Right away, it's easy to see something's bothering Kid Cudi on Man On The Moon II: The Legend Of Mr. Rager. There's the Cleveland native's troubled slouch on the album cover, and his drab reflections throughout the recording. He's crying for an intervention.
But just as suddenly, Cudi shrugs you off with nonchalant arrogance, and you realize that [...]
Beatles fans are all familiar with the "Paul is dead" urban legend. The rumors, which surfaced in September of 1969, claimed that Paul McCartney died in a car crash in 1966 and was replaced by a double. Despite the fact that McCartney gave an interview to Life magazine in November 1969 stating that he was [...]
Morning, readers.
*John Prine gets a lot of love on a new star-packed tribute record called Broken Hearts & Dirty Windows: Songs of John Prine. Conor Oberst, Deer Tick, My Morning Jacket, and the DBT are all, apparently, implicated. Sounds like a recipe for awesome. (Via Pitchfork, which also has the track listing.)
*The Independent zings the [...]
*Sundance starts today! Briefly noted: Film on Proposition 8, Mormons screens in Utah(!); Banksy paints the town in anticipation of Exit Through the Giftshop; Nowhere Boy, film on John Lennon's adolescence, to screen (video); this year's judges include Karyn Kusama and Parker Posey; Snoop Dogg, Nas, and Slightly Stoopid to perform; James Franco plays Allen [...]
Good morning! Nothing has pissed me off today! (OK, one thing has: The Washington Post Style section seems to have resumed its coverage of the Salahis. Two articles so far this week! The one from yesterday—argh!—is about how the story won't go away.) So I'll skip the usual morning ramblings and move on to what [...]
For the rock & roll collector—and the hard-toking Bonnaroo-goer—concert and festival DVDs have become essential stocking stuffers, even though many are subpar. Films of music festivals, in particular, "have become warmed-over buffets, in which you get one number each from a handful of bands (often not the best number, either) along with obligatory crowd-pans and [...]
Good morning! I was going to lead off with something District-related, but screw that. (Sorry, local arts!) Avatar opens at midnight! The nearly $250-million sci-fi epic is director James Cameron's first film since Titanic in 1997, but you knew that already. More important: It doesn't suck! In fact, it's apparently quite good! (Although City Paper's critic, [...]
Beatles freaks love milestones, and when it comes to the big one—what moment portended the group's demise?—there's no shortage of possibilities. Was it the phone call Paul received chez the Maharishi informing him that the Beatles' business guru had died of a carbitral overdose? The half-baked Magical Mystery Tour project, Paul's money-hemorrhaging power-grab that Bob [...]
"Trying to show a link between rock stars and drugs is like trying to make a link between mouths and tooth decay," writes R.U. Sirius—the nom de fume of 10 Zen Monkeys' Ken Goffman. This is but one of the many mangy comparisons that frontload Everybody Must Get Stoned: Rock Stars on Drugs*, and when [...]
...is the name of the new Glassjaw song (first one in six years). Stream it from the homepage, but beware the noisy, drum-laden wait (totally worth it).
It's heavy as a motherfucker, the screaming made me cry, and there's not a smidgeon of electronica.
