ENTERTAINMENT

Guild Wars 2: Is It Really “Play The Way You Want?”

Guild Wars 2, developed by MMO savant ArenaNet, released back in August of 2012 and offered enough alternatives to the traditions of the genre that it almost broke the mold. Gone was the “holy trinity” of in-game parties. For those who don’t know, this entailed making sure that your party had at least one tank (someone to draw and maintain the enemy’s attention), one healer (self explanatory), and the rest DPS (damage per second, or damage dealers) characters. Guild Wars 2 set out to allow every class in the game the ability to perform roles in their own three-way setup: damage, support, and control. Allow me to explain the way ArenaNet intended this system to work:

Damage is effectively the same as it is in other MMOs. People with a damage setup will oftentimes have gear that improves their power, precision (increases critical hit chance), and critical damage bonus. Sometimes they will also have gear that improves their damage on conditions (i.e. burns, bleeds, torment, and confusion applied to enemies), but this is not necessary.
Support is meant to heal, remove conditions from allies, and apply boons (buffs) to them as well. Generally a support character will have stat bonuses to vitality, healing power, boon duration, and toughness, as they are largely defensive characters. Their job is to keep the DPS upright and chip in damage of their own when they have nothing better to do.
Control characters are the condition appliers. They will often use skills that effect a wide area in order to both damage and inflict statuses on enemies, namely stun, daze, immobilize, or any other skill that would normally interrupt attacks. These characters will usually have condition damage/duration builds, with bonuses to other stats as needed.

Now, I’m sure ArenaNet meant well when they came up with this system, as based on any given party there are certain merits to each setup. However, the game has wound up being fairly unbalanced and has led many to discover that damage builds are the only viable setup when doing high-level or endgame content, such as dungeons.

Speaking from my own experience, my main character is an elementalist. Elementalists are the resident “jack-of-all-trades” class, because they can do a little bit of everything reasonably well. Changing weapons grants varied skill sets, ranging from high single-target damage to full melee to massive area damage and control. However, they have the lowest health pool of all eight classes, are light armored (meaning they get squished quickly), and have a steep learning curve. Over the course of my time playing the game, I’ve tried different builds. First I went with a full offensive build, known within the community as a “glass cannon” setup. I put everything into maximizing my damage. However, as I still wasn’t very good at avoidance and such, I died a lot… to the point that I changed it up. I kept all my gear the way it was, which was for the most part offensive, but instead put my traits into defense. I had more health, better toughness, and could stay alive longer. However, my damage effectively cratered, as I was down 300 points in power and precision, and I even noticed that my group heals were still inadequate. That’s when I realized that the best builds are the offensive ones.

This is not to say that you can’t succeed playing some other way. Open world content and player vs. player are still there for those who prefer more balance or full support, but against the toughest of monsters, one needs only to remember the following: a dead enemy does no damage. The quickest method for ending the threat of getting killed by a boss is to kill it first. While you can mitigate the damage and keep removing conditions all you want with support builds, it’s only going to take you that much longer to eliminate the target, and more time defending means a greater chance of a mistake or having to wait for your heals to cool down. Is the hardest content still doable with a non-glass cannon setup? Sure, given enough skill and tenacity.

ArenaNet pounded the “play the way you want” mantra into everyone’s heads leading up to the release of Guild Wars 2. Over a year after its release, the verdict I give is that their statement is partially true. If you’re simply trying to complete the content at hand with no regard to time spent or loot gained over time, then yes, you can certainly play the way you want. However, if you’re a hardcore gamer who wants to maximize the potential of your character, well, you’re going to have to play the way the game rewards most and deal with it.

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Dustin Wong – Mediation of Ecstatic Energy

by Rio Toro

Dustin Wong: Mediation Of Ecstatic Energy

Similar Artists: Robert Fripp, Mark McGuire, Manual Gottsching

Genre: Guitar Pedals, FX

Label: Thrill Jockey

How often does music make you break out into laughter? For me, that rare feeling of joy that comes with a band that is so bursting at the seems with its own excitement is one of those special somethings I crave for in music. This laughter comes from a strange place though, as it’s not the same laughter that would arise from a joke or communal conversation. It’s a happiness that’s reflective of overall well being and sense of purpose rather than anything momentary. Ponytail were one of those bands who were able to propel be into this aroused state, and it’s why their breakup after the sunshine extremity of Do Whatever You Want All The Time proved to be so upsetting. Above all else, they made music that was able to lift me out of that certain funk, helping me remember that not all music sounds tired and boring.

