Released in September 1991, Nirvana’s sophomore album and major label debut elevated Kurt Cobain, Krist Novoselic and Dave Grohl from a critically acclaimed Aberdeen, Washington cult band to generational spokesmen who’d unwittingly created a cultural shift and musical touchstone. Rising to #1 the world over by year’s end and ultimately selling over 30 million copies worldwide, Nevermind would come to be much more than one of the most successful and influential albums of its or any era: As the album that returned unaffected rock n roll integrity and passion to the top of the charts, Nevermind would prove a singular inspiration to fans and […]
JUST WONDERING: Where Were The Fiscal Watchdogs Of The Tea Party From 2000-2008?
[SOURCE: New York Times] EZRA KLEIN: What’s also important, but not evident, on this chart is that Obama’s major expenses were temporary — the stimulus is over now — while Bush’s were, effectively, recurring. The Bush tax cuts didn’t just lower revenue for 10 years. It’s clear now that they lowered it indefinitely, which means this chart is understating their true cost. Similarly, the Medicare drug benefit is costing money on perpetuity, not just for two or three years. And Boehner, Ryan and others voted for these laws and, in some cases, helped to craft and pass them. MORE
LISTEN LIKE THIEVES: Free Fleet Foxes Downloads
MP3: “Grown Ocean” MP3: “Helplessness Blues” RELATED: 09/24/11 Sat – Brooklyn NY @ Williamsburg Waterfront PREVIOUSLY: The hirsute Seattle six-piece is largely acoustic and traffics in autumnal ’60s folk-rock and sun-dappled three-part harmonies that can be deadly in the wrong hands; Saturday they managed to stay on the right side of preciousness. The current incarnation – lead singer-songwriter Robin Pecknold, bassist/backing vocalist Christian Wargo, guitarist/drummer/backing vocalist Joshua Tillman, mandolinist Skyler Skjelset, keyboardist Casey Wescott, multi-instrumentalist Morgan Henderson – proved remarkably precise and versatile, adept at replicating the arrangements’ ethereal sonics and whisper-to-a-scream dynamics. And those immaculate, sunbeam harmonies – part […]
FOLLOW THE MONEY: Mitt Romney Sucks Koch
ROLL CALL: Patton Boggs, D.C.’s largest lobbying firm, and a lobbyist for Koch Industries are playing host today to a luncheon fundraiser for GOP presidential contender Mitt Romney. The firm’s Trent Lott and Ben Ginsberg, who served as national counsel to the Bush-Cheney presidential campaign, are among the K Street power players who are hosting the $1,000-a-person event. Ginsberg referred comment about the event to the Romney campaign, which did not respond to an inquiry by press time. Other lobbyists on the host committee include Andrew Siff of Siff & Associates, whose clients include Koch Companies Public Sector LLC, the […]
You Only Get Out Of Democracy What You Put Into It
ETHICAL PHILLY: As the flyer describes, this will be the 1st time ever that non-political members of the Federal, State, and Local watchdog agencies will be on a panel explaining how public corruption is investigated, by whom, and how it is best reported. Then they will take questions from the audience. Just look at the three panelists: Harvey Rice, who was the state Safe Schools Advocate (until it was nixed by the budget) – who is now Deputy City Controller (auditing the missing money at the Sheriff’s Office and School District, etc.), Pat Blessington, a former municipal prosecutor who led the […]
HOORAY FOR US: Phawker, We Make Stars!
Congrats to Phawker alum Tiffany Yoon for getting her photos of Northern Liberties published the New York Times’ T Magazine. Above is one of our favorite Tiffany Yoon shots, taken when Phawker was invited to cover an Air Force One touch down. Phawker, turning intern talent into working pros since 2006. Apply within. Who knows, you might even get to meet the President Of The United States of America.
ABOUT LAST NIGHT: Obama Locates His Inner F.D.R.
