Photo by Juergen Spachman BY JAMIE KNERR There’s no sensible reason why King Crimson bassist Tony Levin is not a household name. Think about it. He’s rightly revered–not only by his peers but also by discerning listeners around the globe–as a Jedi-level master of his instrument. In an illustrious career spanning over four decades, Levin has provided the bottom end for the likes of John Lennon, Peter Gabriel, David Bowie, Asia, Alice Cooper, Sarah McLachlan, Paula Cole, Stevie Nicks, Pink Floyd, Paul Simon, Dire Straights, Lou Reed, Cher, Tom Waits, Buddy Rich, The Roches, Todd Rundgren, Anderson Bruford Wakeman Howe, […]
CINEMA: Towering Infernal
THE DARK TOWER (directed by Nikolaj Arcel, 95 minutes, 2017, USA) BY CHRISTOPHER MALENEY FILM CRITIC When your plot is essentially invincible cowboy knights waging eternal war on Nyarlathotep in order to save the universe, you rely heavily on conventions to forge a narrative. But the point is to build strong characters with emotional depth to drive the conventions home and create meaningful drama. The Dark Tower smothers its most interesting ideas with cliches, and gives no reason for the audience to care about the characters’ struggles. Idris Elba and Matthew McConaughey are both fine, but not special. It doesn’t […]
NPR 4 THE DEAF: We Hear It Even When U Can’t
FRESH AIR: Today, the typical American grocery store might devote an entire aisle to breakfast cereal, but that wasn’t always the case. In fact, boxed cereals were an invention of the 20th century, designed and marketed by two brothers from Michigan. Dr. John Harvey Kellogg had first conceived of a healthy, plant-based breakfast in his capacity as the director of the Seventh-day Adventist sanitarium in Battle Creek, Mich. His younger brother, Will, was the business innovator, who figured out how to market John’s creation. Medical historian Howard Markel describes the mass production of Kellogg’s Corn Flakes in 1906 as […]
CINEMA: Uneasy Rider
JOHN POWERS, FRESH AIR CRITIC-AT-LARGE: A lot of comedians are funny. But only a handful have the genius to shape the comic terrain. One of them is Albert Brooks, who, in a cosmic bad joke, is probably best known to today’s audiences as the voice of Marlin in “Finding Nemo.” But back in the early ’70s, in a famous Esquire article and a series of legendary “Tonight Show” performances, Brooks set about gleefully exploding the schticks and traditions of standup comedy. Making comedy about comedy, he blazed the trail for such later masters of showbiz meta as Steve Martin, […]
Sam Shepard, The Last Of The Punk Rock Cowboys
VILLAGE VOICE: He was — even more as time went on — the living, breathing image of a cowboy: tall, preposterously thin, ruggedly handsome, and maximally taciturn unless words were absolutely necessary. The few brief times I encountered him in this century, I would always think for an instant that I was encountering an ambulatory myth — The American Cowboy — and not my longtime acquaintance, Sam Shepard, the playwright, that quirky constructor of hypnotically fascinating plays, who had really wanted to be a rock drummer and had somehow settled for being a world-class movie star instead, while continuing […]
BEING THERE: Belle & Sebastian @ The Mann
Photo by JOSH PELTA-HELLER Back in February, when it was announced that Andrew Bird and Belle & Sebastian were going to play the Mann Center in August, images of bespectacled sophisticates sitting cross legged, politely nodding along to plucked violin, expert whistling, and crooning Scottish voices commingling in refined harmonies sprang into my mind. I pictured it hot and muggy and figured that most of the audience would be fanning themselves off with that morning’s edition of The New York Times. I was excited to see Andrew Bird perform again, as he’d enlightened me with a labyrinth of sound engineered […]
RELEASE THE BATS: Q&A With Poptone Drummer Kevin Haskins (Ex-Bauhaus/Love And Rockets)
BY JOANN LOVIGLIO Drummer Kevin Haskins and singer/songwriter/guitarist Daniel Ash have been releasing the bats since 1978 — first with Bauhaus, then with Tones on Tail, then Love & Rockets and now Poptone. While Bauhaus has been writ iconic in the fullness of time, largely on the strength of the deathless and ineffably creepy/cool “Bela Lugosi’s Dead” single, and Love & Rockets had bunch of full-blown commercial radio hits spread across seven albums, it is the lesser known/more edgy Tones On Tail that is finally getting its due. Sandwiched between its proto-goth predecessor and its hit-making, MTV-rotating successor, Tones […]
NPR 4 THE DEAF: We Hear It Even When U Can’t
FRESH AIR: As a climate change activist, former Vice President Al Gore is used to speaking in front of both hostile and friendly audiences. But there is one individual he has all but given up on. “I have no illusions about the possibility of changing Donald Trump’s mind,” Gore says. “I think he has made it abundantly clear that he’s throwing his lot in with the climate deniers.” In withdrawing from the Paris climate accord in June, Trump said he “cares deeply about the environment” but argued that the deal imposed burdens on the U.S. that would hurt American […]
TONIGHT: Birdman
Since the late 90s, Andrew Bird’s music has dabbled in baroque, Americana, and gypsy jazz stylings — all invariably punctuated by pizzicato violin, and the kind of savvy whistling you hear on crackled recordings from the 1920’s, when whistling had its heyday. Throughout the years, the only threats to Andrew Bird’s swagger as a musician have been his tireless intellect and classical training. Now, intellect and classical training aren’t necessarily swagger killers, but they can limit the accessibility and warmth of music. On his latest LP, 2016’s Are You Serious, Bird harnesses his mind and virtuosity to produce a […]
Win Tix To See Belle & Sebastian @ The Mann
First, these thoughts about Belle & Sebastian’s staying power, written 11 years ago and, oddly enough, still applicable and moderately amusing: Boy oh boy, did Philebrity editor Joey Sweeney get his Underoos in a bunch when I mentioned that a new Belle and Sebastian album was cause for “a legion of cardigan-clad Millhouses to raise their skinny arms to heaven like antennae.” Speaking like a man who’s taken all the locker room towel-snapping he was gonna take for one lifetime, he told me to get my gang together and meet his gang on the playground for a badminton death […]
BLONDIE: Rapture
The Rage & Rapture Tour featuring Blondie and Garbage touches down at the Mann Center tonight.
BEING THERE: Fleet Foxes & Animal Collective @ The Mann
Photo by JOSH PELTA-HELLER At first blush, the marquee billing for the Animal Collective/Fleet Foxes show at the Mann Center last night confused me: Animal Collective was the opening act? The experimental trance-pop band that made their name with mesmerizing collections of psychotropic anti-folk like Sung Tongs (2004) and Feels (2005) couldn’t be an opening act. They were too revolutionary and exciting. Unfortunately, though, the keyword here is were. It’s a pretty human thing to hold on to the past. Damn memory and everything. But, jesus, I knew better. I’d listened to Merriweather Post Pavilion (2009) and heard a shift […]
THEATER REVIEW: Wicked @ Academy Of Music
To say that Wicked: The Untold Story of the Witches of Oz is truly magical is an understatement. This musical is a maze of gloom and light, of hope and fear, of friendship and treachery. It tells a tale of magic and betrayal, of vice and virtue, and plays a spin on the world of Oz that remains truly unforgettable. The story follows Elphaba, born with skin the color of emeralds and possessing an unusual ability. The product of an affair, her father has always hated her, blaming her for the disability of her younger sister Nessarose and the […]