s the otherworldly Twilight series or Harry Potter books, Sousa said. With Fancy Girl he wanted to provide a realistic story that kids in urban areas could relate too. They won’t know what hit them.

jrockpublishing.com

SOMERVILLE SCOUT (July/Aug.)

Art on the Run:Navigating the Convoluted Advertising of Geoff Hargadon

Geoff Hargadon will tell you advertising has misshapen the landscape. Signs are pasted all over, trying to pull your line of vision this way and that.“We allow ourselves to be inundated by visual propaganda,” Hargadon said. Relationship Advice. Uncle Sam Wants You. Mr. Smiles For Office. “It’s everywhere—in advertising, in every bus, every taxi, billboards, everything. I’m throwing myself in there saying,‘Alright, I’ll chip in to that.’”There is no escape, he said, but to join the melee. [READ ALL]

Scout Profile//Scott Mastro

The Writer Strung Along

Scott Mastro & His Dog 

"Blood Money," Mastro's book of short stories.

SOMERVILLE//Scott Mastro meets for our interview trailed by his five-inches-off-the-ground “terrier-hound,” Georgia. Georgia drags a black leash behind her, zigzagging in the shadows of her master. Mastro walks with a crisp jutting, as if bee-bop blares constantly in his head, and looks in every direction behind dark square sunglasses. He’s all distracted energy with a mouth like a motorcade and last February his first book of short stories, Blood Money: Tales from Two Continents, was published by Savant Books.

            “You get that big rush when you first get published,” he tells me, then catches his breath, “then the real work begins. Then the guilt sets in and you’re like, ‘Damn, I got a book and I can’t sell it.” Mastro lives the writer’s gutter lifestyle, traveling every which where inspiration leads and knows he’s stronger for it. “I sacrificed just about everything to write.”

The chapters in Blood Money could represent the small wisps of storylines Mastro has picked up in his travels. There’s the flash of love between a Korean girl and an Iranian man; the English businessman burdened by a bucket; the church-going pothead in Rome. The stories are loose and laced with odds-and-ends humor. Reading through them pin-balls your mind across the globe. The book can be found at The Book Shop (694 Broadway), Porter Square Books in Cambridge and online at Amazon.com.

Mastro lives in Somerville. But, he probably won’t in twelve months’ time. “I moved to Boston after college. I lived in Cambridge, across from Market Basket. I moved out West. I lived in L.A., Colorado. I lived all over,” he says. “I’m originally from Pittsburgh, but I’ve been mistaken for being from all types of places: Canada, England, France. Lately people say I’m from the South because sometimes I’ll have a Southern accent.” His voice falls into a slow drawl.

            Last winter found Mastro in Key West, Florida where a few sparks of inspiration jolted his senses. “I just came back to Boston and this time has been the best because not only did I become published, but one of my plays is warranting the possibility of being a stage reading,” he says. The play, Moon Over Mangroves, is based off his time in the swamp state. “I was down in Key West living a fairly precarious lifestyle. By that I mean I didn’t know where to go.” He soon found out after driving through the beach and spotting an aimless crowd of van campers.

“My people!” he shouted at the comforting sight. “I pulled in and fit in right away.” Some in the crowd were homeless, some, like himself, were there just to party in the beach sand with waves surrounding. When a heavy cop presence pushed them north to Stock Island, where the mangroves still grow thick, Mastro discovered his plot.

Video still of Mastro's tune from Christmas 2012 in Key West.

Four of the men he made friends with boasted about their getting a dinghy. “You can live inexpensively on a boat and live on the hook,” he explains, “which means, go out in the water and drop an anchor.” Thrilled at the prospect of life on the open water the foursome celebrated, but soon lost their composure and wound up brawling and bruising each other. Mastro just sat watching the scene unfold.

“There’s mangroves, the cove, a full moon was there,” he says, frothing excitement, “and it just dropped. I went, ‘This is a play.’ It was a gift.” Currently the play is undergoing edits, and Mastro has been working with a filmmaker in Cambridge to form it into a movie.

Writers today have to find a whole new hustle online, Mastro says. He has gained a little traction by using Craigslist to connect with editors and writers. It’s how he got in touch with Savant as well as his collaborators on the play. “It’s tricky,” he says, considering the financial uncertainty of the written word. “You have to follow up with every lead. You have to be diligent, kiss people’s asses, research your market.” Lastly, though, it’s simple. “Always show up everywhere with a pretty girl—or two—if you can,” he adds with laughter. Even if that girl is a dog named Georgia. 


Originally from: SomervilleScout.com, 2012

Scout Profile//Ian Thal

Poet Ian Thal interviewed on Kosovar TV.  Photo by Yvan Tetelbom.

An
American
Poet in
Kosovo

SOMERVILLE//Ian Thal is big in Kosovo. The Somerville-based writer, mime, performance artist recently returned to the U.S. after reading at the Drini Poetik International Poetry Festival in Prizren. For one solid week in June Thal stormed Kosovo reading poems, checking sites of battle, getting a tan, swigging espresso and even stopping to shake hands with the prime minister. “Then I come back here and I’m essentially a nobody,” Thal said, his voice echoing in the back bank vault of Bloc 11 (11 Bow St.). “Some people say how grandeur is fleeting.”

