Well, why not? We MySpace as much as the next horny guy. We are a blog — a blog with an mp3 player and a FLICKR account, to be exact. But even cooler than that being named Time’s Person Of The Year (which is, somewhat surprisingly, not nearly as exultant as you always imagined it would be) is something we can actually use in this modern world: Time linked to Phawker’s Dead President post! No big deal for the big dawgs, maybe, but we weren’t even born three months ago. Three cheers for us! TIME: Meet The Phawker!
BREAKING: Philadelphia Inquirer BEGINS LAYOFFS JOANN LOVIGLIO Associated Press – The Philadelphia Inquirer on Tuesday began a round of long-expected layoffs amid a drop in circulation and ad revenue. Several reporters at the Inquirer, Pennsylvania’s largest newspaper, said they were told Tuesday morning that their jobs were being eliminated. The employees said that they were told to meet with personnel officials on Wednesday to discuss details of their severance pay and health benefits. In all, 68 [71, according to a just-released Guild memo] newsroom employees were expected to be laid off, company spokesman Jay Devine said. All the affected workers […]
REWIND 2006: THE YEAR IN MUSIC
WELCOME TO THE FIRST ANNUAL PHAWKER JAZZ AND POP POLL The critics have spoken, the ballots have been cast, all chads undangled, and fed into a mainframe computer the size of an Olympic swimming pool, to be crunched with the hard calculus of SUCKS/DOES NOT SUCK and arranged in impenetrably dense type on a spreadsheet that stretches from your house to mine. Hey, who we kiddin’? We don’t even have a mainframe the size of an Olympic swimming pool. Yet. And 30,000 CDs are released every year and fuck you if you think we’re gonna listen to all of them […]
We Know It’s Only Rock N’ Roll But We Like It
PAGING MOLLY RINGWALD: The Psychedelic Furs, Trocadero, December 29th 2006 BY SIMONE SECCI, FOREIGN CORRESPONDENT In this time of wild 80s revival, it’s nice to see the real thing. Well, kind of. Unfortunately the Psychedelic Furs that left a definitive trace through rock music was already dead in 1983. It’s no longer existing and never will. The Furs of today are a great pop band that does the job in the best way, but no longer as a new wave icon. All this, to be honest, didn’t prevent me from jumping on my chair and dancing with the entire theatre […]
NPR FOR THE DEAF: We Hear It Even When You Can’t
WHYY: I HAVE TRIED, IN MY OWN WAY, TO BE FREE
DEATH OF A SALESPERSON: All Things Must Pass
BY SARA SHERR The Tower Records at Broad and Chestnut was scheduled to close on Friday, Dec. 22. Instead, the doors shut late Wednesday night after an independent Virginia record retailer bought up the last of the remaining stock, which really wasn’t much by then. Two similar mass purchases had occurred earlier in the week, one from a New Jersey record store owner who bought up a bunch of major label stuff (which means a lot of Daniel Powter and Ashley Parker Angel, and returns for credit! Smart cookie!) The other was an unknown company which volunteered to take the […]
OS MUTANTES Bread And Circuses
Os Mutantes now playing on Phawker Radio. From Perfect Sound Forever: Tropicalia Glossary – Who’s Who, What’s What. AI5 – Acto Instution #5. The 1968 military clampdown on Brazil. Temporarily ended free speech in Brazilian media. 5 days after the passing of AI5 two of the Tropicalistas, Gilberto Gil and Caetano Veloso, were arrested, shaved and exiled to freezing England. Tropicalia – The more Brazilian style of Psychedelia. Not only features pop music, but visual art, literature and performance type arts and artists. Arnaldo Baptista – Bass and keys. Took drugs. Went nuts after Rita dumped him. Recorded a half […]
COMMENT: Bloggerati Killed The Alt-Weekly Rock Stars
Our hugumbus YEAR IN MUSIC Omnibus is about to drop, but while we’re finishing up polishing this turd, chew on this from our pal JOE WARMINSKY in WASHINGTON CITY PAPER: Don?t get me wrong?I fully embrace what the blogosphere does provide. It’s essentially a broad, asymmetric rebellion against the SoundScan regime and the stodgy business plans of the major record labels. Blogs offer what good fanzines used to offer: stylistic detours, obsessive detail, contrarian viewpoints, and a secondary economy that allows overlooked musicians to flourish, at least on a small scale. There isn?t much money in it, and it’s mostly […]
NPR FOR THE DEAF: We Hear It Even When You Can’t
IGGY POP Live Manchester Apollo 1977. FRESH AIR: Moe Of The Stooges Still Worth A Million In Prizes, PLUS Andre 3000
IRAQ: Levittown Man Killed By Christmas IED
Moon had already completed his enlistment papers when he graduated from high school in 2003. In the days before his induction, he drew his family and friends together in an extended celebration, Nam said. His goal was to become an FBI agent, she said. He enlisted first because “he wanted to support his family financially. He wanted to support his country.” Posted first to South Korea, where he met members of his extended family, Moon served a tour in Iraq from August 2004 to September 2005. He won an Army Commendation Medal, an Army Achievement Medal and a Combat Infantryman’s […]
REWIND 2006: THE YEAR IN FILM
BEST PICTURE OF 2006: Because it held a cracked mirror up to the thing that is killing us all: ignorance and all its byproducts — fear, hate, superstition. Because fuddy-duddies may complain “Borat” is mean or crass or contrived, but the fact is nothing is made up, everything is true, sad to say, just exaggerated with industrial-strength absurdity for potent comedic effect. Because Sartre said ‘hell is other people’ and “Borat” is full of ‘other people.’ Because Borat played the MSM like a violin, with the wacky Khazhakstani becoming a constant ghost in the news machine for months before and […]