Thankfully, to ease the pain, us fans have been able to hold on to Dustin Wong, who has been releasing a substantial amount of solo material ever since the breakup. While Dustin Wong’s recordings are admittedly of little comparison to the ecstatic pop psychedelia of Ponytail, anyone who ever listened to him would say he has a distinctive and aurally fascinating guitar style, and his exploration of looping techniques has proven to be more than worthy. Now being hailed as a Trilogy — starting with 2010’s Infinite Love and broadening in scope on 2012’s Dreams Say, View, Create, Shadow Leads — Dustin Wong has evolved into a compositional maestro. With his fascinating guitar textures and air of progressiveness he is perhaps most readily relatable to Robert Fripp, — or more recently Mark Mcguire — but overall, his style incorporates guitar sounds from such a wide array of genres that his work feels like a thorough exploration of the guitar as a whole.

Mediation of Ecstatic Energy starts with “The Big She”, which is an immediately noisier affair than any of his previous solo material. The song quickly branches off to include vocals, metal-esque drum pounces, and sharp, disorienting jabs that sound like they could in no way be emitted by a guitar. It’s an album that sees him exploring areas he’s never been in before, and his venture outside his comfort zone has turned out with some of his best material yet. Unlike previous releases, Dustin isn’t simply riffing solo on top of solo for the duration of a track. Instead, he cleverly introduces series of chords that change the structure of a piece as a whole. Additionally, the far out sounds he conjures through dozens of FX pedals help morph his loops into multiple dimensions despite being based off of a few simple patterns.

Most songs actually start off sounding somewhat familiar — a mixture of catchy and colorful — only to unexpectedly change direction within a few moments. Nowhere better is this exemplified as on “Japan”, which starts with an almost awkwardly high pitched picking segment before somehow maneuvering into a grand orchestral arrangement (you’ll be sure you heard horns). It’s these instances where we realize how much power Dustin Wong has as a musician and a composer. As fantastically as he plays guitar, his organizational skills are what’s really on display here.

He doesn’t care about impressing us with painstakingly accurate transitions, as tracks will often fade into the next one sporadically, and long running loops will end abruptly if another idea comes along. However, the album benefits from this slopped together presentation, as the entirety of it feels as though it was culled from but a few live sessions. Through all of the warping ideas and countless FX pedals, you’d expect his music to get lost within a disorienting haze, but despite the sprawling omnivorousness of it, Mediation Of Ecstatic Energy‘s aims never lets up.

Track Listing:

1.) The Big She*

2.) Emerald Atmosphere

3.) Imaginelectric

4.) Aura Peeled Off

5.) Out of the Crown Head*

6.) Liberal Christian Youth Ministry

7.) Cityscape Floated*

8.) Speeding Feathers Staring

9.) (A) Shows (B) His Analysis and (C) Looked Over*

10.) Physical Consciousness Went In

11.) Japan*

12.) Helix Sky

13.) Vision Waterfall*

14.) Tall Call Cold Sun*

Album Highlight – *

Fall Premieres Bring Mixed Results To The Big 4

by Michael Tyminski

With fall premieres winding down (we’re down to the CW’s Reign, NBC’s Dracula, and whatever FOX has saved for after baseball), let’s take a moment and see how the major networks fared in a fall where every network (even CBS had question marks).

So how did the major networks fare this fall? Well it was mixed to say the least with each network having some success on their schedule, but also with a number of unanswered question marks in the schedule remaining that way, this will become quite apparent as we break things down network by network.

ABC: ABC seemed to have one of the more ambitious strategies for the new fall season, blowing up it’s Dancing with the Stars and Extreme Makeover Tuesdays in order to pave the way for new scripted material. The anchor show on that night, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. has been a success, holding down the number three drama slot in the ratings. The rest of the night, however, has been an unmitigated disaster with the comedy hour struggling, and Lucky 7 registering so nonexistently on everyone’s radar that the show got the dubious honor of being the first show axed of the year (two episodes in, typically reserved for the Do No Harms of the world). I wonder if part of this is scheduling related, as it seems weird to pair up a show that will likely do well with males 18-49 with a two family comedies and a slice of life drama and expect audiences to stay from your massively hyped lead in. Elsewhere on the schedule, ABC has had a number of flops including Once Upon A Time in Wonderland (doing horribly in the ratings) and Super Fun Night.

