What’s the only thing that Dub Phizix needs?

No, not a dictionary (Hilar!) Nah, we’re thinking more like a Grammy, since he’s been a major innovator in the dub and electronic music scene for the last ten years. He’s hot off a world tour in the six important continents (sorry, Antarctica), and he’ll be appearing at Phoenix Landing with Strategy, who he collaborated with to produce the two-million-YouTube-views single “Marka.”

One thing this sound scientist has figured out? A superconductor of epic proportions—i.e. his music to your ears.

[Thu 5.23.13. 512 Mass. Ave., Cambridge. 10pm/19+/$5. @Dubphizix. phoenixlandingbar.com]

Does the new Iron Man flick have superheroes on your brain?

Fantasize about your very own masked crusader and see the incognito DJ the Bloody Beetroots. Clad in a black mask, Sir Bob Cornelius Rifo will be saving your social life this Wednesday at Paradise, spinning his Italian brand of electro dance music. He’s toured with Aoki, appeared at SXSW, and is right on time to rid Boston of her winter blues. Look, it’s a bird! It’s a plane!

Nah, it’s just Party Dude, here to rock us all.

[Wed 5.22.13. 967 Comm. Ave., Boston.  9pm/18+/$25. @BloodyBeetroots. thedise.com]

This video takes an excerpt from the late author David Foster Wallace’s commencement address to the 2005 graduating class of Kenyon College and turns it into a viral video with a great life lesson.

As Wallace goes on about aggravating everyday life in an attempt to define what is actually means to learn something, I grew closer and closer to having an existential crisis.

The aggravated person in traffic … that’s me! The aggravated person at the grocery store … that’s me!?

After googling deep breathing techniques, I returned to the video and finally got the message.

Annoying everyday tasks are just that—annoying and you can either let it consume you or learn a life lesson and let it go. You don’t know what people have going on in their life. So don’t assume, and don’t be a dick.

A much less articulate way of phrasing it than Wallace, but pretty much sums up the video.

Definitely worth the watch but maybe have a paper bag ready:

The gushingly positive publicity that the BPD has enjoyed since April 15 is almost over. Donnie Wahlberg will surely miss all of the free promo for his quasi-reality TNT show Boston’s Finest, but this fallout was inevitable. Among those who follow current events, cop worship is in steep decline around here, with the glowing reputation of the fuzz plummeting as facts surface about the Tsarnaev brothers and their likely criminal past.

The BPD’s status has been especially battered in the past two weeks, beginning with Commissioner Ed Davis testifying before Congress about the bombing of the Boston Marathon—it was an ugly sight, the bear-sized bureaucrat clumsily pointing fingers at the feds, and fumbling lines.

Forget Boston’s Finest; the city hasn’t been so humiliated since Southie Rules.

It didn’t take a soothsayer to surmise that national outlets would uncover mountains of dirt on Commonwealth authorities. It’s not exactly privileged info; a quick Google search reveals a glut of readily available bad press—from such credible sources as the Boston Globe and several NPR affiliates—concerning everything from BPD attacks on unarmed teens to disappearing drug evidence. There’s also been reliable coverage, guided by paperwork obtained by local chapters of the American Civil Liberties Union, about the Boston Regional Intelligence Center. A designated arm of the departments of Justice and Homeland Security, the BRIC is one of two known government “fusion” centers in Massachusetts. The intelligence clearing house is also the city’s lifeline to the FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force. If anybody had a chance of identifying the Tsarnaevs ahead of time, it would have been them.

Here’s how they fucked up.

BUILDING BRIC Inspired by the events of September 11, 2001, the BRIC opened for business in 2005. Their stated mission: to “perform and coordinate regional homeland security protection and response missions through investigative and analytical activities,” and to boost “the Region’s ability to identify and interdict terrorist operations.” Despite being charged with chasing bad guys, by the late 2000s a growing group of community leaders and organizers began to believe that the BRIC was targeting activists. Particularly those of the peacenik variety. Cops were openly filming demonstrations—in some cases, groups began to suspect that undercover officers had infiltrated their operations. In an attempt to identify the shenanigans at hand, in 2009, the ACLU of Massachusetts began requesting “records concerning the Department’s involvement in . . . the process by which Suspicious Activity Reports (SARs) are created, analyzed, and shared.” In fewer words:

activists had a good hunch that the BRIC was spying on them, in potential violation of both the first and fourth amendments.

