Phawker

BETTER DAYS: The editor with an old, dear friend, circa 2006.

[EDITOR'S NOTE: The following open letter is in response to this.]

Jojo,

I find it ironic in the extreme that despite  all your frantic efforts to paint me as a stick-in-the-mud rockist and yourself as the ever-evolving purveyor of What Comes Next, I see Phawker as a DJ — mixing, mashing and adjusting the visual BPM of all the media drifting in the ether, constantly re-writing the recombinant DNA of the news –  and you see Philebrity as a band, where all the songs start with “I” and end with “me” and rhyme with ‘Sweeney.’  How quaint.

It makes perfect sense for Blogging Version 1.0 to feel threatened and hostile towards Blogging Version 2.0 after all the past never wants to concede the future to something else, so I take this as the unintended compliment it is. If this were Philebrity we would have headlined this with something oh-so-predictably  snarktastic like: 2002 JUST CALLED AND THEY WANT THEIR BLOG BACK. But, alas, we are not. And given that we will hit the half million unique reader mark some time in the next week, not to mention one million page views, I’d say there is a sizable constituency out there that is eternally grateful we aren’t Philebrity and don’t bother trying to be. To quote Christian Bale: What don’t you fucking understand?

your former pal,

Jonathan Valania
Editor-In-Chief
Phawker.com

PS Don’t you ever get tired of the sound of your own fucking voice? I know I have.

The week that was in just five minutes, told by a stoned daisy with the obligatory voice of God. [cough, cough] Would’ve had this up sooner, but these suckers take five people 20 hours to make. Oy, is my Google tired!

[Photo by MICHAEL WILSON]

BY DAVE ALLEN Like many of rock’s greatest drummers, Glenn Kotche does more than keep a beat. His playing with Wilco is earthy and grounded, but still with an experimental aura about it (see “I am Trying to Break Your Heart” from YHF for a prime example). In his other ventures as a soloist and member of the wild-and-woolly groups On Fillmore and Loose Fur, he shows a different side, frequently making listeners question what four limbs are capable of doing. One of his newest partnerships, with the New York-based composers collective Bang on a Can , has yielded a large-scale commissioned piece, “Snap,” a tour with BoaC’s hand-selected All-Stars group, and several arrangements of spacey but propulsive charts from his 2006 studio record, “Mobile.” In advance of this Saturday’s gig at the Kimmel Center, Kotche spun a few tales about the pros and cons of conservatory training, splitting time between the rock and avant-garde worlds, and his latest recording as part of a multi-national supergroup.

PHAWKER: What’s it like working with Bang on a Can All-Stars, and how does it differ from a more rock-oriented outfit?

GLENN KOTCHE: Compared to a straight-up rock and roll band – not Wilco, though – I’d say they’re far more adventurous. They take more chances than your normal rock band. It’s safe to say they rock hard, and they have really high-energy shows. They’re got it all going on: there’s great chemistry in the group, and they’re all really down to earth and cool. It’s not much of a leap to be in the studio with Wilco all this week and then playing a show with Bang on a Can this Saturday.

PHAWKER:It’s interesting, too, because they already have their own drummer/percussionist, David Cossin. How have you been able to meld with him on these Reich pieces?

GLENN KOTCHE: Well, it was my friendship with him that lead to their attention, I think. We befriended each other many years ago, and last year, I took part in his music residency in Southern Italy. He’s a great friend and player, so we did a couple of shows together and worked on arrangement two of the Steve Reich pieces we’re doing on Saturday – my arrangement of Clapping Music, and his arrangement of Music for Pieces of Wood. I also arranged the title track of my last album, “Mobile,” for them to play. I’ve always loved double drumming, especially because percussion is such a large family of instruments. He’s got great feel and keeps great time, and we blend together really well.

PHAWKER:When were you first exposed to the music of Steve Reich? What’s been its biggest impact on you?

GLENN KOTCHE: I think it was when I was in college for music. Since Wilco signed with Nonesuch, he’s been our labelmate there, so I’ve been getting access to some of his recordings where he’s writing for percussion instruments. I think I found we have similar interests, especially because so much of his music is derived from African drumming, which I studied in college, and in music of other indigenous cultures from all over. It’s just something I was drawn to, and it led me to different composers and influences, like the guys from Bang on a Can, Terry Riley, who was kind of a precursor to Steve Reich, and John Luther Adams.

