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 […]
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
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 […]
APOCALYPSE WOW: Why Do My Favorite Films Of 2006 Make Me Hate Myself And Want To Die?
BY DAN BUSKIRK, FILM CRITIC APOCALYPTO (2006, directed by Mel Gibson) CASINO ROYALE (2006, directed by Martin Campbell) DEATH OF LAZARESCU (2005, directed by Christi Puiu, Romania) DELIVER US FROM EVIL (2006, directed by Amy Berg) THE DEVIL & DANIEL JOHNSTON (2006, directed by Jeff Feuerzeig) I AM A SEX ADDICT (2006, directed by Caveh Zahedi) THE KING (2006, directed by James Marsh) LITTLE CHILDREN (2006, directed by Todd Field) MUTUAL APPRECIATION (2006, directed by Andrew Bujalski) WASSUP ROCKERS (2006, directed by Larry Clark) Is not gloom in the very air we breathe, or am I seeing the world through […]
Cover Wars: Whose Artfag Kung-Fu Is Stronger?
Last week CP struck a decisive blow against the tyranny of PW’s seemingly unbreakable Cover Wars winning streak. But this week the Empire has struck back. Hard. So jump down, turn around and pick a bail of cotton, City Paper, because PW is the master now. What’s that you say? ‘Only a master of evil, Darth’? Perhaps, Rabbit. Perhaps. Still, all this is good news for people who STILL read alt-weeklies. Hands down the most singularly disturbing alt-weekly cover of the year, PW’s music issue rocks the dumbly-named Man, Man on the cover, dubbing them Band Of The Year and […]
NPR FOR THE DEAF: We Hear It Even When You Can’t
ON FRESH AIR TODAY: Thom Yorke is the lead singer and songwriter of the band Radiohead which has released six critically acclaimed records and explored the boundaries between rock and electronic music. Spin,magazine named Radiohead’s OK Computer the number one album of the past twenty years. Thom Yorke’s new solo CD The Eraser is his first release without the band. This interview originally aired on Jul. 12, 2006. ALSO: Singer and songwriter Stuart Murdoch is the front man of the indie pop band from Scotland, Belle & Sebastian. The seven-member band includes a guitarist, bassist, keyboardist, violinist, cellist, drummer and […]
SMELLS LIKE JOURNALISM: Daily News Puts Boots On The Ground In Drug Trade, Gets To Know Name Behind Faceless Statistic And The Awful Truth Therein
DRESSED IN A black Dickies suit and black Timberlands, the chubby-faced 17-year-old crack dealer paced around the desolate lot working another graveyard shift. In the darkness, a steady stream of addicts ambled toward him to make a buy. Then he saw a familiar face: his close friend’s mom. “I need a nick,” she mumbled to him. Without hesitation, he sold her a nickel bag — $5 worth of crack. “I was surprised that she was a smoker,” Mikey recalled, months after that night. Today he calls it “the deal I will never forget.” “I was thinking that a real friend […]
SHADES OF JACK AND THE BEANSTALK: You Mean $68 Million Clams Coulda Bought All This Stuff Instead?
FROM ATTYTOOD: 68,000,000: Dollars that could hire 170 new Philadelphia police officers for five years, or 850 officers for one year, based on official estimates of $80,000 a cop for salary, benefits and training. 68,000,000: Dollars that could almost completely close the current yawning budget gap currently faced by the Philadelphia School District, estimated now at $73.3 million. The gap has led to a series of painful cutbacks, such as the elimination of 175 administrative jobs. 68,000,000: Dollars that could hire roughly 124 new social workers for 10 years in city’s Department of Human Services (based on average city salary […]
Cover Wars: Whose Artfag Kung-Fu Is Stronger?
Well, it would appear that the worm has finally turned. After weeks of being shut out by PW, the Daily News and even our own Election Day dead pachyderm cover, CP comes back stronger than ever. Truly, Evan M. Lopez‘s cover illustration is the finest aspirational visual representation of Christmas in the 215 since, like, ever. Seriously, we take our hat off, Sir. Meanwhile, PW‘s cover may well be pink and scrapplicious at first glance, but if you squint real hard you can almost see the marks from the hands-free headset they used to phone this one in. It just […]
Finally, A Magazine For Rich WHITE People
BALA CYNWYD, Pa. — Philadelphia’s famed Main Line is getting the glossy treatment in a magazine debuting next month. The bimonthly publication, called Mainline Magazine, will cover the arts, culture and lifestyle topics. The Main Line is a collection of tony suburbs just west of Philadelphia. The debut January/February issue [NOT pictured, left] includes a peek inside a Vanderbilt mansion, a profile of actor and former Wayne resident Bradley Whitford, and features on Philadelphia 76ers president Billy King and state Liquor Control Board chairman Jonathan Newman. “With its rich tapestry of people, cultures, business models and lifestyles, the Main Line […]