News

News, Slideshow, These Days

These Days: Sunday, July 5th, 2015

Whiz, bang, boom, shangalong, I don’t know about domestic animals but some humans (hi guys) loath the rockets red glare, noisy, smelly and dangerous, and, if you’ve ever been in a war zone, an instantaneous flashback. National back slabbing day,hope you had a good time!

News, Slideshow

Glastonbury’s Aftermath: An Ecological Disaster

According to the Guardian, the cleaning crew had the amazing task to clean up an estimated 1,650 tons of waste, including 5,000 abandoned tents, 6,500 sleeping bags, 400 gazebos, 54 tons of cans and plastic bottles, 41 tons of cardboard, 66 tons of scrap metal, 3,500 airbeds, 2,200 chairs and 950 rolled mats! Wait a minute, scrap metal?

controversy, News, Slideshow

Washington City Paper Refuses To Take Pictures At Foo Fighters’ 20th Anniversary Blowout In D.C.

‘In a conversation with the band’s management, City Paper was told that these types of contracts are “standard” and they “protect the band.” But that’s not even close to being true. The Rolling Stones, to name one huge act, aren’t demanding newspapers sign over their pictures and the Stones are in the middle of selling out half of the stadiums in North America.’

News, Slideshow, These Days

These Days: Saturday, July 4th, 2015

Celebration time, at 240 years of age the US is in the middle of their difficult 20s and who knows where it all ends. ends? Perhaps the country finds in feet and becomes a superpower Europe, or perhaps it divides itself back up? Whatever the answer is, there is no greater countr. Who else has invented jazz AND rock and roll (and the teenager).

News, Slideshow

Dolly Cohen, The Woman Who Makes Grillz For The Stars

She now has a Tumblr page with heavy traffic, and was discovered by A$AP, her first famous customer. Then Rihanna saw his mouthpiece, and from there, Dolly became the grill-maker for celebrities. All of her creations are customized and handmade, and are unique pieces, she said to Vogue magazine she will never make the same one again. Using her dentistry practice, she makes a mold of someone’s mouth and then sculpts the piece using chromium chromate, then 18K gold, yellow or white.

News, Slideshow, These Days

These Days: Friday, July 3rd, 2015

there must be some reason there is nothing to do today, with the possible exception of the Soft Parade, the great Doors cover band, at BB Kings. Meanwhile, the big rumor of the moment is Pearl Jam are performing at this year’s “Global Citizen’s Festival” on September 26th. This will be my third year, so far I’ve seen (among others) Stevie Wonder and No Doubt each perform great sets. Finally, P-Funk on Governors Island.

News, Slideshow, Video Review

Rihanna Premieres Her New Video In An Epic Manner In Los Angeles

Of course the story of the video, if you can say that it has a coherent story, is about Rihanna and her gang kidnapping the wife of a rich accountant, so the fans’ kidnapping story was totally making sense in this context, but isn’t it a lot of effort for a short movie? According to the participants, the whole deal, including the wait to get in the bus, lasted 4 hours, 4 hours of their life to see a 7-minute clip!…Still they got to see and meet Rihanna, which has to be priceless if you are a fan. Plus she poured dollar bills on the crowd, so it was not too shabby.

News, Slideshow

Medium Cool: Best Talk Show Hosts Week Of July 6th, 2015

Really, talk show hosts? Really? I am getting one day off from my advertising job and no days off from rock nyc, and what are the other half doing? They are getting two weeks of reruns. Not for nothing, but do some damn work. What the hell is this. If I was James Corden I would go out of my way to make sure I’m working. God save Conan, the only guy to wake up and do his job. A two week vacation… I dunno, man…

News, Slideshow, These Days

These Days: Thursday, July 2nd, 2015

Believing the confederate flag should be taken down from Government buildings is not the same as approving TV Land canceling The Duke Of Hazards… This is the problem with attempting to do the right thing, censorship, in this case completely ridiculous censorship, is the next step… I don’t know of the TV show being a gateway to racism anywhere at anytime TVL is the problem not the solution

News, Slideshow

10 Songs: Thursday, July 2nd, 2015

– Nobody Hangs Out Anymore – London O’Connor – This is the modern equivalent of bedsitland, a place where young people mope to a purpose, but it is great, a beautiful low key triumph for the rap slash singer songwriter wondering where the good times have gone – A-

News, Slideshow

Titus Andronicus Releases ‘The Magic Morning’, A Short Film Featuring Six Songs!