PHAWKER:To you, what’s the difference between conservatory training and rock-and-roll “chops”?

GLENN KOTCHE: In a conservatory,  the focus is going to be on the classical music side, which is not drum set. It’ll be marimba, timpani, maybe some jazz vibes, and it’s training you in different instrument sets, rather than drum set – which I’m trying to change a little bit. On the technical side, they’re asking you to do different things and the percussionist isn’t really the focus – they’re more of a color-ist – as opposed to drumset, which comes from the tradition of rock, jazz, blues and country where you keep time as an accompanying instrument. So I’ve tried to take that coloristic side of percussion and combine it with the rock drummer role in Wilco. A lot of things I was using on Yankee Hotel Foxtrot were instruments you don’t usually hear in a rock band, like crotales, plus found stuff – hubcaps, ceramic floor tiles, pieces of metal. It’s more like the avant-garde of the last century – John Cage was doing it in the 1930′s and ’40s – in the role of percussionist, not just time keeping.

PHAWKER:You’ve worked with another musician that I really like and admire – Andrew Bird – who also kind of straddles the line between songwriting and composing. How did you meet him, and what kind of feeling do you get from his music?

GLENN KOTCHE: I don’t remember exactly when we met – I think it was at John McIntyre’s studio – but his band and Wilco were playing some festivals in Europe. I remember speaking with him and loving what he was doing. He’s a really intelligent musician who’s doing something really different. It turned out we had similar interests, and I thought he might have come from a classical background, which he did, and he’s interested in ethnic music, like African and Indonesian. He’s really a complete musician. When he came on tour with Wilco, I really enjoyed it. He was always great, whether it was solo or with his band.

He knew he wanted to do an instrumental complement to his new record, so he asked me and Todd [Sickafoose] to record some stuff on that. He was recording in the Wilco space, so I came in and set up a few things, and then we played. He was very open to trying different things, and it was very relaxed and experimental. We laid down a couple of parts and then left it up to him to sift through it and edit it.

(more…)

PHILADELPHIA WILL DO:  And that’ll do it for the PW version of this blog. Thanks to the people who gave me this (relatively ridiculous) chance and to everyone who checked in over the past three-plus years…I hope I succeeded in my original goal: Lowering the productivity of the American office worker, at least a little. Yeah, I think that’s what my original goal was. MORE

WHYY: The other blog that closed this week was Ed Goppelt’s Hallwatch.org. It was a local government watchdog website that went offline last night at 11:59 p.m. He gave us some warning when he posted this on his site last month. Ed used the power of his website to demand more accountability from Philadelphia government and also took up the cause of fighting against the two planned casinos slated for the city. MORE

“Let me say this as plainly as I can: by August 31, 2010, our combat mission in Iraq will end” – President Barack Obama, in remarks to troops at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, this morning.

NPR: President Obama outlined on Friday his plan to withdraw American combat forces from Iraq by August 2010, promising to dramatically scale back one of the nation’s longest and costliest military efforts. However, as many as 50,000 troops will remain until the end of 2011 to support “the Iraqi government and its security forces as they take the absolute lead in securing their country,” he said. The 19-month drawdown would be a move toward honoring a promise Obama made during his campaign. Initially, he set a 16-month timetable after taking office, but he later pledged “to consult closely” with military commanders to come up with a schedule. Some 4,250 American soldiers and tens of thousands of Iraqis have been killed in the conflict since former President Bush ordered the invasion of the country in March 2003. MORE

ASSOCIATED PRESS:  President Barack Obama wants to rescind a Bush administration rule that strengthened job protections for doctors and nurses who refuse for moral reasons to perform abortions. The Bush administration instituted the rule in its last days, and it was quickly challenged in federal court by several states and medical organizations. As a candidate, President Barack Obama criticized the regulation and campaign aides promised that if elected, he would review it. MORE

