[Click to enlarge] UPDATE: Police sources tell KTLA that they’re making preparations for a massive public memorial for Michael Jackson Tuesday morning at Staples Center. CNN: Many of his fans had hoped they’d get a chance to pay last respects at Neverland Ranch, which Jackson purchased in 1987, filled with animals and amusement rides, and named after the fictional world in J.M. Barrie’s “Peter Pan.” Gregory Son, a 31-year-old musician, was among many fans who had planned to ride to the ranch to say goodbye to Jackson. “I think he was a modern-day prophet,” Son said outside Grauman’s. “We kind […]
COMING ATTRACTION: Q&A With Tom Moon
Former Inquirer Pop Music Critic & Rolling Stone contributor, current NPR commentator and author of 1000 Recordings To Hear Before You Die. We talk about the death of the music industry, the death of newspapers, the death of criticism and how he picked the songs you simply must hear before your own death. More fun than it sounds. Look for it Friday.
TIME CAPSULE: Jacksons Sign To Philly International
Standing L-R: Tito Jackson, Randy Jackson, Michael Jackson, Marlon Jackson, Jackie Jackson. Seated L-R: Joe Jackson, Leon Huff, Kenneth Gamble. Photo taken in 1976 in Mr. Gamble’s office at Philadelphia International Records. WIKIPEDIA: In 1975, Joseph negotiated a new recording contract with CBS Records, who offered a royalty rate of 20% per record, compared to Motown’s standard 2.8%; and would allow the Jackson brothers to write and produce their own records and play their own instruments. After unsuccessfully attempting to talk the group into staying on the label, Motown sued for breach of contract. Although Motown eventually let the group […]
GHOULISH: Jacko Autopsy Report Leaks
THE SUN: The examination showed the 5ft 10in star — once famed for his on-stage athleticism — had: PLUNGED to a “severely emaciated” [112 lbs.] It is understood anorexic Jackson had been eating just one meagre meal a day. Pathologists found his stomach empty aside from partially-dissolved pills he took before the painkiller injection which stopped his heart. Samples were sent for toxicology tests. LOST virtually all his hair. The pop pin-up was wearing a wig when he died and pathologists said little more than “peach fuzz” covered his scalp. A scarred section of skin above his left ear was […]
CONTEST: Win A Sonic Youth Dream Date
Sonic Youth is like a chronic girlfriend we keep breaking up with, if only because the make-up sex is so good. We’ve been on board — and occasionally off — ever since Bad Moon Rising, ever since we heard that mesmerizing wall of abstract expressionist guitars graffiti’d with the immortal words: “A genius and a sex maniac, taking lots of drugs and fucking all day.” Man, nice work if you can get it! The just-out The Eternal is a remarkable late-period return to form from a band we’ve written off more times than we care to admit. Anyway, if you’ve […]
’80s FLASHBACK: Q&A With The Church
BY BARRY GUTMAN Twenty-nine years into their career, Australian quartet The Church – singer/bassist Steve Kilbey, guitarists Peter Koppes and Marty Willson-Piper, and, for the past 15 years, drummer Tim Powles – are back with a new album, Untitled #23. Don’t take that number literally – it’s much higher when you figure in B-sides and EP collections, re-mixes, jam albums, soundtracks and best-ofs, not to mention countless solo and side projects. The band that hit with “The Unguarded Moment” in Australia in 1980 and “Under the Milky Way” worldwide in 1988 is not going for the easy nostalgia buck. When […]
WAVVES: No Hope Kids
Wavves “No Hope Kids” from Pete Ohs on Vimeo.
THE RESURRECTION: A Good Man Is Hard To Find
BY JONATHAN VALANIA “She would have been a good woman if she had someone around to shoot her every day of her life,” says The Misfit at the end of Flannery O’Connor’s “A Good Man Is Hard To Find.” The same could have been said of Michael Jackson. Instead he got Joseph Jackson, terrifying paterfamilias of America’s bizarro first family. By all accounts Joe Jackson, an ex-boxer and struggling musician who wound up a crane operator in a Gary, Indiana steel mill fits the profile of the tyrannical showbiz dad who transfers his thwarted dreams of stardom onto his offspring, […]
MEDIA: The Year Of Dying Famously
[Via STEREOTYPIST/Click HERE To Enlarge] BBC: The internet suffered a number of slowdowns as people the world over rushed to verify accounts of Michael Jackson’s death. Search giant Google confirmed to the BBC that when the news first broke it feared it was under attack. Millions of people who Googled the star’s name were greeted with an error page rather than a list of results. It warned users “your query looks similar to automated requests from a computer virus or spyware application.” Google was not the only company overwhelmed by the public’s clamour for information. MORE
RAWK TAWK: Q&A With Brooklyn’s Telepathe
Telepathe perform Friday at JBs in support of their debut, Dance Mother “Floating between crystalline electronica, misty shoegaze and ass-shaking club-rap, ‘Dance Mother’ is disorientating by design; like being set down on some unfamiliar street corner where the drone of synth from a nearby window meets the boom of bass from a passing car, and snippets of overheard conversation hang in the air like cryptic incantations. More than any other outfit since TV On The Radio, Telepathe illustrate the modern hipster condition: why choose between Lil Wayne, Animal Collective, Madonna and My Bloody Valentine, when you can have all of […]
RIP: Michael Jackson Dead At 50
ROLLING STONE: The Los Angeles Times is reporting that law enforcement and city officials have confirmed that Michael Jackson, the King of Pop, died today after suffering what has been reported as cardiac arrest. Jackson was 50. According to reports, Jackson was not breathing when paramedics were called to his Los Angeles home this afternoon, June 25th. Paramedics at the scene performed CPR on the singer, who was then transported to the UCLA Medical Center. Jackson arrived at the hospital in a deep coma, and attempts to resuscitate Jackson failed as he was completely unresponsive. MORE NEW YORK TIMES: As […]
Q&A: Novelist & Ex-NPR Host Farai Chideya
BY DIANCA POTTS Who says there are no second acts in American Life? (OK, F. Scott Fitzgerald said it, but that doesn’t mean it’s true) Scratch an NPR host and find a budding novelist. In advance of her appearance tonight at the Free Library, we called up former News And Notes host Farai Chideya to discuss just about everything under the sun: Obama, NPR, blogging, goth rock, the state of race relations in America, the Smiths, mixtapes and, most importantly her new book. Chideya is currently on the road in support of her debut novel, Kiss the Sky, which captures […]
GOODNIGHT MR. WELLS: PW Writer Extraordinaire Steven Wells Loses Long, Public Battle With Cancer
Damn. Steven Wells was THE funniest, ballsiest, take-no-prisoners writer to grace the pages of Philadelphia print media in recent memory. His long, tragic battle with cancer was no secret, he wrote about it with the same unflinching honesty, hair-on-fire rage, savage wit and gallows humor he wrote about everything. Sir, it was a privilege and an honor. You will be sorely missed. Good night Mr. Wells, wherever you are. PW: Steven Wells Farewell Column WIKIPEDIA: Steven Wells is was a British journalist and author currently based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA. Born in Swindon, England in 1960, Wells moved to the […]