Furthermore, demonstrators believed that police were keeping detailed records of their activities—even though they’d committed no crimes. The ACLU set out to prove that rights were indeed being trampled on.

Photo by Shawn Musgrave

In March 2010, the BPD finally responded to records inquiries made by the ACLU for info on the BRIC. Rather than turn over all requested documents, though, police attorneys only produced papers outlining the center’s procedural guidelines and policies, and neglected to hand over records that revealed specific targets of surveillance. So in August 2011, the ACLU joined 10 groups and federations—Veterans for Peace, the Boston Stop the Wars Coalition, and others—in suing the BPD, and its commissioner Davis.

Under increased legal pressure, 14 months later the department released embarrassing documents showing that the BRIC had indeed been spying on peace activists since at least 2008.

As assumed, they were also keeping records of their non-criminal behavior. In campaigns that the ACLU now argues violated both “federal privacy regulations and the BRIC’s own privacy policies,” from 2009 to 2010, the intelligence center produced SARs on peaceful pro-Palestinian demonstrators, as well as on antiwar groups including CODEPINK. The BRIC also documented the behavior of protest speakers and participants including a city councilor, and famed Boston University professor (and pacifist) Howard Zinn, the latter of whom reports listed as an “extremist.” Memos show BRIC officers following peace and environmental protesters around downtown Boston, keeping tabs on their locations for no apparent reason. A read through the reports is demonstrably hilarious, smacking of the scene in Billy Madison where the snooping school janitor tells Adam Sandler’s nemesis that “Billy likes to drink soda.” An “intelligence report” from March 2010 about CODEPINK and United For Justice With Peace rings especially ridiculous, though not to the BRIC. These activities were classified as a “Criminal Act,” with the involved groups being labeled as a threat to homeland security:            

The POTUS, Barrack [sic] Obama, will be in Boston on Thursday April 1, 2010 to attend a fundraising reception and dinner at 60 State St . . . April 1st is also dubbed by environment activists . . . as “Fossil Fuel’s [sic] Day 2010” and protests targeting those who invest in or fund the fossil fuel industry are planned to take place city-wide on this date. In the past, these activists have conducted direct actions that ranged from the use of “sleeping dragons” to “banner drops.” There’s a strong likelihood that members of these two groups will also be present at the planned 60 State St protest.

“SHODDY” INTELLIGENCE Back in 2007, Congress passed the Implementing Recommendations of the 9/11 Commission Act. The legislation was designed to ensure that homeland security and other federal agencies share information with state and local outfits, like the BPD, and through coordinated efforts such as fusion centers, of which there are an estimated 77 nationwide. Despite that directive—and despite hundreds of millions of dollars spent on anti-terrorism technology, resources, and infrastructure—an October 2012 report by the U.S. Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs determined that “DHS’ work with those state and local fusion centers has not produced useful intelligence to support federal counterterrorism efforts.”

The abysmal assessment also found that the intelligence that fusion centers gather is “oftentimes shoddy, rarely timely, sometimes endangering citizens’ civil liberties and Privacy Act protections, occasionally taken from already-published public sources, and more often than not unrelated to terrorism.”

Furthermore, much like another brutal congressional analysis that was conducted two years earlier, the October 2012 assessment found that certain agencies were doing more than just manufacturing tall tales. Some administrators had invented whole operations; according to reports, “DHS officials asserted that some fusion centers existed when they did not.” WHO KNEW? All things considered, it’s of little surprise that neither the BRIC nor the Commonwealth Fusion Center in Maynard picked up on dangers posed by alleged Boston Marathon bomber Tamerlan Tsarnaev—even though the U.S. government had been warned twice by the Russian government that he had radical ties, and even though Tsarnaev raised more than a few red flags.

As was recently reported by ace Boston crime journalist Michele McPhee for ABC News, forensic evidence from a 2011 triple homicide in Waltham—a city just a few miles north of Boston and Cambridge—matches the DNA of both Tsarnaev brothers.

Waltham triple murder connection. DNA links accused bombers to the same homicide. Exclusive details here. fb.me/HMuAbHeM — Michele McPhee (@MicheleMcPhee) May 22, 2013

And the plot only thickens.

