DUE TO FINANCIAL PROBLEMS, the party scheduled to take place after the Corcoran's Art Anonymous show on Saturday (which we reported on last week) has been canceled.

The art sale and fundraiser will still go on, but sans food, drink and a DJ.

Zoe Heineman Meyers, who helped organize the sale, said the first she knew of trouble was Monday, when the Corcoran's accounting office sent her an e-mail.

"Apparently the catering arrangements that had been made" without the input of the Friends of the Corcoran were more expensive than the money the Friends hoped to bring in through the art sale, she said.

"We were unaware of how expensive the event had become," she said.

Continue Reading "Art, but No Party At Corcoran's 'Anonymous' Show" »

TURNING PINK FLOYD into reggae?

Easy Star Records co-founder Michael Goldwasser was skeptical at first. One of his partners at the label, Lem Oppenhimer, had the idea while walking down the street listening to "Dark Side of the Moon."

But then Goldwasser, Easy Star All-Stars' musical director and producer, worked out some arrangements and realized a reggae Floyd could work.

So, in 2003 "Dub Side of the Moon" was born, marrying the sound of Jamaica with Pink Floyd's landmark album.

"We really didn't realize the enormity of what we were doing," Goldwasser said. "I was aware of the album, but I wasn't as into it as everyone else."

And the album has been a huge success for Easy Star Records, with sales at more than 125,000 copies. Prior to "Dub Side," the small, independent label had never sold more than 5,000 copies of anything.

Continue Reading "Welcome to Dub-Rock: Easy Star All-Stars" »

IN THE LATE 1980s, around the time many began wondering what "alternative" was supposed to be an alternative to, Polvo was an alternative to everything.

Polvo's sound, which included de-tuned sitars, banjos played with distortion and shimmering, atonal rock-anthem riffs, forced critics to lob a lot of language their way. "For the uninitiated," wrote the Toronto Sun, "Polvo sound like a Middle Eastern folk band playing car chase music on fuzzy guitars."

Maybe so, but it was this eccentricity that resonated in the most obscure caverns of the post-punk underground; cutting seven recordings in as many years — and never selling more than a few thousand each, if that — Polvo modestly wrote rock history on a bare-bones arsenal of squawking Sears & Roebuck six-strings and schizoid time signatures.

Continue Reading "In a Class of Its Own: Polvo" »

YOUNG FILMMAKER AND screenwriter Harmony Korine has established himself as a grunge visionary with his films "Gummo" and "Julien Donkey-Boy." Cherished by art-house audiences but often leaving critics aghast, Korine's work has set itself up as antithetical to traditional notions of cinematic pleasure: pretty people, happy endings, moral redemption, plot.

It's a shame if audiences reject Korine's latest film out of hand on the assumption that it's as gristly a chew as "Gummo." "Mister Lonely" stars Diego Luna as a Michael Jackson impersonator hardly getting by in Paris. He meets a Marilyn Monroe impersonator (Samantha Morton) who tells him about a commune for their kind in the wilds of Scotland, where people who "live as," as the script delicately puts it, the famous can be free.

In between, a group of nuns in the South American jungle, under the tutelage of Werner Herzog — bear with us — attempt to jump out of airplanes, aloft on faith alone.

Korine found the image in his mind and it stayed. "I liked the image," he says. "I thought it was a test of faith."

Continue Reading "The Pitfalls of Faith: 'Mister Lonely'" »

CALLING ALL RETRIEVERS, pugs, shih tzus, malamutes and mutts! Old Town Alexandria's Hotel Monaco and Jackson 20 are hosting "Doggie Happy Hour" every Tuesday and Thursday until October -- weather permitting.

Bring your pets out for some sunshine, snacks, and butt-sniffing in the courtyard of the hotel. From 5 to 8 p.m., your pups can feast on free gourmet treats and fresh water while you sip cocktails and enjoy appetizers prepared by Jackson 20 Chef Jeff Armstrong. The biweekly event is a great way for you and your pets to meet the neighbors.

» Jackson 20 and Hotel Monaco, 480 King St., Alexandria; 703-549-6080.

Written by Express contributor Suemedha Sood

BOOYA!
SCORE ONE FOR STAR
TV personality Star Jones, 46, has criticized former boss Barbara Walters for writing about her in her new memoir, "Audition." "It is a sad day when an icon like Barbara Walters, in the sunset of her life, is reduced to publicly branding herself as an adulterer and speaking negatively against me all for the sake of selling a book. It speaks to her true character," Jones said.

CREATIVE
BORED WITH SETS, DOURDAN MAKES OWN CRIME SCENE
"CSI" co-star Gary Dourdan has been charged with felony possession of heroin, cocaine and Ecstasy stemming from his arrest last month, prosecutors said. The 41-year-old actor was arrested after police found him asleep in his car in Palm Springs on April 28. He was allegedly parked on the wrong side of the street with the car's interior light on. Prosecutors said Dourdan is scheduled to appear in court in Indio, about 130 miles east of Los Angeles, on May 28. Dourdan has played crime scene investigator Warrick Brown on CBS' "CSI" since 2000.