NEWSPAPER DEATH WATCH: Rocky Mountain News Ceases To Exist

DENVER — The Rocky Mountain News, Colorado’s oldest newspaper and a Denver fixture since 1859, will publish its last edition Friday. Owner E.W. Scripps Co. said Thursday the newspaper lost $16 million last year and the company was unable to find a buyer. “Today the Rocky Mountain News, long the leading voice in Denver, becomes a victim of changing times in our industry and huge economic challenges,” Scripps CEO Rich Boehne said. The News is the latest _ and largest _ newspaper to fail amid a recession that has been especially brutal for the industry. Four owners of 33 U.S. daily newspapers have sought Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in the past 2 1/2 months. A number of other newspapers are up for sale. People are in grief, and they’re very, very upset trying to process all the emotions that go with it and trying to recognize that we will be putting out our final edition tomorrow,” said News publisher John Temple. But that edition, he declared, is “going to be spectacular.” Friday’s newspaper will include a 52-page commemorative section, with a print run of about 350,000 copies. The News had a daily circulation of 210,000 and 457,000 on Saturdays. “It’s very rare that you get to play the music at your own funeral, so you want to make sure you do it well,” Temple said. [via ASSOCIATED PRESS]

MASTERS OF UNIVERSE PWNED: U. S. Government To Nationalize Citibank

The Treasury Department reached a deal late Thursday to take a stake of 30 to 40 percent in Citigroup as part of a third bailout of the embattled bank, according to several people close to the deal. Vikram S. Pandit, the chief executive, will remain at the helm, but Citigroup will have to shake up its board so that it has a majority of independent directors, a move that federal regulators had already been pursuing. Under the terms of the deal, the Treasury Department has agreed to convert up to $25 billion of its preferred stock investment in Citigroup into common stock. It will convert its stake to the extent that Citigroup can persuade private investors, including several big foreign government investment funds, to do so alongside the government, two people close to the deal said. The Obama administration deliberately stopped short of securing a majority or controlling interest in Citigroup, but will probably come under intense pressure to take a much larger role in shaping the bank’s direction. Taxpayers, after pumping more than $45 billion into the bank, have become Citigroup’s single largest shareholder. The government will not put in any additional money for now, but some analysts believe Citigroup may require more down the road. [via NEW YORK TIMES]

THE NAKED AND THE DEAD: Pentagon Lifts Media Ban On Returning War Dead

The Pentagon has decided to rescind a long-standing prohibition against press coverage of returning war dead, allowing families to say whether news organizations may photograph the arrivals, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said Thursday. The remains of all U.S. service members killed overseas are flown to Delaware’s Dover Air Force Base. But photographic images have been prohibited since 1991. The administration of President George W. Bush rigorously enforced the ban, preventing pictures of troops killed in Iraq and Afghanistan from appearing in news coverage. The new policy will leave it up to the families of slain service members to decide whether to allow the media to photograph the arrival of the remains in Dover. “My conclusion was, we should not presume to make the decision for the families. We should actually let them make it,” Gates said. [via LOS ANGELES TIMES]

This dose of reality brought to you by the Coen brothers.

FRESH AIR

The Associated Press has threatened to sue the artist who created the iconic “Hope” poster of Barack Obama for copyright infringement, but Shepard Fairey says his work is protected under the principle of “Fair Use,” which exempts artists and others from some copyright restrictions, under certain circumstances.

Fairey based his poster on an April 2006 photo of Obama taken by AP photographer Mannie Garcia. Last month, the AP contacted Fairey threatening him with a lawsuit for using the image without permission, seeking payment for using it, and asking to share in the profits from it.

Pre-empting the suit, the Stanford Law School’s Fair Use Project filed a lawsuit on behalf of Fairey stating that his work is protected under Fair Use.

Fairey is the founder of Studio Number One, a Los Angeles-based design company; he’s created album covers for several bands, including the Black Eyed Peas and the Smashing Pumpkins. He joins Fresh Air to talk about the image, the dispute, and why he thinks his poster qualifies as a protected work under Fair Use provisions.

BY DAVE ALLEN Like time, news waits for no man. Keeping up with the funny papers has always been an all-day job, even in the pre-Internets era. These days, however, it’s a two-man job. That’s right, these days you need someone to do your reading for you, or risk falling hopelessly behind and, as a result, increasing your chances of dying lonely and somewhat bitter. That’s why every week, PAPERBOY does your alt-weekly reading for you. We pore over those time-consuming cover stories and give you the takeaway, suss out the cover art, warn you off the ink-wasters and steer you towards the gooey center. Why? Because we love you!

