LOS ANGELES — The Police 30th Anniversary reunion world tour will kick off May 28 at Vancouver’s GM Place and travel through North America until early August. The official tour announcement will be made this morning at legendary Sunset Strip club Whiskey A Go Go by singer-bassist Sting, 55, drummer Stewart Copeland, 54, and guitarist Andy Summers, 64. Ticket prices are expected to be in three ranges — approximately $225, $90 and $50. Police to hold press conference to announce tour at the Whiskey A Go Go this morning. Philly date inevitable. DEVELOPING
GRAMMYS: Free Speech Makes Comeback Of The Year
Connecting past and present, one-time folk protest queen Joan Baez introduced current freedom-of-speech fighters and five time Grammy nominees the Dixie Chicks, still “Not Ready to Make Nice” to the country conservatives and spineless radio programmers who totally abandoned them for criticizing (barely) the President’s pre-emptive war tactics. An hour later, the same tune was named Song of the Year, a recording industry affirmation that left the group’s usually outspoken Natalie Maines speechless “for the first time in my life,” she declared. But by the time the Chicks returned to take Best Country Album for “Taking the Long Way,” Maines […]
NOW PLAYING: NEW MAGNETIC WONDER
[NOW PLAYING ON PHAWKER RADIO] REVIEWED BY AMY Z. QUINN The last time Apples in Stereo released an album was in 2002, not long after being featured in a New York Times piece about the then-growing trend of indie rockers selling their music for advertising. In early 2001, when the piece ran, the Apples were still angsty over deciding they needed things like baby furniture as much as artistic cred. Half a decade later, that baby furniture is probably still serving Hilarie Sidney and Robert Schneider’s child well, so in terms of the small world of their own family, they […]
EARLY WORD: I Am An American Aquarium Drinker
An evening of incendiary duos with Wilco’s Nels Cline and some of Philadelphia’s most idiosyncratic performers. Featuring percussionist Toshi Makihara (Eugene Chadbourne, Thurston Moore), Stinking Lizaveta guitarist Yanni Papadopoulos, and two of Philadelphia’s most accomplished jazz musicians, trumpeter John Swana and guitarist Rick Iannacone. FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 9 NELS CLINE + TOSHI MAKIHARA CHARLES COHEN + YANNI PAPADOPOULOS RICK IANNACONE + JOHN SWANA 9PM | $5 ADMISSION AVANT GENTLEMEN’S LODGE 4028 FILBERT STREET
ROY ORBISON: In Dreams
A candy colored clown they call The Sandman.
EARLY WORD: SUGAR DITCH REVISITED
Yo La Tengo After Party: Troc Tix Stubs Gets You In For Half Price
STUPOR BOWL: Purple Reign! Purple Reign!
BY ED KING ROCK SNOB In a wet, sloppy Super Bowl game that featured perhaps the greatest mismatch in quarterbacks, the unlikeliest of factors in football’s orgasmic finale came through: the Halftime Show, featuring Prince drenched in real, live purple rain and withstanding artificial lightning. I don’t recall when the Halftime Show as Cross-Generational, Cross-Marketing Rock Extravaganza began, but it’s always been a reason to bear witness to the last desperate breaths of rock legends (McCartney, The Rolling Stones), hate foreigners trying to upstage our national holiday (U2 and Bono’s American flag-lined leather jacket), or fully understand the impulses that […]
SMILE: The BEE GEES Were Cool Once…No Really
BY JONATHAN VALANIA FOR THE INQUIRER To rock boys coming of age in the late ’70s and early ’80s, the brothers Gibb were known primarily as the fey, toothy, Members Only-jacketed target of the Disco Sucks backlash that greeted the blockbuster sales and grating ubiquity of their Saturday Night Fever soundtrack. But unbeknownst to many, the Bee Gees also had an amazing career in the ’60s, creating deathless psychedelic-pop singles and ambitious album-length statements that explored complex themes and experimented with all manner of instrumentation and orchestral arrangements. Even back then, it was their harmonizing – as rich and distinct […]