There’s nothing quite so satisfying as sitting in a cushioned seat in a dark theater, hearing the tunes of one of this century’s loveliest indie rock bands. Because let’s face it, The Shins’ signature style of gentle rock doesn’t inspire booty shaking or moshing, so might as well pop a squat, right? We didn’t actually get to sit down though, because the kids in the front row, seats-be-damned, wanted to stand up anyway. Since we still consider ourselves spring chickens, we were more than happy to sway back and forth on our gams with the rest of the crowd.

James Mercer and company, in all their mustachioed, dressed-down glory, forewent glitzy stage lights and instrumental improvisation to deliver a clean set list of tunes spanning the years since 2001’s Oh, Inverted World nestled into the ears of tune-hungry hipsters. They gave us “Australia,” they gave us “Sea Legs.” They gave us “The Past and Pending,” which was the song we really wanted to hear. And let me tell you, there was something just utterly adorable about watching a room full of all-agers sing along to the descending line of “la la la’s” in “Saint Simon.”

(more…)

As most of you know by now–especially if you’ve had a chance to read my profile of Boston Newspaper Guild President Dan Totten–at the beginning of April, the New York Times Company threatened to close the Boston Globe. I chose not to get into the finer points of the legal processes involved in the New York overlords actually shuttering their Boston outpost in my story, but the Times Company would have to file a 60 day advance shut-down notice under the federal Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) law.

Though the New Yorkers never actually did this, during the final rounds of negotiations between the Times Company and the Globe’s largest union (Totten’s guild), New York negotiators presented their union adversaries with the completed notice and threatened to file it if the talks failed to reach a resolution. They never did, as Totten and the union agreed to bring management’s last, best offer before their members.

They’ll vote on the proposal June 8. Totten has warned his members that, in the meantime, the Times Company may file the WARN notice just to scare them into voting for the company’s proposal.

Which brings us to the point of this post: according to New York Times Company spokeswoman Catherine Mathis, it seems the WARN notice will not be made official. Yet.

She wrote in an email to me: “We were very pleased to reach agreements with six of our seven unions and are hopeful that they and the Guild will vote favorably on the proposals we have in front of them. Assuming that happens, there would be no reason to file a WARN notice. ”

Reading between the passive aggressive lines, it seems we shouldn’t expect to see any closing notices filed before June 8. But if the Guild vote goes down, all bets are off.

At 10:30 a.m., Southborough (or Southboro, if you’re down with the local lingo and spelling) fit the profile of Sleepy Town, USA. The downtown was deserted. The quaint, crisply painted storefronts were empty, while Lexus SUVs idled down Main Street on their way to their McMansions and a cargo train lazily chugged down the tracks next to Mauro’s Village Cafe.

A little further up the road, Adam Sandler began filming a major Hollywood film.

The flick-once rumored to be called Lake House, then Lakefront and now Grown Ups-started filming at Southboro’s Pilgrim Church and Old Burial Ground at 7 this morning. The idea of Massachusetts as a Hollywood mecca is nothing new (Ghosts of Girlfriends Past filmed at the Wayside Inn just a couple towns over), but this is big news for a small town like Southboro, population 8,337.

I know. I grew up there. (more…)

Meet the publishing world’s new golden boy: 29-year-old Reif Larsen. A native of Cambridge, the Brooklyn resident spoke to us about his inventive spelling as a child, his innovative design method and his initial low expectations for his debut novel, The Selected Works of T.S. Spivet.

The book, for which Larsen reportedly received a $900,000 advance (a typical first-time novelist would get less than 50 grand), follows a 12-year-old cartographer from a Montana ranch to a Smithsonian awards ceremony in Washington, DC.

Here’s the draw: the pages are filled with maps, diagrams, and notes in the margins, which often reveal more about the character than the text itself. So, why maps? “I think a good map is like a good story,” Larsen says.

Larsen begins his tour stop tonight at Brookline Booksmith at 7 p.m. and spoke to Eva Medoff about growing up in Cambridge, his influences, and whether his novel would work as a book on tape. (more…)

This year’s AP tour at the House of Blues was like a large, reheated pie. The pie itself was flavorful—full of minced punk rock, acid rap, nü metal, rock, and hip hop. It was still reheated though, inspiring recollections of the first time we tasted it, and how delicious it was.

Atlanta’s Family Force 5, a Christian “crunk” band was the epitome of said pie: a spectacle of matching outfits, stripped beats, rap hop screams, and fits of acrobatics. Think the Jonas Brothers if they regurgitated multiple highlights of genres past and screeched a lot more.

The spectacle was only intensified when the boys actually introduced themselves—as Crouton, Chap Stique, Phatty, Xanadu, and Slow Glow Activatur.  Lyric commands to get “Super duper sonic, baby” sent us into fits of giggles. Slow Glow wore a pair of black Hulk hands, while Xanadu did some interpretive dancing, and took a seven-foot jump off of stage equipment.

Don’t get us wrong, we love Beantown. But we are all entitled to moments of homesickness, which is why we were pumped to see Boulder, Colorado’s 3OH!3 headlining the tour. (more…)