CBS: The last remaining network juggernaut maintains that position for another year, and does so again on the back of it’s veteran series. However, it too struggled with it’s newer offerings (almost all of which were comedies this year). We Are Men also received a two-and-out, The Crazy Ones is bleeding viewers week to week, and Mom’s numbers have not been particularly successful. There has been one new success story for CBS, however, and it comes in the form of the Will Arnett vehicle The Millers, which takes full advantage of its’ Big Bang Theory lead in. While the Tiffany network seems in very strong shape in the short term, it can not be pleased with its’ long term picture.

FOX: Fox continues what seems to be a major trend across all four networks this year: success on the drama front, with serious questions on the comedy side of the schedule. While Sundays continue to chug along with the Animation Domination block, we can already see that Seth McFarlane’s cache is starting to run out of steam with the network. American Dad is being scuttled off to TBS, The Cleveland Show saw the cancellation ax last year, and his new offering Dads feels like an unmitigated disaster. Unfortunately, that poison has run all the way through Fox’s Tuesday comedy block, as freshman Brooklyn Nine-Nine and sophomore The Mindy Project both also have sagging ratings on Tuesdays (this is a shame, as I particularly like Brooklyn Nine-Nine and feel it got hurt by drawing Agents as direct competition). However, Fox has succeeded in shoring up its’ dramas, adding Sleepy Hollow as a success story as it has already been renewed for a second season (no back-order however in order to make room for The Following).

NBC: Last year, NBC looked for success by following a strong two prong strategy: using The Voice to set up successful dramas, and making it’s comedy as lifeless and watered down as possible in order to reboot the line-up. The drama prong, succeeded, while the comedy side ended with every new show getting canceled and the network relying on decidedly not generic Community and Parks and Recreation to hold the fort for another year. This year, they went back to the same well– with the same results. The Blacklist, which followed The Voice on Mondays scored the first back-order of the year while the comedy block is once again in shambles. Parks and Recreation, thrown to the wolves against the Big Bang Goliath is down in the ratings, while The Michael J. Fox show is the only other show averaging above a 1.0. The biggest hole however, is at 8:30, where Welcome to the Family failed to be welcomed into America’s homes and is effectively on death watch until NBC can pull Community (which has quickly turned into NBC’s Rules of Engagement as a show that solely gets renewed to plug holes) from the bench to stabilize ratings. Regardless, after the past two years, I wouldn’t be surprised to see NBC try something new next year, possibly swapping it’s comedy Thursday with it’s drama Wednesday to hold the fort, because this is not a sustainable business model for the peacock.

The CW: It seems weird that the network I have to most to say positively about is the CW. While this may in fact be because they do not have a single comedy on their fall schedule (did I mention this has been a particularly atrocious year for comedy?), I think it’s predominantly because they know what they’re aiming for and one of the stronger premieres of the season in The Tomorrow People. Their other big debut, Reign hits Thursday (i’ll be reviewing it here at Manhattan Digest, likely will be up Friday afternoon), so theoretically the CW gets an incomplete, but is already miles ahead of where they were last spring when they stuck us with Cult.

Jenny McCarthy Offends on ‘The View’

by Blair Kaplan

Yesterday morning while checking some emails on my laptop, I happened to catch a topic of conversation during the opening dialogue on the morning talk show, The View. It immediately made me stop, look, and listen. [Read more…] about Jenny McCarthy Offends on ‘The View’

