Reckoning ÷ Crooked Rain Crooked Rain = Around the Sun? BY JONATHAN VALANIA Twenty-four years ago — let’s just pause and think about that for a sec, 24 years ago! — R.E.M. released Reckoning. It was the much-anticipated sophomore release by the underground’s then-favorite sons of the South. The album made good on the kudzu-crusted promise of the band’s bewitching and ultimately confounding debut Murmur, radiating a murky but hopeful aura to an alt-world grown weary of punk’s safety-pinned doom and goth’s spider web of gloom. “I’m the sun and you can read,” they sang, or at least that’s what […]
ACQUITTED: The Last Temptation Of R. Kelly?
NEW YORK TIMES: CHICAGO — It took more than six years for prosecutors to get the R&B star R. Kelly into court on charges of child pornography. It only took a few hours for a jury to declare him not guilty on all 14 counts. Mr. Kelly had been accused of making a 27-minute sex tape with an under-age female. But a high-powered defense team convinced the jury of nine men and three women that the identity of the girl was not conclusive. As the verdicts were being read on Friday, the singer started crying and whispering “Thank you Jesus, […]
ROMEO VOID: Never Say Never
Circa 1983. Might like you better if we slept together? Genius, pure genius.
INSTA-REVIEW: Coldplay Viva La Vida
Now playing on Phawker Radio! Why? Because we really, really like you! BY ED KING ROCK SNOB As you might imagine, I’m a huge Coldplay fan. I first heard them playing over the sound system at a Restoration Hardware, and damn if I didn’t march right up to Customer Service until I got an answer on who was playing. As soon as I got home I downloaded as much Coldplay as I could find on iTunes, and I haven’t been able to get enough of them since then. Man, I don’t recall being hooked on something this right since wine […]
ON THE DL: Santogold + Casablancas + Pharrell
DOWNLOAD: “My Drive-Thru” [MP3]
NPR 4 THE DEF: Women We Love
FRESH AIR In her new film, Savage Grace, the actress Julianne Moore plays the wife of the heir to the Bakelite plastics fortune, a middle-class woman who’s married up, but who craves more than the comforts money can buy. As her emotional neediness gets entangled with her son’s, boundaries of all kinds get broken — and a tragedy looms. The movie, based on the true story of a scandalous high-society murder, is playing now in limited release; Rolling Stone critic Peter Travers says “Moore delivers a tour de force … [she’s] savagely moving in her haunting delineation of Barbara’s journey […]
FORECAST: Holiday In Cambodia
Tuesday, Jun 10 High: 99°F RealFeel®: 106°F Mostly sunny, very hot and humid with the temperature breaking the record of 97 set in 1964 [via ACCUWEATHER] WIKIPEDIA: “Holiday in Cambodia” was the second single by the Dead Kennedys. The record was released in May 1980 on Alternative Tentacles with “Police Truck” as the b-side. The song appears to be an attack upon both Eastern totalitarianism, Western complacency and the direct relation between the two through American military intervention. In October 1998, Biafra was sued by former members of the Dead Kennedys. According to Biafra, the suit was a result of […]
NPR 4 THE DEF: Thank You For Smoking
FRESH AIR Whether he’s lancing boils, getting crabs from thrift store pants or sitting in a hospital waiting room dressed only in his underwear, one thing is clear: David Sedaris is not shy about sharing those embarrassing, cringe-worthy incidents that members of the general population tend to save for diaries or therapists. In his sixth collection of essays, When You Are Engulfed in Flames, Sedaris continues to bare his body and soul, detailing the aforementioned boils and crabs, as well as an uncomfortable incident in which he accidentally spits a lozenge into the lap of his seatmate on an airplane. […]
LISTEN LIKE THIEVES: Sebadoh’s “Soul And Fire”
Released roughly halfway through their recording career, Bubble & Scrape captured Sebadoh as a band in most profound transition. Since inception, Lou Barlow, Eric Gaffney and Jason Loewenstein had ever been more a wonderfully chaotic collective of individuals following their own erratic, crazy-paved paths than the typical, rigidly-defined group. All three wrote and sang their own songs, while live performances would play host to regular bouts of instrument-swapping, as one member stepped up to the microphone as the previous ‘frontman’ returned to the drumkit — stemming from Barlow’s desire that Sebadoh be an entirely democratic process, in contrast to his […]
I Went To The Roots Picnic & All I Got Was A Good Time
TEXT & PHOTOS BY JONATHAN VALANIA & TIFFANY YOON 1. Quite probably, Ahmir ‘?uestlove’ Thompson is the greatest drummer on Earth. Speaking on behalf of the entire 215…drumroll, please…we could not be more proud or horny. Thank you, try the veal. 2. Black Thought is arguably the baddest MC in the game right now. (Bad meaning good, and also a ‘jive turkey’ is a bad person. Just sayin’.) 3. Not only is guitarist Captain Kirk Douglas a master of Hendrixian six-string psychedelic scribble and Maggot Brain-damaged space-funk, but dude can sing like Smokey Robinson, or close enough for sweaty white […]
EARLY WORD: Sharon Jones Has Nice Bones
[Photos by JONATHAN VALANIA] BY JONATHAN VALANIA FOR THE INQUIRER There was a prevailing mood of giddiness in the air at the Fillmore one night back in December, a palpable sense that we were lucky enough to attend a very auspicious occasion, one above and beyond the usual concert experience. A sense that we were all active participants in poetic justice, and by ponying up for a ticket and selling out the joint, a long-neglected talent was finally getting her turn in the sun. As Sharon Jones will be the first to tell you, record executives have long told her […]
NPR FOR THE DEAF: We Hear It Even When You Can’t
RADIO TIMES Hour 1 Today marks 40 years since the death of Robert F. Kennedy. He was assassinated shortly after midnight on June 5th and died on June 6. His campaign for the presidency in 1968 was considered by many as inspiring and contemporary observers have noted parallels to the candidacy of Barak Obama. Guest host Dave Davies talks about the Robert F. Kennedy’s campaign for the presidency with author THURSTON CLARKE and Penn professor TOM SUGRUE. Listen to this show via Real Audio | mp3 Hour 2 Tune in for a rebroadcast of Dave’s interview about Leni Riefenstahl, the Controversial […]