UNCUT: Harps & Angels provokes approximately equal parts gratitude that Newman got around to it, and vexation that he doesn’t do this sort of thing more often. Exactly 40 years since his eponymous solo debut, it’s both awesome and faintly depressing how few compete in his league. Harps & Angels consists of just 10 tracks, and has a running time that falls just short of 35 minutes, yet freights multitudes, musically and lyrically. That opening line introduces the title track, a gradually building, slowly sumptuous, New Orleans-flavoured jazz shimmy. Over this, Newman unspools the tale of a man sucking what […]
GIRL GERMS: Letter From Rock Camp
[Photos by BROOKE BOCAST] Thursday August 7, 2008 DEAR PHAWKER, Today was really good. My band, Electric Bliss, made a lot of progress in our song. Today the instructors and counselors performed another skit during assembly. This one was great. It was about cleaning up your band practice room and taking care of your gear. They first acted out the skit by leaving the lights on in the room and throwing their quarter-inch cables on the ground and tangling then up. So in response to the skit one of the band coaches Elaine taught us how to warp our cables […]
LOVE CHILD BLUES: John Edwards Cops To Affair
ABC NEWS: John Edwards repeatedly lied during his Presidential campaign about an extramarital affair with a novice filmmaker, the former Senator admitted to ABC. In an interview for broadcast tonight on Nightline, Edwards told ABC News correspondent Bob Woodruff he did have an affair with 44-year old Rielle Hunter, but said that he did not love her. Edwards also denied he was the father of Hunter’s baby girl, Frances Quinn, although the one-time Democratic Presidential candidate said he has not taken a paternity test. Edwards said he knew he was not the father based on timing of the baby’s birth […]
WORTH REPEATING: Fine Print
BY DOUG WALLEN In Dr. Dog’s Kensington studio hangs the painted and stitched fabric piece that became the cover of Fate. The guys saw it behind the bar at Chicago’s Rainbow Room, where artist Ken Ellis tends bar. The piece—which depicts a woman holding a man at bay with a shotgun in front of a dead tree—watches over them eerily. I ask Miller how Fate differs from previous albums. “It’s partially, I think, in the fidelity,” he says. “We didn’t have to compromise in the mixing process. We All Belong had more arrangements and was on a grander scale, but […]
CINEMA: Send Lawyers, Guns And Money
PINEAPPLE EXPRESS (2008, directed by David Gordon Green, 111 minutes, U.S.) BY DAN BUSKIRK, FILM CRITIC The Judd Apatow Comedy Machine is turning out yucks at such a dizzying pace I’m beginning to anticipate it sharpening to a fine tune and creating a universally-acknowledged instant classic — although I am not holding my breath. The Apatow brand may well have hidden ambitions to greatness but it seems almost unfair to expect it from their latest summer blockbuster, the stoner comedy Pineapple Express, wherein Seth Rogen’s lumpy-gravy likability teams up with James Franco’s loose-limbed, drug-addled slapstick sidekick for a shoot-em-up car-chase […]
NOT SAFE AT ANY SPEED: Why Some People Do Better Behind Bars Than They Do On The Outside
INQUIRER: A speeding car careered careened off Kelly Drive and plunged into the Schuylkill River at the height of the rush hour this morning as rowers and runners looked on in horror. The car, a 2000 Buick LeSabre [NOT pictured, left], sailed nearly 30 feet from the embankment before plummeting into the waters. “It was just like a Charles Bronson movie,” said Bill Ban, a rower who was finishing up his morning routine at 8 a.m. just north of Boathouse Row. “I heard squealing tires, then boom! Saw the car flying off into the river,” Ban said. “It was very […]
MEDIA: Inky Puts Brakes On The Internets
BUZZ MACHINE: What the hell are they thinking in Philadelphia? Inquirer ME Mike Leary just sent a memo saying they are going to hold all but breaking news for the paper and even restrict bloggers from using their blogs to work on stories in progress. Let me make this very clear to Inquirer ownership and management: You are killing the paper. You might as well just burn the place down. You’re setting a match to it. This is insane. Even the slowest, most curmudgeonly, most backward in your dying, suffering industry would not be this stupid anymore. They know that […]
NOBODY LOVES RAYMOND: Armed & Angry Loner Held By Secret Service After Obama Death Threats
ABC NEWS: A man who authorities said was keeping weapons and military-style gear in his hotel room and car appeared in court Thursday on charges he threatened to assassinate Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama. Raymond Hunter Geisel, 22, [PICTURED, RIGHT] was arrested by the Secret Service on Saturday in Miami and was ordered held at Miami’s downtown detention center without bail Thursday by a federal magistrate. A Secret Service affidavit charges thatGeisel made the threat during a training class for bail bondsmen in Miami in late July. According to someone else in the 48-member class, Geisel allegedly referred to Obama […]
GIRL GERMS: Letter From Rock Camp
Editor’s Note: This week, on the campus of Girard College, Girls Rock Philly! is holding their summer Rock Camp for girls ages 9-17. The campers get their choice of concentrations in guitar, bass, drums, vocals, keyboard and DJ’ing. Our beloved neophyte rock diva, 14-year-old Jenn W. (Roxborough represent!), is on the scene and will be sending us dispatches from Rock Camp all week. Wednesday, Aug. 6 DEAR PHAWKER, Ahhh . . . another rockin’ day a Girls Rock Philly. Wednesday, hump day of the week, was sure a busy one. Nevertheless, a very crucial part of the week. It was […]
GAYDAR EXTRA: How Gay Is Mr. Gay Philadelphia?
Well, I for one plan to find out at the second annual Mr. Gay Philadelphia contest tomorrow night! Guest celebrities Michael Musto, Frank DeCaro, Jack Mackenroth, and Bruce Hayes will be judging the man candy at Gershman Hall’s Levit Auditorium in Center City (401 S. Broad Street). Mr. Gay was a big hit last year, and its sponsor (nightlifegay.com, if you must know) expect Mr. Gay 2008 to be bigger and better and GAYER than ever. A portion of the proceeds from the contest and silent auction will be given to one of the city’s most outstanding charitable organizations, Action […]
LOVE CHILD BLUES: Dems Give Edwards An Ultimatum — Clean Up Mess Or No Convention Speech
MCCLATCHY: RALEIGH, N.C. — Former Sen. John Edwards has a deadline to save his spot on the national stage. With two weeks to go before their national convention, a number of Democrats are saying that Edwards needs to publicly address National Enquirer stories that have alleged he had an affair with a campaign worker and fathered her baby. If Edwards fails to clear up the story in short order, he risks party officials deciding not to have him speak or, if they do, creating a distraction from a week focused on Barack Obama accepting the nomination. “If there is not […]
MAILBAG: Mother Still Knows Best
EDITOR’S NOTE: The following letter is in response to this week’s episode of GAYDAR. DEAR AARON Very well-written! As all the great writers suggest, “Write what you know.” Well, you did! Let me tell you a little story my mother used to tell me… There was a young man who went off to work in the Peace Corps in the African jungle. He was there 2 years and finally would get to come home to his family on their farm in the mid-West. In anticipation of this, he wrote his parents telling them that he was bringing home with him […]