BY NICK POWELL DNC CORRESPONDENT On an otherwise slow day here at the DNC, I had my first official “Convention-celebrity experience” at the Movies With A Message brunch at Earl’s Restaurant in downtown Denver. While shadowing a reporter at the party, I mingled with the smiling Dems, took in the music of a small R&B band, and munched on the semi-mediocre breakfast spread. All was quiet, until suddenly … there’s Civil Rights Activist Rep. John Lewis (D-GA) … and Anne Hathaway … and Pras … and Al Sharpton. The celebrities came pouring in, and for a second I was completely […]
NPR 4 THE DEAF: We Hear It Even When You Can’t
FRESH AIR Though John McCain and Barack Obama agree that America’s health care system needs reform, the candidates differ markedly in their vision of the remedy. Political scientist Jonathan Oberlander offers an in-depth comparison of the Obama and McCain health proposals. Oberlander compared the candidates in his report, “The Partisan Divide — The McCain and Obama Plans for U.S. Health Care Reform,” which was published Aug. 21, 2008 in the New England Journal of Medicine. Oberlander is an associate professor of social medicine and health policy and administration at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. RADIO TIMES Lowering […]
GO TELL IT ON THE MOUNTAIN: It’s Biden Time
“Now, with Joe Biden at my side, I am confident that we can take this country in a new direction; that we are ready to overcome the adversity of the last eight years; that we won’t just win this election in November, we’ll restore that fair shot at your dreams that is at the core of who Joe Biden and I are as people, and what America is as a nation. So let me introduce you to the next Vice President of the United States of America… ” — Sen. Barack Obama, Springfield, IL PHAWKER: Strong choice. Look at it […]
EARLY WORD: Lord Of The Amps
Let’s say you were in a big famous group called the Black Keys and you were playing at a place like, say, the Electric Factory and your vintage, 1968, 100-watt Marshall Plexi, Super Lead guitar amp went down on you just hours before the show. Chances are you would have end up at the door step of Philly’s most respected and revered amp builder John Martin. Over the years many bands both big and small found their way to John’s humble South Philadelphia workshop/home, from the Black Keys to L7 to local favorites like The Original Sins and the Lilys. […]
TONGUE IN CHIC: Q&A With Nico Muhly
BY DAVE ALLEN Nico Muhly is a thoroughly modern composer. His pieces are larded with innately contemporary textures, wherein classical elements — harpsichord, violin, celesta — bump up against vocalists rapidly-intoning lists over the sound of scraping knives and burbling synthesizers. In just a few short years, he’s earned just as much cred in the pop music world (collaborations with Antony and the Johnsons, Bonnie “Prince” Billy, and Bjork) as he has in the hallowed halls of classical (commissions from the Boston Pops, Chicago Symphony, and NYC avant-garde venue The Kitchen) while maintaining an astonishing level of productivity. He’s already […]
THE EARLY WORD: Baby Did A Bad, Bad Thing
The Friggs [pictured above, wrasslin’ at the Khyber circa 1990-something] reunite Saturday at Tritone. Details after the jump…
Glen Campbell Will Not Save You From Yourself
BY JOE WARMINSKY The best song on Jenny Lewis’s Rabbit Fur Coat was her Traveling Wilburys cover; she turned “Handle With Care” — with assists from indie worker-bees Oberst, Ward and Gibbard — into a post-millennial service economy lament. (In the hands of Lynne/Petty/Harrison/Orbison/Dylan, I saw it more as a rumination on suburban boomer anomie.) But more importantly, Lewis refreshed a fusty, shopworn hit by simply taking it seriously. Jenny one, FM rock zero. In that same way, Glen Campbell’s new album racks up a score of at least 3-0. With its 10 showy covers of alt-rock familiarities and AOR […]
NPR FOR THE DEAF: We Hear It Even When You Can’t
FRESH AIR After he won the presidency, Abraham Lincoln brought three of his rivals for the Republican nomination into his cabinet. Historian Doris Kearns Goodwin‘s book, Team of Rivals, recounts the life and work of our 16th president — and the principal characters of his administration. Goodwin won a Pulitzer Prize for her book, No Ordinary Time, about Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt. She has also written books about Lyndon Johnson and the Kennedys. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED: When Lyndon B. Johnson took office as president, after the assassination of John F. Kennedy, he began making daily recordings of his private conversations. Historian […]
INSTA-REVIEW: Meet Glen Campbell
Now playing on Phawker Radio! BY ED KING, ROCK EXPERT Along with Dionne Warwick, the late-60s hits by Glen Campbell represent, in my memory, the best of the failed aspirations of middle-class America. I still see those albums sitting in front of the huge, wooden stereo consoles in our neighborhood, resting on plush, burnt-orange carpeting. Some elongated sculpture of a conquistador on a horse decorates one end of the console. A reproduction of some painting by one of the Dutch Masters is centered over the stereo; it matches the colors of the heavy velour drapes and couch. “Galveston,” “Wichita Lineman,” […]
JUST IN: Neil Young + Wilco At Wachovia Center
PITCHFORK: For nearly all of the dates on his North American fall tour, folk-rock legend and Godfather of many styles Neil Young has invited the likes of Death Cab for Cutie and Wilco to take the warm-up spots. Death Cab goes first, with dates running from mid-October to early November, and Wilco takes the reins for the tour’s second leg in late November and early December. MORE 11-29 Halifax, Nova Scotia – Metro Centre 12-01 Montreal, Quebec – Bell Centre 12-02 Ottawa, Ontario – Scotia Bank Place 12-04 Toronto, Ontario – Air Canada Centre 12-07 Detroit, MI – Palace of […]
SMILE: Brian Wilson’s Comin’ To Town
BRIAN WILSON Saturday, November 22 – 8 p.m. – $65 & $49.50 KESWICK THEATRE Easton Road and Keswick Ave, Glenside, PA (215) 572-7650 Tickets on sale WEDNESDAY, Aug. 20 @ 10 a.m.! THE BEACH BOYS: God Only Knows
RECONSIDER THIS: M.I.A.’s “Paper Planes”
[Photo by JONATHAN VALANIA] POP CESSPOOL: There she is at No. 5 on the Hot 100, riding the coattails of a stoner movie, and I’m mildly thrilled. Now, I’m no Official M.I.A. Booster; since she first bopped out of Diplo’s camp, I’ve been a casual consumer and a quiet skeptic. And other nerds already have found much to analyze in the rise of the weird, gunshotty “Paper Planes,” so I’m not claiming to be throwin’ any lightning bolts here. But I will say this: Part of me wants M.I.A.’s ditty to be another “Teen Spirit” moment — an instance when […]
THIS JUST IN: Drive-By Truckers + Hold Steady Tour
THE DIRTY SOUTH WILL RISE AGAIN: Drive-By Truckers, The Fillmore, 3/27/08 The Drive-By Truckers are pleased to announce a 23-date co-headlining tour with their friends The Hold Steady, which stops at the Electric Factory November 8th. The bands will alternate who closes the shows throughout the tour, pre-sale begins Tuesday, August 19, and the public on-sale starts Friday, August 22. The tour is aptly named the Rock and Roll Means well tour. The name of the tour is taken from a lyric of one of Mike Cooley’s songs, “Marry Me.” The line is one of Craig Finn’s favorite lyrics (which […]