The murders of three alleged marijuana dealers in their Waltham apartment have been an enduring regional mystery for years now. Strangely, detectives found the bodies with their throats slit, and covered in about seven pounds of cannabis. The killer or killers also left behind $5,000 in cash. Now, officials tell ABC that cell phone records put both Tsarnaevs close to the murder scene, and that Tamerlan was formerly a roommate and sparring partner of one of the victims, Brendan Mess. Two Dig sources who were close to Mess also confirm his relationship with Tsarnaev. According to them and now officials as well, though Tamerlan was close to Mess, he skipped his friend’s funeral, and stopped boxing at their gym after the homicides. Middlesex officials say that they began investigating links between Tamerlan and Mess after the marathon bombings.

One thing they may have wanted to check into from the get-go, however, was the peculiar date of the Waltham slayings—September 11, 2011, the 10-year anniversary of the World Trade Center attacks.

By that time, the U.S. government had twice been warned by the Russian government that Tamerlan had radical ties. He was also on at least three watch lists: the Terrorist Identities Datamart Environment (TIDE) which is compiled by the National Counterterrorism Center, the FBI’s Terrorist Screening Database, and a compendium amassed by the DHS’s Customs and Border Protection bureau. For what it’s worth, it also appears that Tamerlan had an Amazon wish list that included several books on how to manufacture fake IDs. Considering that, and his noted anti-peace outbursts at the Islamic Society of Boston Cultural Center in Cambridge, and

it’s almost like he was trying to get caught.

Meanwhile, in Boston, the BRIC spent much of September 2011 monitoring Occupy protesters in Dewey Square, as well as anti-foreclosure activists and other peaceful crusaders. As such, the question now being asked of the BPD and Commissioner Davis—by the ACLU, by Congress, by an increasing number of reporters—is if police intelligence could have, should have netted Tsarnaev. We may never know; the Massachusetts State Police, who oversee the Boston and Maynard fusion centers, say they were not privy to pertinent info. At the same time, in a statement to the Globe, FBI supervisory Agent Jason Pack said that state and local officials did, in fact, have access to relative reconnaissance.

Agent Jason Pack's statement via boston.com

According to Kade Crockford, who tracks the BRIC for the ACLU of Massachusetts, it’s about time that authorities reconsider their priorities. “A big question,” she says, “is whether efforts to build a bigger intelligence haystack may actually be less effective than improving traditional policing methods that focus on solving crimes …”

“Perhaps instead of extensively monitoring activists who are petitioning the government through the democratic process, law enforcement resources should focus on investigating and solving actual crimes, starting with murder.”

“Fewer resources tracking peace activists and more focus on traditional homicide detective work might be the best way to ensure a world in which we are both safe and free.”

FURTHER SCRUTINY While most media outlets spent the better part of this month covering the pseudo-controversy of where Tsarnaev would be buried and endlessly, shamelessly pandering to the “Boston Strong” demographic, a few noted the unsatisfactory performance of Mr. Davis in Washington. Others picked up on the commissioner’s call for drones at next year’s marathon—as if drones would have preemptively identified the Tsarnaevs. Police puff pieces still run rampant, but finally, more than a month since the bombings, responsible reporters are impugning the failures of Boston’s so-called finest—along with their partners at the federal level—in adequately monitoring the now-deceased alleged butcher-bomber Tamerlan. It’s already been announced that there will be further congressional testimonies about the events of April 15. It’s anybody’s guess who will be invited to speak, and which parties will oblige. Next time, though, it would be helpful if the public got to hear from someone besides Davis, and particularly someone high up in the federal government. The commissioner may have embarrassed himself last week, but in merely showing up, he proved himself to be more transparent than the FBI, the DHS, or any other agency that was sworn to fight terrorism in Boston on that day and every other.

Not a single one of them even bothered to testify.

“He’s so funn-AHAHAHA!!!”

Just in time for Steve Wilhite to confirm the correct pronunciation of his Internet sensation, the GIF (pronounced ‘JIF’), we give you a video starring none other than Jif Peanut Butter… and a German Shepherd with some hands.

While you could probably enjoy this humanized dog feeding and painting himself in peanut butter on mute, it should be noted that the most hysterical part about the clip is the madman…er… guy laughing himself into a coma in the background.

