Calexico and Iron & Wine share the gorgeous second single from their upcoming album, Years to Burn, entitled “Midnight Sun.” In “Midnight Sun,” Calexico’s Joey Burns and Sam Beam of Iron & Wine trade haunted-sounding verses over shimmering steel until the song devolves into a corrosive electric lead from Burns, like a dying siren. The video makes use of over 100 paintings Beam did for the creation of the new album’s cover. Working with animator Jonny Sanders, the video brings to life in a spirited and fun way, the many images of Burns, Beam and Calexico drummer John Convertino. Years […]
WORTH REPEATING: Avenatti Agonistes
Photo by BENJAMIN LOWY via New York Times VANITY FAIR: ichael Avenatti was looking at his phone, scrolling through his Twitter mentions, when it all came crashing down. Not long before noon on March 25, he was walking toward an escalator in the newly opened 720,000-square-foot shopping mall in the middle of Hudson Yards. It’s a city within a city, purpose-built for people who don’t much like Manhattan even if they want to live here, with restaurants run by Michelin-starred chefs, shiny new high-rise apartment buildings, and headquarters for companies like WarnerMedia and Related and, as it happened, the law […]
BEING THERE: MONO @ Union Transfer
Photo by JOSH PELTA-HELLER Delicate placidity often led to sudden uproar when the streams of dark-wave singer/songwriter Emma Ruth Rundle and the ethereal post-rock of Japan’s MONO were crossed at Union Transfer Sunday night. Rundle and her touring band, comprised of Wovenhand’s Dylan Nadon on drums and Jay Jayle members Evan Patterson on guitar and Todd Cook on bass, kicked off their set with “Races” from 2018’s On Dark Horses. Rich with reverb, Rundle’s guitar sounds hung in the air as she leaned toward the microphone, her voice gentle and softening the music beneath. Before transitioning into “Light Song,” Rundle […]
INCOMING: Once Upon A Time In Hollywood
VARIETY: Hippie Hollywood is in full swing in the official trailer for Quentin Tarantino’s “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.” Sony released the new footage ahead of the movie’s highly anticipated premiere at the Cannes Film Festival. Tarantino’s ninth feature stars Brad Pitt, Leonardo DiCaprio and Margot Robbie. The premise of “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood” has been kept mostly under wraps, though Tarantino says it’s set in the late 1960s against the backdrop of the Manson family murders. DiCaprio plays washed-up TV star Rick Dalton, while Pitt portrays his longtime stunt double Cliff Booth. The two are struggling […]
NPR 4 THE DEAF: We Hear It Even When You Can’t
[Illustration by ALEX FINE] FRESH AIR: Cult filmmaker and self-described “filth elder” John Waters, 73, has plenty of ideas about what older people should and shouldn’t do. The worst thing, he says, is to get a convertible: “Because believe me, old age and windswept do not go hand in hand. It’s really a bad look! You can’t be trying too hard to rebel [when] you’re older.” Waters knows about being a rebel. He became famous for his 1972 film Pink Flamingos, in which the characters compete for the title of filthiest person alive. That film became a midnight movie classic […]
WORTH REPEATING: This Is How Democracy Dies
THE NEW YORK REVIEW OF BOOKS: For the American right, Donald Trump’s inauguration as the forty-fifth president of the United States was a moment of political rebirth. Elements of American conservatism had long fostered a reactionary counterculture, which defined the push for civil rights as oppression, resisted the equality of women and the transgression of conventional heterosexual norms, pilloried the hegemony of the liberal media, and was suspicious of globalism and its corporate liberal institutions, including the UN and the WTO. Already in the 1950s this reactionary politics had secured a niche on the right wing of the GOP. […]
FEARS OF A CLOWN: Q&A W/ Bobcat Goldthwait
BY JONATHAN VALANIA Born in Boston in 1962, Robert Francis ‘Bobcat’ Goldthwait has been trafficking in frantic, anarchic punk rock comedy and, later, thoughtful subversion for more than four decades. His highly-combustible early stand-up persona — shouty, sweaty and stammering — was akin to a scared Chihuahua on bath salts: Hulk-smashing, fire-starting and definitely not housebroken. He was banned from The Tonight Show for lighting the set on fire. After his early success in stand-up, acting and extensive voiceover work — including a recurring role as more or less himself in the Police Academy franchise — he transitioned to […]
CINEMA: Point Break
JOHN WICK: CHAPTER 3 — PARABELLUM (Dir. by Chad Stahelski, 130 minutes) BY DAN TABOR John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum is the third and surprisingly not final installment of the action franchise directed by Keanu Reeves’ Matrix stunt-double-turned-action-maestro Chad Stahelski. The film once again stars Reeves as the namesake Russian hitman who was first sent down this dark path of vengeance when a group of thugs not only stole his car, but killed the puppy that was gifted to him by his recently departed wife. About a week has passed in Wick’s world since his rampage began so far […]
TRIBUTE: Let Us Now Praise Joe Henry
Illustration by CHARLES BURNS via THE BELIEVER EDITOR’S NOTE: The following appreciation was written by the author in response to the sad news that acclaimed singer/songwriter and three-time Grammy-winning producer Joe Henry is battling Stage 4 prostate cancer. BY JON HOULON Got word yesterday that Joe Henry has begun a different sort of journey. So I wanted to send a love letter, get well card, fan’s note, or whatever you want to call it as a form of support. As bad as the 80s were, they still gave us Nebraska, Sign of the Times, Infidels, Let It Be, King of […]
TRAILER: David Crosby Will Not Go Quietly
ROLLING STONE: David Crosby reflects on drug addiction, personal tragedy and conflicts with former bandmates in the new trailer for David Crosby: Remember My Name. The Cameron Crowe-produced documentary — which recently premiered at the Sundance Film Festival — will open in New York and L.A. on July 19th. The clip opens with an interviewer asking the rock legend, “Do you ever wonder why you are still alive?” Without even a moment’s pause, he fires back, “I don’t know, man. No idea.” The 76-year-old songwriter proclaims that, despite his three heart-attacks and eight heart stents, he isn’t planning to slow […]
NPR 4 THE DEAF: We Hear It Even When You Can’t
Illustration by DREW FRIEDMAN FRESH AIR: Looking back on his early career, Howard Stern remembers being “petrified” that he wasn’t going to be able to make a living. “All the sexual antics, the religious antics, the race antics — everything that I talked about, every outrageous thing that I did — was to entertain my audience and grow my audience,” he says. “Whether you liked it or not, or the person down the street liked it or not — I didn’t care as long as I kept growing that audience.” Stern ultimately grew an audience of millions over a four-decade […]
EXCERPT: Requiem For A Tow Truck Drivin’ Man
Tow Truck King Lew Blum photographed by GENE SMIRNOV PHILADELPHIA MAGAZINE: One day, Lew Blum calls and says he wants me to ride along with Ray, his best tow-truck driver, to get a taste of what it’s like out there. This sounds like a capital idea to me — I’m picturing a scene out of Repo Man where we’re driving around all day snorting bathtub speed and blasting Black Flag while looking for aliens and rogue cars. Sadly, none of those things come to pass. Bright and early one morning in late February, I show up at Lew Blum Towing […]