Results tagged “tomwaits”

FILM: For a second year, the Canadian Sport Film Festival hopes to reach sports fans and film buffs alike with a motley collection of stories about the power of sport to enrich lives and inspire hope and courage. The festival opens with A Woman Among Boys: A Brooklyn Basketball Story, a full-length documentary profiling fearless leader Ruth Lovelace (or "Coach Love"), the only woman coaching boys' high school basketball in Brooklyn, New York. In keeping with the theme, the film will be screened alongside the trailer for First Ink, about Toronto's own Chris Bosh. Other highlights this year include Pink Paddlers, the story of a group of dragon boat–racing breast cancer survivors in Singapore, and the Canadian premiere of More Than Just a Game, about a soccer league started by political prisoners in apartheid-era South Africa. A Woman Among Boys screens tonight at 7 p.m. at the Isabel Bader Theatre; various other showtimes and venues for the rest of the festival; $10 per screening, $8 for students (at the door), $40 for full festival pass.

Musicologist is not sure The Drake is a large enough venue for the arrival of Baby Dee on Wednesday, February 6. The multi-disciplined artist is a classically trained harpist, organist, legendary Cleveland street and circus performer, and collaborator with such brilliant acts as Antony and the Johnsons. The 54-year-old performer brings a wealth of musical and artistic experience to the stage, and her transgendered politics are surfaced through her healthy variation of wistful harp and piano-driven pieces (often reminiscent of 70s singer-songwriters) and (most evidently on her recent release, Safe Inside the Day) ones resembling those of a cabaret score. It is difficult to not love Baby Dee for her eccentricity and musicianship, but most critics and new listeners have qualms with her sparse, unfocused voice. Similar to Joanna Newsom or Tom Waits, one must look beyond Baby Dee's unique voice and understand where it comes from—a less-than-perfect voice with heart is better than a big one with no emotion.

On occasion, Daniel Johnston has shed his cult status and entered the public spotlight: it happened when Kurt Cobain promoted him and again with the release of The Devil and Daniel Johnston. And as a recent compilation confirmed, his influence can be felt throughout modern music, including Tom Waits, Beck, and The Flaming Lips.