In fucking sane. They play Underground Arts June 14th. You have been warned.
EXCERPT: Brothers In Harms
\ MOTHER JONES: After eight years at MIT and a consulting firm, Charles returned to Wichita to learn the intricacies of the family business. Together, he and David would build their father’s Midwestern company, which as of 1967 had $250 millionin yearly sales and 650 employees, into a corporate Goliath with $115 billion in annual revenues and a presence in 60 countries. Under their leadership, Koch Industries grew into the second-largest private corporation in the United States (only the Minneapolis-based agribusiness giant Cargill is bigger). Bill, meanwhile, would become best known for his flamboyant escapades: as a collector of fine […]
Sexism Didn’t Get Jill Abramson Fired, 9/11 Did
Photo by FRED HARPER HUFFINGTON POST: Consider… the headlines about the sacking of Jill Abramson as executive editor of the New York Times. The publisher of the Times, A.O. Sulzberger, said that the reason she was dropped had to do with Abramson’s bad management of the newsroom; and supporting statements adequately testify to her “condescension,” “brusque manner,” and so on — all of which seems credible enough — and yet the same qualities were compatible with a longer run for some of her predecessors. Meanwhile, there has emerged a rival account, which points out that Abramson recently asked for a salary raise after learning that the […]
CANNES: Steve Carrell Wows Critics In Foxcatcher
WALL STREET JOURNAL: “Foxcatcher,” directed by Bennett Miller (“Moneyball,” “Capote”) examines the period when Du Pont invited and hosted the Schultz brothers, both Olympic gold medal wrestlers, to stay at his estate near Philadelphia and train a world-class wrestling team called “Team Foxcatcher.” Mark Ruffalo plays older brother David, and Channing Tatum is the impressionable younger brother, Mark. Miller follows the time they shared with Du Pont unflinchingly to its tragic end. MORE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER: [John du Pont] looks like a shrimp compared to his powerfully built guest; he has pasty, colorless skin, a high, whiny voice and posture […]
INCOMING: The Waiting Is The Hardest Part
TOM PETTY AND THE HEARTBREAKERS today announced their 2014 North American tour and the July 29th release of their first new studio album in four years on Reprise Records, Hypnotic Eye. The tour, featuring very special guest Steve Winwood, will make a stop in Philadelphia at Wells Fargo Center on Monday, September 15th. Every 2014 Tour ticket will include Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers’ highly anticipated new album, Hypnotic Eye. Tickets go on sale Saturday, May 31 at 10am and will be available at ComcastTIX.com, Wells Fargo Center Box Office or by-phone at 800-298-4200. Hypnotic Eye was recently described […]
STRAND OF OAKS: Goshen ’97
Wow. From Philly via Goshen, Indianapolis. Lead-off track from HEAL, out June 23th on Dead Oceans. J. Mascis guest-shreds on this. They reportedly smoked the competition at NonComm last week. I foresee big things happening with these guys. Big things.
MEET N’ GREET: Comcast Shareholders Meeting
CAP COMCAST: Comcast is holding one of its most important events of the year near the epicenter of its operations- its Annual Meeting of Shareholders at the Kimmel Center. While they vote on how to get richer, we, the people of Philadelphia and frustrated cable and internet customers, will cast our own votes on the wisdom of this merger in the presence of the media- Philadelphia is in the national spotlight: Last week, the Washington Post covered how Comcast’s discount services for low-income folks just don’t make the grade. More than 4,000 Philadelphians have signed our petitions asking Comcast […]
NPR 4 THE DEAF: We Hear It Even When You Can’t
Illustration by JOSH LANGE FRESH AIR Louis C.K. is now commonly acknowledged as one of the greatest comics of his generation. His celebrated FX series, Louie, started its fourth season a couple weeks ago, after a 19-month hiatus. Louis C.K. created, writes, directs and stars in the series as a standup comic named Louie, who, like Louis C.K., is the divorced father of two young girls and shares custody with their mother. Last year, Louis C.K. also had prominent roles in two films: Woody Allen’s Blue Jasmine and David O. Russell’s American Hustle. Louis C.K. joins Fresh Air’s Terry Gross […]
CANNES: Cronenberg Unveils Map To The Stars
THE GUARDIAN: David Cronenberg’s new film here at Cannes is a gripping and exquisitely horrible movie about contemporary Hollywood – positively vivisectional in its sadism and scorn. It is twisted, twisty, and very far from all the predictable outsider platitudes about celebrity culture. The status-anxiety, fame-vertigo, sexual satiety and that all-encompassing fear of failure which poisons every triumph are displayed here with an icy new connoisseurship, a kind of extremism which faces down the traditional objection that films like this are secretly infatuated with their subject. Every surface has a sickly sheen of anxiety; every face is a mask […]
BEING THERE: NonCOMM 2014
Photos by PETE TROSHAK WXPN hosted the 14th annual Non-Commvention at World Cafe Live last week. It’s sort of a semi-private SXSW for non-commercial radio programmers. Besides panels, networking stuff and lots of liquid lunches, the convention also features a lot of short sets by both veteran artists and newbies trying to get noticed. The Both (Aimee Mann and Ted Leo) cracked jokes while delivering a lunchtime set of songs from their impressive first album as a duo, including “Milwaukee” for which the group filmed a video for in Philadelphia. Hamilton Leithauser (formerly of The Walkmen) played an rollicking set […]
CINEMA: Dumbzilla
GODZILLA (2014, directed by Gareth Edwards, 123 minutes, U.S.) PALO ALTO (2013, directed by Gia Coppola, 100 minutes, U.S.) BLUE RUIN (2013, directed by Jeremy Salnier, 90 minutes, U.S.) BY DAN BUSKIRK FILM CRITIC There has been bad news from Southern California in recent days. San Diego County has been hit with wildfires of a strength we’re not used to seeing so early in the fire season and don’t even get me started on the ‘firenadoes.’ Disturbing foreshadowing is also coming out of Hollywood, too, because badly misfiring summer blockbusters like Godzilla rarely arrive this early in the season […]
BEING THERE: Swans @ Union Transfer
Photo by PETE TROSHAK Michael Gira is rock n’ roll’s last great tyrant, and his band Swans is the last outpost of rock n’ roll Stalinism. Many former members have been exiled to the vast Arctic wastes of the Gulags for the sins of disobedience, insubordination or just missing one of the many, many cues he dispenses onstage with a wink of the eye, a nod of the head or a shrug of the shoulders (take it to the bridge, repeat this chorus, go left at the next light, etc.). In fairness, some great literature came out of those Siberian […]
ARCADE FIRE: We Exist
NASTY LITTLE MAN: Arcade Fire’s video for “We Exist” stars Andrew Garfield (aka Spiderman) in a narrative that begins in a nondescript locale and concludes live on stage during the band’s second weekend headline set at this year’s Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival. “We Exist” is a 6:18 long story of one young person’s struggle with gender identity set to the soundtrack of the second track from Arcade Fire’s Reflektor album. The band’s Win Butler has described the song as “about a gay kid talking to his dad,” specifically coming out to his straight father, and has introduced it […]