BY ZIVIT SHLANK Medeski, Martin & Wood have been labeled everything from a jam band to an acid jazz trio to bunch of play-that-funky-music white boys. However, ask the boys of Medeski Martin & Wood how they’d characterize their sonic experiments and they’d say their wide open. Together now for two decades, the innovative sonic laboratory known as MMW continues to circumvent genre boundaries and invent a few new ones in the process. Infamous for their charismatic virtuosity and their infectiously evolving sound, several albums and countless tours, however you want to define them this much is certain: They play […]
EARLY WORD: Naked Cities
NEW YORK TIMES: “Urbanized,” the latest design documentary by Gary Hustwit, is the final in an accidental trilogy that includes “Helvetica” (about the ubiquitous typeface) and “Objectified” (about the impact of industrial and product design on commerce and the environment). “Urbanized,” as its title suggests, is about the design of cities. Although other films have surveyed the topic through a longer lens, Hustwit’s is about immediate problems — and some viable solutions. It is a beautifully photographed film, which has the unintended consequence of making the slums of India and the favelas of Brazil appear picturesque. Although we learn that […]
NPR FOR THE DEAF: We Hear It Even When You Can’t
FRESH AIR David Carr joins Terry Gross on Fresh Air to discuss his Twitter usage, the future of newspapers, error correction, his own media consumption, religion and the accountability of social media. He says that he thinks of Twitter as a personalized “human-enabled RSS [feed]” that allows him to follow what his friends are reading and thinking about at any given moment. “It serves to edit what’s going on in the world, and it puts a human curation on this huge fire hose of data that’s washing over us all,” he says. “The question becomes where to look, and it’s […]
RAWK TAWK: Getting Down & Dirty With Low Cut Connie
BY TONY ABRAHAM While the band name (don’t say it too fast!) and the title of their self-released debut LP (the faptastic Get Out The Lotion) aims lowbrow and hits the target every time (the cover art features a middle age Jersey diner waitress whose off-duty activities shall remain a mystery best left unsolved), Low Cut Connie is more than the raunchy sum of their downmarket puns — much more. They are, in fact, hella fun and you can’t put a price on that — although they invariably will. Thanks to killa-dilla debut and well-earned hyping in the pages of […]
ARTSY: Smile, You’re On Philly Photo Day
Philly Photo Day is coming up on Friday, October 28th! Everyone in Philadelphia is invited to take a picture of anything you like as long as it’s taken on the 28th within the city limits. You’ll have until October 31st to select your favorite picture and upload it onto our website. (form/instructions available after Oct 28) Then on November 10th, from 6-9pm, join PPAC at the Philly Photo Day Opening Reception. Every single picture we receive will be printed and hung for exhibition in our space at 1400 N American St. Reprints of all the images will be available for […]
SH*T MY UNCLE SAYS: The Heirs Of Entitlement
BY WILLIAM C. HENRY With all the controversy surrounding “entitlements” reverberating throughout the body politic lately, perhaps the time has come for a battle-hardened, been-there-done-that, professional bullshit detector like myself to weigh in on the subject and hopefully help explode the meritocracy myths the American Right has been relying on to protect the legacies of the wealthy and bolster the anti-social welfare, pro-greed and self-interest free will belief system they have cleaved to for over a century. First things first: 1) My comments are intended to correlate with the 2nd Merriam-Webster definition of “entitlement,” namely: a government program providing benefits to members of a specified group; also: funds supporting […]
EARLY WORD: Be Here Now
Occupy Philadelphia will be staging an “End the Silence” march on Saturday, October 29th, to protest corporate control of American politics. The march will spotlight the suppression of the 99% in politics, as well as politicians’ silence on issues that are important to the people. The silent march will depart City Hall at 12:30pm and proceed to Temple University, where former President Bill Clinton will be speaking at a political rally. From Cantor to Clinton, Occupy Philadelphia objects to the domination of American politics by corporate interests. The current system places the power of campaign contributions over the power of […]
WORTH REPEATING: #Robin Hood Tax
ADBUSTERS: For the moment, #OCCUPY has the magic and the ear of the world, and anything seems possible. We could see a soft regime change in America and a resurgence of the political left worldwide. As winter approaches, many occupiers will dig in for the long haul. Others will decamp until spring and channel their energy into myriad projects. Many of the big ideas for rejuvenating and reenchanting the world that have been swirling around the left for the last 20 years will pick up steam. From revoking corporate personhood to de-commercializing the cultural commons, to separating money from politics, […]
#OCCUPY OAKLAND: Ten Soldiers And Nixon Coming
UPDATE: Mercurcy News Is Liveblogging The Latest Developments at Ogawa Plaza CBS NEWS: The scene was calm but tense early Wednesday as a crowd of hundreds of protesters dwindled to just a few dozen at the site of several clashes between authorities and supporters of the Occupy Wall Street movement a night earlier. Police in riot gear stood watch only a few yards away from a group of stalwart demonstrators in the aftermath of skirmishes in front of City Hall that resulted in five volleys of tear gas from police, in blasts that seemed to intensify with each round, over […]
WORTH REPEATING: LouTallica
CHUCK KLOSTERMAN: The universe is predisposed to hate this new Lou Reed/Metallica album, Lulu, and I totally understand why. It’s not really designed for people who like music. It sounds like what it is: an elderly misanthrope reciting paradoxical aphorisms over a collection of repetitive, adrenalized sludge licks. Anyone who tries to suggest it’s surprising in any way needs to reexamine his or her propensity for being surprised. I’m sure there will be a sector of Metallica’s core audience that feels “betrayed,” mostly because Metallica fans enjoy the sensation of betrayal.1 I suppose a handful of Lou Reed obsessives will […]
EULOGY FOR TRITONE: Goodnight Rick D, Wherever You Are
BY PETE MARSHALL “Tritone closing? Say it ain’t so. Now where am I gonna play?” By the end of the week, after the word of Tritone closing its doors gets around, countless Philadelphia area bands and musicians will have uttered these words. Take my word for it. Now, I know that Tritone is not the only joint in town. Not by a long shot. In fact there are quite a few good places to play in this old town these days. But with Tritone you can always rely on landing a gig no matter what you’re serving up. The Tritone […]
Obama Getting Even MORE Medieval On California Medical Marijuana While Fundraising There As Mr. Hopey Changey
ABC NEWS: In its effort to shut down California’s booming medical marijuana dispensaries, the Justice Department is seeking to seize the property where the clinics are based, even going after at least one bank that holds the mortgage on a clinic. Chase bank received a letter to evict the Marin Alliance for Medical Marijuana, according to Greg Anton, attorney for the clinic. The bank owns the note on the building in Fairfax, Calif. According to Anton, the bank received a similar letter from U.S. attorney Melinda Haag for the northern district of California that was sent to the Alliance’s landlord […]