ON THE COVER

CP: What a weird, compelling, and great start to Shaun Brady’s cover on the Quay brothers. It delays what’s probably most important about the movie-making, London-based twins — they’re originally from Norristown and attended UArts — but why complain when the description of their work is so well-honed and evocative?

Between the walls.

Beneath the earth.

Behind the eyes.

These are the shadowy, hidden places where the Brothers Quay dwell, spaces populated by the arcane and discarded, inanimate things given life by the act of being forgotten.

Inexplicable, obsessive and vaguely ominous happenings are the norm: A harlequin on a tricycle is sadistically bent on capturing a strangely beautiful winged creature in elaborate and brutal traps. Disembodied hands quiver over vibrating strings while an intricately configured device goes through laborious but unexplainable machinations. A wooded island is inhabited by a mad scientist intent on building an orchestra of musicalautomata. A woman scrawls endless rows of text with pencil nubs while outside, a harsh play of light resembles an apocalyptic borealis.

Film, and animation in particular, isn’t my bag, so I didn’t know a damned thing about the Quays before this article, and Brady lays out their oeuvre and their accomplishments without engaging in hagiography. Weird that he quotes them as a kind of plural subject, but it makes sense — over the phone, eerily similar voices, the ebb and flow of conversation. Again, not gonna complain when Brady does stuff like this:

“They’re adorable,” the Quays recall, in a tone of voice more suited to “They’re poisonous,” or “They’re radioactive.”

Where did he get the hat he pulled that line out of it, and where can I get one?

PW: Tara Murtha takes a tough, well-informed look at sex trafficking and the aftermath of a career in prostitution. It’s grounded in psychology, international and domestic law, and in a well-drawn capturing of a disarmingly candid subject: Mimi.

The abusive relationship between pimp and prostitute—or trafficker and victim—can be one of the biggest retention tools. The dynamic between very young girls like Mimi and older predator pimps is especially problematic. To them, the thinly veiled abuse can feel a lot like love.

Allegiance to a long-term pimp is part of the psychological phenomenon that makes kids so susceptible to predators in the game.

“You’re with a certain guy and you’re with him a long time, like two or three years. And you want to get out of the game but you can’t, because you’re in love. At the end of the day, you are in love with this guy,” she says. “You’re strong, you’ve got a strong will about yourself to go out every night, sell your pussy and then come home and give all the money you made to that guy.”

It’s called trauma bonds, a severe attachment disorder most common among abused and neglected children. It results in a tendency to avoid or resist their mothers and to show loyalty to abusers. It’s one of the psychological concepts that counselors at Dawn’s Place plan to address.

Mimi’s story is the heart of the article, and Murtha frames it smartly and without shying away from its complexity. One minor slip-up, which I’m sure isn’t Murtha’s fault (okay, two: the cover photo is kind of tasteless, also not her fault): the headline is misleading, or at least the product of wishful thinking. Dawn’s Place isn’t the center of this story, and it says near the top that Dawn’s “isn’t fully functional.” We just have to hope that Mimi and others like her can hold on until Philly really has the “safe haven” that the headline advertises.

INSIDE THE BOOK

CP: Serenity now: Challenges in Chestnut Hill. Hey, I hate the Mets, too, but don’t hate on the immortal combination of blue and orange. Saddest page ever: post-bankruptcy reporting up top, budget victims down below; both are sure to be part of a continuing series.

PW: Nice reflection on those who protect and serve. Badmaster, bad move: Pretty sure he meant “Dischord.” Dept. of Lines I Wish I’d Written: “I opened the album with a whore and ended it with a junkie.” This review convinced me to join the construction-grade wheelbarrow brigade.

WINNER: “We’re doing the best we can with the resources we have left.”  That quote’s about the Daily News, but it could apply to both alt-weeklies, too. Lots of typos and other dumb mistakes this week — who’s “Josh Hollenbeck”? — but still, two good covers. PW takes it, though, for following up last week’s questionable cover with a winner.

