12-30-13 Jive

Good evening! It’s Monday, Dec. 30th, and this is the Jive at Five – our daily community calendar and rundown of night time programming here on 88.1 FM WESU Middletown, your station for NPR, Pacifica, independent and local public affairs by day and the best in free-form community programming weeknights and weekends.  I'm Maria Johnson, producer and host of "Reasonably Catholic: Keeping the Faith," which airs every 1st, 3rd, and 5th Tuesday afternoon, from 4 to right before the Jive at Five. Tomorrow: part one of a year’s-end highlights show, to be continued next week, Jan. 7. Enjoy again or for the first time, an array of thought-provoking commentary on subjects you won’t hear discussed anywhere else: women priests, married priests, gay Catholics, and more – all of it punctuated by excerpts from Pope Francis’ favorite music!  If you can’t hear the show in real time, you can find the audio at www.reasonablycatholic.com. If you enjoy this show’s progressive approach to religion, why not throw a few bucks WESU’s way during these final days of our kinder, gentler winter pledge drive? Mention “Reasonably Catholic” when you do and I’ll send you a cool Catholic book or CD.

Now for our rundown of some of what’s happening in our area this week.

Up in Hartford, at Blackeyed Sally’s, tonight is Jazz Monday, featuring the Josh Bruneau Quintet. Tomorrow night, Sally’s celebrates New Year’s Eve w/ Mass Conn Fusion! Friday brings the Tom Sanders Band to the Sally’s stage, uniting veteran musicians from some of Southern New England's best blues, rock and r&b bands, including The Hornets, Smokehouse, Chris Tofield & The Bluesbenders and Whiskey River Band, to name just a few. Saturday at Sally’s, it’s the Mighty Soul Drivers, bringing the classic Soul sounds of Memphis, Muscle Shoals and points South to the hills of New England. www.blackeyedsallys.com

Also in Hartford, at Sully’s Pub, tonight is Acoustic Open Mic Night. Tuesday features Pete Scheips. Wednesday is karaoke. And Friday is the Fat Guy Friday Happy Hour, after which it’s Shag Frenzy. Saturday brings Krysus, and Sunday it’s the Electric Open Mic. www.sullyspub.com

Down in New Haven, at Café Nine, tonight, DrinkDeeply presents Sean O’Reilly, the Seth Adam Trio, Jackie Meeker and Rick Masi. Tomorrow is Café Nine’s New Year's Eve Burlesque Extravaganza w/ Dot Mitzvah and the Bombshells of Burlesque. Thursday, Cellular Chaos, The Simple Pleasure, and Jerkagram take the Café Nine stage. Friday’s 5 o’clock happy hour performer is Victor Roland, followed at 9 by Benefit for CT Death Quads -Men's Roller Derby, with Polluter, Oughts, and Wolves At Bay.Saturday’s jazz jam at 4:30 features Mike Coppola and friends; then at 7:30, it’s Big Lazy and Happy Ending. Sunday’s Blues Boot Camp at 8 is with  Greg Sherrod.  www.cafenine.com.

Also in New Haven, at Toad’s Place, tonight is A Night of Smooth Jazz with Rohn Lawrence & Friends. Tomorrow’s New Year’s Eve Extravaganza features Shakedown, playing the Dead and beyond; also, Full Spectrum and Supertrance. Thursday brings a local rock showcase to Toad’s, with Agenda 21, Banana Bread, The Berkshires, Chasing Cooper, Civil Pilots, Cold Pizza, Common Ground, Haris Shah, House Silbor, Pangalactic, Royal Din and Walking Contradiction. Friday’s Hair of the New Year Dog keeps the local music coming with rock and metal, including these bands: 1.21 Gigawatts, Angry Reaction, Benders, Big Ed, Big Moon, Double The Dial, Feed The Pigs, Hollow, Idiot Excuse, Karmic Justice, Killin Cupid, SNAP, Velcro Buddha, and Zombii. Saturday’s Electro Glow Party is with Report to Bass 3. www.toadsplace.com.

