ASSOCIATED PRESS: NEW YORK — By his 30th birthday, Max Roach was already considered the greatest jazz drummer ever by his peers. By the time he died this week, the 83-year-old master percussionist was known worldwide as much more: innovator, activist, teacher, genius. Roach, whose rhythmic innovations and improvisations defined bebop jazz during a career marked by expectations defied and musical boundaries ignored, died late Wednesday in a Manhattan hospital after a long illness. No additional details were available, said Cem Kurosman, spokesman for Blue Note Records, where Roach played on seminal recordings with Thelonius Monk, Duke Ellington and Miles […]
30 YEARS GONE: You Are Always On My Mind
BY REAGAN GAVIN RASQUINHA/TIMES OF INDIA — Elvis Aaron Presley certainly isn’t going to be lonesome tonight. The hound dog whose famous baritone has been immortalised in vinyl, film and disc will be remembered by legions of his fans who couldn’t help falling in love with The Voice. Today, it’s 30 years since the King passed on, claimed by his love for excess. But that kindly light that shone throughout his unbelievable career still shines on. BT asked some of the city’s diehard Elvis fans about how they remember their hero on this day… Who can forget Elvis’s initial charm […]
NPR 4 THE DEF: Giving Public Radio Edge Since 2006
FRESH AIR By the mid-1960s, Peter Fonda was not a conventional “leading man” in Hollywood. As Playboy magazine reported, Fonda had established a “solid reputation as a dropout.” He had become outwardly nonconformist and grew his hair long, alienating the “establishment” film industry. Desirable acting work became scarce. Through his friendships with members of the Byrds, Fonda visited The Beatles in their rented house in Benedict Canyon in Los Angeles in August, 1965. While John Lennon, Ringo Starr and George Harrison were under the influence of LSD, Lennon heard Fonda say, “I know what it’s like to be dead.” This […]
HOLLA: Yo! Bum Rush The Show
BY JAMES ‘WOOK’ DOOLITTLE To think it was only a few years ago that the most amazing thing about Flavor Flav‘s life post-Public Enemy was that he never felt the urge to release a solo LP. Then go look what he does – release a piece of inconsequence entitled Hollywood last Halloween. Mercifully, practically nobody knows of this record. To this day, I still proclaim to the oblivious that the most amazing thing about Flavor Flav is that he’s never released a solo LP, never cashed in on his wiggity wackiness on da mic, never tainted his immortal sidekick status […]
KILLADELPHIA: The Kindness Of Strangers
BY STEPHANIE FARR/DAILY NEWS In her cramped basement, standing at a workbench lit by a single desk lamp, Lizz Brown stares at the picture of the boy who was slain for his dirt bike, the picture of the boy who didn’t get out of the way fast enough, the picture of the boy whose obituary was left blowing in the street. Then, she paints. Using only items from her local craft store, Brown, 57, of Northeast Philadelphia, has created more than 200 personalized memorial plaques for families of the city’s dead children. Brown buys unfinished, precut wood pieces from a […]
SHERIDAN: Will The Real Slim Shady Please Sit Down
There is compelling evidence that Donaghy engaged in such deplorable behavior. ESPN has reported that the first 15 NBA games Donaghy officiated last season in which betting action moved the Las Vegas line more than 11/2 points all resulted in big wins for those betting against Vegas. According to gambling expert R.J. Bell of Pregame.com, the odds against that randomly happening 15 times in a row are 32,768 to 1. And it would take more than information about a sprained ankle or a referee’s dislike of a particular superstar to pull that off. It would take someone actively manipulating the […]
HELTER STUPID: Yazidi ‘Blasphemers’ Get Infinite Justice, Upwards of 500 Dead, 350 Critically Wounded
MARK OF THE BEAST: Or just garden variety Yazidi Pigeon Angel Man? BAGHDAD — Rescuers used bare hands and shovels Wednesday to claw through clay houses shattered by an onslaught of suicide bombings that killed at least 250 and possibly as many as 500 members of an ancient religious sect in the deadliest attack of the Iraq war. The U.S. military blamed al-Qaida in Iraq, and an American commander called the assault an “act of ethnic cleansing.” The victims of Tuesday night’s coordinated attack by four suicide bombers were Yazidis, a small Kurdish-speaking sect that has been targeted by Muslim […]
KILLADELPHIA: 5 Shootings, 3 Dead, 6 Maimed
INQUIRER: A series of shootings during a two-hour period this afternoon — at least four separate incidents in different neighborhoods in the city — left five people with sever wounds and two people dead. The first incident occurred about 4 p.m., when a 23-year-old man was found severely wounded in East Germantown. The fourth in the cluster happened shortly after 6 p.m., when a gunfight broke out among spectators attending a youth basketball game at a recreation center in North Philadelphia near Brewerytown. When that exchange was over, a 17-year-old boy was left dying of multiple shots to the torso; […]
CRONYISM KILLS: Canaries In Coal Mine Killed By A Recess Appointment Fox In The Hen House?
BY MAX FOLLMER/HUFFINGTON POST The man who will oversee the federal government’s investigation into the disaster that has trapped six workers in a Utah coal mine for over a week was twice rejected for his current job by senators concerned about his own safety record when he managed mines in the private sector. President George W. Bush resorted to a recess appointment in October 2006 to anoint Richard Stickler as the nation’s mine safety czar after it became clear he could not receive enough support even in a GOP-controlled Senate. In the wake of the January 2006 Sago mine disaster […]
NPR 4 THE DEF: Giving Public Radio Edge Since 2006
THINK LOCALLY, FUCK GLOBALLY: Gogol Bordello, Trocadero, July 19th FRESH AIR Despite all the negative chatter the issue of immigration generates, the fact is that Americans love the trial-and-error tragicomic saga of fresh-off-the-boat immigrants who try to fit like square pegs into America’s round hole. The latest proof is the runaway success of the movie Borat. Before there was Borat, there was Taxi’s Latka Gravas, Andy Kaufman’s lovable mechanic of mysterious Eastern European descent. In between, there was, and for that matter is, Gogol Bordello, led by human-cannonball front man Eugene Hutz, perhaps best known for his role as Alex […]
THE EARLY WORD: A Phish Called Wanda?
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DAYS OF FUTURE PAST: William Gibson Overdrive
BY MAVIS LINNEMANN BOOK CRITIC William Gibson, acclaimed sci-fi author, noted futurist and coiner of the term “cyberspace,” will be the first to tell you that all his books have actually been about the present — the fact that they feel like the future only points out our chronic alienation from the moment we are in. You see, it’s our fault, not his. His new novel, Spook Country, is actually set in the recent past, 2006 to be exact, and focuses on the edgy exploits of rock star-turned- journalist Hollis Henry, who has been assigned to do a piece on […]