MON 7/6: Film & Music

I hope everyone had a weekend of drinks, food, fun, friends, fireworks, and five fingers on each hand.

--------------------------------------------------------------

MON 7/6

8:30pm
Monday Night Backyard Movies: "Moonwalker" & "Crippled Masters"
at The Video Underground, 385 Centre St, Jamaica Plain
$5 / 21+

There's another special screening tonight it at the Coolidge Corner Theatre, but it doesn't feel like the most 'cheap and thrilling' option. I've enjoyed "The Taming Of The Shrew" with Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton, but I don't know if I'd pay to see even if there's a short, live Shakespeare performance from the Orfeo Group.

The bizarre kung fu B-movie "Crippled Masters", where one protagonist has no arms while the one can't use his legs, was probably the initial selection. Michael Jackson's equally lame movie "Moonwalker" must've been added at the last minute. The "Smooth Criminal" video is part of this project, but it's generally regarded as crap by those who aren't rabid Michael fans. The fun of cheesy movies can be enhanced when shared with a group of strangers.

Go up the counter and tell 'em you're there for the backyard movies. Hand over your $5, and you'll pass through the counter into the backyard where there are maybe a dozen rows of folding chairs facing a screen (which may have been a wall in my fuzzy recollection).

BYO drinks (any kind) & food.

MON 7/6

9pm
Red Wire Black Wire, Violent Kin, The Franklin Kite, Lagoon
at Middle East - Upstairs, 472 Mass Ave, Cambridge (Central Sq)
$8 / 18+

It's mostly electro pop/rock. There's melancholy electro-pop from Brooklyn's Red Wire Black Wire, the Canadian brother-sister duo of Violent Kin, local group The Franklin Kite (with Wii Drums!), and rockier Lagoon.

MON 7/6

10pm
The Diamond Mines, Mikey French Fries, Mind Yeti
at Charlie's Kitchen, 10 Eliot St, Cambridge (Harvard Sq)
$5

Summertime has finally arrived, so it seems so much more appealing to sit in the beer garden at Charlies Kitchen then staying out late to hear music upstairs. They'll probably play last, but The Diamond Mines are worth the wait. They've got the right amount of soul vibe and kickass songs to rip it up a la early-Costello pulled into the 21st century.

Mikey French Fries plays/played drums in excellent bands like Mean Creek, Tulsa, and Movers & Shakers. when he does his own stuff, it's still got a rootsy goodness.

Is a 'mind yeti' hide in the snowy mountains of your psyche lurking and hiding? Not much to say about Mind Yeti the band -- they purposely don't have a web site or a MySpace; I read that they're a psych-rock band who includes members of B.E.A.R.D. as well as other hipster musicians.