ROLLING STONE: Lou Reed, a massively influential songwriter and guitarist who helped shape nearly fifty years of rock music, died today. The cause of his death has not yet been released, but Reed underwent a liver transplant in May. With the Velvet Underground in the late Sixties, Reed fused street-level urgency with elements of European avant-garde music, marrying beauty and noise, while bringing a whole new lyrical honesty to rock & roll poetry. As a restlessly inventive solo artist, from the Seventies into the 2010s, he was chameleonic, thorny and unpredictable, challenging his fans at every turn. Glam, punk […]
BEING THERE: Of Montreal @ Union Transfer
Photo by MARY LYNN DOMINGUEZ Although Of Montreal’s new album Lousy With Sylvianbriar finds the Elephant 6 graduates getting back to basics — which is to be expected of any group after 17 years and 11 albums of sonic exploration — last night’s show at Union Transfer was anything but predictable. After taking the stage, frontman Kevin Barnes politely greeted his adoring audience with a raise of his hand. He wore an unsurprisingly flamboyant outfit that consisted of a loud, tailored two-piece suit covered in a pattern of yellow leopard and green tiger faces, as well as black leather boots. […]
CINEMA: There Will Be Blood
THE COUNSELOR (2013, directed by Ridley Scott, 117 minutes, U.S.) CARRIE (2013, directed by Kimberly Peirce, 100 minutes, U.S.) BY DAN BUSKIRK FILM CRITIC Pulitzer Prize-winning author Cormac McCarthy has written his first script specifically for the big screen and it’s a corker of a film noir, generically titled, The Counselor. With a star-strewn cast including Michael Fassbender, Javier Bardem, Brad Pitt and Penelope Cruz, you’d expect this film to be heavily promoted, but instead The Counselor is slinking into town without press screenings like the venomous little scorpion that it is. All the elements of the classic film […]
The Rally To End Mass Surveillance Of Americans
STOPWATCHING.US: The NSA is spying on everyone’s personal communications. It’s operating without any meaningful oversight.On October 26th, the 12th anniversary of the signing of the USA Patriot Act, we’re holding the largest rally yet against NSA surveillance. We’ll be handing more than a half-million petitions to Congress to remind them that they work for us — and we won’t tolerate mass surveillance any longer. A stellar group of whistleblowers, activists, researchers and others from both sides of the political spectrum will be speaking at this historic event. The list includes: Congressman Justin Amash Former senior NSA executive and whistleblower […]
MIDLAKE: Antiphon
ALL MUSIC GUIDE: The lo-fi rock quintet Midlake were formed in Denton, Texas, in 2000 by a group of musicians who had attended the North Texas School of Music together: Paul Alexander (bass, keyboards), Eric Nichelson (keyboards, guitar), Eric Pulido (guitar, keyboards, background vocals), Tim Smith (vocals, keyboards, guitar), and Mckenzie Smith (drums). They issued their own EP, Milkmaid Grand Army, in 2001, and sold 1,000 copies at their Texas gigs. They attracted the attention of Simon Raymonde, who signed them to his Bella Union label in the U.K., leading to European concerts and the recording of their first […]
CINEMA: Being Harry Dean Stanton
FILM WORKS: This beautiful and meditative Swiss documentary by Sophie Huber is an arty, non-chronological look at the work and philosophy of one of Hollywood’s greatest living actors (and enigmas) Harry Dean Stanton. Don’t expect to hear much else in the way of concrete biographical facts, as the star in question is pointedly vague about his background. When asked questions about what he believes or who he is, he responds humbly: “Nothing”. But as his personal assistant points out, this couldn’t be further from the truth. Having starred in over 250 films, Harry Dean is one of the hardest […]
CINEMA: America’s Original Sin
FRESH AIR: “We love being the country that freed the slaves,” says historian David Blight. But “we’re not so fond of being the country that had the biggest slave system on the planet…most Americans want their history to be essentially progressive and triumphal, they want it to be a pleasing story. And if you go back to this story, it’s not always going to please you, but it’s a story you have to work through to find your way to something more redemptive.” That’s why Blight was glad to see the new film 12 Years a Slave, an adaptation […]
RUSSELL BRAND: “There’s going to be a revolution”
Russell Brand speaks truth to power — or one of its lackeys, anyway — and in the space of 10 minutes makes a more substantive, cogent and, most importantly, meaningful political statement than you would find in 10 years of Fox News, MSNBC, and CNN combined. The revolution — let’s face it, it’s just a matter of time.
RAWK TAWK: Q&A w/ Of Montreal’s Kevin Barnes
BY ALEXANDER BISIGNARO The only constant with the kaleidoscopic indie-pop band Of Montreal — over the course 17 years, 12 albums, nine EPs and innumerable personnel shifts — is change. In its nearly two decades-long evolution from twee psych-pop as second-wave members of the independent Elephant 6 recording collective to its current status as the definitive, post-everything party band for barely 20-somethings, Of Montreal’s mantra has remained the same: Change or die. You can almost chart the changes with a Venn diagram: British invasion bleeds into Beatle-esque psychedelia which bleeds into Bowie glam which bleeds into Prince-style funk. The […]
DELIVER US FROM EVIL: DA Drops Charges Against Child-Raping Priest After Accuser Dies; Calls For Other Victims To Come Forward
NBC10: Prosecutors dropped sex abuse charges against a Philadelphia priest on Wednesday, one week after his accuser died of a drug overdose. Sean McIlmail, a former alter boy under Fr. Robert Brennan, came forward in January with allegations that the priest sexually abused him 15 years ago. McIlmail was found dead last week at age 26.”Sean suffered in silence for over a decade,” Philadelphia District Attorney Seth Williams said on Wednesday. “Sean found his own way of self-medicating, which unfortunately led to his death.” The district attorney said he dropped rape and sexual assault charges levied against the 75-year-old […]
VEGGING: Your Guide To Vegedelphia
Essene Market and Café LOCATION: 719 South Fourth Street, Philadelphia, PA 19147 CUISINE: An abundant vegetarian buffet. MENU: The sight of Essene’s prodigious vegetarian buffet is enough to make any Vegadelphian do backflips. Looking over an entire line of soups, salads, entrees and sides with the opportunity to sample every single thing is extremely exciting for those of us that had written off the gluttonous pleasures of the buffet line when we became vegetarian. The first thing I dug into was the Kashmiri rice salad which started my overly indulgent meal off with a bang. Each delicate mouthful was […]
WORTH REPEATING: Total Information Awareness Will Be The Death Of American Democracy
THE BROOKINGS INSTITUTE: Within the next few years an important threshold will be crossed: For the first time ever, it will become technologically and financially feasible for authoritarian governments to record nearly everything that is said or done within their borders – every phone conversation, electronic message, social mediainteraction, the movements of nearly every person and vehicle, and video from every street corner. Governments with a history of using all of the tools at their disposal to track and monitor their citizens will undoubtedly make full use of this capability once it becomes available . The Arab Spring of […]
Win Tix To See Madeleine Peyroux @ The Merriam
Gawd, this just effing slays me every time — it’s like Billie Holiday covering Elliott Smith in a midnight cafe in Occupied Paris. She’s passing along key intel (unmasking a double agent or somesuch) to the operative from The Resistance (she knows it’s him because he’s wearing the agreed upon red scarf) seated at table six. But she has to sing it in code so the SS swine seated in the VIP section don’t catch on. Vive le resistance! By ‘she,’ we of course mean Madeleine Peyroux, everyone’s favorite smoky-cool Franco-Americano chanteuse from Athens, GA, by way of The City […]