‘WATCH “Our Hero” awake to a world of wonder! GASP at the shocking secret of “The Lookalike!” MARVEL at the mysterious transformative powers of the Vernal Equinox! DANCE to those which are already being called Titus Andronicus’s Greatest Hits Yet!” UNDERSTAND the underlying themes and motifs that elevate TMLT far beyond the petty constraints of a mere “rock album” and into the realm of that which the German philosopher K. F. E. Trahndorff first called, in 1827, Gesamtkunstwerk (“total art”—look it up)!!!’

News, Slideshow, These Days

These Days: Wednesday, July 1st , 2015

Some weeks are bigger than others and some are just ridiculous in their greatness. This is one of the biggest weeks for pop records in recent history: Miguel, Vince Staples, Neil Young, The Internet, Bilal and Joy Williams all had potential albums of the week. And I can’t listen to them fast enough.

News, Slideshow, The Big Huerta

The Big Huerta Respects Miss Nina Simone

I took this portrait of Nina from a still photo in the Liz Garbus documentary. This was done in oil. I chose to put Nina on black canvas because she was such a strong voice in the black culture and will always be associated with such. Her portrait is done in an angelic white with a hint of blues illuminating her hair. I used shapes in the background (acrylic) from a stage show that was filmed later in her career. The font was my interpretation of a royal African style that is done in a gold and bronze in tribute to her regal ness

News, Slideshow, These Days

These Days: Tuesday, June 30th, 2015

And so the wars begin in earnest and at first look, Apple has done a good job of integrating their streaming service into their Itunes library. I said at first look, I am already having problems on the client. I prefer the Itunes search engine to Spotify but otherwise, Spotify is superior

News, Slideshow

A Few More Things About Kanye West’s Gig At Glastonbury

‘We were told we only had one guest each this time,’ said The Maccabees guitarist Felix White. ‘I’ve not got that many other friends who want to come, but I’m just making a point!’ And The Maccabees were not even performing on the same stage than Kanye. ‘We were told that this viewing platform’s been set up just for Kanye so he’s got hundreds and hundreds of guests apparently,’ added White.

News, Slideshow, These Days

These Days: Monday, June 29th, 2015

One more day, one more day,just one more day and a whole lotta new albums with Miguel’s newbie actually already out. Can you feel the excitement in the air? I wasn’t crazy about his breakthrough album Kaleidoscope Dream, and was vaguely cool to his opening slot on last years Drake tour, but Wildheart is much better. Actually, it is really really good.

News, Slideshow

Devendra Banhart At LACMA, Sunday June 28th 2015: Art As Practice, Review

‘The guy from INXS has just died, I drew a monument, a scaffolding as a proof of my sorrow and at the top I put INXS. It was a way to express my sadness about losing this great pop star’. If there’s a devotional aspect to Devendra’s art, his function stays in the perpetual practice: ‘There’s no goal, it is a practice’ he repeated several times, ‘even if it is a homage’.

News, Slideshow, These Days

These Days: Sunday, June 28th, 2015

Murder isn’t baseball, Denis Hamill claimed in the New York Daily News today, it isn’t a staticians game. Essentially telling us all to sit down and stop fretting. Perhaps, but homeless men with machetes attacking defenseless women in Bryant Park is rife with symbolism.And if murder was baseball, New York City has transitioned from the 2000 Yankees to the 2000 Mets, and that is far enough or we will be the 2014 Yankees before we know it.

News, Slideshow

Joy Division Launches New Website and Album Re-Issues

The website also includes a listen section where you can stream the iconic ‘Closer’, set to ‘photographs by Charlie Meecham, the Lancashire-based artist whose work was used on the cover of Atmosphere’. They also promise us to add more ‘specially-commissioned videos, inspired by the band, in the future’.