Album Review: Danny Brown – Old

by Peter Foy

Danny Brown: Old

Similar Artists: Chance the Rapper, Earl Sweatshirt, Ol’ Dirty Bastard

Genre: Hip-hop, rap

Label: Fool’s Gold

Hip-hop is a music culture that’s known for turning nobodies into somebodies fairly quickly, but I don’t think very many rappers can say they have had the type of career growth that these last two years have brought Danny Brown. The Detroit MC put out his critically-acclaimed album/mixtape XXX in 2011 and quickly made headlines as one of the year’s best freshman acts, despite the reality that this was actually his second album. The rapper proved to have vast cross-over appeal, appealing to both hip-hop heads for his tough guy image and raw subject matter, but also he found much veneration from the indie crowd due to his unique style, and enigmatic personality. In interviews Danny Brown often presented himself as an intelligent man with an utmost comprehension on music (name another rapper who’d name drop Joy Division and Radiohead as influences) and he almost felt in direct contrast to the sex-and-drug addicted character he played while on record, but in other facets he seemed to be very much in tune with his “adderall admiral” persona as well. Some interviewers would remark that Danny Brown seemed to be under the influence of drugs like MDMA and lean when they were talking to him, and his twitter feed regularly sees female fans offering him sexual favors. The fascination regarding Danny Brown’s illicit behavior perhaps climaxed last April when performing a show in Minneapolis a girl ran on stage and performed oral sex on him, as he continued to rap. It’s still foggy at this time whether his acceptance of the blowjob was a publicity stunt, or whether Danny Brown really is the “dirty old man” his songs would suggest he is, but what is clear is that this is exactly the type of attention an underground rapper needs to be successful now-a-days….that and continuing to release great records.

Old is Danny Brown’s first album since his breakthrough with XXX. With all the hype and anticipation surrounding the album, Danny really needed to hit it out of the park if he wanted to maintain his standing as one of rap’s most unpredictable talents. In honesty, it was either that or he’d simply be known as the “guy who gets head on stage”, if this album was to fall short. Well, I’ve been given the proper time to digest Old now, and I can proudly say that neither Danny or his fans should be worried about that happening. This album is great, really great actually, and it’s exactly the next evolutionary step Danny Brown really needed to take as an artist. It’s exactly the type of album that his fans wanted, yet also a very surprising one too.

For starters, it must be brought up how enormously diverse the record is. Starting off with the album’s two Paul White produced tracks (Side A (Old) and The Return), the album initially has a feeling that evokes Mobb Deep-esque gangsta rap. Proving he is an emcee that is unparalleled when it comes to changing his voice (on The Return I initially thought his verse was coming from a guest rapper), the album starts off with us hearing his Detroit drawl as gruff and grimy, but when the album reverts back to club tracks, we hear Danny switch back to his high-pitched yelp that made XXX so noticeable, only this time it’s more danceable. Enlisting the help of electronic dance artists like Rustie and Purity Ring, Danny Brown has once again bridged the gap between hip-hop culture, rave freaks, and pitchfork.com’s readership, and years from now it’s likely that we’ll be saying Danny Brown was one of the first (and best) rappers to mesh hip-hop styling with dub-step, EDM, and contemporary house.

Danny Brown’s rapping has improved for this record as well. XXX had plenty of intentionally messy rhyming, but here the rapper sounds more polished and certainly faster. Songs like Kush Coma and Wonderbread are enough to show that Danny Brown might still be getting started when it comes to weird rhyme patterings, as their more inventive than ever. The songs are endlessly fun and fill the head with the type of imagery that one would expect more from Frank Zappa or Captain Beefheart than from a contemporary rapper. Even though Danny Brown said this album would have less “dick-sucking jokes” than his previous work, it’s clear that he’s still likely to retain his image as an affable low-life. While Danny Brown’s sex rhymes are possibly even more explicit than they were on XXX (one of the cleanest lines on the track Break It is “Make me wanna rip off your pants/Put my hand between your legs”) they’re never mean-spirited or reliant on shock value as opposed to other rappers like Necro. In fact, these songs only augment his more reflective side, which he showcases on album stand outs like Lonely and Float On. It’s tracks like these that really resonate with the listener, as on them Danny (mostly) evades talk about pussy and blunt smoke, and instead speaks of how he feels so lost in the world and desires something more than all this debauchery. In a way, Danny Brown is just as introspective and sincere a rapper as Drake is, just in a much more grimy fashion.