            Thal conducts workshops in mime and commedia dell’arte for Somerville’s annual summer program, Open Air Circus, “when I’m not writing poetry and such,” he said. He’s taught for the organization since 2005 and moved to the city the following year. He is originally from Washington D.C. When speaking about the trip his eyes fill with wonder, but his vocal inflections try to play it down. Clearly the experience left an imprint on him as he walked me, photo by photo, through his spectacular journey.

            The reading gig came to Thal as a matter of connecting the dots. An Albanian-born playwright friend of his, Lediana Stillo, still connected to the area’s literary community, had been asked to dig up some contemporary American poetry for an anthology. She looked to Thal. He sent some poems; Stillo translated them into Albanian. His work appears alongside the work of other poets from around the country, including Chad Parenteau, of Jamaica Plain, and David Brinks, of New Orleans.

The volume, titled, Sounds of Wind: New American Lyrics, will be used as a textbook for advanced students of English at the University of Pristina. “It’s pretty exciting to realize that,” Thal said of the honor. “I can imagine late-night dorm room sessions.” His face torts into an angry grimace and his voice mimics a perturbed college kid, “’I hate Thal! What’s the obsession with the trains?’” Just as we study Frost, Ginsberg and Poe, students in Kosovo’s capital, Pristina, will study Thal. A twinkle spurns off the ball of his eye when the thought rises in his mind.

            The festival was held in the historical town of Prizren with some 178,000 inhabitants. “Soon after arriving I realized this was a cultural diplomacy mission,” he said. The festival coincided with Kosovo’s centenary celebration of their independence from Albanian nationalists. The country’s rough-and-tumble history stretches back into the Middle Ages and the Ottoman Empire. It was only declared an independent state in 2008. “I was like the U.S. ambassador there,” he said.

            Four other speakers, including Stillo and Brinks, joined Thal for a romp around the country, visiting the capital, checking out the Writer’s Union library and taking part in the common occurrence of coffee in a café. They traveled with the intelligentsia. “There was no one language all five of us spoke,” he said, “but somehow we made it all work.”

            Thal described his own poetry as a scenic route: New England landscapes passing through Amtrak windows; the view from a rooftop on Beacon Hill; the lowlands of New Jersey. He has worked with Bread & Puppet Theatre and maintains a blog where his writing piles. See him at this summer’s Open Air Circus.

IanThal.blogspot.com

Somerville Scout (May/June)

Sickert & The Toys in comic book form.  Illustration by Sickert.

Inventing Armageddon: Playing Dead with Walter Sickert & The Army Of Broken Toys ("Somerville Scout", May/June 2012, No. 15)

     How many ways can a guitar player look dead? Do they lie slouched with eyes crossed and an unresponsive tongue? Do they stand stiff, the guitar dangling, or do they fall draped and melting over the instrument?

     These were the important questions asked and tossed about during rehearsals for the post-apocalyptic stage play 28 Seeds, featuring steamcrunk collectiveWalter Sickert & The Army of Broken Toys. The production – a collaboration with Boston theatre troupe Liars & Believers – was described by Sickert as War of the Worlds meets Rocky Horror Picture Show. So, aliens and cross dressers? We’ll have to see. [CONTINUE]

REVIEW: Roger and Tom trapped in box, break out

[L to R] Rhodes, Radochia and Waldron perform.
Photo from Simple Machine Theatre.

SOMERVILLE—After walking down Elm St. and settling in Davis Square Theatre for Simple Machine’s presentation of rogerandtom, a few objects come into view. The four chairs, stacked white boxes, the bookshelf loaded with blank white books and the antique telephone are meant to represent Penny’s apartment. Really, though, they’re just a couple of chairs, some boxes, a telephone and a half-full bookshelf—right?

Directed by Stephen Libby and written by playwright Julien Schwab, rogerandtom is about the collapsing of existential notions. It’s a play within a play. Its characters are estranged from themselves and from each other. The universe of reality they’ve inhabited starts to slide from the start. Confusion falls at their feet and from their mouths, at times letting the audience in on the joke, and other times laughing right back. Waves of omniscience bounce off the walls.

            The acting from the three-person cast is to be admired. Penny, played by Anna Waldron, exhibits the pent-up articulation of a fictitious character too naïve to know she exists only in the play. She shrieks, she cries, lets out sighs of relief, and makes the audience swing with her every mood. Stephen Radochia who plays Richard, Penny’s husband, anchors the whole charade, keeping the audience and the characters calm and collected amidst the chaos. Andrew Rhodes’ Roger is the glue between Pretend and Reality. He spat with nervous energy, always cautious, with eyes shifting strongly and hands moving in and out of the pockets of his swishy vest. They are characters trapped in their own skewered timeline.