“I’m like cry-AHAHAHAH!  Yodoo water! AHAHHAHAISSO-HE’S SO FUNNY!”

Safe to say this guy is an accurate depiction of how I looked eating anything until age 18.

Throwback!

I wonder if he’s related to Fay from Sesame Street’s Fay’s 12 Days of Christmas.  She could sure teach the both of us a thing or two about etiquette…

We don’t blame you for giving your mom a beer bong for Mother’s Day; the best gifts are the ones you secretly benefit from.

Take it up a notch and nab some tickets to the Converse Rubber Tracks, a concert series in which all proceeds go to The One Fund, which benefits victims of the Boston Marathon attacks.

As if you need more motivation, Yeasayer, Curren$y, and The Perceptionists are just a smattering of the bands making an appearance.

Now look at you!

We got a regular Daddy Warbucks over here.

[Wed 5.22.13 & Fri 5.24.13. 52 Church St., Cambridge. 7pm/18+/$10. @Converse. sinclaircambridge.com]

Spring: that magical time of year when the flowers are in bloom, the birds are chirping, and the streets are lined with pasty folks, daring to bare their legs for the first time in months.

What better way to celebrate than to get back to your thermals? Not the long john variety, but rather the post-pop punk purveyors from Portland, Ore. (Say it, don’t spray it). The Thermals threesome is getting down at The Sinclair—along with Earthquake Party! and Pretty & Nice—on Thursday, and you’re invited.

Hot enough for ya yet?

[Thu 5.23.13. 52 Church St., Cambridge. 8pm/18+/$15. @thethermals. sinclaircambridge.com]

Part of my job is to “compile news headers,” which is just a technical phrasing of “find dumb things people have said recently.” As you newly minted grads will be shocked to discover, I’ve been combing through a whole hell of a lot of commencement speeches. If you ever wanna hocus-pocus a platitude into a profundity, just give it a robe and a stupid hat.

Just consider the Marianas trench-depths of wisdom reached by Commissioner Ed Davis—who Chris Faraone has some choice words for himself in our newly re-instated long form feature on page ##—in his speech to UMass-Lowell’s class of 2013, drum roll please: “Learning doesn’t only occur in a classroom.”

We now pause to allow your mind to properly blow.

Expect to do a lot of learning about Mr. Davis in the next couple pages.

I was sneer-snorting my way through every “you thought I was gonna quote Robert Frost but turns out I’m not” record-scratch when I realized—I say insipid shit like this all the time. Have me send you an email. How many exclamation points and back-slapping bromides do you see in there? Exactly. Hell, I got everyone in edit motivational posters, and I was only being kinda ironic.

Point is—no matter how punk as fuck you may be, sooner or later you’re gonna need a goddamn spreadsheet.

Sometimes it’s good to hear “we learn more from failure than victory,” even if it’s coming from some dude who looks like an assistant high school principal. Don’t be afraid of a little banality in your life—and besides, if the advice sucks, then you got an excuse be twice as smug about it.

Of course you’re going 

There’s no point in introducing Boston Calling as though you’ve never heard of it: this is one of the most anticipated events in all of New England this summer. And rightfully so, because the lineup is completely stacked, the location—smack dab in the middle of City Hall Plaza—is unexpected, and even the mystique surrounding the thing is of unforeseeable proportions.

I mean, they got the freakin’ National to help curate. Did you think you could be more excited for this?

With less than a week before the gates open, it’s nearly sold out, save for a few VIP packages. That alone is an accomplishment for any first-time event. And while it’s not, strictly speaking, Boston’s first music festival, in terms of multi-day, big-name gatherings on par with the likes of Governor’s Ball or Coachella, Boston Calling is definitely a new one for us.

And as Brian Appel, co-founder of Crash Line Productions—the company putting on Boston Calling—told the Dig last week, getting to this point was no small task. “The process really begins first with the idea, which was developed over a couple years from concept,” he said. “And then, really, you can’t do anything without city approval. So it takes a long time to work through the channels in City Hall and the various departments to make sure this is a viable option … Once you have [city approval] things start to come together in different pieces.” With the marathon bombings such a recent and painful memory, Appel acknowledged that safety rightfully should—and will—be the primary concern for one of the first large-scale public events in Boston since the atrocities. But a good relationship with the city based on prior events that Appel and his Crash Line co-founder Mike Snow had already established helped garner cooperation from city officials, which helped make Boston Calling a reality.

