Big Star’s third album, Third/Sister Lovers, has long been revered by artists and critics as one of the most influential albums ever produced. Written and recorded when the legendary 70s band was primarily a studio project consisting of Alex Chilton and Jody Stephens, the third album was never been performed in public with the original string and wind orchestrations. That changed in December 2010, when an all-star band unearthed the original scores, assembled an orchestra and performed Big Star’s Third at Cat’s Cradle in Carrboro, NC. Performers that night included Jody Stephens (Big Star), Mike Mills (R.E.M.), Mitch Easter (Let’s […]
Florence & The Machine Coming To Festival Pier 6/20
[Illustration by LAURA LOVEDAY] June 20th with Twin Shadow at the festival pier. Tickets go on sale Friday, Feb 18 at 10am at Livenation.com or call 800-745-3000. Ticket are $30, $33 day of the show.
Priest Sex Abuse Lawsuit Filed Against Cardinals Rigali And Bevilacqua For Covering Up Child Rape
NBC PHILADELPHIA: Only days after three Philly priests and a teacher were charged with raping boys, a new lawsuit popped up against the archdiocese, accusing top church staff of conspiracy. A national advocacy group alleges that high-ranking Roman Catholic clergy in the Philadelphia Archdiocese conspired to cover up criminal acts by two priests who the group says sexually assaulted the same boy in the 1990s. Barbara Blaine of the group Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests said a lawsuit will be filed Monday naming archdiocesan officials and staffers, including Cardinal Justin Rigali and retired Cardinal Anthony Bevilacqua. The group […]
THEATER REVIEW: Big Love At Temple
BY LAURA WESTERMAN On Friday evening, Temple University’s Tomlinson Theater saw the opening of Big Love, the Obie award-winning romantic comedy written by contemporary American playwright Charles Mee. Written in 2000, Big Love adheres to Mee’s collage-like style of writing and represents a re-imagining of Aeschylus’ The Suppliant Women for a contemporary audience. Directed by New Yorker Jill Harrison, the play will be running at Tomlinson Theater until February 20th. The play tells the story of 50 Greek sisters who flee to Italy in the hope of escaping their fate as soon-to-be wives. With a cast of seven, Harrison focuses […]
FYI Radiohead To Release New Album On Saturday
NASTY LITTLE MAN: Radiohead announce the imminent release of their eighth studio album, The King Of Limbs. The band have begun taking pre-orders for The King Of Limbs exclusively from their website, www.radiohead.com; fans will be able to digitally download the album from as early as the end of this week, Saturday 19th February. For the next few weeks, the album will be exclusively available from the band’s site in two versions – digital download (either MP3 or WAV) and a special, made to order deluxe edition featuring 2 clear 10″ vinyl records, a CD, a digital download and exclusive […]
Philly Man Ends Knife-Wielding Maniac’s Crime Spree
[Photo viaNEW YORK POST] CNN: Authorities said Saturday that Gelman allegedly stabbed three people to death, hit and killed a man with a car, slashed at least five other people and carjacked two vehicles before he was wrestled to the ground early Saturday while attempting to break into the cab of a subway car. Gelman, 23, who is unemployed and known to authorities mostly as a graffiti artist, was arrested about 9 a.m. Saturday, about 28 hours after he allegedly began the spree spanning three New York boroughs, Police Commissioner Ray Kelly said. “It’s so horrendous and bizarre,” Kelly told […]
CONCERT REVIEW: Dr. Dog At The Electric Factory
BY PELLE GUNTHER With a sold out show at the Electric Factory, Philly’s own Dr. Dog were certainly at their finest, with a few members of the band flaunting shades and red and white-pom-pommed “Dr. Dog” hats, inescapably evoking a Where’s Waldo vibe . Their stage set was made up of bizarre stained glass windows which were left un-illuminated during the openers, but for the Dr.’s entrance, the stage crew flipped the light-switch, suddenly transforming the stage into a mass of stained glass, popping from every amp and free space on the stage, including the head of the kick drum. […]
EXIT THE PHAROAH: And Then There Were None
CNN: Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak stepped down Friday and handed over power to the military — three decades of his iron-clad rule ended by an 18-day revolution. In a somber one-minute announcement on state television, Vice President Omar Suleiman said Mubarak had resigned and the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces will “run the affairs of the country.” Tens of thousands of emotional Egyptians exploded in deafening cheers on the streets of Cairo, electric with excitement. It was a moment they had anticipated throughout long days of relentless demonstrations — sometimes violent — that demanded Mubarak’s departure. It was also […]
Chinese Reverse Decision, Say Penn Can Has Mummies
INQUIRER: The show will go on – Chinese mummies and all. Following talks between Chinese cultural authorities in Beijing and officials of the U.S. Embassy there, over 100 artifacts from western China, including two unique mummies, will go on display for a limited time at the Penn Museum, university officials announced Friday. The artifacts, part of a much-ballyhood exhibition, “Secrets of the Silk Road,” were unexpectedly barred from exhibition by the Chinese just days before the show opened last Saturday, leaving Penn Museum officials scrambling to mount an important exhibit – the museum’s first “blockbuster” – without any of the […]
‘Black Madam’ Sought In Silcone Butt Injection Death
INQUIRER: A musical artist who advertised buttock enhancement injections on YouTube under her performing name “Black Madam” is believed to be responsible for the death of one of her clients earlier this week in Philadelphia, police said in court filings. Officers searched the apartment of Padge Victoria Windslowe, 41, after the several witnesses identified her as the woman who injected aspiring actress Claudia Seye Aderotimi, 20, with what she claimed was silicone in an airport hotel room earlier this week. Aderotimi, who had traveled from London and allegedly paid Windslowe $1,800 for the procedure, died hours later at Mercy Fitzgerald […]
CINEMA: Prairie Home Companions
KURT LODER: There’s London, there’s Paris, and there’s Cedar Rapids, Iowa—for straight-arrow Tim Lippe, not necessarily in that order. Tim (Ed Helms, of The Hangover) is a small-town insurance agent who looks upon his calling as heroic—he’s there when his clients need him most, and he really cares. He’s never been anywhere outside of peaceful Brown Valley, Wisconsin, where he still lives, in the same house he grew up in. True, he’s occasionally sleeping with his seventh-grade teacher (Sigourney Weaver), to whom he likes to think of himself as “pre-engaged,” but he’s otherwise a museum-quality naïf—never flown on a plane, […]
Anonymous Does Not Forgive, And Does Not Forget
ARS TECHNICA: Aaron Barr believed he had penetrated Anonymous. The loose hacker collective had been responsible for everything from anti-Scientology protests to pro-Wikileaks attacks on MasterCard and Visa, and the FBI was now after them. But matching their online identities to real-world names and locations proved daunting. Barr found a way to crack the code. In a private e-mail to a colleague at his security firm HBGary Federal, which sells digital tools to the US government, the CEO bragged about his research project. “They think I have nothing but a heirarchy based on IRC [Internet Relay Chat] aliases!” he wrote. […]
THE SINGULARITY: The Rise Of The Machines
TIME: So if computers are getting so much faster, so incredibly fast, there might conceivably come a moment when they are capable of something comparable to human intelligence. Artificial intelligence. All that horsepower could be put in the service of emulating whatever it is our brains are doing when they create consciousness – not just doing arithmetic very quickly or composing piano music but also driving cars, writing books, making ethical decisions, appreciating fancy paintings, making witty observations at cocktail parties.If you can swallow that idea, and Kurzweil and a lot of other very smart people can, then all bets […]