The new self-titled Bon Iver album is out today. Bon Iver plays the Tower Theater August 3rd. RELATED: Even by Kanye West standards, the Bowery Ballroom show last November was a spectacle. West had chosen the tiny club for a surprise concert, celebrating the release of “My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy,” and it didn’t take long for the scrum outside to get ugly. Having tickets, which went on sale that day and sold out instantly, didn’t guarantee entry. The line stretched around the corner, and for most people, that’s as far as they got. Even those who made it inside […]
WORTH REPEATING: The Right Wing Vs. Reality
TIME: Conservatives now espouse ideas drawn from abstract principles with little regard to the realities of America’s present or past. This is a tragedy, because conservatism has an important role to play in modernizing the U.S. Consider the debates over the economy. The Republican prescription is to cut taxes and slash government spending — then things will bounce back. Now, I would like to see lower rates in the context of tax simplification and reform, but what is the evidence that tax cuts are the best path to revive the U.S. economy? Taxes — federal and state combined — as […]
WORTH REPEATING: Obama Justice Department Making John Ashcroft Look Like Ben Franklin
NEW YORK TIMES: The Obama administration has long been bumbling along in the footsteps of its predecessor when it comes to sacrificing Americans’ basic rights and liberties under the false flag of fighting terrorism. Now the Obama team seems ready to lurch even farther down that dismal road than George W. Bush did. Instead of tightening the relaxed rules for F.B.I. investigations — not just of terrorism suspects but of pretty much anyone — that were put in place in the Bush years, President Obama’s Justice Department is getting ready to push the proper bounds of privacy even further. Attorney […]
WORTH REPEATING: Mayor Sputter
MONICA YANT KINNEY: And so he boldly revived the soda tax. He hoped to raise $80 million for the School District, no matter what it cost him politically. After Ackerman found a way to save full-day kindergarten, he nonetheless remained resolute. (His backup plan for the soda tax, an additional 10 percent property-tax hike, was equally unappetizing.) […] Concern didn’t begin to describe the mood in Council Thursday, where rivals Bill Green and Jim Kenney repeatedly agreed on how much they disagreed with the mayor’s requests. After hours of arm-twisting and team-switching, it was Nutter who emerged most bruised. He […]
SIDEWALKING: Twilight’s Last Gleaming
Somehwere along Route 11, Upstate New York 3:46 PM by JEFF FUSCO TANGENTIALLY RELATED: Most bands have a shelf life of ten years tops — five in obscurity trying to get your attention, and another five trying desperately not to squander it. By then, the ultimatums of long-suffering significant others, accruing debt, mounting substance abuse issues and internecine in-the-van squabbling conspire to break the back of even the strongest rock steeds. Bands like Grandaddy are in a war of attrition with the Fame Machine, and invariably the Machine wins — not least of all because it does not have to […]
RIP: Ryan Dunn, Human Cannonball, Dead At 34
TMZ: “Jackass” star Ryan Dunn was the driver in this morning’s fatal crash … this according to cops who also say Dunn’s car was “fully engulfed in flames” when officials arrived to the scene. The West Goshen Township Police Department says officers found Dunn’s 2007 Porsche 911 GT3 “off the road and in the woods.” Both Dunn and his passenger “died as a result of injuries sustained in the accident.” Cops will release more information on the passenger once officials can positively identify the body. Cops say “speed may have been a contributing factor to the accident.” MORE RELATED: On […]
JUST ANNOUNCED: My Morning Jacket At The Mann
August 23rd with Neko Case. Tickets go on sale Friday at 10 AM at Ticketmaster.com, 800.745.3000, AEGLive.com, MannCenter.org, TicketPhiladelphia.org, 215-893-1999 or The Mann box office. * NEKO CASE — Middle Cyclone A tomboyish siren with a thick red mane and lungs of fine Corinthian leather, Neko Case is equal parts gender warrior and indie aesthete, a potent hybrid aptly evoked by the Joan-of-Arc-on-a-muscle-car tableau on the cover of Middle Cyclone. Case is also in possession of what is arguably the greatest voice of her generation — clarion in tone; trans-national in its reach; and bottomless in its capacity to transmute […]
DOPES TO INFINITY: New Jersey Lawmakers To Vote On Decriminalization Of Minor Marijuana Possession
FREEDOMISGREEN: NJ Assemblyman Reed Gusciora is expected to introduce a bill this week to decriminalize the possession of up to 14 grams of marijuana by adults. A look at the Uniform Crime Report from the NJ State Police reveals some striking statistics for marijuana arrests. The 2009 report contains the most recent published data available, although preliminary data on 2010 points to an increase for cannabis violations in the region. In 2009 the Garden State arrested 26, 254 people for marijuana. Eight-five percent of the arrests (22, 439) were for possession of less than 50 grams. Currently, adults caught with anything from a […]
THIS JUST IN: Bob Dylan At The Mann Aug. 17th
On sale Saturday. Tickets available at Ticketmaster.com, 800.745.3000, AEGLive.com, MannCenter.org, TicketPhiladelphia.org, 215-893-1999 or The Mann box office. ROLLING STONE: In newly released audio from a March 1966 interview, Bob Dylan claims he kicked a heroin habit after moving to New York City. “I got very, very strung out for a while,” he says in excerpts released by the BBC. “I kicked the habit. I had a $25 a day habit and I kicked it.” He was speaking to New York Times writer Robert Shelton on a plane from Lincoln, Nebraska to Denver while on his legendary 1966 electric tour. This […]
SIDEWALKING: Miss Thang
Silk City, 1:09 AM last night by JONATHAN VALANIA
TONITE: The Gold Heart Mountaintop Queen Directory
Employing the same Buckeye ingenuity that keeps the Goodyear blimp afloat, Robert Pollard can polish a turd with Budweiser until it shines with 24-carat radiance, transmuting a tossed-off, six-pack idea into a classic rock artifact or at the very least a beguiling no-fi curio. As captain of the drunken boat that is Guided By Voices, Pollard built a cottage industry by churning out cheap, miniature melodic masterpieces with all the fidelity of a ham radio broadcast. He does it with volume — by which I mean quantity not loudness. As such, the discography remains daunting if only for its sheer […]
Usually Hilarious Taiwanese News Animators Now Calling Philly ‘Crappiest Place To Live’ On Earth
This from people who’ve been known to eat cats and dogs? RELATED: Eating dog meat is a long-standing culinary tradition not just in China, but also Korea. Cat meat can be found on the menu in China, Vietnam and even parts of South America. MORE
CINEMA: The Man Who Kicked The Hornet’s Nest
[Illustration by NOMA BAR] BY ALEXANDER POTTER In America in the late 1960s and early 1970s, real life was truly more shocking — and infinitely more sleazy — than fiction. The resignation of a disgraced president was still fresh in citizens’ minds, and the stench of corruption permeated the walls of every bureaucratic institution in the nation. Likewise, the Big Apple was rotting from the inside out: Garbage collectors went on strike, leaving fetid mountains of refuse to pile up on the city’s streets; the murder rate was skyrocketing to an all-time high; and to add insult to injury, president […]