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  NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC: A planet larger than Earth could be hiding in the cold, dark depths of the solar system. The presence of the planet, which would lie far beyond Pluto, is betrayed by the curious orbits of a handful of distant icy worlds. As described Wednesday in the Astronomical Journal, the gravitational signature of a large, lurking planet is written into the peculiar orbits of these farflung worlds. Called extreme Kuiper Belt Objects, the misbehaving bodies trace odd circles around the sun that have puzzled scientists for years. It’s tantalizing evidence that a ninth large planet might live in […]

  “Words have no power to impress the mind without the exquisite horror of their reality.” — Edgar Allan Poe, January 19th, 1809-October 7th, 1859 PREVIOUSLY: Quoth The Raven “Nevermore”

  NEW YORK TIMES: Nineteen eighty was a year of hope for conservatives in America, but it was a hope diminished by decades of consistent failure at the grass roots. Republicans hadn’t controlled either chamber of Congress, or a majority in state legislatures, for a quarter-century. Most governors were Democrats, as had been true since 1970. Not only was the Republican Party overmatched at winning elections, but those with the strongest ideological convictions — “movement conservatives,” as they liked to call themselves — were a faint voice even within Republican ranks. But at the end of that year two things […]

WASHINGTON POST: Now that Glenn Frey — who died Sunday at 67 of complications from rheumatoid arthritis, acute ulcerative colitis and pneumonia, as The Washington Post’s Harrison Smith reported — is gone, we must recognize his many gifts. He helped build a band that lasted decades. He was a gifted songwriter. He had a great voice. He convincingly played a smuggler in a classic MTV video. Yet, it would be remiss not to note that many people — among them rock critics, cognoscenti and everyday folks who felt they heard “Hotel California” one too many times — really loathed the Eagles. They hated the band’s sound — or, […]

Photos by NOAH SILVESTRY BY NOAH SILVESTRY “I wish I could write songs about anything other than death,” Julien Baker sings in the opening lines of “Sprained Ankle, the title track of her acclaimed debut LP. She’s poking fun at herself, but the joke only draws half-laughs; Sprained Ankle ranks easily as one of the saddest – and most morbid – releases of 2015. As you might expect from a coming-of-age record by an artist who is, well, still coming of age – Baker is just 20 years old – the morbidity is means to an end. The album’s title […]

  BY STEVE VOLK  Sometimes, success comes to those who live long enough. In July, 1973, Woody Woodmansey was the drummer in one of the world’s most important rock bands, Ziggy Stardust and Spiders From Mars. He’d spent a couple of years on the kit, slugging out big, muscular beats behind David Bowie, grounding an enterprise that incorporated such disparate influences and cultural touchstones as mime, kabuki, A Clockwork Orange, sci fi aliens and Beethoven’s Fifth into a melange that provided audiences with multiple climaxes both real and metaphorical. The show pushed sexual liberation forward miles when Bowie simulated fellatio […]

Out front of David Bowie’s house, 285 Lafayette St., NYC, 12:59 pm by STEVE VOLK

  Holy Holy, an all-star line-up featuring Tony Visconti and Woody Woodmansey, will tour North America performing David Bowie’s album The Man Who Sold the World in an exclusive 11-date tour coming to Phoenixville’s Colonial Theatre on Friday Jan. 15th. These are rare performances that Bowie fans must see. The show happens just one week after the release of Bowie’s new album, Blackstar, which Visconti also produced. Woody had played drums on five of nascent Bowie’s albums, including Ziggy Stardust, Hunky Dory and Aladdin Sane. Fresh from producing Bowie new effort Blackstar, Visconti had played bass on Bowie’s early work, […]

“David Bowie died peacefully today surrounded by his family after a courageous 18 month battle with cancer. While many of you will share in this loss, we ask that you respect the family’s privacy during their time of grief.” — via @DavidBowieReal BY STEVE VOLK To many of us, Bowie was a bit like the sun or moon, always there, and coming to grips with the fact of his death will be incredibly difficult. I was 13 when Let’s Dance was released, a kid in a Pittsburgh suburb, still unable to access anything of the world to which my parents […]

Reading Terminal Market, Thursday 12:37 pm by MEGAN MATUZAK

PREVIOUSLY: Father John Misty lives in a red-clay adobe pueblo on top of a low mountain in Echo Park. Good luck trying to find it without GPS and a helicopter. Down below the cloud line, the hazy glittering grid of Greater Los Angeles recedes into the infinite. From the vantage point of this fairly Olympian perch, Los Angeles looks like flecks of diamond embedded in a filthy sidewalk. Like most wise men atop mountains, Father John Misty’s possessions are few: his beard, his acoustic guitar, his vinyl copy of On The Beach and a mason jar filled to the brim […]

  “All these moments will be lost in time…like tears in the rain.” — Roy Batty’s Last Words BLADERUNNER WIKIA: Roy Batty, model number N6MAA10816, is the leader of the renegade Nexus-6 replicants and the main antagonist of Blade Runner. He is very intelligent, fast, and skilled at combat, and yet still learning how to deal with developing emotions. He blew a few of his fellow replicants on what is inevitably a fruitless search for more life. As hope slowly fades away and his friends are eliminated one by one, it is his experience that brings up the question of […]

  BY STEVE VOLK In the spring of 2014, an old man walked into 55 Bar, a small West Village club where a particularly hot jazz band was holding forth, less bop than modern experimentation, an outfit that churned and surged in exotic, ecstatic bursts. The old man stayed awhile, at a table near the stage, letting the music wash over him along with everyone else, anonymous except that he wasn’t. Only after he left did the whispers start. “Was that David Bowie?” We now know the answer was yes—the old codger spaceman was out, on a Sunday night no […]