Photo by LP LorentzIf you have heard of Hurra Torpedo, aka the kings of Norwegian appliance rock, chances are it is from an Internet video clip of their 1995 appliance-smashing performance of “Total Eclipse of the Heart” on Norwegian television. Based on that clip, it would be easy to dismiss Hurra Torpedo as a one-hit, shtick-based novelty act. But take away the too-small tracksuits, Continue reading →
The Austin City Limits Festival has just released it’s line-up for this year’s festival and, as usual, it doesn’t disappoint. The ACL festival bills itself as 3 days, 8 stages, 130 bands. Tickets for the Austin City Limits Music Festival are priced at three levels. The first two allotments of tickets sold at record pace, but tickets are still available for the third allotment of three-day-passes at the cost of $115. As their website points out, that’s only .88¢ per band.
You can see the full line-up by scrolling down this page or by going directly to the ACL Festival’s website, or you can check out their cool line-up video.
Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, Van Morrison, Willie Nelson, Massive Attack, String Cheese Incident, Ben Harper, The Flaming Lips, John Mayer, The Raconteurs, Los Lonely Boys, The Shins, Ween, Thievery Corporation, Ben Kweller, G. Love and Special Sauce, Continue reading →
Jeff Bagato speaks about a local Bettie Page fanatic at the last F.W. Thomas Performance.If you were unlucky enough to NOT have caught the first installment of the F.W. Thomas Performances last month, shame on you. If you miss the second installment this coming Monday then… uh, double shame on you? How does that go again? Continue reading →
CD Review >>
Pick a Bigger Weapon
[Epitaph, 2006]
Rating: 7 (out of 10)
During The Coup’s explosive full band performance at the Operation: Cease Fire rally at the Washington Monument last September, a awkward moment of nonverbal discord passed between Ray “Boots†Riley and his resident hype man. Halfway through their set, the hype man grabbed a “Bush Must Go!†picket sign from the front row and hoisted it in the air. Boots’ rock-solid demeanor, for a brief moment, turned into one of marked disappointment. It appeared that Boots, like many other patriotic dissenters, had grown tired with anti-Bush rhetoric as it has been driven into the ground since the man waltzed into office. When The Coup made waves with their last album Party Music in 2001, 9/11, Afghanistan, Iraq, the Patriot Act, the Christian Taliban, the actual Taliban, Duct Tape, domestic spying, etc. were all looming under or out of our nation-state’s subconscious. Continue reading →
Cyndi Lauper wasn’t kidding. It’s tried and true, it’s trite, it’s a major cliche: Money changes everything. Money is never easy to talk about. If you have it, you don’t see what the big deal is. If you need it, well … you want it. The older you get, the more money you need to get by, whether or not you want to admit it. That is what Nicole Holofcener’s movie Friends with Money is peripherally about. Continue reading →
Death Cab for CutieOne really can’t lose with a bill such as the one which D.A.R. boasted on Tuesday night. –Death Cab for Cutie, Franz Ferdinand, and The Cribs– since the odds are strong that the majority of the crowd will leave with, at best, a new favorite band and, at worst, newfound respect for a known quantity. Continue reading →
What do you think of when you think of movies set in high school? Perky cheerleaders? Sure. Unrequited love? Of course. Quirky comedies loosely based on Shakespeare? Ugh. A Dashiell Hammett inspired murder mystery with Lynchian undertones? Continue reading →
The first installment of the F.W. Thomas Performances, a new monthly literary variety show featuring live presentations from area writers, artists and musicians starts TONIGHT at Warehouse Theatre. Don’t Miss it!
(author of the guidebook “Mondo DC“) on Shooting Bettie Page
. reporting on a District man who claims to have the world’s largest private collection of Bettie Page pinups.
Local novelist and athor of Grosse Pointe Girl: Tales from An Urban Adolescence, and the soon to be released The Girl I Wanted to Be (Simon & Schuster) reading new “never heard before work of fiction.
artist, creator of the Skeleton Kids will be presenting new works of art. Check out the very cool, albeit strange, Skeleton Kids short film.
(aka the blogger DCeiver) and friends in a dramatic presentation of The Taking Of The Orange Line 1-2-3 Continue reading →
Jeffrey Everett of El Jefe Design.Ever since DC area’s Jeffrey Everett started his design firm, El Jefe Design (pronounced L-Heff-A), in May of 2003, he has been making waves with his creative well-designed products. You may have seen his concert posters in rotation on the homepage of the Black Cat website or on the walls of the club itself. He has created posters for Supersystem, Pretty Girls Make Graves, Low, be your own Pet (he designed this one for us), Lee Rocker, The Gossip, Wolf Parade and many more. Continue reading →
First, an introduction, and a confession: “Hi, I’m John, and I’m a Southby-aholic.â€
This year marked my eighth consecutive pilgrimage to Austin, TX, for the annual South by Southwest music festival (as above, referred to by frequent attendees as Southby). Known, variously, among friends and musicians, as “Rock ‘n’ Roll Spring Break,†“Indie-Rock Mardi Gras,†and “Rock ‘n’ Roll Olympics,†I think I may prefer the sobriquet that occurred to me this year mid-fest: Rock ‘n’ Roll Christmas. Continue reading →