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August 26, 2007
Shorties
The Boston Globe declares whistling cool again, thanks to the Peter Bjorn and John song, "Young Folks."
Brad Searles, author of a Boston-based music blog, Bradley's Almanac, says "Young Folks" has compelled him to whistle along in the car like no other song since he was a 10-year-old in the back seat of his parents' auto trying to emulate the sounds on Peter Gabriel's 1980 tune, "Games Without Frontiers."
The Toledo Blade profiles and interviews author and critic Greil Marcus.
The Fort Worth Star-Telegram interviews Neil Finn of Crowded House.
The San Jose Mercury News examines the continued relevance of Jack Kerouac's On the Road.
So, then, "On the Road" has not only inspired and continued to influence writers, it has delivered a powerful kick in the butt to 50 years' worth of thoughtful young people at an age when they make important decisions about their futures: Am I going to get a university degree or take over dad's business or devote my life to video games on my Xbox or settle down and save enough to buy a nice house or am I going to take an existential leap into the adventure of a lifetime?
In the spirit of the recently published book Marooned: The Next Generation of Desert Island Discs, Buffalo News writers choose their desert island albums.
BBC News reports that author Cormac McCarthy has won the UK's oldest literary award, the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction.
T-shirt of the day: "Bad Grammar Makes Me [Sic]"
The Guardian reviews Barack Obama's memoir, Dreams From My Father.
Many American reviews of Dreams From My Father singled out the exceptional grace of Obama's prose, its honesty and freshness. Consciously or not, Obama has placed his book in a literary tradition of political prose that goes back to another master of the American language: Abraham Lincoln (Obama is the senator from Illinois, Lincoln's home state).
The Daily Scotsman locates the now 17-year old coverboy from Nirvana's Nevermind album.
Elden was just three months old when he was photographed by his parents' friend photographer Kirk Weddle, who paid them $200 for the privilege. "At the time, my parents didn't know who Nirvana were. No one really knew who they were. And then, all of a sudden, it just took off and I just happened to be on the album cover," he said.
The New York Times profiles the Really Terrible Orchestra, which features author Alexander McCall Smith.
The fascinating thing about the Really Terrible Orchestra, though, is that its appalling players are in fact eminent in other walks of life. They are politicians, bankers, judges, surgeons, senior academics. And the principal bassoonist who doesn’t play C sharps happens to be the polymath law professor and best-selling writer Alexander McCall Smith, the author of (among many other things) the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency books, which are now being filmed for international release.
Siouxsie Sioux talks to the Times.
Don’t get Siouxsie Sioux started on the subject of the internet. Before we meet, the video for her new single, Into a Swan, has been leaked online. “YouTube,” spits the high priestess of punk, “technology – I hate it. Everybody has downloaded it. You try to stop it, but it’s pointless. Someone from [the gay club] Trannyshack in San Francisco is already miming their act to the song. Even my brother hasn’t heard it yet. Mind you, he’s only just got an answerphone.”
Singer-songwriter Ben Harper shares his favorite musicians with the New York Times.
The Independent Comics Site is "your source for up-to-date comic book news."
The Times talks to older musicians who are some of summers "hottest rock bands."
“You always keep getting better,” agrees Craig Finn, the bespectacled and balding front man of Brooklyn’s the Hold Steady, the band who stole the show at Glastonbury. “Once you figure out what you’re good at and what you’re not good at, you keep working at what you’re good at.”
The San Diego Union-Tribune examines even older acts that continue to fill venues.
“Bob Weir sold out for us, Foreigner will sell out, and Heart will sell out. It's a good thing. Because if they didn't, venues and concert promoters couldn't stay in business.”
Magazine Death Pool keeps track of magazines that are no longer published.
also at Largehearted Boy:
2007 Lollapalooza downloads
this week's CD releases