News

Wanna Be A Rock Star? You Might Make More As A Roadie…

“The report further indicates that the number of full-time songwriters in Nashville is down 80% since 2000, while wages of recording session musicians in LA have shrunk as much as 70% over a similar period of time. It is widely known that record sales are heavily down as well, about 60% down since 1994, to be precise.”

News, Slideshow

The Taylor Swift-Apple Conspiracy Theory

But this is beside the point, there’s more to the story, some people are becoming more and more suspicious that the whole deal was just a stunt, and that Swift was secretly cooperating with Apple from the beginning. Who are these people, some new conspiracy theorists? They are random faces on Twitter expressing doubt, but also Tom Conrad, Pandora’s co-founder, who tweeted a series of interesting sentences:

News, Slideshow, These Days

These Days: Saturday, June 27th, 2015

Patrick Ewing left the Knicks in 2000 and these guys are still rebuilding. After their worst season, how about a win now strategy? The Knicks aren’t rebuilding, they are a bad organization who can turn any one into losers with a toxic culture. Fourth round pick, Latvian 19-year-old, 7-foot-1 project, center forward

News, Slideshow

Listen To Sun Drug’s Debut EP And Attend Their Release Show On Saturday

Sun Drug’s debut EP has an expansive sound, which seems to have the ambition of arena bands such as the Strokes caught on a dark day (‘Easy in Your Attitude’) or U2 snapped on a triumphant moment (‘Wildman’). The 5 tracks have a big, epic sound built around guitars and synths, moving move from sinister dance-floors (‘Soaked’) to dreamy-psychedelic balladery (’John Fante’), with a gloomy mood floating around giant hooks and bold vocals, aggressively dominating the inventive soundscapes.

Medium Cool, News, Slideshow

Medium Cool: Best Talk Show Guests Week Of June 29th, 2015

We have to start taking National holidays off here at -stories are so damn few and far between. Everybody has ta taken the week of for Independence, which is fine for the boys: Jimmy, Jimmy, James and Seth and the girls Wendy, Meredith, Ellen, Queen Latifah. Yup, apparently their Union mandates it: we get a day (actually, we work through it), they get a week. So let’s celebrate all the Talk Show Host because where would be without them? Well, more or less exactly where we are now.

News, Slideshow, These Days

These Days: Friday, June 26th, 2015

The Supreme Court upheld the right to gay marriage in the US. Certainly, during Gay Pride week, I don’t know who would disagree that this is a great thing that should have never been an issue. Congratulations (or maybe I mean sympathy) to all homosexuals now legally ale to do what they did anyway. On a personal level, what I liked most about homosexuality was the indiscriminate sex men had before AIDS destroyed the fun. Just the entire constant seeing all over the places with tens, dozens of partners. Of course, it wasn’t marriage that killed it, but I am sure marriage will be the straw that leaves those days of glorious promiscuity to just a distant memory

News, Slideshow

Did Michael Bublé Steal Rhett Miller’s Song?

“You know, in a restaurant you can’t really hear what’s happening. I thought, “Yeah, that’s my song. That sounds like ‘Perfume.’” Which was the single off the 97’s Grand Theatre Vol. 2 in 2011. And as the song went on I realized, wait, there’s a pre-chorus section; that’s not in the song. And then it hit the chorus, and the chorus was different from my song, but weirdly, the lyrics in the chorus were the lyrics in my song. And so I Shazam-ed it, of course, and I figured out it was the Michael Bublé song called “It’s A Beautiful Day.”

News, Slideshow

Knitting With Your Brainwaves On Music… Is This the Future Of Clothing?

‘We have plotted brainwave activity into a knitted pattern. Using a wearable, non-invasive EEG headset, we recorded users’ affective states while listening to Bach’s ‘Goldberg Variations’, concretely the aria and its first seven variations. The audio was about 10 minutes long and we downsampled each second of the signal coming from the 14 channels of the EEG device. Three main features were measured: relaxation, excitement, and cognitive load.

News, Slideshow, The Big Huerta

The Big Huerta Passes the Buck

The painting is pretty goofy looking. I don’t know why. Buck used to be pretty goofy onstage. I mean he threw out some great zingers at people that were dancing. He almost sounded like he had a few drinks in him, not sure, don’t need to know, but he was pretty dang funny. I also gave him some flowers just to gussy him up.

