Hall & Oates

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"There was a time in Long Island's cultural history when the whole world looked here for the next big trend in rock 'n' roll." (Image by Malco23.)

In this classic photograph, the Siouxsie and the Banshees frontwoman performs at the legendary Long Island rock club, My Father’s Place. The Roslyn-based live-music venue was once a leading stage for unknown rock artists, from Bruce Springsteen to Meat Loaf to Hall & Oates. It closed its doors in 1987. From a 2000 New York Times piece recalling the cabaret:

“THERE was a time in Long Island’s cultural history when the whole world looked here for the next big trend in rock ‘n’ roll. That was between 1974 and 1980, the heyday of My Father’s Place, a cabaret in Roslyn.

And Michael Epstein, known as Eppy, ran the whole shebang.

Along with My Father’s Place, which opened on Memorial Day in 1971 with a concert by Richie Havens, a confluence of entities created a scene that would influence music for decades to come.

Dance-oriented rock ‘n’ roll, punk, singer-songwriters and New Wave music had become the rage — and it was essential for musicians to come here to perform. My Father’s Place, WLIR-FM and the dance club Malibu in Long Beach were at the center of popular music.

Today, 13 years after My Father’s Place closed, Mr. Epstein still longs for the club. ‘Once it’s in your blood, you never lose that feeling,’ he said.”

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Talking Heads at My Father’s Place on May 10, 1978:

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You make even Hall & Oates sound good.

A girl too wary of commitment meets a boy too given to believing that true love conquers all in Marc Webb’s bittersweet Los Angeles-set 2009 romantic comedy (500) Days of Summer.

Zooey Deschanel and Joseph Gordon-Levitt, young royalty of indie cinema, play the couple in question, who meet while working for a greeting card company. The buoyant film shifts back-and-forth to different moments of their tortured 500-day relationship. Deschanel is Summer, wry to the core and phobic about being someone’s girlfriend. Gordon-Levitt is Tom, a lapsed architecture student too in love with Summer to see dark clouds gathering. Because their relationship is presented non-chronologically, a scene  in which they watch The Graduate together doesn’t deliver its full emotional impact until later on. That passage feels as mysterious and painful as falling out of love.

The inventive script from Scott Neustadter and Michael H. Weber is too busy and restless for its own good at times, but it is full of personality and warmth. For every voiceover or quirky touch that isn’t necessary, there are impromptu joyous scenes, like the dance sequence to a Hall & Oates tune that works wonderfully. The film may not make your dreams come true, but it feels true.

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