 Also in New Haven, on Wednesday, Manic Productions brings BrotherTIger and Norrin to Bar. www.manicproductions.com.

Back here in Middletown, the Buttonwood Tree is closed until 10:30, Saturday, Jan. 4, when there will be an empowerment workshop. www.buttonwood.org

Now here's a rundown of cinema off the beaten track in Central Connecticut:

Tonight and tomorrow, Real Art Ways in Hartford finishes up its run of the animated children’s tale, "My Neighbor Totoro". The story follows Satsuke and Mei, two young girls who find that their new country home is in a mystical forest inhabited by a menagerie of mystical creatures called Totoros. This family-oriented feature has a powerful ecological theme. Continuing through  Thursday is the documentary on Noam Chomsky called “Is the Man Who is Tall Happy?”. Opening  Friday is the feature Go for Sisters, about a mother’s search for her son who went missing along the Mexican border. Also opening Friday is Bastards, a French thriller about a man’s determination to exact revenge for the violence done to his family.www.realartways.org.

Cinestudio, the Trinity College cinema in Hartford,  reopens on Thursday with Kill Your Darlings, in which Daniel Radcliffe, otherwise known to the world as Harry Potter, transforms himself into the skinny, intellectual, Jewish, and closeted gay college student -1940s-era Alan Ginsberg. Commuting from New Jersey to Columbia University, Ginsberg makes friends with a group of budding rebels who would usher in Beat poetry and bohemia to the conformist 1950s. Ginsberg, along with William Burroughs (Ben Foster), Lucien Carr (Dane DeHaan), and Jack Kerouac (Boardwalk Empire’s Jack Huston), challenge their professors during the day, and the rigid parameters of sexual behavior at night. The ensemble cast also includes Kyra Sedgwick, Jennifer Jason Leigh, and Elizabeth Moss (lately of Mad Men and Top of the Lake). Opening Sunday at Cinestudio is the Norwegian documentary Liv and Ingmar. In all of the love affairs between directors and their muses, few were so passionate - or resulted in so many great movies - as the one between legendary Swedish filmmaker Ingmar Bergman and Norwegian actress Liv Ullman. This new documentary traces both their stormy relationship and the art they collaborated on: twelve groundbreaking (now) classics including Persona, Cries and Whispers, and Autumn Sonata. Ullman is fearlessly honest in her conversations with director Dheeraj Akolkar, tracing their great love from passion and creativity, to Bergman’s increasing jealousy and possessiveness, and finally, to a friendship that lasted until his death. www.cinestudio.org.

And now let’s take a look at tonight’s programming on WESU, which includes a new addition and also some pinch-hitters because Wesleyan dj's are on their winter break.

5:05-6pm

Afternoon Jazz with Charles Henry

From classic bop to smooth contemporary sounds. A well-rounded jazz show for true jazz heads.

6-6:30pm

That's followed by World Socialist Website News.

6:30 to 8:  Life is a Killer with Johnny Analog

Moving through the blues diaspora from front porch country blues and big city electric blues to jazz, R&B and soul.

8-9:30pm: Rumpus Room with Lord Lewis

The best in vintage and contemporary heavy funk, soul, club jazz, reggae, ska, afro and latin dancefloor grooves. Pure Dynamite Mojo Explosion!

From 9:30 to 3 a.m., on what we’re calling W – Lee - SU: The Attention Deficit Disk Jockey with Lee plays the music of yesterday’s future, today.

From 3 to 4 a.m., it’s RootsWorld Radio with Cliff Furnald.

The BBC kicks on at 4, followed by NPR's Morning Edition at 5.

And that’s all for today’s Jive at Five, if you didn’t get a chance to write down some of the information mentioned in our community calendar, the script is published online at wesufm.org/jive.

And if you value WESU as a source for information and entertainment in your life, how about supporting the station with a donation? These are the final days of our kinder, gentler winter pledge drive. If you haven’t made your pledge of support yet, now’s your chance to end the year right. Go to www.wesufm.org and click on Donate Now. Thanks for listening! Stay tuned for Charles Henry.