BY MIKE WALSH Let me make this clear up front: I’m not a Dylan-head, Dylan-ite, Dylan-phile, Dylan-ologist, or any other kind of extreme Dylan fan. In fact, I never bought a Dylan record or CD until just a few years ago. I never saw the need. Growing up in the ’60s, Dylan was on the radio all the time —“Blowing in the Wind,“ “Don’t Think Twice It’s All Right,“ “The Times They Are a Changin’,“ “All I Really Want to Do,“ “It Ain’t Me Babe, “Mr. Tambourine Man,“ etc., etc. Plus, many other bands had hits with his songs, like […]
CONCERT REVIEW: Dan Deacon @ Union Transfer
Photo by MICHAEL ORLOSKY BY JONATHAN VALANIA FOR THE INQUIRER On record, acclaimed Baltimore-based futurist Dan Deacon sounds like Philip Glass on Red Bull. A lot of Red Bull. His music is like Koyaanisqatsi for the ears. Live, he resembles nothing so much as a hip, wise-cracking camp counselor DJing a dance party for people who can’t really dance. His name may not ring a bell but for people under 30 he is Santa Claus with a wave function generator. And last night he came to town — Union Transfer to be exact — after a three year absence from […]
CONTEST: Win Tix To See Bright Eyes @ The Kimmel
OK, this is gonna move REAL fast so snooze you lose. Let this be a lesson to you: Open Phawker, hit REFRESH. Every minute of every day. Week after week. Year after year. Or buy your own damn Bright Eyes tickets, Bucco! Just kidding. Mostly. We have two pairs of tickets to see Bright Eyes at the Kimmel Center on Sunday! To qualify all you have to do is sign up for our mailing list (to the right of this post, at the bottom of the masthead). Trust us, you want to do this. Signing up to our mailing list […]
EXCERPT: The Playboy Interview With Quentin Tarantino
“I just don’t want to be an old-man filmmaker. I want to stop at a certain point. Directors don’t get better as they get older. Usually the worst films in their filmography are those last four at the end. I am all about my filmography, and one bad film f*cks up three good ones … When directors get out-of-date, it’s not pretty,” says filmmaker Quentin Tarantino. Playboy’s November Interview sits down with the maverick director to talk about Django Unchained, facing 50 and why he’s no longer a Hollywood outsider (issue on newsstands and i.Playboy.com Tuesday, November 20, with the […]
WORTH REPEATING: Lee Atwater’s Infamous Last Words
THE NATION: It has become, for liberals and leftists enraged by the way Republicans never suffer the consequences for turning electoral politics into a cesspool, a kind of smoking gun. The late, legendarily brutal campaign consultant Lee Atwater explains how Republicans can win the vote of racists without sounding racist themselves: You start out in 1954 by saying, “Nigger, nigger, nigger.” By 1968 you can’t say “nigger”—that hurts you, backfires. So you say stuff like, uh, forced busing, states’ rights, and all that stuff, and you’re getting so abstract. Now, you’re talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you’re […]
TONITE: Sympathy For The Devil
“Mick ‘Rock N’ Roll Circus’” by MICHAEL HOUGHTON TIME: Stories sometimes have a way of making themselves true. The notion of The Rolling Stones as the “bad boys” of British ’60s rock, for instance, may have had a basis in reality and personality, but it also originated as a term of marketing and media shorthand. As Brett Morgen’s new HBO documentary Crossfire Hurricane (premieres tonight, Nov. 15) notes early on, as the Stones began to break out after The Beatles’ success, the press framed their narrative as the villains to the Beatles’ nice guys, the satisfaction-getters vs. the hand-holders. It […]
NPR FOR THE DEAF: We Hear It Even When You Can’t
FRESH AIR Tony Kushner spent years writing the screenplay for Steven Spielberg’s film Lincoln, but that wasn’t the only heavy lifting he had to do. It also took some effort to overcome Daniel Day-Lewis’ reluctance to play the title role. “I wanted to write to him and say, ‘Daniel, apart from the fact that you’re like one of the greatest actors ever, look in the mirror. God is trying to tell you something — you look like Abraham Lincoln!” Kushner tells Fresh Air’s Dave Davies. Lincoln is based in part on Doris Kearns Goodwin’s biography of the 16th president, Team […]
ARTSY: Dada On The Dance Floor
BY BRANDON LAFVING ARTS CORRESPONDENT The Philadelphia Museum of Art’s new exhibition, Dancing Around the Bride, courageously attempts to explain the work of Marcel Duchamp, one of the most important and enigmatic artists of the 20th Century, in terms that people who don’t have a Ph.D. in the meta mechanics of modernism can understand. Duchamp [PICTURED, BELOW RIGHT] re-imagined the definition of art — and more or less invented punk rock — when he entered a urinal as a piece for a museum exhibit and called it Fountain. It was the first of his series, entitled “readymades” and it started […]
THIS JUST IN: Jeff Mangum Sells Out In Nanonseconds!
