FRESH AIR Robert Redford isn’t merely the star of the movie All Is Lost — he plays the only character. He plays a man stranded alone on a small yacht in the Indian Ocean, and New York Times film critic A.O. Scott says it’s “the performance of a lifetime.” We don’t know the man’s name, why he’s there, or anything about his background — but when disaster strikes, we learn that he’s resourceful and doesn’t succumb to panic. After a stray shipping container rams his vessel and leaves a gaping hole in the hull, he must make the boat […]

  Tickets are $58.50 and are on sale now! Tickets are available at Ticketmaster.com, Live Nation Box Office, Ticketmaster outlets or by-phone at 800-745-3000.

  This spring, TEDxPhiladelphia will officially return with a daylong multidisciplinary conference championing “ideas worth spreading.” We’ve been in hibernation for two years [yawn] but we’re thrilled to report that exciting happenings are on the horizon. On Friday, March 28, 2014, TEDxPhiladelphia will set up shop at Temple Performing Arts Center, bringing together engaging speakers, performers, exhibitors and participants to reflect on the 2014 theme “The New Workshop of the World.” The conference will echo Philadelphia’s past and present as a hub for entrepreneurs, manufacturers, developers, artists, DIY enthusiasts, and a dizzying array of thinkers, makers, and doers, while serving […]

ROCK SNOB ENCYCLOPEDIA: It has been said that the genre of power pop -– frail, white man-boys with cherry guitars reinvigorating the harmonic convergence of the Beatles, the Beach Boys and the Byrds with the caffeinated rush of youth –- is the revenge of the nerds. Big Star pretty much invented the form, which explains the worshipful altars erected to the band in the bedrooms of lonely, disenfranchised melody-makers from Los Angeles to London and points in between. Though they never came close to fame or fortune in their time, the band continues to hold a sacred place in the […]

  ROLLING STONE: The first thing you notice about Camden, New Jersey, is that pretty much everyone you talk to has just gotten his or her ass kicked. Instead of shaking hands, people here are always lifting hats, sleeves, pant legs and shirttails to show you wounds or scars, then pointing in the direction of where the bad thing just happened. “I been shot six times,” says Raymond, a self-described gangster I meet standing on a downtown corner. He pulls up his pant leg. “The last time I got shot was three years ago, twice in the femur.” He gives […]

And everyone’s invited.

From their forthcoming, as-yet untitled album due out late winter/early spring on vinyl. Having a song about Paul Rudd is like having puddin’ in the mix — it can only help.

  ROLLING STONE: Sarah – let’s call her that for this story, though it’s neither the name her parents gave her nor the one she currently uses undercover – is a tall, fair woman in her midtwenties who’s pretty in a stock, anonymous way, as if she’d purposely scrubbed her face and frame of distinguishing characteristics. Like anyone who’s spent much time working farms, she’s functionally built through the thighs and trunk, herding pregnant hogs who weigh triple what she does into chutes to birth their litters and hefting buckets of dead piglets down quarter-mile alleys to where they’re later […]

  FRESH AIR A batch of recently leaked to The Guardian has revealed new insights into the goals and finances of the secretive group called ALEC. The American Legislative Exchange Council is a group that brings together state legislators and representatives of corporations. Together, they develop model bills that lawmakers introduce and try to pass in their state legislatures. Through these model bills, ALEC has worked to privatize public education, cut taxes, reduce public employee compensation, oppose Obamacare and resist state regulations to reduce global warming gas emissions. “ALEC is like an incubator of predominantly conservative legislation,” Guardian correspondent Ed […]

THE GUARDIAN: Jonathan Wilson’s fabulous recent album, Fanfare, featured the cream of the California music scene, including Jackson Browne and two-thirds of Crosby, Stills and Nash. None of these heavyweights has made it to this former working men’s club in Leeds, but the singer-songwriter has certainly brought the west coast vibe. The crystal-clear sound is perhaps what Fleetwood Mac were striving for when they spent years in multitrack studios in the 1970s. Wilson – all beard and windswept anguish – could hardly look more like his Beach Boy namesake, Dennis, if he strolled in with sand in his facial hair. […]

  THE NEW YORKER: Reggie Walton, the FISA judge overseeing the [NSA’s warrantless spying on Aericans] at that time, wrote, in an opinion on January 28th, that he was “exceptionally concerned” that the N.S.A. had been operating the program in “flagrant violation” of the court’s orders and “directly contrary” to the N.S.A.’s own “sworn attestations.” Walton was considering rescinding the N.S.A.’s authority to run the program, and was contemplating bringing contempt charges against officials who misled the court or perhaps referring the matter to “appropriate investigative offices.” He gave Olsen three weeks to explain why the court shouldn’t just shut […]

  On Tuesday, December 10, Dr. Dog will release a collection of four delightfully weird and heartfelt original Christmas songs. The EP is entitled Oh My Christmas Tree and was initially intended as a gift to the band’s family and friends. Fortunately for the rest of us, the group has decided to make the songs public.  As Dr. Dog’s Scott McMicken explains “Last year, in 2012, I wrote these songs and recorded them in two different kitchens over the course of the two weeks leading up to christmas. I made them with the intent to mail them to some of […]