The next step was curating the lineup. “We wanted it to be a festival that covered a couple of different genres,” said Appel. “[And] we wanted it to be a festival that wasn’t necessarily going to be a crowd that posed a dangerous threat to the middle of the city.”

Fortunately, one of the festival’s investors introduced its founders to The National, and after a meeting last year in New York, the band agreed not only to headline, but to take an active role in curating.

“Aaron [Dessner], the guitarist, has been very hands-on in terms of reaching out to bands that are interested in the festival,” said Appel. “Having the credibility of the National involved really helped ease a lot of bands’ [hesitations] about wanting to play a first-time festival.”

Criticism for omission of local music acts is a complaint that’s been echoed since Boston Calling was announced in February. The only two Mass.-based bands on the bill are Bad Rabbits and Caspian, the latter of which has a label and longstanding national recognition.

But, according to Bad Rabbits’ drummer, Sheel Davé, to focus on that aspect is to miss the point: “I don’t think there is a lack of local bands on the lineup. I think it is fitting,”

he told the Dig this week. “A lot of consumers aren’t willing to pay top-dollar to even see their favorite band anymore, so I think that artists (us included), especially on a local level, should always be focused on creating an experience for the people in the crowd. Even if it’s five people watching.”

Besides, only a city chock-full o’ music lovers can support a festival of this magnitude. And since this one’s gearing up to be a success, consider it a compliment to Boston’s taste. C’mon, you know you wouldn’t miss this.

BOSTON CALLING
PRESENTED BY CRASH LINE PRODUCTIONS AND BOWERY BOSTON

SAT 5.25.13-SUN 5.26.13
CITY HALL PLAZA

GOVERNMENT CENTER
BOSTON
ALL DAY/G.A. ALL AGES, VIP 21+/PRICES VARY
@BOSTON_CALLING
BOSTONCALLING.COM

New and exciting food purveyors on wheels

AREA FOUR

Kendall Square’s Area Four has launched a mobile unit that is more than worth dodging through the swarm of suits at South Station to get to. Running all week except for Saturday, you can find these guys at Rowe’s Wharf, the Chinatown Gates, SoWa Open Market, and Dewey Square. For lunch, the truck offers piadini, or flatbread wraps in varieties like muffuletta, prosciutto, and gyro. Light, fresh, and sweet, the asparagus piadini came with arugula, lemon vinaigrette, caramelized onions, and just enough goat cheese (although the asparagus didn’t make its presence known as much as I had hoped). For something more savory, try the warm mushroom piadini. The flatbread itself is warm, buttery goodness, and should be available in blanket-sized portions so you can wrap your whole body in it.

And let it be said one more time that every ingredient tastes too fresh to be true.

And then there are the cookies, which put a spark in my heart when I felt just how soft and freshly baked they were. The ginger molasses is the poster child for sugar, spice, and everything nice, and the pistachio cookie sandwich, with its sweet, cream center, practically brought my boyfriend to tears.

For the most important meal of the day, try the breakfast sandwich. The English muffin and egg fritter are equally fluffy, and the sharp cheddar adds a little zing to this understated a.m. staple. Also, it would be cruel to neglect the baked goods, especially the flaky pan au chocolat. Their sandwich board boasts that they have the best coffee in Boston (they get their beans from Barrington Roasters), and while I’m not one to make such bold claims,

their iced brew is pretty damn good.

AREA FOUR. @A4TRUCK. AREAFOUR.COM.

BATCH ICE CREAM

Before the days of chasing down rogue MBTA buses, some of us used to chase ice cream trucks down the street. Luckily for folks around and beyond Boston, this new truck is starting to make scheduled, stationary appearances around town, so you don’t have to reveal how out of shape and desperate for ice cream you really are. Locavores and meticulous ingredient readers will rejoice over this company,

who use real flavors and local or Fair Trade ingredients to make their from-scratch ice creams.

By the time I got to the truck at the Arnold Arboretum’s Lilac Festival, ginger was the only one of their four flavors that had not yet sold out. Upon the first taste, the level of creaminess was pretty unbelievable, however, the ginger ice cream tasted more like vanilla with the bonus of unexpected ginger chunks. Four dollars will get you a small cup, and for $6 you can get a heaping large, but this is a no-frills situation, so bring your own sundae toppings if you must.

