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Thursday, Jul 17, 2003
rockist paradigm
"Then again, maybe it’s not a problem that so much pop-music scholarship sounds conspicuously uncool. For decades, jazz rhapsodists and rock poets were so intent on projecting attitude that they never got around to saying much about the music itself. The pioneering rock critics of the sixties, such as Lester Bangs and Greil Marcus, wanted to mimic the music in their prose, and they had enough style to pull it off. Bangs, whose writings have been collected in a new anthology from Anchor Books, lived the life of a rock star, or at least died the death of one. But his writings are a better guide to the mentality of smart people who went to rock shows in the sixties and seventies than they are a reliable record of music and musicians. Discussing the Rolling Stones in 1974, Bangs wrote, “If you think I’m going to review the new ‘It’s Only Rock ’n’ Roll’ album right now, you are crazy. But I am going to swim in it.” Between prose poetry and academic cant there has to be a middle ground, and pop-music studies is searching it out."
Monday, Jul 14, 2003
hot seated
"July 14 — Bill Keller, the man who was passed over for the top editorial job at The New York Times two years ago in favor of Howell Raines, has been elevated to the executive editor’s position."
le chic, c'est geek
todays buzz, howard dean is sitting in for lawrence lessig on his blog this week. also, heres a dean profile from the squirrelly howard fineman.
balls to the walls
"In the process, James himself has become part of baseball legend. To some, he’s a philosopher-hero who brought baseball out of the Dark Ages; others consider him a calculator-punching pedant with too much time on his hands. The once proud and conservative Red Sox, by hiring James to be their Senior Baseball Operations Adviser, have joined the ranks of those teams—such as the Oakland A’s and the Toronto Blue Jays—which are now emphasizing the principles of “sabermetrics” as an alternative to the steadfast reliance on weather-beaten scouts with radar guns, hunches, and cigars. (The term, which James coined two decades ago, echoes the acronym for the Society for American Baseball Research, and denotes “the search for objective knowledge about baseball.”) The Red Sox have not merely sided with the brainiacs; they’ve enlisted the help of the founding nerd."
soul survivors
"Trippi vehemently denies the story. Yet it's clear that the Dean camp and the DLC are fighting an increasingly acrimonious civil war. Even as the Democratic Party seeks to unite against George W. Bush, many of its grass-roots activists are in mutiny. The rift is less about issues than an argument about the way politics works in America and the role of passion and anger in stirring the electorate, and its resolution will determine the Democratic strategy in 2004 and the direction of the party thereafter."
Wednesday, Jul 09, 2003
robotniks
"Eyebeam will host ROBOT, a four-day festival featuring a robotic talent show, exhibition, workshops, presentations, party and massage parlor. ROBOT will take place from July 12 – 15, 12-6pm daily at Eyebeam's Chelsea facility located at 540 West 21st Street between 10th and 11th Avenues. The four-day event will examine current applications of robotic technologies on creative practices, activism, consumerism and physical intimacy. Eyebeam will conclude the event July 15 with a party from 6-10pm featuring music by DJ-I ROBOT, the first random-access, fully analog robotic DJ."
Saturday, Jul 05, 2003
lounge fax
mercury lounge
* Radar Bros, 7/20
* Starlight Mints/April March, 7/24
* Pernice Brothers/The Tyde, 7/25
* Fruit Bats, 8/11
Friday, Jul 04, 2003
river phoenix
Live music at the Hudson River Park. Thursday, July 10: Pretty Girls Make
Graves, Broken Social Scene, the Natural History. Hudson River Park, Pier
54, just south of 15th Street and West Side Highway, Manhattan. 6p; $free.
Thursday, Jul 03, 2003
ringing in my years
Siren Music Festival, 7/19, Coney Island, free
straight down the line
other upcoming events i will find a way to miss --
River to River
*Patti Smith @ World Financial Center, tuesday 7/8, 7pm, free
*Guy Clark & Ramblin' Jack Elliott @ Rockefeller Park, wednesday 7/9, 7pm, free
*Calla, The Boggs @ South Street Seaport, 7/10, 6pm, free
*Cat Power @ Castle Clinton, 7/17, 7pm, free
*Spoon @ Castle Clinton, 7/24, 7pm, free
*Essex Green @ Castle Clinton, 7/25, 6pm, free
Prospect Park
*Stephen Malkmus & The Jicks, 7/18, 730pm, $3
Central Park Summerstage
*Tindersticks w/strings, 7/31, 7pm, free
*Sonny Rollins, 8/9, 7pm, $10
*Jimmy Cliff, 8/10, 3pm, free
*Polyphonic Spree, 8/16, 3pm, free
Bowery Ballroom
*Neko Case, 7/26, 9pm, $15
*Rilo Kiley, 7/28, 9pm, $13
*New Pornographers, 8/25, 10pm, $15
*The Shins, 9/4, 11pm, $15
New York Mag Summer Freebie Calendar
(more to come)