RIP: Ryan Dunn, Human Cannonball, Dead At 34

TMZ: “Jackass” star Ryan Dunn was the driver in this morning’s fatal crash … this according to cops who also say Dunn’s car was “fully engulfed in flames” when officials arrived to the scene.  The West Goshen Township Police Department says officers found Dunn’s 2007 Porsche 911 GT3  “off the road and in the woods.”  Both Dunn and his passenger “died as a result of injuries sustained in the accident.” Cops will release more information on the passenger once officials can positively identify the body. Cops say “speed may have been a contributing factor to the accident.” MORE RELATED: On […]

JUST ANNOUNCED: My Morning Jacket At The Mann

August 23rd with Neko Case. Tickets go on sale Friday at 10 AM at Ticketmaster.com, 800.745.3000, AEGLive.com, MannCenter.org, TicketPhiladelphia.org, 215-893-1999 or The Mann box office. * NEKO CASE — Middle Cyclone A tomboyish siren with a thick red mane and lungs of fine Corinthian leather, Neko Case is equal parts gender warrior and indie aesthete, a potent hybrid aptly evoked by the Joan-of-Arc-on-a-muscle-car tableau on the cover of Middle Cyclone. Case is also in possession of what is arguably the greatest voice of her generation — clarion in tone; trans-national in its reach; and bottomless in its capacity to transmute […]

DOPES TO INFINITY: New Jersey Lawmakers To Vote On Decriminalization Of Minor Marijuana Possession

FREEDOMISGREEN: NJ Assemblyman Reed Gusciora is expected to introduce a bill this week to decriminalize the possession of up to 14 grams of marijuana by adults. A look at the Uniform Crime Report from the NJ State Police reveals some striking statistics for marijuana arrests. The 2009 report contains the most recent published data available, although preliminary data on 2010 points to an increase for cannabis violations in the region. In 2009 the Garden State arrested 26, 254 people for marijuana. Eight-five percent of the arrests (22, 439) were for possession of less than 50 grams. Currently, adults caught with anything from a […]

THIS JUST IN: Bob Dylan At The Mann Aug. 17th

On sale Saturday. Tickets available at Ticketmaster.com, 800.745.3000, AEGLive.com, MannCenter.org, TicketPhiladelphia.org, 215-893-1999 or The Mann box office. ROLLING STONE: In newly released audio from a March 1966 interview, Bob Dylan claims he kicked a heroin habit after moving to New York City. “I got very, very strung out for a while,” he says in excerpts released by the BBC. “I kicked the habit. I had a $25 a day habit and I kicked it.” He was speaking to New York Times writer Robert Shelton on a plane from Lincoln, Nebraska to Denver while on his legendary 1966 electric tour. This […]

TONITE: The Gold Heart Mountaintop Queen Directory

Employing the same Buckeye ingenuity that keeps the Goodyear blimp afloat, Robert Pollard can polish a turd with Budweiser until it shines with 24-carat radiance, transmuting a tossed-off, six-pack idea into a classic rock artifact or at the very least a beguiling no-fi curio. As captain of the drunken boat that is Guided By Voices, Pollard built a cottage industry by churning out cheap, miniature melodic masterpieces with all the fidelity of a ham radio broadcast. He does it with volume  — by which I mean quantity not loudness. As such, the discography remains daunting if only for its sheer […]

CINEMA: The Man Who Kicked The Hornet’s Nest

[Illustration by NOMA BAR] BY ALEXANDER POTTER In America in the late 1960s and early 1970s, real life was truly more shocking — and infinitely more sleazy — than fiction. The resignation of a disgraced president was still fresh in citizens’ minds, and the stench of corruption permeated the walls of every bureaucratic institution in the nation. Likewise, the Big Apple was rotting from the inside out: Garbage collectors went on strike, leaving fetid mountains of refuse to pile up on the city’s streets; the murder rate was skyrocketing to an all-time high; and to add insult to injury, president […]

NPR FOR THE DEAF: We Hear It Even When You Can’t

FRESH AIR Love, violence, death and America have always been themes for Australian-born singer-composer Nick Cave, so he was a natural to compose the soundtrack for 2007’s epically paranoid Western The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford. Cave also wrote the screenplay and soundtrack for the Australian epic The Proposition, which Roger Ebert described as “pitiless and uncompromising, so filled with pathos and disregarded innocence that it is a record of those things we pray to be delivered from.” Cave appeared in Wim Wenders’ 1987 film Wings of Desire, and he’s written plays and novels. In 2008, […]

SH*T MY UNCLE SAYS: Uncommon Sense

BY WILLIAM C. HENRY It’s official. She’s running, and she says she’s going to bring “the voice of common sense” to the White House (a revelation that no doubt brought an even more deeply furrowed brow to the faces of those still trying to figure out which planet she commutes from). Recognizing Miss Sensible’s all-too-self-effacing nature, I think it’s only fitting that I cite a few past examples of Michele’s “common sense” utterings so that those who may be unfamiliar with these quasi-cum-laudables might join in appreciation of the intellectual depth and derring-do exhibited by this nimble-minded master of malapropism. […]

LOVE WILL KEEP US TOGETHER: Internet Mistakes Cop-Clobbered Couple For Lovers In Repose

HUFFINGTON POST: While a city burned its Stanley Cup dream in the flurry of flames, looting and bone-breaking that was the 2011 Vancouver riots, an altogether different sort of passion spilled, literally, into the streets. At the moment, they’re known only as the kissing couple. But that won’t last long. When this unlikely snapshot of lovers entangled on a tear-gas filled street, with riot police in the fore and background emerged Thursday morning, you can bet the great media race was on. It will, most certainly, be the picture that launched a thousand media inquiries. Who are they? What were […]

Won’t Have Anthony Weiner To Dick Around Anymore

It is finished. RELATED: Weiner was Twitter’s first major political casualty in a darker way, too. This eposide demonstrated in a unique way that Twitter can encourage pack political journalism at its worst. I’m not defending Weiner. He lied to his colleagues, and what he did was unspeakably foolish, given that his outspoken liberalism guaranteed that he’d be a tempting target for the right. I’m agnostic on whether he should have resigned; other public officials who have committed far worse acts, sexual and otherwise, haven’t faced a fraction of the pressure he faced to step down. But ultimately, all you […]

TONITE: Come Feel Me Trimble

THE GUARDIAN: Trimble made a grand total of two albums in his early 20s: the last was released in 1982. He never had a record deal. The albums were privately released in minuscule quantities: he can’t remember whether there were 300 or 500 copies pressed of his debut, Iron Curtain Innocence, but either way, there weren’t many takers for his brand of lush-yet-disquieting Beatles and Pink Floyd- influenced psychedelia in early-80s New England. He never performed live outside of the central Massachusetts area. “We just played Worcester County, we didn’t even play Boston,” he says.The problem was Trimble’s habit of […]