To satisfy my craving for their other flavors, I snagged a couple pints at the supermarket (their website lists all the New England retailers and restaurants where their product is available). The salted caramel balances the flavors well and is a lovely shade of gold. For something with a bit more punch, go with the cinnamon and chocolate bits ice cream, which is infused with real cinnamon sticks and sprinkled with tiny chips that make the ice cream really pop.

The rest of the gang (green tea, vanilla bean, chocolate, and mocha chip)—I can’t wait to meet you this summer.

BATCH ICE CREAM. @BATCHICECREAM. BATCHICECREAM.COM.

Lioness in Louboutins

Long before Nicki Minaj had access to things like Twitter and Mariah Carey’s feelings, Eve, Philly’s finest (and only?) pit bull in a skirt was the fiercest femcee in the game. E-V-E—with her ever-changing tresses and signature paw print tats—spat on gritty street jams with the Ruff Ryders and dominated pop radio with her SoCal sidekick Gwen Stefani. After an 11-year hiatus, Eve is back with a new album and a sizable hit, “Make It Out This Town.”

“Lyrically, people are gonna be like, ‘That’s my girl!’” Eve says about her new album, Lip Lock. “I didn’t think of it like, ‘Yo, I need to this, I need to do that.’ I just do what I feel.”

You’re back, boo!
I know! I’m excited. It’s been a while; everything feels new. It’s so different from when I first started.

Yeah, like, when you came onto the scene there was no Twitter or social media, really. How has that changed the dynamic for you?
It’s great—you can connect with your fans in a different way and in a more personal way, which I really like. I like talking to my fans and I’m accessible to them.

Yeah, but your feed must blow up all day!
(laughs) It’s constant, for sure. When I’m working—like doing promos or back-to-back interviews—sometimes you just can’t pay attention to it.

But when I get a second to chill, I go back and try to retweet and speak to people.

What’s up with DMX—do you keep in touch?
No, I haven’t talked to him or spoken to him [in a while]. I don’t know where he is at the moment—or in the world—or anything like that.

Things change. At least you’re still the pit bull in a skirt.
Nah,

I’m a lioness in Louboutins.

Noted.

LIP LOCK IS NOW AVAILABLE ON ITUNES.

Brizgnar delivers us a mix of his anticipated set at SWERVE at Middlesex Lounge tonight!

Brizgnar is an up and coming DJ and producer in the Boston electronic scene that hails from Miami. Inspired by the Miami bass scene, Brizgnar’s sound is “Loud, upbeat, and tropical with a hip-hop lean,” and his music matches this description on his website. If “iLL Beatz,” “pushing the boundaries,” or “getting the fuck down” were genres, they’d all be applicable here.

DJing parties such as Picó Picante, Brizgnar has a distinct view of the Boston electronic scene, as described in this Spirited Magazine article. He is a member of SUB LAB, a collective of artists, curators, promoters, DJs, and musicians that produce underground events. SUB LAB tries to, “Create a safe space for you to express your identity, your sexuality, your outlandish, aesthetic sensibilities,” and is “a place to see and be seen.”

The mix opens with a sample of Martin Sheen from Apocalypse Now, and descends to straight bass music. Brizgnar places great emphasis on rambunctious basslines, keeping the groove and rhythm while keeping it interesting–or should we say fucking insane. The mix is a blend of drum n’ bass, dubstep, dancehall, breakbeat, and moombahton, with visions of sweaty, bouncing dance floors and hot summer nights.

Make sure to take notes.

Brizgnar joins cold/gold, DJ NO Dubstep, and special musical guests The Broons (of Whitehaus) and Ronnie Nordac for SWERVE 13. Free, free, free! Facebook event here.

SWERVE 13 WITH:
BRIZGNAR
COLD/GOLD, DJ NO DUBSTEP, THE BROONS, AND RONNIE NORDAC

WED 5.22.13
MIDDLESEX LOUNGE
315 MASS AVE.
CAMBRIDGE
9 PM/FREE/21+
@MIDDLESEXLOUNGE
MIDDLESEXLOUNGE.US