News, Slideshow, These Days

These Days: Thursday, June 25th, 2015

If “Summer Of ’42” happened in the “Summer Of ’15”, the war widow would be in jail right now because Oscy and Benjie (“I’m a dangerous man, I truly am” ) secretly filmed her and Hermie and posted it online and somebody (everybody) snitched to the cops -who took a break from frisking black male teenagers for loitering in their backyard, to bust her. We live in a sharp elbowed, intrusive, ill mannered, nosey, aggressive, and pointedly ignorant of human nature, age.

News, Slideshow

Rock Criticism: The State Of The Art

Rock criticism in 2015 is in the crosshairs of forces beyond its control: of editorial dictates and the power of mass condemnation,of a type of music -EDM, that lends itself to technical jargon, and of an underpaid and undernourished set of writers that falls back fast on 21st century chitter chatter, of a social media filled world happy to attack at the slightest provocation, and an overwhelming humorless 2015 air of defeated populism

News, Slideshow, These Days

These Days: Wednesday, June 24th, 2015

The prices are high for everything except dollar pizza, even Subway quietly bounced their prices by 20% and from your cable bill to your groceries honesty means getting away with as much as you possibly can. Which is the reason for this, of 120 grocery stores in the city, 70% put the wrong weight on food purchases thereby overcharging you. Wholefood -the most expensive is the most egregious and are about to get fined.

News, Slideshow

The Taylor-Swift-Is-A-Hypocrite Saga Continues

‘This contract is particularly egregious in that it not only contains an all out rights grab on the photographers’ work,’ said Goodman to Factmag, ‘whilst limiting their editorial control and ability to earn from that work — and does so without compensation — but because it does so under threat of criminal damage or destruction of property.’

News, Slideshow

The Loudness War Is Winning

As a result of the so-called loudness wars, mainstream pop releases are being pushed onto CD and into mp3 files at such high levels they’re technically much ‘hotter’ than some of the loudest acts in history, in an attempt to make them stand out from the competition

News

These Days: Tuesday, June 23rd, 2015

Dick Van Patten was the dad all of us wanted, a great job and two full families crammed together with a sweet disposition and a constant smile on “Eight Is Enough”. After that I recognized him from time to tome, he was the weakling doctor in “High Anxiety” for one, and it improved anything I was watching always. he died today at the age of 86, complications from diabetes

News, Slideshow

A Photographer Accuses Taylor Swift Of Hypocrisy

‘How are you any different to Apple? If you don’t like being exploited, that’s great.. make a huge statement about it, and you’ll have my support. But how about making sure you’re not guilty of the very same tactic before you have a pop at someone else?’ writes Sheldon. ‘Photographers need to earn a living as well. Like Apple, you can afford to pay for photographs so please stop forcing us to hand them over to you while you prevent us from publishing them more than once, ever.’

News, Slideshow, These Days

These Days: Monday, June 22nd, 2015

Live: I woke up today to 100s of reads of Edward Huerta’s admittedly excellent, Brian Wilson at the Greek review from Sunday. A pleasant surprise but how did that happen, right? How about this: Brian Wilson posted it on his Facebook wall. Considering all the negative being thrown our way it was a pleasant change of pace. Congrats to Edward and I hope we passed the audition!

News, Slideshow

That Was The Week That Was: June 15th, 2015

A 21 year old white supremacist Dylann Roof entered “the historically black Emanuel A.M.E. Church in Charleston on Wednesday night, attending a prayer meeting for an hour and then murdering nine parishioners.” Jon Stewart couldn’t find anything funny to say about it, but apparently he hadn’t studied the guys haircut long enough. Personally, I think that’s enough of a reason to install the death penalty.

News, Slideshow, These Days

These Days: Saturday, June 20th, 2015

I bet in some ways the Yankees wish A-Rod had crashed and burned this year, instead of just getting his 3,000 hit with a home run in a winning effort last night. I am so not a moralist on this stuff, I don’t see why he shouldn’t get paid his millions, if only for coming back from a horrendous couple of years and still being able to play the game at a ridiculously high standard.

Scroll to Top