THE RISING: The Boss with Choir, Lincoln Memorial, Washington, D.C. 2:40 PM “Lincoln was a quiet man, but when he spoke of democracy this is what he said — ‘As I would not be a slave, so I would not be a master. This expresses my idea of democracy.’ ” — TOM HANKS * U2: Pride (In The Name Of Love)/City Of Blinding Lights HEAR YE: First single from new U2
We Know It’s Only Rock N’ Roll But We Like It
RABBIT REDUX: Frightened Rabbit, JB’s, Last Night [Photo by CHRIS Z.] BY CHRIS ZAKORCHEMNY As Scott Hutchinson struck the first chords of “The Modern Leper,” adrenaline shot through my spine. It’s that moment of a quiet verve that feels like hope in your lungs. Judging by the smiles, ‘woos’ and out of tune singing of the sold out crowd around me, it was as if each one of us had “a disease I can’t shake.” Not that we wanted to. The song blistered through its four minutes, and had me wondering what this band was doing at Johnny Brenda’s last […]
WEEKEND UPDATE: The Good News Flower Hour
The Good News Flower Hour #5 After a holiday hiatus, The Good News Flower Hour returns with all the news of the week that fits — in a five minute cartoon narrated by a flower that sounds JUST LIKE ME! You’re welcome.
PHAWKER TAWK: Department Of Eagles
DEPARTMENT OF EAGLES began in 2000, when New York University assigned freshmen Fred Nicolaus and Daniel Rossen to share a room. To pass the time during an uneventful spring semester, the two began making music together, collecting samples and turning them into songs. In 2004 Daniel joined the group Grizzly Bear as a singer, guitarist and songwriter. In the meantime, Fred was working a 9-5 job and opening a savings account. However, after work he would record ideas and email them to Daniel, who was also working on a new batch of material between tours, much of which felt far […]
USELESS INFORMATION: You Need This In Your Life
[Click image to activate Internet] Just what David Lee Roth always needed: An ON/OFF switch. More fun than yarn ball in a room full of kittens!
CINEMA: Big Pimpin’
Notorious (2009, directed by George Tillman Jr. 100 minutes, U.S.) BY DAN BUSKIRK FILM CRITIC Get a jump on mid-90’s nostalgia and catch the new biopic of slain hip-hop icon Biggie Smalls, Notorious. It’s 1994, George Foreman is the heavyweight champion, Tonya Harding and O.J. Simpson dominate the headlines. West Coast-based artists Tupac Shakur and Dr. Dre are at the top of the game when Sean “Puffy” Combs and The Notorious B.I.G. drop Biggie’s debut Ready To Die, drawing attention back to the rap game’s East Coast roots. Over the next few years this East Coast versus West Coast feud […]
PROM 1984: Jennifer Aniston
[via BUZZFEED] Funny, we also went to the prom in 1984 and our date looked a lot like this. It pains us to admit it, but we looked like Duran Duran. Or tried to. Man, this is like the time we went to see Jon Stewart at the Tower and he comes and says,’Man, it’s great to be back. Last time I was here I was third row for the Alarm.’ Fuck! We where at that show! Christ, we were hoping to take that to the grave. Oh well, live and learn. Sooner or later, we all 86’d the mousse […]
HEAR YE: Coconut Records Davy
Now playing on PHAWKER RADIO! Get it HERE. ALL MUSIC GUIDE: Three years after his departure from Phantom Planet, musician/actor Jason Schwartzman returned to L.A.’s pop-loving circles with the solo project Coconut Records. Schwartzman had launched Phantom Planet in 1994 and served as the band’s drummer for nearly a decade, simultaneously furthering his acting career with roles in Rushmore, CQ, Slackers, S1m0ne, and Spun. The offers increased once he left Phantom Planet‘s lineup in 2003, but Schwartzman nevertheless had trouble shaking music from his system. With Incubus guitarist Mike Einziger serving as producer, he decamped to Malibu during the summer […]
THE EARLY WORD: Carnival Of Sorts
* MEDIA: Gannett Orders Week Long Furlough Of All Employees NEW YORK TIMES: The Gannett Company, the nation’s largest newspaper publisher, said on Wednesday that it would force thousands of its employees to take a week off without pay in an effort to avoid layoffs. Gannett, which owns 85 daily newspapers across the United States including its flagship USA Today, said it could not say exactly how many people would be required to take time off, or how much money the company would save. But it said it would require unpaid leave for most of its 31,000 employees in this […]
NPR FOR THE DEAF: We Hear It Even When You Can’t
FRESH AIR Rolling Stone contributing editor Steve Knopper chronicles the rise of the record industry — and its subsequent digital-age collapse — in his new book, Appetite For Self-Destruction: The Spectacular Crash Of The Record Industry In The Digital Age. Knopper’s work has also appeared in Spin, Esquire, The Washington Post and Wired. RADIO TIMES WITH MARTY MOSS-COANE Hour 1 A look back at President George Bush’s eight years in office. How will he be judged? An analysis of the high and lowpoints with Vanderbilt University historian GARY GERSTLE and Bush biographer, ROBERT DRAPER. Listen to the mp3 Hour 2 […]
NPR FOR THE DEAF: We Hear It Even When You Can’t
FRESH AIR After 44 years as a newspaperman, former Washington Post executive editor Leonard Downie Jr. is making his debut as a fiction writer. His new novel, The Rules of The Game, features an investigative reporter on the beat of a hotly contested presidential election. Downie joined the Post as an summer intern in 1964, and retired in Sept. 2008 after serving 17 years as the paper’s executive editor. In his last year as editor, the paper won six Pulitzer Prizes for work done in 2007 — the most it had ever earned in one year. ALSO, John Yemma, the […]
HEAR: Animal Collective Merriweather Post Pavillion
Now playing on PHAWKER RADIO! THE TIMES OF LONDON: There is cheap music, potent and conducive to an easy sentimentality (and, often, none the worse for that), and there is music that produces in the listener a more complex and gradual reaction, which combines bafflement, the playing of a shy smile on the lips, a rush of heat to the face, a sensation of being once more a child, unsure quite how to respond to or process the experience. Merriweather Post Pavilion, named after an open-air concert venue in Maryland, is a glorious example of the latter. MORE BY JONATHAN […]