Editor’s Note: Welcome to V3 Weekend, Vanyaland‘s guide to help you sort out your weekend entertainment with curated selections and recommendations across our three pillars of Music, Comedy, and Film/TV. It’s what you should know about, where you need to be, and where you’ll be going, with us riding shotgun along the way.
Music: Holly Miranda at Atwood’s Tavern
Where Jonathan Ulman goes, we go. And on Saturday (January 7), the drummer and percussionist, six-time Boston Music Awards’ Session Musician of the Year, and recent Late Night with Seth Meyers guest drummer pulls double duty at Atwood’s Tavern, holding down the kit for Holly Miranda and Annie Cheevers. Miranda just got back from tour with The Righteous Babes supporting Ani DiFranco, and the New York-based singer-songwriter, as evidenced on her spacious 2018 record Mutual Horse, creates the type of lush, daydream pop-rock that keeps us warm through the winter. We’ve been smitten with Miranda’s consuming song “On the Radio” for a while now, and if she plays it this weekend, it should provide the comfort we desperately need.
HOLLY MIRANDA WITH ANNIE CHEEVERS :: Saturday, January 7 at Atwood’s Tavern, 877 Cambridge St. in Cambridge, MA :: 9:30 p.m., 21-plus, $15 in advance and $20 at doors :: Event page :: Advance tickets
Comedy: Dan Crohn at Nick’s Comedy Stop
While most of Boston comedy is sleeping in for the New Year, the tireless Dan Crohn is right back at it, posting up for two nights, tonight and tomorrow (January 6 and 7), at downtown ha-ha haven Nick’s Comedy Stop. It’s familiar stomping grounds for the Boston comedy veteran, who spoke to us about his love of the joint back in 2019. “I love Nick’s. I started there around [17] years ago when I first started doing comedy,” he told Vanyaland. “There was one year where I think I went there every weekend without getting on [stage], just hanging out, but then there was one that one opportunity where someone didn’t show, and the host asked me to do five minutes. So I went up, did my five minutes, destroyed, and I still have the recording of that first set.” If Crohn’s always-dependable Twitter is any indication, he should come out of the gates swinging.
DAN CROHN :: Friday, January 6 and Saturday, January 7 at Nick’s Comedy Stop, 100 Warrington St. in Boston, MA :: 8 p.m., $22 :: Event page :: Advance tickets
Film/TV: Flaming Ears at The Brattle
This current dystopia absolutely sucks, so it’s fair play to look ahead several hundred years to see if things get any better. Flaming Ears may not answer that question outright, but it does give a glimpse into what 2700 would look like through a queer lens, and the restored 1992 German film makes its Brattle Theatre debut tonight and tomorrow (January 6 and 7). Here’s word from the Cambridge cinema: “Flaming Ears is a pop sci-fi lesbian extravaganza set in the year 2700 in the fictional burned-out city of Asche that follows the tangled lives of three women. Spy is a comic book artist whose printing presses are burned down by Volley, a sexed-up pyromaniac. Seeking revenge, Spy goes to the lesbian club where Volley performs every night. Before she can enter, Spy gets into a fight and is left wounded in the streets. She is found by Nun, an amoral alien in a red plastic suit with a predilection for reptiles… who also happens to be Volley’s lover. Nun takes the injured Spy home and must hide her from Volley. This story of obsession and revenge is also an anti-romantic plea for love in all its many forms. A truly underground film shot on Super 8 and newly restored, Flaming Ears is original for its playful disruption of narrative conventions, its witty approach to film genre, and its punk visual splendor.” The future is now, for better or worse.
‘FLAMING EARS’ :: Friday, January 6 and Saturday, January 7 at The Brattle, 40 Brattle St. in Cambridge, MA :: Friday at 9:15 p.m. and Saturday at 2:15 p.m., $14 on Friday and $12 on Saturday :: Brattle event page