            Schwab, who has lend an outstretched hand to the medium with various productions in New York and Los Angeles, has crafted a very peculiar type of play. It breaks the fourth wall down early on then, scrambles to pick up the blocks and build it up again. It could’ve been wrenched from Charlie Kaufman’s brain or skimmed of Eugène Ionesco’s thoughts. It’s absurd, yes, but it’s more than just that.

Rather than rely easily on the befuddlement of the audience, it strives to dig deeper and uncover hidden truths of each character. Through each wacky, neck-craning layer, a real story unfolds inside a larger story until they both run parallel, revealing a strange bit of sentimental surrealism at the end. It could be everywhere at once or nowhere at all. As Radochia’s Richard says, “It’s about family, love, but mostly, it’s about theatre.” rogerandtom plays through April 7 with a live conversation with Schwab and the rest of the artists hosted by Veronica Barron at 3 p.m. today. Say nothing if you understand.

www.simplemachinetheatre.com
*
from: Somerville Scout
More: A review of writing the review for "rogerandtom"

Somerville Scout (March/April)

Lou Cohen and Lou Bunk, co-directors of Opensound. Photo by S.S.

The Sound Between Two Lous: How Opensound co-directors Lou Bunk and Lou Cohen took different paths to end up in the same strange echo chamber ("Somerville Scout", March/April 2012, No. 14)
*
An artist can hook an idea from anywhere in the sea of creative thought and turn it into something grand, or something shy and minimal. When Lou Bunk bought a new refrigerator he found an intense joy – not in the new slick shelving units, or extra fruit and vegetable bins – but in the tall binding logs of Styrofoam that outlined the refrigerator inside its box. “I felt like I passed through some door in my life,” he says. Bunk made instruments from the Styrofoam, wrapping six or seven rubber bands around each block. [CONTINUE]

Somerville Scout (Jan/Feb)

Sophia Cacciola and Michael J. Epstein at the Regent Theatre.

Married To The Music: Musicians Michael J. Epstein and Sophia Cacciola are so filled with ideas, even their side projects have side projects ("Somerville Scout", Jan./Feb. 2012, No. 13)
*
Sea monkeys, x-ray spectacles and dirt from Dracula’s castle are a few of the things Michael J. Epstein and Sophia Cacciola have thought about – and written about, and tried to collect – since starting their fourth band, Darling Pet Munkee, last spring. [CONTINUE]

Thurston Moore Reminisces, Slides Into the Future

SOMERVILLE, MA--Last night marked a sort of return to The Somerville Theatre for Sonic Youth guitarist and vocalist Thurston Moore. The feedback-and-drone rock band last played the theatre early in their career in the 80s. On that night Moore threw a temper tantrum, left the stage thirty minutes early and locked himself in their van. “I’m back exorcising that demon,” he said with his typical smirk.
     This time around, the scene was different. Moore played in support of his third solo album, last year’s, Demolished Thoughts, with his new backing band. Christened Demolished Thoughts, the ensemble includes Keith Wood on acoustic guitar, Mary Lattimore on harp, John Maloney (former Burren employee) on drums, and Samara Lubelski on violin. A surprising split from Kim Gordon, his wife of twenty-seven years and co-founder, bassist and vocalist of Sonic Youth, threw the fate of the band in permanent jeopardy last year. No announcement has been made on their future.
     In his newest musical incarnation Moore is much calmer than that night in the 80s. Gone is the distorted destruction and wall of feedback from his previous work and in place are spiraling acoustic crescendos. The song structure is still mostly the same with long-winded outros that melt down and disintegrate in acoustic noise. Clearly there’s still a soft spot in his heart for Sonic Youth that this band only hints at, but this project follows its own meandering path.
     The group played songs from all of Moore’s solo discography, even reaching back to 1995’s Psychic Hearts. “Circulation” from Demolished Thoughts, roared out of control but was pulled from the static bog by Lattimore’s plucked harp strings. The addition of violin and harp created a constant classical drone that led the audience down stereophonic hallways of dread. Moore’s vocals are still the vocals of warning, dead-pan and off-putting.
     Moore was friendly with the audience and patient as they shouted senseless one-liners for attention. Between a few songs he offered his own beat-up poetry streaming free from his mind. Sentence fragments were mashed in a sweaty electrical pulp offering an angulated glimpse into life with his new band. One poem reflected on a beer-fueled heavy metal practice they had.
     Kurt Vile, who released the full-length (and #4 Best Album of 2011) Smoke Ring For My Halo and the EP So Outta Reach last year opened the evening. He brought his usual sleepy songs drenched in soft reverb and highlighted by his fishtail mumble. He stood mostly alone, center stage, with acoustic guitar, but was joined every few songs by Lattimore on harp.
     It was a casual show, a laid-back affair, the soundtrack to those final moments of a deep sleep and so, the rest of the night was spent in a perpetual awakening. Moore takes his Demolished Thoughts to The Allen Room at Lincoln Center in New York City tomorrow night.
****
Photos by Eli Jace