[Image courtesy of PhillyHISTORY.org] VISITPHILLY: Brag fact for the day: More than 92,000 locals live in Center City Philadelphia, making it the third-most-inhabited downtown in the nation. [via TWITTER] TOTAL POPULATION: 1,449,634 [Source: U.S. Census Bureau] POPULATION CHANGE SINCE 1990: -135, 943
DEATH BY CHOCOLATE: Camden Candyman Killed
FOX NEWS: Police said a man died Wednesday morning after falling into a tank full of chocolate at a Camden business. Police were called to a warehouse and manufacturing facility on the 700 block of North 36th Street around 10:45 a.m. Wednesday for a report of a man who had fallen into hot chocolate. The man had been in the melting pot for about 10 minutes by the time crews arrived, and by the time he was pulled out of the chocolate it was too late. He was declared dead shortly after 11 a.m. The turnout gear of firefighters at […]
HAGIOGRAPHY: Fast, Cheap & Out Of Control
[Image via THE SMOKING GUN] NEW YORK TIMES: So that’s how Michael Jackson’s family wants him to be remembered: as a healer, a good Samaritan, a breaker of racial and cultural barriers, a hard-working entertainer, a childlike spirit, a product of Motown and a sensitive, beleaguered soul. “Being judged, being ridiculed–how much pain can you take?” said a tearful Marlon Jackson. Mr. Jackson’s uptempo, adult side (the dance steps, the rhythms, the self-defining images, the megahits about paternity suits, monsters and gang wars) was only glimpsed on video. For this moment, he was portrayed as saint, showman and near-martyr, and […]
ARSTY: Brother From Another Planet
Lecture: John Szwed, Author of Space Is The Place Whenever Wednesday, July 8 @ 7pm FREE at ICA Institute of Contemporary Art · University of Pennsylvania 118 S. 36th St., Philadelphia, PA 19104-3289 · 215.898.5911 Hear a lecture by John Szwed, the biographic expert on all things Ra. He is an anthropologist, musicologist and historian who teaches at Columbia University and is the author of Space is the Place: The Lives and Times of Sun Ra (Da Capo Press, 1998). [Complete listing of upcoming Sun Ra-related events after the jump]
THIS YOU MUST HEAR: Black Lips + King Khan
Does our heart good to know that succeeding generations of young bucks are still grokking on dirty water garage-rock and wedding it to dirty Southern soul. Such is the sound when King Khan‘s peanut butter gets all up in Black Lips‘ chocolate, aka Almighty Defenders. You can hear a teaser track from the forthcoming Vice album below. Our verdict: The kids are alright. DOWNLOAD: Bow Down & Die [MP3 via STEREOGUM] F**k the Pain Away, Sung by Miss Piggy WARNING: NSFW
Tom Moon’s 10 Great Records from Artists You’ve Probably Never Heard Of But Should Have
1. Lo Borges: Lo Borges (world/Brazil). Singer/songwriter Lo Borges’s solo debut offers upbeat, quintessentially Brazilian melodies that soar majestically over pop and funk backbeats. With its brief songs and tremendous diversity, this album resembles George Harrison’s All Things Must Pass. 2. Vic Chesnutt: Is the Actor Happy? (rock). Vic Chesnutt’s wry, bracing songs observe life in slow motion – they’re the inner thoughts of dejected souls and social misfits. Yet somehow, even on such despairing anthems as “Free of Hope,” there are hints of the heroic peeking through. 3. Karen Dalton: It’s So Hard To Know Who’s Going To Love […]
NPR FOR THE DEAF: We Hear It Even When You Can’t
FRESH AIR Sarah Palin’s abrupt resignation from her position as Governor of Alaska has sparked widespread speculation. Michael Carey, former editorial page editor and current columnist for the Anchorage Daily News, discusses popular reaction in the state to Palin’s announcement. RELATED: [ABC’s] Snow also asked Palin whether, if she runs for president, she could avoid the “political blood sport” she cited as among the reasons she wanted to leave office. “I don’t think it will be the day after day after day of ethics violation charges that are frivolous, that are ridiculous. I think on a national level your department […]
GET NAKED: The Flaming Lips Are Coming!
August 29th at the Festival Pier. Joy to the world! PREVIOUSLY: Having become sentient in the mid-’70s, somewhere in the middle of that that vast mountainous Pennsyltucky between Pittsburgh and Philadelphia, I had a front row seat to one of the places where the ’60s went to die: the hinterlands. While more cosmopolitan zip codes were sampling disco, cocaine, Members Only jackets and punk, all I could see growing up was ex-greaser shitkickers in dirty bellbottoms, Greg Brady haircuts, faded Dark Side of The Moon T-shirts and knocked-up girlfriends in peasant dresses billowing with pre-natal pulchritude, blasting Zep, Floyd and […]
DEAD MAN TALKING: Q&A With Tom Moon, Author Of 1000 Recordings To Hear Before You Die
[Illustration by ALEX FINE] BY JONATHAN VALANIA Full disclosure: Tom Moon got me into the business, hiring me on as a freelance music writer for the Philadelphia Inquirer, where he served as pop music critic par excellence from 1988 to 2004. During that time he was also a regular contributor to GQ, Rolling Stone, Spin, Vibe, Esquire and he is currently a music critic for NPR’s All Things Considered. Three and a half years ago he began work on a frighteningly ambitious record buyer’s guide called 1000 Recordings To Hear Before You Die, published by Workman Publishing in late 2008. […]
THE SEEDS: Can’t Seem To Make You Mine
SAN DIEGO CITYBEAT: So who will remember that on the same day Farrah Fawcett and Michael Jackson died, Sky Saxon died, too? He was the singer and bass guitarist of the 1960s psychedelic garage-rock band The Seeds. Originally a teenage doo-wop crooner from Utah, Little Richie Marsh moved to Los Angeles, cut a few records and fell under the spell of the British Invasion like so many other young American musicians in the mid-’60s hungry to capture some of that screaming-girl glory. Renaming himself Sky Saxon, he took his cues from the gritty blues-inspired primitivism of The Stones over the […]
Deaths By Marijuana Vs. 17 FDA-Approved Drugs
[SOURCE: PROCON.ORG] PROCON.ORG: Much of the medical marijuana discussion has focused on the safety of marijuana compared to the safety of FDA-approved drugs. On June 24, 2005 ProCon.org sent a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to find the number of deaths caused by marijuana compared to the number of deaths caused by 17 FDA-approved drugs. Twelve of these FDA-approved drugs were chosen because they are commonly prescribed in place of medical marijuana, while the remaining five FDA-approved drugs were randomly selected because they are widely used and recognized by the general […]
THIS JUST IN: Oceanaire 86’d In Philly
Just confirmed from a freshly dis-employed wait staffer: Oceanaire, the national chain of high-gloss sea fooderies, is shuttering its Philadelphia location on Washington Square. [Photo courtesy of PhilaFoodie]
FOG OF WAR: Robert McNamara Is No More
REUTERS: Former Defense Secretary Robert McNamara died on Monday aged 93. He will be remembered most as the leading architect of America’s involvement in the Vietnam War. McNamara also forged brilliant careers in industry and international finance, but his painful legacy remains Vietnam. More than anyone else except possibly President Lyndon Johnson, McNamara became to anti-war critics the symbol of a failed policy that left more than 58,000 U.S. troops dead and the nation bogged down in a seemingly endless disaster in Southeast Asia. Pundits came to call the conflict “McNamara’s War.” With his slicked-back hair and rimless glasses, he […]