POTUS: The only reason this balanced approach isn’t on its way to becoming law right now is because a significant number of Republicans in Congress are insisting on a different approach — a cuts-only approach -– an approach that doesn’t ask the wealthiest Americans or biggest corporations to contribute anything at all. And because nothing is asked of those at the top of the income scale, such an approach would close the deficit only with more severe cuts to programs we all care about –- cuts that place a greater burden on working families. So the debate right now isn’t […]
ATF Anti-Gun Trafficking Sting Operation Gone Wrong Winds Up Arming Mexican Drug Cartel To The Teeth
FOX: The failed federal anti-gunrunning program known as Operation Fast and Furious got so out of control in November 2009, it appeared the U.S. government was single-handedly “arming for war” the Sinaloa Cartel, documents show, even as ATF officials here kept lying to fellow agents in Mexico about the volume of guns it helped send south of the border. Those shocking allegations are revealed in the latest congressional report investigating the operation. At one point, agents say guns sold under the watch of the program took just 24 hours to travel from a gun store in Phoenix to a crime […]
DIARY OF A MADMAN: Watering The Flowers Of Evil
CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR: The Norwegian terrorist Anders Behring Breivik writes in a manifesto that he acquired some 8,000 e-mail addresses of “cultural conservatives” not just across Europe but North America, Australia, South Africa, Armenia, Israel, and India – ensuring scrutiny of anti-Muslim groups far beyond Europe. Mr. Breivik’s primary goal is to remove Muslims from Europe. But his manifesto invites the possibility for cooperation with Jewish groups in Israel, Buddhists in China, and Hindu nationalist groups in India to contain Islam. “It is essential that the European and Indian resistance movements learn from each other and cooperate as much as […]
CONCERT REVIEW: WXPN’s XPoNential Festival
[Photos by MEREDITH KLEIBER] BY MEREDITH KLEIBER Yes, the heat was nearly unbearable. Yes, we were all sweating until Rorshach patterns formed on our clothes. But the 2011 XPoNential Music Festival was more than worth it. Having hosted music festivals for the past eighteen years, WXPN has certainly honed their ability to please their festival-goers. There were misting stations posted around the park so that their event didn’t end up like the Warped Tour’s Camden stop. If your preferred cool-down method was in the form of an ice-cold beer, there was plenty of reasonably priced local Flying Fish to go around. […]
HEATASTROPHE:Common Sense Is The First Casualty
INQUIRER: Police say a Southwest Philadelphia man found one way to beat the heat over the weekend – he stole his next-door neighbor’s air conditioner. […] Police could not say what the temperature was in the district holding cell where Kershaw and his accomplice, Roy Nelson, 50, spent the night, both charged with burglary for the attempted air conditioner heist. MORE RELATED: The longest and most-intense heat wave of the season has claimed at least six lives in Philadelphia, the Health Department said this morning. The bodies of four men and two women were found Saturday, and their deaths were […]
PLUTOCRACY NOW: A Vast Right Wing Conspiracy
FRESH AIR: Republican legislators picked up 680 seats in state House and Senate chambers in the 2010 elections. “They now hold more state legislative seats than at any time since 1928, the year that Herbert Hoover came to the presidency,” says reporter John Nichols. “They control 25 states [with] both houses of the legislature. There are also 21 states where Republicans control both houses of the legislature and the governorship. And in the backroom of politics, that’s what people really want. If you’ve got governor, state House and state Senate, you can pretty much roll through whatever legislation you want.” […]
Amy Winehouse, Lady Who Sang The Blues, Dead At 27
NEW YORK TIMES: With a husky, tart voice and a style that drew equally from the sounds of Motown and the stark storytelling of rap, Ms. Winehouse became one of the most acclaimed young singers of the past decade, selling millions of albums, winning five Grammy Awards and starting a British retro-R&B trend that continues today. Yet, almost from the moment she arrived on the international pop scene in early 2007, Ms. Winehouse appeared to flirt with self-destruction. She sang of an alcohol-soaked demimonde in songs like “Rehab” — whose refrain, “They tried to make me go to rehab/I said, […]