BY JONATHAN VALANIA FOR THE INQUIRER To rock boys coming of age in the late ’70s and early ’80s, the brothers Gibb were known primarily as the fey, toothy, Members Only-jacketed target of the Disco Sucks backlash that greeted the blockbuster sales and grating ubiquity of their Saturday Night Fever soundtrack. But unbeknownst to many, the Bee Gees also had an amazing career in the ’60s, creating deathless psychedelic-pop singles and ambitious album-length statements that explored complex themes and experimented with all manner of instrumentation and orchestral arrangements. Even back then, it was their harmonizing – as rich and distinct […]
THE FIVE SPOT BURNED DOWN
A four-alarm fire destroyed a well-known city nightclub yesterday morning, filling several blocks of Old City with thick black smoke and shutting down traffic in parts of the busy neighborhood for much of the day. At least one wall collapsed at the Five Spot – a complex of four buildings on narrow Bank Street just south of Market Street – and emergency workers were preparing last night to demolish another that looked unstable. Firefighters needed two hours to control the blaze after it was reported at 9:31 a.m., but they were still dousing the smoky ruins well into the afternoon. […]
FILM: ERASERHEAD NOW 1977-2007
BY DAN BUSKIRK FILM CRITIC By now, after 10 feature films, assorted shorts and TV’s weirdest nighttime soap, we have mapped many of the dark recesses of the psyche of writer/director David Lynch. We know just what provocations push his buttons. We can relax into a comfort zone now while Lynch unleashes his expected tropes — the bugs twitching underground, the violent sex, the ironic old pop songs, the flashes of gore and morphing identities. Yet somehow, despite his mannerisms becoming ever more familiar, the years have done little to dull the effect of Lynch’s debut masterpiece, 1977’s sleepwalking vision […]
“Those who hate you don’t win unless you hate them, and then you destroy yourself.” — RICHARD NIXON
PREVIOUSLY: A Once Mighty Nation Afraid Of Lite Brite
OBAMA TO MEDIA: STOP HURTING AMERICA
Illinois Senator Barack Obama made a plea for a positive campaign, insisting that the “reality tv show” mentality fed by the 24-hour news cycle is “not why we are here.” Describing America as being in a “sobering place” Obama said this is “not a contest; it is a serious moment for America. The American people understand that. Every candidate will have something serious and valuable to offer. Campaigns should not be about making each other look bad but about how we can offer something good for this precious country of ours. Our rivals won’t be each other or the other […]
We Know It’s Only Rock N’ Roll But We Like It
DAYDREAM HIBERNATION: Grizzly Bear, Johnny Brendas, February 1, 2007 [FLICKR] EVA SAYS: When Grizzly Bear took stage at Johnny Brenda?s, they had all odds working against them- their stupid band name, the pretentiously hip crowd (spotting a member of Man Man in the mass, my friend swooned over the time the two of them used to spend together at the Last Drop. GAG!), and most distractingly, the suffocating veil of hype generated from Pitchfork. But last night they faced an even greater challenge, otherwise known as The Dirty Projectors, who had just finished playing one of the best live sets […]
NPR FOR THE DEAF: We Hear It Even When You Can’t
FRESH AIR WITH TERRY GROSS Cultural historian Christopher Frayling is the author of Once Upon A Time in Italy: The Westerns of Sergio Leone, a large-format, beautifully illustrated book that chronicles the history of the spaghetti western. Frayling tells the story of the movie genre and the iconic director through researched text and interviews with Clint Eastwood, Martin Scorsese and Eli Wallach. Frayling is rector at London’s Royal College of Art and a professor of cultural history. He is also chair of the Arts Council of England. He’s known for his broadcast work on the BBC and has written more […]
GAMBLOR: Trump Super Pissed To Learn He Has No Real World Authority To Tell Rendell ‘You’re Fired!’
Donald Trump lost his bid to run a slots casino in Philadelphia because he flunked the first lesson of real estate – location. Trump picked the wrong one. He had wanted to build his $350 million TrumpStreet Casino complex in a struggling industrial neighborhood on the edge of North Philadelphia. But the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board concluded that was the wrong place for a casino, and said yesterday that was largely why it rejected Trump’s proposal in favor of two riverfront parcels. […] Trump was unhappy. “That was the governor’s decision, and he has to live with it,” Trump said […]
CARTOON: Turtle Novelists Write TERRIBLE Dialogue!
That’s Why Schoolchildren Are No Longer Forced To Read Their Dreadful Novels. [Courtesy of Married To The Sea]
SERGE GAINSBOURG & BRIGITTE BARDOT
“The Comic Strip”
GUNCRAZY: Sometimes Strangers Know You Better Than You Do
In Philadelphia, homicides rose 7 percent to a nine-year high of 406 last year, giving it the highest murder rate per 100,000 people among America’s 10 biggest cities, according to a survey of police departments by the Philadelphia Inquirer newspaper, which keeps a running tally. Philadelphia, with a population of about 1.5 million, also has the highest poverty rate — 25 percent — among those cities. The deadly cocktail of poverty and violence mirrors that of some other major U.S. cities such as Houston and San Antonio, where poverty rates are similar and homicides registered double-digit increases last year. New […]
RIP: Molly Ivins, Concerned American, Legendary Texas Political Racontuer, Thorn In The Decider’s Side
Molly Ivins died Wednesday at age 62 after a long battle with breast cancer. This is her final column, entitled “Stand Up Against The Surge“: The purpose of this old-fashioned newspaper crusade to stop the war is not to make George W. Bush look like the dumbest president ever. People have done dumber things. What were they thinking when they bought into the Bay of Pigs fiasco? How dumb was the Egypt-Suez war? How massively stupid was the entire war in Vietnam? Even at that, the challenge with this misbegotten adventure is that WE simply cannot let it continue.It is […]