While Danny Brown has said that he’s not so much a perfectionist while in the studio, and favors doing whole songs in one take, those that have been following the release of Old will notice that it has been a process for Danny to get the album’s tone just right. Some songs have been altered, such as Handstand which had previously been leaked online with the title Express Yourself and had a vastly different beat, while other have been scrapped entirely such as ODB. Knowing that, and that the rapper has been doing extensive touring as of late, it’s feasible why the album had a few delays before finally being officially released last week. This really speaks to Danny’s expertise with creating albums that sound cohesive and fluid despite juggling numerous genres, and such a record could of resulted as being as little more than a curious mess in the hands of a another artist, but instead Danny Brown has made a near perfect modern hip-hop record. Old has a seamless flow to it as a whole, it’s virtually devoid of any filler, and one is able to enjoy it while listening to in small increments as well as sitting through the whole hour it would take to listen to it in it’s entirety. While XXX was a fantastic rap record which can now be seen as the perfect introduction towards Danny Brown’s twisted POV, it wasn’t for everyone. The rhymes were occasionally a little too vulgar, and it could take a while to understand what the emcee was trying to do with his rapping style. Old, however, is as close as an album gets to being for everyone, and it’s as boundary-pushing and genre-smashing a hip-hop record you’re likely to hear all year (sorry Kanye).

Track Listing

1) Side A (Old)

2) The Return

3) 25 Bucks

4) Wonderbread

5) Gremlins

6) Dope Fiend Rental

7) Torture

8) Lonely

9) Clean Up

10) Red 2 Go

11) Side B (Dope Song)

12) Dubstep

13) Dip

14) Smokin and Drinkin

15) Break It (Go)

16) Handstand

17) Way Up Here

18) Kush Coma

19) Float On

Veep- The best darn comedy on TV right now.

by Ryan Shea

I was watching the very boring Emmy Awards last month and to be quite honest the best part of the whole night happened to be when Julia Louis-Dreyfuss won her 2nd Emmy for her role on the show “Veep”. Though I didn’t understand the whole bit with fellow “Veep” cast members Tony Hale and Anna Chlumsky, I did find the whole thing humorous itself so I thought I would take a gamble and watch it as it was On Demand (Thanks Cablevision!) It only took me about 2 days to watch the entire series and the conclusion that I got on it was that Veep is truly the best comedy on television for so many different reasons. Each cast member brings something incredibly unique to the show that makes it really work as an ensemble comedy, something that seems to be a working formula for other shows like Modern Family and 30 Rock for instance. Take this as “The West Wing” but with a lot more curse words and realism. Funny indeed.

Julia Louis Dreyfuss, who many of us of course know for as Elaine Benes from “Seinfeld” (which earned her her first of four Emmy’s) plays Selina Meyers, a somewhat reluctant Vice President who was one time presidential candidate and former senator. She feels that way because being second in command always has her feeling disregarded and discontent to the president, who is never actually named or shown on the series. The president himself always seems to get himself into really bad situations and she seems to take the brunt of it. And the situations that she gets herself into only seem to make it worse for the 2nd year Vice President, who had to deal with walking through a glass door and doing an interview in front of a pig getting roasted as two of the several issues she had to confront head on in the public (no pun intended). She has her wacky team around her that seems to do a really good job at keeping her together and yet tearing her apart at the same time, yet just like many sitcoms there always seems to be resolve at the end of it.

Of course, it can’t just be one person who makes an ensemble cast shine. The supporting cast who spend their every minute supporting (and not so supporting) Selina are just as good if not better in certain scenes than Julia herself. Cue in Tony Hale, who plays Gary Walsh, Selina’s long term associate and confidant of her’s. A longtime character actor, he truly broke out onto the scene with his hilarious role on Arrested Development as Buster Bluth, the youngest of the Bluth family in the hilarious but short lived FOX series (resurrected by Netflix). He surprisingly beat all of the Modern Family contenders who are the usually shoo-in’s to win at the Emmy’s this year for Best Supporting Actor in a comedy and boy did he deserve it. He plays the character in such a creepy yet funny way as he shows over and over again the lengths that he will go to keep Selina happy. The first episode of Season 2 is a prime example when he goes beyond what is necessary just to find a particular lipstick for Selina.

A big one for me at least include Anna Chlumsky as Amy Brookheimer, who plays the VP’s chief of staff. Most of us of course remember her for her role in “My Girl” over fifteen years ago. Now she has taken back the spotlight on cue with her witty and funny role that often at most times has her delivering some of the best lines possible. Best example for me is when her sister tricks her into thinking her father is dying. When she visits the hospital, it turns out he is fine but nothing bad has happened yet. After some back and forth banter, her sister says on the way out “Always have to get the last word in”. Amy replies- “Well you’ve had three kids by two different men, so maybe your last word should’ve been no”. Tee hee. Love it.

