Back to the Rat
Demolished to make way for a hotel, luxury condos, a Blockbuster, and a Kinko’s, the Kenmore Square establishment known as the Rat (officially the Rathskeller) was the Boston rock-and-roll dive going back to the early days of punk, when the Real Kids and DMZ and the Modern Lovers laid the groundwork for much of what’s happened since. Next Saturday, July 19, the Regent Theatre in Arlington hosts the second in a series of events celebrating and re-creating the vibes at several long-lost Boston clubs of yesteryear with "Live at the Rat," which will feature performances by such survivors as Willie Alexander, Unnatural Axe, and of course the Real Kids and DMZ. There’ll also be an all-star band drawn from the era’s anti-stars, a to-be-announced celebrity host, and an exhibit of memorabilia from the nascent Boston Rock and Roll Museum, for which the event is a benefit. The Regent is at 7 Medford Street in Arlington, and tickets are $20, $17 in advance; call (781) 646-4849. And if you need a primer on what made the Real Kids so special — as well as what kept them from being as popular as the Ramones — remember that the new documentary All Kindsa Girls is getting an encore screening the following night, July 20, at the Allston Cinema, 214 Harvard Avenue in Allston. Showtimes are 7 and 9 p.m., and tickets are $8; call (617) 912-8626.
Chinese kicks
Heeee-yah! Martial-arts masters, warrior maidens, strange Taoist hermits, sinister inns, ambient brothels, kidnappings, swordplay, revenge, virgins, gangsters, ghosts, drugs, insults, and ambushes — you’ll find it all at the Museum of Fine Arts next month as part of "Heroic Grace," a month-long series of 14 historic Chinese martial-arts films spanning five decades. The series kicks off on August 2 with back-to-back screenings of two of the few surviving examples of silent-era martial-arts movies, Red Knight Errant (1929) and Swordswoman of Huangjiang (1939), with a soundtrack of turntablist kicks provided by Boston’s own DJ C (Jake Trussell). Other highlights include 1965’s The Six Fingered Lord of the Lute Part I (August 3 at 3:30 p.m.); 1973’s Blood Brothers (August 15 at 7:45 p.m.; August 30 at 3 p.m.), on which the young John Woo worked as assistant director; and 1972’s gonzo Intimate Confessions of a Chinese Courtesan (August 15 at 6 p.m.; August 30 at 1 p.m.), in which a martial-arts master relocates to a brothel, where his disciple is "forcibly drilled in the sexual arts" by a virgin-abducting lesbian. Caution: several of these films come in unsubtitled prints, though as one program note has it, "subtitles wouldn’t help anyway." "Heroic Grace" runs August 2 through 30, and tickets for double features are $15, for single screenings $9. The MFA is at 465 Huntington Avenue; call (617) 369-3306.
A wizard, a true star
For a number of years, if you’ll recall, Liv Tyler thought Todd Rundgren was her dad. Which wouldn’t have been such a bad thing, right? Like, can you name anyone else who’s produced good albums by Bad Religion (2000’s The New America) and Meatloaf (1977’s Bat Out of Hell)? Rundgren the solo artist hasn’t remained the chart-topping force that Liv’s dad has, but in the 21st-century the hyper-prolific, envelope-shredding pioneer of prog-rock and electronic experimentation continues to be a champion of emerging technologies. An early adopter of CD-ROM technology and also ahead of the curve on the idea of a music-download subscription service, he’s been offering his music to fans through his PatroNet on-line service since before Napster, and he’s readying a new album that’ll be ready for his subscribers this summer. While you’re waiting for digital Todd, you can catch him in the flesh at the Somerville Theatre, 55 Davis Square, on July 31 at 8 p.m. Tickets are $28.50; call (617) 931-2000.
Soul’d again
Twenty-three-year-old Lizz Wright stands poised to reconnect jazz with its soul and R&B roots. The Georgia native sang with her siblings in her minister father’s church and discovered jazz through Marian McPartland’s NPR broadcasts. Her CD debut, Salt (Verve), includes new and old jazz standards like Chick Corea & Neville Potter’s "Open Your Eyes, You Can Fly," Mongo Santamaria’s "Afro Blue," and Gordon Jenkins’s "Goodbye"; the hired hands include Brian Blade and Sam Yahel (of Joshua Redman’s band) and Danilo Pérez. But on the Wright-penned title track, the singer reminds us of no one so much as the Soul Queen of New Orleans, Irma Thomas, with a deep-down voice and spirit-cleansing delivery. Wright hits Scullers, in the DoubleTree Guest Suites Hotel, 400 Soldiers Field Road, at the Mass Pike, on August 13; call (617) 562-4111.
