BDCWire Staff

Hilary Hughes Correspondent

Hilary Hughes is a Bostonian living in Brooklyn. In addition to BDCWire, she writes about music and pop culture for Esquire, Rolling Stone, The Village Voice, Elle, and Paste, among others. She previously held down the fort at DigBoston as the Arts and Entertainment editor for two years and apparently just can't quit her hometown.

Stories by Hilary Hughes

Music
South By Southwest Fatal Crash
SXSW 2014: tragedy overshadows good music, and comes as little surprise
Music
Hilary Hughes

Saturday evening around 4pm is always the bleakest: it’s when 6th Street takes on the air of a state fair that’s about to pack up for the season, where the sidewalks are littered with chewed-off and torn wristbands and the barrage of riffs from competing sound checks get to be too much. The adrenaline of South By Southwest has all but expired on that dirty stretch of Austin’s pavement at that point, and it’s like the bands that flooded those few square blocks, the ones that proved, once again, that this is the place where the best up-and-coming talent comes to try their luck with a new audience and succeed, are little more than a faint memory. More

BDCWire
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An unconventionally successful SXSW for ‘Local Losers’ Mean Creek
BDCWire
Hilary Hughes

Most bands at South By Southwest have something to prove, blitzing through three twenty-minute sets a day, in between breakfast tacos, in order to get their music into the ears of a bunch of people who’d never heard of them before. Others park the band van somewhere south of the river, get plastered on Shiner Bock and try not to wind up in a headlock from the burly ex-biker bouncer at the Parish or Swan Dive so that they can watch their former touring buddies smash their guitars to pieces. More

Movies
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What I learned from attempting (and failing) the Oscar Blitz
Movies
Hilary Hughes

The plan, at first, was simple: watch six Best Picture nominees in theaters over the course of 48 hours. Start with “American Hustle”; grab some tissues; don’t overdo it on the Junior Mints. Little did I know that an Oscar blitz would restore my appreciation and enthusiasm for film completely—and that there was no way in hell I’d make it through such a challenge without my emotional bandwidth getting ripped to shreds. More

BDCWire
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Hey Boston, will you be Eli ‘Paperboy’ Reed’s Valentine?
BDCWire
Hilary Hughes

When most Boston kids come home for a visit and it’s been awhile, chances are they’ll hit some hometown haunts — say, Anna’s Taqueria — and catch up with friends from high school. Eli “Paperboy” Reed is no exception, though his schedule will be a bit more intense when he returns to Boston this weekend. The boy from Brookline will likely stop into Anna’s for a burrito if he’s got the time (he was there when the location in Coolidge Corner opened, after all) and he’ll see some friends from high school. The thing is, he’ll be performing alongside his friends from high school — namely, Ruby Rose Fox — in front of a packed house at The Sinclair, a venue that wasn’t standing the last time he was home. He’ll be headlining a Valentine’s Day dance instead of going to one. He’ll be the one singing the songs that everyone else in the room is singing along to. More

Local Music
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David Wax Museum returns home from tour with extra cargo
Local Music
Hilary Hughes

Just after the close of its final tour of 2013, the David Wax Museum welcomed a new member — or, technically, the newest addition joined the band before she made her official debut. Suz Slezak, the fiddle and donkey jawbone-playing half of the duo, toured with the neo-folk Mexo-Americana act up until three weeks before she gave birth to her first child, Calliope Ruth, in early November. Life didn’t change all too much for the folk musician during her pregnancy; she’s been living a nomadic existence alongside her bandmates as the they’ve been touring full-time since fall 2009, more or less, so it’s hardly surprising that a burgeoning belly failed to keep her, David Wax, and the rest of the crew from the tour dates they had scheduled across the country. The baby’s a natural so far at this whole band life thing — she didn’t make a peep when it was time for them to get together to rehearse for their year-end hometown show at The Sinclair on Saturday — and that’s only a slight surprise to Slezak. More

Music
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Lake Street Dive left Boston, but we still love the band
Music
Hilary Hughes

It’s been nearly a decade since the members of Lake Street Dive met at the New England Conservatory and started a “free country” band to fuse the bluegrass, jazz, and pop sounds they adore into a sonic blend all their own. Since then, they’ve scored a record deal with Signature Sounds — which gives them the bragging rights of sharing a label with Josh Ritter and Joy Kills Sorrow, with whom they used to share a bassist — and they left Boston for Brooklyn, though they are returning Friday for a set at The Sinclair. More

Music
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Go old school: Mix tapes make the best gifts for music fans
Music
Hilary Hughes

The cassette is making a comeback, as confusing as that may seem to some, and I’m welcoming it with open arms because I miss mix tapes like hell. Not mixes, not CDs, not iTunes playlists pieced together and handed to you without ceremony on a thumb drive — mix tapes, the ones your significant other sat by a boombox to record straight from the radio or the well-worn ones with nail polish-painted cases that you shared between best friends. More

Local Music
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Joy Kills Sorrow gets louder but keeps bluegrass alive
Local Music
Hilary Hughes

Wednesday’s show with Steep Canyon Rangers at the Sinclair will be Joy Kills Sorrow’s final public performance of 2013, and its return to a hometown stage comes at the close at one of the most prolific years the band’s seen to date. Since 2006, the members of Joy Kills Sorrow — currently, Emma Beaton, Wes Corbett, Matt Arcara, Jacob Jolliff, and Zoe Guigueno — have honed their bluegrass chops on traditional instruments, perfecting their banjo picking, or mandolin strumming, or Nashville jukebox-ready pipes with approachable love songs and confident, clear explorations in folk. More