Matt Walsh plays Mike McLintock, who is the VP’s director of communications and is oft times the one at the end of a really cruel joke, in particular just how in debt he is and how desperate he is to sell his boat to try to get out of debt (watch the show for more). Under him is Reid Scott playing Dan Egan, who is the deputy director of communications and on again/off again lover of Amy’s. Finally rounding things out is my particular favorite, the stone faced Sue Wilson played by Sufe Bradshaw, who kills it as the personal assistant to Selina’s. She is a takes no prisoner type of character and someone who is really blossoming on this series.

I don’t want to give too much away in this article because anyone who reads this should immediately go and watch the show, but for the people who do watch it- season 3 is going to be off the chain seeing how season 2 ended. Go to their official website to watch full episodes and be on the lookout for season 3 when it starts sometime in 2014. Can’t wait!

Charlie Hunnam Drops out of 50 Shades of Grey!

by Elise Pentz

What a sad day for all those 50 Shades of Grey fans, Charlie Hunnam has officially dropped out of the production of the movie. They are saying his rigorous TV schedule wasn’t allowing an adequate amount of time to prepare for the role. Now it’s back to the drawing board for the producers!

The gorgeous couple, Edyta Sliwinska and Alec Mazo, have announced they are expecting their first child together! The former Dancing with the Stars, are expecting a little boy, in January. Let’s be honest, these two will be producing an equally stunning little bundle of joy!

ABC’s Once Upon a Time costars Ginnifer Goodwin and Josh Dallas are engaged to be married, confirmed their reps just yesterday! How exciting, another absolutely adorable couple, on & off screen set to marry!

Thanks for reading & have a great weekend!

Once Upon A Time In Wonderland Is A Full Breakfast

by Michael Tyminski

Once Upon A Time In Wonderland: Thursdays at 8 Eastern on ABC

In the last decade or so, we’ve seen a move away from the traditional spin-off in favor of multiplication of trademark series. Whereas once Happy Days begat Mork and Mindy, Laverne and Shirley, Joanie Loves Chachi and about half of ABC’s sitcom lineup of the late 70’s, we now see the much lazier chain of Law and Order growing a homicide squad and a Special Victims Unit. CSI and NCIS (itself a spin-off of JAG) grew into new locations in far flung locales as Los Angeles, New York, and Miami. This sort of growth moves into fantasy land as ABC finds an hour to move the focus from fictional Storybrooke to the equally fictional Wonderland with it’s newest show: Once Upon A Time In Wonderland.

In the same way that Once Upon A Time focuses upon the mythos of Snow White, it’s sister show hones in to the story of Alice in Wonderland. Here, as in the Lewis Carroll book, Alice (Sophie Lowe) follows a rabbit hole down into a magical world. However, when she returns to her Victorian English roots, she is deemed insane and is about to forced into amnesia. However, before this can happen, her companions in Wonderland, The Knave of Hearts (Michael Socha) and the White Rabbit (John Lithgow) take her back down the rabbit hole to Wonderland.

The effects on this show are incredibly cheesy, worst of all is the poorly CG’d White Rabbit, and the equally weak CG segments. There are times where this cheesiness has an endearing effect (mostly during the fight scenes) where the cheap sets and clearly green-screened backgrounds give an almost classic Star Trek feel. However, the cheapness feels incredibly forced when you can’t splurge on some better animation (or animatronics) for what’s supposed to be one of the show’s central characters.

This cheesiness, of course, will ultimately permeate every minute of the show, mixing soap opera cliches (during the expedition), a shrink who sounds particularly creepy who has a Dr. Evil-esque look, and even the plotting itself (How do we get out of a marshmallow pond? Use a dragonfly to torch it!). This hamminess extends to it’s primary villains: The Red Queen (Emma Rigby — who gets the unfortunate task of trying to oversell the most nonsensical force choke ever) and Jafar (Naveen Andrews), however, much like in the fight scenes, this works to the show’s benefit, as there’s tons of room to overplay given the already fantastical settings.

