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  NEW YORK TIMES: Of all the ways Donald Trump has shocked the political system, one of the most significant is how he wins primary after primary with one of the smallest campaign budgets. He still doesn’t have a super PAC. He skimped on ground organization and field offices. Most important, he spent less on television advertising — typically the single biggest expenditure for a campaign — than any other major candidate, according to an analysis by SMG Delta, a firm that tracks television advertising. But Mr. Trump is hardly absent from the airwaves. Like all candidates, he benefits from […]

  To be honest, my knowledge of ex-Supergrass guy Gaz Coombes — outside of some lingering bitterness that my parents did not have the good sense to name me Gaz Coombes — extends little further than that song about humping on the radio and then them asking everyone if they can hear them, you know, humping on the radio, and this crucial bit of bio from Wikipedia: “Coombes was noticeable for his large sideburns during the 1990s.” That’s all I got. But that fact is his newish solo album, Matador, is shockingly good, so let’s defer to the experts over […]

Artwork by JOHN LANGFORD   BY CHARLIE TAYLOR The smell of burning wood. The endless desert. Her face looks crisp. The man leans over her. His name is Wild and he’s a former soldier. His troop was attacked by a group of Tigua or Pueblo Indians. They attacked in response to an army raid on their tribe. Wild happened to be out scouting when the attack occurred, so he had a ready made excuse when he explained to General Sipley why he was alive. He still found himself discharged, partially because his entire troop was dead and partially because there […]

  TERRY GROSS: This is FRESH AIR. I’m Terry Gross. Donald Trump is running for president without ever having held elected office, but he offers as qualifications his record as a great businessman and dealmaker. This week, he tweeted that he will make the American economy sing again. Here’s an example of what Trump promised last June when he announced that he was entering the race for the Republican nomination for president. (SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING) DONALD TRUMP: Rebuild the country’s infrastructure. Nobody can do that like me. Believe me. It will be done on time, on budget, way below […]

  INQUIRER: It’s one of those stories that has lodged in the minds of many for its injustice and irony. Nina Simone – before she was Nina Simone, when she was still an aspiring classical pianist named Eunice Waymon – auditioned for the Curtis Institute of Music and was rejected on grounds of her race. The tale bubbles up every few years, refracted through the times, as it is doing again in our era of Ferguson and Sandra Bland. Simone herself recounted the story repeatedly during her lifetime. “I was rejected because I was black,” she told The Inquirer in […]

  BY SHARNITA MIDGETT Straight outta Egg Harbor Township, New Jersey, Biz Markie, born Marcel Hall, went on to become the Clown Prince of Hip Hop during rap’s golden age in the 1980s. He had hits like “Just a Friend” and “Make the Music with Your Mouth Biz” and acted alongside Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones in Men and Black II. On Friday, Biz Markie will be setting the Wayback Machine for the last two decades of the 20th Century when he hosts The Decades Collide: 80s vs. 90s show at the TLA. That’s right, hip-hop has been around […]

The first single from Rock N’ Roll (Creep Records).

  WIKIPEDIA: Life on the Road is an upcoming film written, directed, and produced by Ricky Gervais, who stars as David Brent, a role he played in the series The Office.[1] The film will be done in the mockumentary style: a film crew shadows Brent as he travels up and down the country living his dream of being a rock star.[2] Gervais said, “This film delves much more into his private life than The Office ever did and we really get to peel back the layers of this extraordinary, ordinary man.” He has emphasised that the movie is “not an […]

This is why every night before bed time I say my prayers to Werner Herzog.

  THE NEW YORKER: It was all so funny once. For a long time, Trump, with his twenty-four-karat skyscrapers, his interesting hair, and his extra-classy airline, was a leading feature of the New York egoscape. The editors of the satirical monthly Spy covered him with the same obsessive attention that Field & Stream pays to the rainbow trout. Trump never failed to provide; he was everywhere, commandeering a corner at a professional wrestling match, buying the Miss Universe franchise and vowing smaller bathing suits and higher heels. You could watch him humiliate supplicants on “The Apprentice” and hear him on […]