BY BRENDAN SKWIRE How the hell did an old school hardcore punk kid like me get into old timey music?That’s a pretty short story. Even back in the day, I always loved older hardcore better than newer stuff. Youth of Today was fine, but Minor Threat was better (someday i will tell the story of how I made Ian Mackaye lose his temper), and the Sex Pistols was even better than that and so on and so on. The fact is, I’ve always loved old shit, so when I got a little older and my tastes in music began to […]
GAYDAR: Five Reasons Why Rent Must Die
1. Adam Pascal and Anthony Rapp Have Nothing Better To Do The main attraction of this particular production of RENT is original cast members Adam Pascal as AIDS-infected guitarist Roger Davis and Anthony Rapp as filmmaker Mark Cohen. For avid RENT fans, it’s a trip down memory lane. For everyone else, it’s men at work. Paschal and Rapp perform with grace and ease, no doubt inspiring the same sense of awe they did during RENT’s first production, perhaps even more so. Whatever. Sitting in the audience, I couldn’t help but think… 2. 1996 Just Called And They Want Their Hip […]
PAPERBOY: Special ‘Gimme Shelter’ Edition
BY DAVE ALLEN Like time, news waits for no man. Keeping up with the funny papers has always been an all-day job, even in the pre-Internets era. These days, however, it’s a two-man job. That’s right, these days you need someone to do your reading for you, or risk falling hopelessly behind and, as a result, increasing your chances of dying lonely and somewhat bitter. That’s why every week, PAPERBOY does your alt-weekly reading for you. We pore over those time-consuming cover stories and give you the takeaway, suss out the cover art, warn you off the ink-wasters and steer […]
TRAGIC: Lux Interior Is Dead
WFMU BLOG: Lux Interior, lead singer of The Cramps, passed away this morning due to an existing heart condition at Glendale Memorial Hospital in Glendale, California at 4:30 AM PST today. Lux has been an inspiration and influence to millions of artists and fans around the world. He and wife Poison Ivy’s contributions with The Cramps have had an immeasurable impact on modern music. The Cramps emerged from the original New York punk scene of CBGB and Max’s Kansas City, with a singular sound and iconography. Their distinct take on rockabilly and surf along with their midnight movie imagery reminded […]
NPR FOR THE DEAF: We Hear It Even When You Can’t
FRESH AIR Sarah Chayes first went to Afghanistan to report on the Taliban for NPR, but in 2002, after the fall of the Taliban government in Kabul, she left journalism and dedicated herself to rebuilding the country. She drew on her experiences to write her 2006 book, The Punishment of Virtue. Chayes is an advocate for economic development in Afghanistan, and she founded a cooperative in Kandahar that produces skin-care products from local crops. The cooperative aims to help farmers earn a living from licit crops rather than opium. Chayes joins Fresh Air to explain how the Taliban is using […]
THE DUDE ABIDES: ‘I Screwed Up’
[Photo by JEFF FUSCO] HUFFPO: “We can’t send a message to the American people that we have two sets of rules — one for prominent people and one for ordinary people,” he told Fox News’ Chris Wallace. “Ultimately I have to take responsibility for a process that resulted in us not having an HHS Secretary at a time when people need relief on their healthcare costs.” Certainly, the Daschle drama had taken the White House by a surprise. Democrats on the Hill were convinced that revelations of failed tax payments would not be enough to derail the nomination. A source […]
TONIGHT: Wavvy Gravvy
THE WAVVES: So Bored [Mp3] UPDATE: Cancelled due to inclement weather. Dang! Choice. We turn up the volume on the voices in our heads and try to make sense of the babble. On a journey around the country to understand how emotion and logic interact to guide us through our options, we ponder how we get through the million choices and decisions we make every day. Forget free will, some important decisions could come down to a steaming cup of coffee. MORE [HIGHLY RECOMMENDED]
CONCERT REVIEW: Antony & The Johnsons
BY JONATHAN VALANIA FOR THE INQUIRER If Antony Hegarty didn’t exist, Lou Reed would have surely invented him. It would be in a song called “Antony Says,” an elegantly twinkling ballad wrapped up in fishnet, mascara and doom, about an anguished androgyne with a canary-in-the-coal-mine voice that makes grown men cry in their souls, singing about the crack in the center of everything, where the light gets in. Fortunately, for the devoted at the half-full Keswick Theater Monday night, Antony is all too real. For it was there that he set the twilight reeling, and that voice — like butter, […]
50 YEARS AGO: The Day The Music Died
THE INDEPENDENT: “That’ll Be the Day” topped both the British and American charts, incidentally topping the US chart when Holly only had 500 days left to live. Frank Allen of the 1960s band The Searchers loved the record: “To be a star, you obviously need a desirable amount of talent, but the most important factor is individuality – and Buddy was distinctive and unmistakeable, both visually and aurally. While we were skiffling away, trying to find a fourth chord, Buddy was giving us the opening bars of ‘That’ll Be the Day’ with unbelievable expertise and on an instrument that was […]
THE EARLY WORD: Histoire Lesson
Whenever Wednesday, February 18 @ 6:30pm Screening and Reception: Melody Institute of Contemporary Art · University of Pennsylvania 118 S. 36th St., Philadelphia, PA 19104-3289 · 215.898.5911 Join Anthony Campuzano over wine and cheese to watch Serge Gainsbourg seduce nymphet Jane Birkin in Melody (1971), Jean-Christophe Averty’s kaleidoscopic 28-minute video accompaniment to Gainsbourg’s iconic and provocative concept album Histoire de Melody Nelson. SERGE GAINSBOURG: Requiem Pour Un Con
We Know It’s Only Avant Garde Noise But We Like It
HOWL: Thurston Moore, International House, Last Night [Photos: JONATHAN VALANIA] BY DAVE ALLEN I counted about a dozen walkouts from Thurston Moore and Mats Gustafsson’s performance at International House last night. The duo’s aggressive and experimental playing on guitar and saxophone, respectively, tested the limits of what two instruments, with but six strings and one strip of wood between them, could do, but it also tested the audience’s patience and tolerance of noise. During quieter moments, the duo’s playing resembled a static-smeared AM radio receiver rapidly cycling between stations, and during the louder moments they sounded like dueling atom smashers. […]
WEEKEND UPDATE: The Good News Flower Hour
The Good News Flower Hour #7 The latest edition of our five-minute week-in-review, wherein I’m a flower that reads the news. This is by far the best one yet. Hats off to our partners in crime at Collateral News and Woodshop Films.
HEAR YE: In The Aeroplane Over The Sea
Now playing on PHAWKER RADIO! Why? Because it’s GREAT! That’s why.