Another day, another e-mail from Universal Music Group Distribution CEO Jim Urie. Last time he urged people to write to Congress to support Music Rights Now, an organization that wants Congress to step in on music pirating. All well and good, except that their thinking is fairly backwards, and the organization’s wish to get Congress … [Read more…]
All New York Magazine‘s Vulture blog needed was a short headline and YouTube video to get the point across: McLovin Is in a Band! Yep. McLovin is in a band. Stop the Internetz! Such news is of vital importance, especially when actor-musician Christopher Mintz-Plasse is referred to as the nickname of a character he played … [Read more…]
Dear jolly, rotund Record Store Day Man, Gosh, is it almost Record Store Day again? I’ve waited so long for this day to come! And I’ve been a really good music writer this year, Record Store Day Man. Honest I have. (Well, unless you ask brokeNCYDE.) I wrote my heart out about all the bands … [Read more…]
I recently wrote a piece on all-ages shows and DIY venues in Chicago for Medill. The article went online Tuesday, and comes with a (brief) sister piece about the history of all-ages and DIY shows in America, a video and slideshow of a couple of venues and a handful of graphs and photos of these shows. … [Read more…]
The answer has finally come for those who questioned how Facebook can be used as a tool for changing our society. According to Prefix Magazine, that day has come, as a pickle has surpassed Canadian bro-rock act Nickelback in Internet popularity: It’s been almost two weeks—a lifetime in Internet years—since a Facebook group was set up to … [Read more…]
Most people would bring gloves, boots and their best winter coat to a snowball fight. One cop brought a gun. The Washington City Paper‘s City Desk blog has the down-low: According to an eyewitness, a D.C. Police detective (pictured above w/ gun) went nuts after kids pelted his Hummer with snowballs at 14th and U Streets … [Read more…]
Usually, newspaper corrections tend to fly under the radar. They appear in the paper days after the initial article with the mistake in question was published. By that time, most readers have most likely forgotten about the mistake and/or article and have moved on. That’s not the case with Akeya Dickson’s Washington Post article on … [Read more…]
People always talk about how technology impacts our society at such a rapid pace and look-at-all-the-terrible-things-that-are-happening-because-of-it, blah blah blah. I never thought an iPhone App would turn into Arnold Schwarzenegger a la Terminator. This is hardly on the same level of end-of-the-world-at-the-hands-of-technology type of situation, but it does frighten me: [youtubevid id=”VSkT5XykJzo&feature=player_embedded”] Where do you … [Read more…]
Vanity Fair‘s Jim Windolf recently wrote an odd-little feature on cuteness. “Addicted to Cute,” covers all your bases on the most important cute-related memes in our culture. But the most interesting part of the article, and its main thesis, seems a bit strange: Cootchie-coo behavior used to be reserved for private moments in the home. … [Read more…]
I stumbled upon these guys from an article on punknews.org, and I’m glad I did. Snowing is a quartet out of Lehigh Valley, Pennsylvania, and they seem deeply into the Pennsylvania emo thing. Which, these days seems to be a resurgence of the kind of cataclysmic catharsis that Cap’n Jazz and early Promise Ring. It’s … [Read more…]