Illustration by ALEX MOULDS Tickets for Jeff Mangum at the DuPont Theater in Wilmington, DE on Feb. 5th go on sale tomorrow at noon! Get them HERE. Gone, daddy, gone! PREVIOUSLY: Today, Jeff Mangum announced a new run of tour dates beginning January 9 in Buffalo, NY and wrapping up February 16 in North Adams, MA. Support will include Tall Firs, Briars of North America and the Music Tapes. A portion of the proceeds for these shows will benefit Children of the Blue Sky, which aims to place orphaned Mongolian children with foster families. A full list of Jeff Mangum […]
Win Tix To See Dan Deacon @ Union Transfer
Photo by MICHAEL ORLOSKY We have a pair of tickets to see wizardly electronic music composer/performer Dan Deacon at Union Transfer tomorrow night to give away. As per our pal Brian Howard in the CP: “Baltimore experimentalist/performance art puppet-master/beardo kewpie Dan Deacon has a rep as the king of the electronic candy store, spinning all manner of sugar-synthesized pop treats into crazy-danceable shout-along anthems.” Exactly. To qualify all you have to do is sign up for our mailing list (to the right of this post, at the bottom of the masthead). Trust us, you want to do this. Signing up […]
WORTH REPEATING: Guy F*cked Day
Image via TUMBLR NEW YORK TIMES: GUY FIERI, have you eaten at your new restaurant in Times Square? Have you pulled up one of the 500 seats at Guy’s American Kitchen & Bar and ordered a meal? Did you eat the food? Did it live up to your expectations? Did panic grip your soul as you stared into the whirling hypno wheel of the menu, where adjectives and nouns spin in a crazy vortex? When you saw the burger described as “Guy’s Pat LaFrieda custom blend, all-natural Creekstone Farm Black Angus beef patty, LTOP (lettuce, tomato, onion + pickle), SMC […]
DO THE RIGHT THING: Sign The ‘Dump Trump’ Petition
[Illustration by ALEX FINE] Macy’s has a special deal with Donald Trump. They invest in developing Trump’s brand and sell his clothing line and fragrance at their locations. To this end, they have had major events at Macy’s Herald Square location and they often feature and promote Trump in advertisements designed to celebrate the magic of Macy’s. Recently, Macy’s CEO Terry Lundgren sent Donald Trump a letter touting how excited Macy’s was to be working with Trump and promising to expand Trump’s brand even further than it already is. But, why is Macy’s celebrating Trump? Donald Trump engages in especially […]
THE NAKED AND THE DEAD: The 5 Important Questions The Media Should Be Asking Petraeus But Won’t
BY JONATHAN VALANIA FOR THE PHILLY POST Somebody’s got to say it: The media has been asking all the wrong questions about the unfolding Peyton Place-like Petraeus saga. As I type this the FBI is raiding Paula Broadwell’s home and it’s been revealed that the just-appointed Supreme Allied Commander of NATO is under investigation for “inappropriate communications” with Jill Kelly, the local girl made good who dragged this whole sad story out into the light when she told the FBI that she was being cyber-harassed by Broadwell — so stay tuned. But I’m willing to bet Mitt Romney $10,000 that […]