Given that it’s where I got my start in journalism, it is with a heavy heart that I mock this hamfisted photoshop of a coffin stealing third base [pictured above] in today’s Morning Call, the paper of record in Allentown — my hometown. Not sure which is sadder, or more emblematic of just how bad things have gotten: That this ludicrous photoshop looks like the punchline to a question the Onion never bothered to ask or the fact that the Lehigh Valley IronPigs, the Fightins’ Triple-A affliate, are giving away a free funeral the way other ball clubs give […]

  BLACKPAST.ORG: In early March 1965 much of the nation’s attention was focused on civil rights marches in and around Selma, Alabama. Activists led by Dr. Martin Luther King used these demonstrations to urge the federal government to act to end the denial of voting rights to tens of thousands of African Americans in Alabama and across the South. When police violence resulted in the death of a demonstrator, Rev. James J. Reeb, a white Unitarian minister from Boston, President Lyndon Johnson in response provided federal protection for the marchers and proposed legislation that would become the Voting Rights Act. […]

  EDITOR’S NOTE: Amy Schumer is Terry’s guest on Fresh Air today. NEW YORK TIMES: Ms. Schumer has been darkly joking about sex since long before she had any. At 10 she was eating dinner with her 6-year-old sister when their mother went to the bathroom. She picked up a French fry and a stick of butter and told her sibling one was a penis and the other a vagina. She dipped and said, “Any questions?” When her sister, Kim Caramele — now a married clinical school psychologist in suburban Chicago — reminded her of this story at her Chelsea […]

  “And The Birds…” is the lead-off single from Light Heat’s seven-years-in-the-making(!) eponymous debut on Ribbon Music, which drops today. Light Heat is the new latest project of former Mazarin (look it up, kids) mainman Quentin Stoltzfus, who will perform at 7:30 tonight at AKA Music. You will smile. Resistance is futile. ALL MUSIC GUIDE: Quentin Stoltzfus goes under the nom-de-rock Mazarin, probably because it’s easier to pronounce than Stoltzfus. However, this disc is pronounced terrific. Stoltzfus is the drummer for Philly space cadets The Azusa Plane, but unlike that band’s astral aspirations, WATCH IT HAPPEN is pop of the […]

On the Skyline Stage, to boot. Tix go on sale 6/29 at 10 am.

  QUESTLOVE: During high school, whenever I invented band names, record titles, album art, I always put my group on Def Jam Recordings, because they had a mystique about them. They had signed only six acts, including Slick Rick, LL Cool J, and Public Enemy, and they stood pat on that original set. Breaking in at Def Jam was like climbing the mountain. And just like that, they were the first label to come calling. Russell Simmons and Lyor Cohen, who ran the label, paid for a Roots showcase in New York City. It was across the street from their […]

Mr. Lynch describes the inspiration behind “Star Dream Girl” as follows: “After I moved away from Boise, Idaho, I came back in the summer of ’61. Around that time, Jerry Lee Lewis was supposed to play at this big club in the Sagebrush Desert — I think it was called the Miramar. Back then, these big events would catch people’s imaginations. They would take their motorcycles or hot rods to these remote places to see some star. So we all drove out to this place, but Jerry never showed up and people were really pissed off. ‘Star Dream Girl’ has […]

Even better, they are playing the Skyline Stage. Tickets go on sale 6/28 @ 10 am.* PREVIOUSLY: Kinda like The Last Supper with ski masks and firecrackers, which is, curiously enough, how I always pictured it. Directed by Primo Khan with lotsa cameos from indie-rock luminaries. Won’t spoil the surprises. Oh, and Modern Vampires Of The City is to date ALBUM OF THE YEAR for those keeping track at home. I believe we pointed out that the first time we heard it reminded us of the feelings we got the first time we heard YANKEE HOTEL FOXTROT — that we […]

  Ronnie Wood, Rodin Museum, Philadelphia, 3:31 pm by JOHN SUVANNAVEJH

  R5: If we are going to talk about “out there” music, we can’t get much further out than legendary 70’s British space rock pioneers HAWKWIND. Most of our favorite bands have been borrowing heavily from Hawkwind (consciously or not) for years – heavy, droney, hypnotic and endless. Like the Stooges or the MC5 stretched and stretched until they become these epic riffscapes of wah wah guitars and thrumming low end drone, all stretched loosely over an unwavering motorik beat. Basically every stoner metal band/psych rock ensemble I have ever heard owe it all to the ‘wind, whether they know […]