boston progress radio

The East Meets Words Open Mic [on Friday May, 11, 2007] was the second of the shows Bao Phi peformed here in Boston. The show was at the East Meets West Bookstore. The small setting created an intimate feel between Bao and the audience. Even though I watched Bao’s performance the day before, he was just as impressive. The performance was based on the series of “Nguyens” that Bao had created. The “Nguyens” are a fictional group of Vietnamese-Americans that are not related but they raise awareness to problems that a common Asian American would go through. They range from a victim of Hurricane Katrina who represented the forgotten race in the disaster to someone who only dates Vietnamese guys, eats Vietnamese food and drives a Korean car because that is the “closest as she can f****** get.”

Bao Phi was funny yet emotional during his performance. One thing that stands out to me about Bao Phi is how passionate he is about his work. I can see it in his eyes and the way he carries himself on stage. Even with all his awards and recognitions, he never let it go to his head and he stayed true to himself which is rare in today’s society.

Tags: Recaps.

So I was browsing my myspace.com bulletin messages and I read one sent out by the Blue Scholars. If y’all can’t tell, I have this “thing” for the Blue Scholars. Anyway, they were plugging the Capitol Hill Block Party in their bulletin; it is a show I never went to while I toiled away in college. Silly me.

Unfortunately, the party rocks out on July 27th and I’ll be happily toiling away here in Boston. However, I did read an interesting nugget in the Blue Scholars’ bulletin: “This festival [the Capitol Hill Block Party] is excellent, it’s our only Seattle show this summer and we’ll be flying back from the Northeast tour just to do it. A ton of other great band[s] playing.”

Hmm… the key words for me are “Northeast tour”. Hey, Boston is in the Northeast. Might Geo and Sabzi be bringing the infinite inkwell to the Bean?

Tags: News.

Celebrate Hallowe’en 2007 with Lyrics Born. He’ll be in Beantown playing at the Paradise Lounge. Tickets are $15. I assume that you’ll be able to get them at the regular ticket outlets including the Paradise box office. 18 and over.

The BIG news this week is that Native Guns will go their separate ways and pursue solo careers. I checked out their video “Champion” here. The video was directed by Patricio Ginelsa. This video is pretty cool. One of the first lines of the song mentioned growing up in a slum and basically the video circles around the life of a woman making her journey to a meeting walking through Los Angeles. The Native Guns appear in the surroundings raising attention the poor conditions of the neighborhood.

Originally I was going to review their cd, but since summer school has been getting the best of me I haven’t be able to listen to the whole cd. But everytime I tried listening to the cd and the same song would come up. The song was “Next Frontier” and the line “Believe that we are sincere, Native Guns takin’ on a new frontier.” In my corny attempt to make this post sound cool, I think I can speak for the rest of the crew here at BPR by stating that we are sincere as we wish the best of luck to the Native Guns as they take on a new frontier.

Tags: CD, Reviews, Video.

When the Boston Red Sox won the World Series in 2004 - has it been that long already? - I got phone calls from friends all over the place: Chicago, Seattle, California, congratulating me on my hometown team’s accomplishment. I thought it was kind of funny, because I did not contribute to that championship – not even a little. I didn’t play on the team, didn’t buy a ticket to a game, didn’t even order the cable package that allows me to watch the entire season on TV.

But there was something to all those congratulatory phone calls. I may not ever have suited up for the Sox, but I’ve invested – some might say wasted – a lot of time caring about them. I’ve gone through the full range of emotions, and rooted for them to get back up every time they fell, which was often throughout the 80s and 90s.

And as dubious as it may sound, all of us who lived through Mookie F–king Wilson and Aaron F–king Boone and Roger F–king Clemens and Wade F–king Boggs and so on, finally pulled hard enough in our hearts that we helped bring the universe a little toward our team. Yeah, so I guess I’m saying that rooting at home still makes a difference.

So now, I’m getting congratulatory e-mails from friends about the launch of Boston Progress Radio; this time, I’m actually part of the team.

Read more

Tags: Commentary, Online Radio.

While today is a happy day here at BPR, it is also a day of mourning. Our friends Exit Clov have posted a message on their website announcing the passing of Papa Hsu, Em and Suz’s father:

People have inquired as to why so many shows of late have been cancelled… It saddens us to be the bearer of bad news but last Friday morning we lost a close member of the Clov family. Em and Suz’s father “Papa” Hsu passed away after years of battling serious illness. After undergoing a risky surgical procedure in March the ladies’ father was unable to recover.

Our deepest condolescenses go out to the Exit Clov family and to the Hsu family.

“When he shall die
Take him and cut him out in little stars
And he will make the face of heav’n so fine
That all the world will be in love with night
And pay no worship to the garish sun.”
- William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet

Tags: News.

Today, we embark on a new journey. Today, Boston Progress Radio is more than just a blog. Today, Boston Progress Radio is an online radio station. To tune in, please use the following link. You will need a player capable of playing MP3 streams (e.g., iTunes or Winamp). At the moment, we have no shows or DJs, but we hope that that will change.

Our station has a limited music selection, but we believe that we have some quality artists that you will enjoy listening to. Speaking of the artists, we here at Boston Progress Radio would like to extend our deepest gratitude to the following artists for graciously allowing us to play their music on our radio station:

Alfa, Annie Lin, Bao Phi, Big Phony, Blip Blip Bleep, Cynthia Lin, Denizen Kane, Eugene Song, Exit Clov, The Francis Kim Band, The Ides, Ishle Park, Isul Kim, Jay Legaspi, Johnny Hi-Fi, Jungli, Kevin So, Kite Operations, Kiwi, Koo Chung, Magdalen Hsu-Li, Magnetic North, Native Guns, The Praxxis, re: verse, Taiyo Na, titofelix, Visionaries, and Vudoo Soul.

Tell all your friends. Tune in and let us know what you think. We want your feedback on the station and our blog posts. Happy listening.

Peace + love:
Ash, Dave, Delia, Eugene, Giles, Long, Tricia, & Vidya

Tags: News, Online Radio.

This is the last week that the Native Guns will be a unified group of three, so I thought I’d write a little tribute. But sometimes words just aren’t good enough, so here’s a video of NG at the East Meets West bookstore back in February. If a picture is worth a thousand words, what is a flash video worth?

• 15 fps × 480 s × 1000 words per frame = 6.7 million words

That’s a lot of words. So, I hope you enjoy the small helping of Bambu with a slice of Kiwi and a side of Phat.

Tags: Commentary, News, Open Mic, Video.