WHOOPS
ACTORS FORGET TO STOP ACTING
On-screen children honored their television mothers at "A Mother's Day Salute to TV Moms," an event put on by the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences. Attendees included Marion Ross ("Happy Days") and her TV daughter Erin Moran; Diahann Carroll ("Julia," ''Dynasty" and "A Different World") and "World" co-star Jasmine Guy; and Holland Taylor ("Two and a Half Men") with Jon Cryer and Charlie Sheen.

Continue Reading "People: Jones Takes the High Road With Low Blow" »

CONTROVERSIAL COMEDIAN Katt Williams' epic "It's Pimpin' Pimpin'" tour hits the District with two shows at D.A.R. Constitution Hall on both Thursday and Friday.

The stand-up comic has a long resume featuring numerous forms of (largely pimp-based) humor — film and TV highlights include "First Sunday," "Wild 'n Out" and "The Boondocks" — but despite his onstage persona, Williams struck a decidedly thoughtful, low-key tone during his recent conversation with Express, making exactly one joke. So, we talked about books.

» EXPRESS: Where does your fascination with pimping come from?
» WILLIAMS: I like the fact that it's remained consistent all the way through, as the oldest profession — the mindset required on both ends of it — the teamwork involved and the benefit at the end. I've studied the story from a lot of different angles. It keeps changing for me. It keeps getting on a different level.

» EXPRESS: You've adopted enough kids to start a basketball team — with subs. How did that come about?
» WILLIAMS: It's kinda redemption: If you do bad in your life, you try and do some good things. You try to do the best that you can. I started that prior to getting famous. It was something I needed to do. And it turned out to be a good situation for the kids and for me. It changed me.

Continue Reading "Pimp of All Media: Katt Williams" »

WHETHER YOU'RE looking for ingredients to replicate Mom's recipes or want to try your hand at a new cuisine, there are many international markets in D.C., Maryland and Virginia with ingredients beyond peanut butter and Wonder.

For Thai shopping, there are a few options in this area. Thai Market carries frozen seafood, including prawns, shrimp, squid, mackerel and other fish; pastes, including tamarind paste and curry paste; and canned goods like rambutans (the little, round, tropical fruits with red, spiky exteriors), lychee fruit and lotus root.

Nuts-and-bolts ingredients include kaffir lime leaves and coconut milk -- useful for Thai soups and curries -- as well as fish sauces, hot sauces and countless types of soy sauce necessary for pretty much every Thai dish. Also look for unique products such as frozen custard apples.

If Thai baked goods strike your fancy, head to the Bangkok 54 Oriental Foods Market in Arlington. There, you'll find freshly baked cookies, cakes and squares. They also sell freshly made sweet sticky rice with taro, wrapped in banana leaves; grilled skewered chicken; whole fried tilapia; and balls made of tapioca pearls and pork. Some items are labeled in Thai only, so if you're curious about what you might end up eating, don't be afraid to ask.

Continue Reading "Taste the World: International Food on Local Shelves" »

BACKSTAGE AT A recent Cave Singers show in Portland, Ore., one of the singers on the bill broke out some unhealthy substances and pushed her fellow musicians to indulge in them. Ah, the crazy life of a rock 'n' roll star.

"She brought five or six fruit pies that she baked for all the bands; it was pretty awesome," said Cave Singers vocalist Pete Quirk. "I was like, 'This is more my style than people doing coke in the green room.'"

That's quite a changeup from the indie-rock scene in which Quirk, a Seattle post-grunge figure, and guitarist Derek Fudesco of the now-defunct Pretty Girls Make Graves had established themselves before turning to neo-folk and forming The Cave Singers.

As the popular PGMG headed toward a breakup, the roommates found their individual four-track bedroom recordings meshed well, as both were looking to soften their style a little.

"We were both unconsciously learning toward more minimal, quieter acoustic music," Quirk said. "I was trying to sing a bit more rather than just screaming and yelling."

Continue Reading "Seattle Americana: The Cave Singers" »

Express' Karmah Elmusa recaps what the bride and groom ate on "Top Chef."

THIS WEEK, the end stages of "Top Chef Chicago" began — the fat (in the form of mediocre cooks) has officially been skimmed. The nice, even number of eight — four men and four women (more ladies left at this stage than in seasons past) — made for the perfect opportunity to pit teams against each other in the most cutthroat (ha) "Top Chef" Challenge ever.

Cutting (ha) to the chase: the elimination challenge was titled Wedding Wars. As in, nuptials, the joining of soul mates, the most important day of a couple's life, etc. A real couple ... or a couple of good sports. Oh, and I should mention that along with the pressure applied to our chefs to pull off this task, there is also no time allotted for sleeping. Read on for a recap of the beautiful, inevitably tense, moments starring our stressy, exhausted, egomaniacal (if strangely lovable) bunch.

Continue Reading "Hail to the Chef: His and Hers" »