AltWeeklies Wire
Shots in the Darknew
Prosecutors allowed Jamelle Swanson’s killer to walk. Swanson’s sister isn’t going so quietly.
Cleveland Scene |
Kyle Swenson |
06-29-2011 |
Crime & Justice
Glee is the Product of a Dead Culturenew
Glee is the worst thing to happen to music since Kids Incorporated, and Glee creator Ryan Murphy is a musical mother bird who consumes pop's best, spits it back up, and then tries to feed all of those regurgitated bits and pieces back to his starving chicks.
Charleston City Paper |
Chris Haire |
06-29-2011 |
TV
An Unofficial History of San Antonio's Struggling Gay Theater Scenenew
Take a clue from this year’s Tony telecast as Neil Patrick Harris broke into song: “If you feel like someone that this world excludes, it’s no longer only for dudes who like dudes. Attention every breeder, your invited to the theater. It’s not just for gays anymore!”
San Antonio Current |
Gregg Barrios |
06-29-2011 |
Theater
Tags: LGBT
David Gray Renews His Soul With a Renovated Soundnew
There's hardly a musician who wouldn't love to have the success David Gray enjoyed with his 1998 multiplatinum album White Ladder and its breakthrough hit, "Babylon." After languishing in obscurity for his first three albums, the self-financed release became an international sensation characterized by a mix of acoustic folk and electronic elements.
Charleston City Paper |
Chris Parker |
06-29-2011 |
Profiles & Interviews
Tags: David Gray
Transformers: Dark of the Moon is Michael Bay's loud, jingoistic metaphornew
"We're pretty much all Republicans around here."
Foster the People: Torchesnew
This Los Angeles band's name reminds me of a similarly-titled James Taylor song ("Shower the People"). But the shiny, insistent dance rhythms on its heralded full-length debut -- featured recently on that bastion of respectability, NPR -- will immediately hip listeners to the fact that this band has little to do with the venerable folk troubadour, except for endlessly catchy melodies.
Tucson Weekly |
Gene Armstrong |
06-29-2011 |
Reviews
Tags: Foster the People
Best Thing About Latest Transformers Is That It Should Be the Lastnew
Textbooks be damned. The use of alternative histories has been such a go-to fad in cinematic curriculum recently that no one should be surprised if impressionable movie-going kids really start believing vigilante superheroes helped earn America a victory in Vietnam (Watchmen) or that young mutants saved the country from nuclear war during the Cuban Missile Crisis (X-Men: First Class).
San Antonio Current |
Kiko Martinez |
06-29-2011 |
Reviews
Getting Serious with Stephen Colbertnew
The Colbert Report host talks about the sad state of politics and the even sadder state of cable news.
Charleston City Paper |
Chris Haire |
06-29-2011 |
TV
Bitter Resolve's Misfits March Forwardnew
The monolithic riffs and malevolent rhythms of Bitter Resolve's proto-metal suggest the sort of bros who would bludgeon Chapel Hill's stereotypical indie rocker in the back alley behind Local 506 just for fun. But that would be missing the message.
INDY Week |
Corbie Hill |
06-29-2011 |
Profiles & Interviews
Tags: Bitter Resolve
Marvin Gaye: What's Going On: 40th Anniversary Super Deluxe Editionnew
It's arguably the finest soul album ever recorded. After a decade as Motown's premier hit maker, Gaye wanted to tackle themes of urban decay, war, and our mortgaged future.
San Antonio Current |
Chris Parker |
06-29-2011 |
Reviews
Tags: Marvin Gaye, What's Going On
Hagage "AJ" Masaed Learns the Art of Hip-Hop Diplomacynew
Raised in the 'hoods of Buffalo and North Oakland, an Arabic rapper parlays his skills to stave off violence, in Yemen.
East Bay Express |
Madeleine Bair |
06-29-2011 |
Profiles & Interviews
Bad Teachernew
Bad Teacher’s one joke is right there in the title.
San Antonio Current |
Michael Gallucci |
06-29-2011 |
Reviews
Chucha Santamaría y Ustednew
Representing Oakland by way of Puerto Rico and New York, Sofía Córdova and Matthew Kirkland (aka Chucha Santamaría y Usted) are all about the mezcla.
San Antonio Current |
M. Solis |
06-29-2011 |
Reviews
The Kreayshawn Mythnew
The creation of an "outlaw" pop star.
East Bay Express |
Rachel Swan |
06-29-2011 |
Profiles & Interviews
Artist Wesley Harvey on Homoeroticism, Dinnerware, and Bunniesnew
In the last two years, locally-based ceramic artist Wesley Harvey — who hails from Van Buren, Ind., the “popcorn capital of the world,” and has work in the permanent collections of the Shanghai Museum of Arts & Crafts and the Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex, Gender, and Reproduction — has made a splash by exhibiting (and selling quite a bit of) china and porcelain adorned with decals made by appropriating raunchy drawings by Touko Laaksonen (better known as Tom of Finland) that take gay male sex fantasies to a place that’s larger-than-life, giving the gay art collector the perfect excuse to throw a dinner party with a happy ending.
San Antonio Current |
Bryan Rindfuss |
06-29-2011 |
LGBT
Tags: Wesley Harvey