[Click image to activate Internet]

LOS ANGELES TIMES: Could Cannabis sativa be a salvation for California’s fiscal misfortunes? Can the state get a better budget grip by taxing what some folks toke? An assemblyman from San Francisco announced legislation Monday to do just that: make California the first state in the nation to tax and regulate recreational marijuana in the same manner as alcohol. Buoyed by the widely held belief that cannabis is California’s biggest cash crop, Assemblyman Tom Ammiano contends it is time to reap some state revenue from that harvest while putting a damper on drug use by teens, cutting police costs and even helping Mother Nature

Ammiano’s measure, AB 390, would essentially replicate the regulatory structure used for beer, wine and hard liquor, with taxed sales barred to anyone under 21. He said it would actually boost public safety, keeping law enforcement focused on more serious crimes while keeping marijuana away from teenagers who can readily purchase black-market pot from peers. The natural world would benefit, too, from the uprooting of environmentally destructive backcountry pot plantations that denude fragile ecosystems, Ammiano said. But the biggest boon might be to the bottom line. By some estimates, California’s pot crop is a $14-billion industry, putting it above vegetables ($5.7 billion) and grapes ($2.6 billion).

If so, that could mean upward of $1 billion in tax revenue for the state each year. “Having just closed a $42-billion budget deficit, generating new revenue is crucial to the state’s long-term fiscal health,” said Betty Yee, the state Board of Equalization chairwoman who appeared with Ammiano at a San Francisco news conference. Also in support of opening debate on the issue are San Francisco Sheriff Mike Hennessey and retired Orange County Superior Court Judge James Gray, a longtime legalization proponent. “I’m a martini guy myself,” Ammiano said. “But I think it’s time for California to . . . look at this in a truly deliberative fashion.” He sees the possibility of an eventual truce in the marijuana wars with Barack Obama now in the White House. MORE

NEW YORK TIMES: New Jersey may soon allow patients with cancer, AIDS or other chronic illness to use marijuana for medicinal purposes, becoming the 14th state with a medical marijuana law, NewJersey.com reports. A bill passed by the state senate would allow patients to keep six marijuana plants and one ounce for personal use if diagnosed by physicians as having a debilitating medical condition. Patients would also need to register with the state. MORE

CITY PAPER: This morning, during an appearance on New York Public Radio WNYC’s The Brian Lehrer Show, N.J. governor Jon Corzine told Lehrer that he’ll sign a bill to legalize medical marijuana in his state. That is, if the bill — which has already passed in the state Senate, but still faces a vote in the Assembly — makes it to his desk. MORE

RELATED: As the chart shows, the Kellogg’s stock took an immediate dive following its decision to drop Michael Phelps over the infamous bong hit photo. What began as a coordinated boycott by drug reform organizations quickly escalated into a full-blown media frenzy as major news outlets picked up the story. Pot-friendly websites like Digg.com began directing massive traffic to news coverage that was critical of Kellogg’s anti-marijuana posturing, thereby increasing the campaign’s visibility among likely supporters. The cumulative impact of all this negative publicity is helpfully illustrated by The Vanno Reputation Index, which monitors the public image of leading corporations:

Out of the 5,600 company reputations Vanno monitors, Kellogg ranked ninth before it booted Phelps. Now it’s ranked 83. Not even an industry-wide peanut scare inflicted as much damage on the food company’s reputation. [Business Insider]

In the current economic climate, it would be silly to think we’re solely responsible for Kellogg’s falling stock. Still, the Vanno data clearly shows that we’ve dealt a substantial blow to the company’s reputation at the worst possible time. Whether or not we actually had a considerable impact on Kellogg’s bottom line is beside the point. What matters is that we sent an unprecedented message to corporate America that reefer madness is bad for business. MORE

REUTERS: President Barack Obama and his wife Michelle honored Stevie Wonder with an award and a White House concert on Wednesday, crediting the Motown legend’s music for helping to bring them together. The multi-Grammy winning soul singer was presented the Library of Congress’ second annual Gershwin Prize for Popular Song at the White House event in recognition of his music’s effect on culture and its ability to unite people.

“We honor a man whose music and lyrics I fell in love with when I was a litte girl,” Michelle Obama said. “The first album I ever bought was Stevie Wonder’s ‘Talking Book.’” The president also noted Wonder’s influence on his own life, praising his music’s universal appeal. “I think it’s fair to say that had I not been a Stevie Wonder fan, Michelle might not have dated me,” Obama said.

Wonder, who was born in Saginaw, Michigan, became blind shortly after birth but learned to play the harmonica, piano and drums by age 9. At the age of 12, after moving to Detroit, he was given a recording contract by Motown Records, going on to deliver 32 No. 1 R&B and pop singles, garner 25 Grammy Awards and sell more than 100 million records. MORE