If there is one clear strength to this show, it’s in the acting. John Lithgow in particular adds a very human and real element to his voice acting of the White Rabbit. Similarly, Sophie Lowe has a difficult task, having to alternate between naïve, confused, lovelorn, and fighting mad, but manages to mix all of these adeptly while having the harshest light shined on her as Alice.

The Final Verdict: Once Upon A Time in Wonderland is an incredibly cheesy, melodramatic affair that seems to hit and miss in equal portions. Probably more than any other show I’ve reviewed over the course of the previous year, your enjoyment of the show is going to be entirely subjective and based around how you perceive the hamminess that this show exudes– if you think it comes off kitschy and fun, you’ll like it more than if you find it hacky and cliché. For that reason alone, I think it’s worth checking out if you happen to like the source material or the sister series, but if not it’s probably worth avoiding.

Theater Review: “A Night with Janis Joplin”

by Ryan Leeds

There is an explosive voice ringing nightly from Broadway’s Lyceum theatre. Laced with grit and gravel, Mary Bridget Davies is shaking the rafters as the iconic Queen of Rock, Janis Joplin. Unfortunately, she’s doing it at a decibel level which will wake the dead and make you wish the ushers had handed you earplugs with your playbill. She’s also doing it in a limp, seemingly endless show that offers no real insight into the diva of rock n’ roll and blues.

“A Night with Janis Joplin” sounds like an exciting premise. After all, this small town girl from Texas bucked the system, marched to the beat of her own drum, and didn’t give a damn about what anyone thought of her. With chart topping hits like, “Piece of My Heart”, “Me and Bobby McGee”, “Cry Baby”, and “Down on Me”, she revolutionized a new soulful sound that had yet been heard by female artists. Joplin blazed a trail and like Marilyn Monroe, her “candle burned out long before her legend ever did”. She died from a heroin overdose at the premature age of 27.

There would be a great deal to find out about our leading lady. Certainly she might be able to regale us with fascinating stories and tidbits from her life. Instead, all we learn is that Janis “dug the blues, man”, and proceeds to take two hours to present us with her musical influences. As each one is mentioned (Odetta, Etta James, Nina Simone, and Aretha Franklin), they suddenly appear and sing their songs that later, Joplin covers herself. While the hugely talented cast embodies each performer with genuine plausibility, the gimmick tires quickly. Other than admiration, there is little connection between Joplin and her icons. Smash hit songs always have a backstory of how they were written, but in this piece, the evolution of her famous compositions is glossed over.

Earlier this season Broadway gave us the one woman vehicle “I’ll Eat You Last: A Chat with Sue Mengers”. Mengers was a super-agent in 1970s Hollywood who represented some of the biggest names at the time. While not a musical, it offered delicious tales from Mengers’ life, her struggle to power, and her dishy revelations about the Hollywood elite. By the end of the show, you came away feeling as though you knew this woman personally. “A Night with Janis Joplin” offers no such observations or intimacy.

Justin Townsend’s set, while mostly practical, is curiously adorned with vintage table lamps. Was there a close-out sale at Home Depot? Did the local thrift shop go out of business? Did Janis Joplin have a fascination with luminescence? The reasoning is inexplicable, but when these are the questions posed in your mind during a theatrical presentation, it might be time to up the ante on content. Visually, the show is blinding—literally. During every high energy number, the audience is assaulted with flashing lights comparable to a police raid. This, in addition to the piercing din coming from the sound system. There is a fine balance between attending a faux rock concert and getting bushwhacked by excessive stimuli.

There are phenomenal performances being turned out here. But like a broken winged sparrow, they are stifled by the muddy material they must lumber through. Shortly into act two, Joplin states, “It’s the want of something that gives you the blues, man.” It sure is, Janis. Your audience has a bad case of them. And what we want is a more cohesive show.

“A Night with Janis Joplin” On Broadway at the Lyceum theatre 149 West 45^th Street (between Broadway and 6^th ave.)_ Tickets are available at the box office, online: https://www.telecharge.com/Broadway/A-Night-with-Janis-Joplin/Overview, or by phone: 1-800-447-7400.

