CONTEST: Win Tix To See Devotchka @ The Troc

  DeVotchKa is a four-piece multi-instrumental and vocal ensemble that specializes in widescreen sepia-toned orchestral maneuvers in the dark. They take their name from the Russian word devochka (???????), meaning “girl”. Based in Denver, Colorado, the quartet is made up of Nick Urata, who sings and plays theremin, guitar, bouzouki, piano, and trumpet; Tom Hagerman, who plays violin, accordion, and piano; Jeanie Schroder, who sings and plays sousaphone, double bass, and flute; and Shawn King, who plays percussion and trumpet. Originally a backing band for burlesque shows, in their early years DeVotchKa also toured with burlesque performer and model Dita […]

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EARLY WORD: Get Your Ziggy On

  “The first time I heard Ziggy Stardust, I was in a record shop, and it came on, and I had to be somewhere, but I couldn’t leave without hearing the next song, and the next. Now whenever I hear that record, I get that same feeling. It’s great start-to-finish. And it dawned on me one day that it would be fun to put together a band to play it, the whole thing, with one singer after another.” That’s Kev Monko, musical director of the conglomeration of some two dozen local musicians dubbed Candy Volcano, whose sole purpose is to […]

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15 YEARS LATER: The Dude Still Abides

  VULTURE: When The Big Lebowski premiered in 1998 as Joel and Ethan’s first film after their critically beloved Fargo, it was not a blockbuster. It cost twice as much to make as Fargo and made a quarter less. Over the past 15 years, though, it’s grown a loyal underground following. At age 13 in 1998, I was an early adopter (or, I should say, early Achiever, or Lebowski fan). It’s an honor and a pleasure to get to reminisce about my favorite movie a decade and a half after its release. Here are fifteen thoughts, large and small, on […]

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GET ANGRY: ‘Oh, I say and I say it again, ya been had! Ya been took! Ya been hoodwinked! Bamboozled! Led astray!’

  DAVID CAY JOHNSTON: Incomes and tax revenues have grown from 2009 to 2011 as the economy recovered, but an astonishing 149 percent of the increased income went to the top 10 percent of earners. If you wonder how that can happen, the answer is simple: Incomes fell for the bottom 90 percent. The rich really are getting richer while the vast majority is getting poorer. The income growth and shrinkage figures come from analysis of the latest IRS data by economists Emmanuel Saez and Thomas Piketty, who have won acclaim for their studies of worldwide income patterns over the […]

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WORTH REPEATING: Starman

  NEW YORK TIMES: On “The Stars (Are Out Tonight),” the new single from David Bowie’s comeback album, “The Next Day,” one line jumps out: “We will never be rid of these stars.” In the video Mr. Bowie and the actress Tilda Swinton play an elderly couple persecuted by a pair of vampiric stars, who stalk them, invade their house and manipulate them like marionettes. But the song itself is less literal. It portrays celebrities as members of an overlord class who “burn you with their radiant smiles” but also as faintly pitiable creatures, jealous of the quiet, grounded lives of […]

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OUTTAKE: Devendra Banhart On Hugo Chavez

Photo by CHRIS BUCK for MAGNET MAGAZINE “I don’t know a single person that lives in Venezuela that supports Chavez and I know plenty of people that live here that are all about him. They think he’s a wonderful guy, the underdog that socked it to America. To them he’s a superhero. But I don’t know a single person living in Venezuela that has anything good to say about the guy. What has he changed? It’s a shame because I do love Venezuela. I feel very Venezuelan when I’m not there, I feel very American when I’m there. But there’s […]

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Let Me Tell You About ‘Being White In Philly’

  BY JEFF DEENEY As a little boy in the late ’70s I lived with my family on 63rd Street in Overbrook in the row home attached to my grandparents’ row home. I never knew my Irish grandparents on my father’s side; their lives were cut short by ill health and alcoholism when my father was a teenager, leaving him and his four older siblings to fend for themselves. But my grandparents on my mother’s side were ever-present, their tiny house a hub of activity on the block where they had spent much of their lives since getting off a […]

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BREAKING: Jury Acquits Philly Wells Fargo Occupiers

  Twelve protestors arrested in November 2011 for occupying a Center City Wells Fargo branch have been found not guilty by a Philadelphia jury. Defendants claimed they were staging a “Citizens’ Foreclosure” on the bank for engaging in discriminatory lending and sapping millions of dollars from the School District of Philadelphia. After viewing video of the protest and hearing defendants’ testimony, a jury found all 12 defendants not guilty on charges of conspiracy and trespassing. One of the only Occupy-related trials in the country to be argued before a jury, today also marked the first civil disobedience Free Speech case […]

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