Album Review: The Field – Cupid’s Head

by Rio Toro

The Field: Cupid’s Head

Similar Artists: Gas, Gui Boratto, Jon Hopkins, Loops Of Your Heart

Genre: Trance, Techno, Loops

Label: Kompakt

Whenever a new record by The Field comes out, the rest of my life stops in its tracks. My daily routine becomes rescheduled, I purposefully take the longest train routes to arrive at my destination, and I walk around aimlessly at dangerous hours of the night for the sole purpose of maximizing my listening time. Surprisingly, this obsession of mine has less to do with the actual music and more to do with a desired effect. Sure, The Field makes great tracks — few artists know how to stretch a loop as well as Axel Willner — but the real reason I find his music so endlessly addictive (and continuously interesting) is because of how his tracks act as a sort of cleansing for the mind.

This is music that is entrancing enough and layered enough to be able to absorb everything within its path; all thoughts, memories and worries are stored in a compact folder in the confines of your brain to be dealt with at some later date. It’s music just begging for you to get lost in, and if you leave those headphones on for long enough, you can even begin to feel the elements of the track synching with your brainwaves, becoming one with your conscious mind. The surface area of these tracks — while aesthetically pleasing in its own right — is nothing compared to the shifting backgrounds and hidden doorways that the most dedicated listeners will find. Personally, I’ll often listen to The Field continuously for such a long stretch of time that I become unable to decipher whether the patterns I’m hearing are actually within the track or are just being created by my own warped mind.

So that’s just a taste of what The Field has been doing to me ever since 2007’s From Here We Go Sublime. Axel Willner is an artist who has admittedly evolved very slowly since that wondrous debut, but then again, I would have eaten up every one of his releases even if he changed nothing at all. Despite some only moderately enchanting detours on his second full-length, Axel Willner has triumphed in creating denser and more accomplished loops with each passing album, culminating with 2011’s Looping State Of Mind. With the epic, powerhouse worthy music he’s making now, it’s funny to think back to when people were calling this minimal techno.

Cupid’s Head — the fourth album by The Field — is another slight but welcoming continuation of the artist’s trademarked repetition, ethereal vocal snippets, subdued bass, and shoegaze atmospherics. Opening track “They Won’t See Me” immediately drops us into the driving 2-chord pulse and chugging, krautrock-lite drumming that was perfected on Looping State of Mind standout “This is Power”. However, Axel doesn’t happen to have help from any multi-instrumentalists or drummer friends like John Stanier this time, which makes this his first true solo album since his debut. The more isolated approach has certainly suited him well, because Cupid’s Head happens to be the most consistently satisfying set of tracks he’s put out since FHWGS.

If you can tell from the cover alone — which is black as opposed to beige — this is supposed to be a darker Field than we have heard before. Although it’s hard to imagine an artist whose body of work has been so consistently fluid to have writers block, Axel Wilner has spoken about how he was at a loss for where to go with his music until “No. No…” suddenly arose from the ashes. It’s a beguiling track, and with its overwhelmingly dense vocal samples and mangled percussion it may be the wooziest thing in the artist’s discography. Similarly, during the last few minutes of “Black Sea”, the elegant, free floating bells fade out into a menacingly nocturnal synthesizer that is simply inescapable in its intensity. Aside from these tracks though, It really is arguable whether the album as a whole is any darker than previous ones. “A Guided Tour” sees Axel recapturing some of the cosmic charm from his Loops of Your Heart alias, and while the title track sounds powerful enough to smash through a brick wall, any impending sense of dread becomes evaporated within the gently strung textures and buoyant atmosphere.

After four albums of similar sounding techno, writing about The Field is not the easiest thing to do. It even causes rabid fans like myself to wonder what it is that makes this music so special. Questions of formula are always bound to come up, because when it comes down to it, each of Axel Willner’s tracks are formed exactly the same way. You can imagine him making these loops one microscopic and inconsequential piece at a time until they start to evolve into a compelling whole. Sure, he’s learned quite a few tricks on his journey, but his basic principles remain unchanged. For me though, this fact makes it all the more impressive that his style has yet to wear itself thin. Despite my struggle to find adequate words to express myself when writing about The Field, there is one word that always happens to find its way into my brain; that word is magical.

Track Listing:

1.) They Won’t See Me*

2.) Black Sea*

3.) Cupid’s Head

4.) A Guided Tour

5.) No. No…*

6.) 20 Seconds Of Affection

Album Highlight – *

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