Yesterday Apple announced the arrival of its iPad - a device that is perceived initially by many to simply be a really big iPod touch or iPhone. While that is no doubt my first reaction, after watching some video on the web about it I can’t wait to try this thing out and see what it can offer. If you watch the official iPad video here at Apple it looks like the goal of the iPad is to marry the conversely evolving worlds of print media and digital media/the Internet into a single new type of interaction unlike any that we’ve ever had. The jury is still out though.
At its best it might save magazines and publications in danger of going out of business. At its worst, well - it will be forever teased with feminine hygiene jokes for life. We’ll see what’s up when they ship in late March. See what Engadget’s experience was testing the iPad in their hands-on video below, and at their website here. iPads will start at $499 for the 16GB Wi-Fi model, with 32GB and 64GB Wi-Fi + 3G models available for more bread.
Our PopEater gal on the ground gots a last minute invite to Lady Gaga at Radio City Wednesday. Here’s what she saw:
Radio City Music Hall was on FIRE last night as Lady Gaga kicked off the first of four sold out shows in her hometown of NYC. The night’s hottest ticket did not disappoint; from the first chord of ‘Dance In The Dark’ through an electrifying encore performance of her hit ‘Bad Romance’, Lady Gaga was magic. Can we say we’re surprised? Not at all.
Sugary, summery and over before you know it: some things about Julian Casablancas will never change. There’s plenty of what you’d expect on this solo debut, from the singer’s signature croon to heaps of nearly perfect—and instantly earwiggy—hooks. But go in hoping for a lot of Strokesian guitar jangle, and you’ll be seriously disappointed; Phrazes is, above all, a synth-pop album. Sure, the melody and swagger of it suggest the Strokes by simple virtue of Casablancas writing the thing—but everything surrounding those base elements is a hazy, euphoric (and sometimes slightly bubblegum) electro-fuzz that feels as much like Buggles as it does anything Casablancas has done before.
Thank the producers for that. Seriously. That the album’s glittery sheen rarely clashes with Casablancas’ proclivity for voice and melody is just as much a testament to Jason Lader and Bright Eyes/Monsters of Folk mainstay Mike Mogis; one only has to look to Chris Cornell/Timbaland solo nightmare to see what happens when production and intent don’t jibe. Tracks like “Left & Right In The Dark”, with its Flock Of Seagulls guitar fades, and the stuttering breaks of “11th Dimension” may feel like roller-rink jams, but combined with Casablancas’ tinny whine (and lyrics like “your faith has got to be greater than your fear”) they assume something impossibly dark…and just a little heartbreaking. Even better is the slightly sideways “Ludlow Street” with its off-key banjo and off-time drum machine—a real boozy saloon jam with an opening overture so gorgeously ominous, it might be the best 15 seconds of the album. But then there’s the train-whistle guitars of “4 Chords Of The Apocalypse”. Or the down and dirty swagger of “Tourist”. Good ideas? Phrazes has them.
And that, ultimately, is its biggest downfall. Though every track features at least one really perfect moment, the layers upon layers of iconic hooks, harmonies, solos and always-at-11 vocals eventually melt into a hazy blob that screams JULIAN CASABLANCAS! just a little too loudly. Had each song highlighted its best three—hell, even five—ideas, Phrazes could’ve been the most remarkably catchy album of the year. As it stands, it’s pretty good—but too much of a good thing is still too much of a thing.
Enter to win a PAIR of tickets to the Florida Music Conference in Downtown Miami on September 19th, 2009!
Jermaine Dupri is the Guest Speaker.
Also attending, Rick Ross, DJ Khaled, Ace Hood, Trina, Juvenile, Brian McKnight, Letoya Luckett, Cool N Dre, Nasty Beatmakers, The Runners and many more.
Panels: Radio, Records, Producers & Artists
Winner will be randomly selected from comments section and announced on September 11th, 2009.
ANSWER THIS QUESTION TO ENTER:
Why do you want to attend the Florida Music Conference?
Peter Murphy makes a grand appearance @ Terminal 5 - 8/26/09 (by trentvanegas)
Nine Inch Nails have completed their four-night run in NYC. Tonight (8/26) was the 2nd show at Terminal 5 and it ended with another guest appearance by Peter Murphy who descended from the ceiling on a chain… upside down like a bat (see above and below).
Peter helped Trent and band perform “Reptile”, “Strange Kind Of Love”, Bauhaus’s “Bela Lugosi’s Dead”, and Pere Ubu‘ “Final Solution”. Full setlist and video below…
NIN @ Terminal 5 - August 26, 2009 - setlist
1. “Pinion”
2. “Somewhat Damaged”
3. “Wish”
4. “Last”
5. “Sin”
6. “March Of The Pigs”
7. “Something I Can Never Have”
8. “Piggy (Nothing Can Stop Me Now)”
9. “Metal”
10. “Terrible Lie”
11. “Head Down”
12. “Burn”
13. “Gave Up”
14. “La Mer”
15. “The Frail”
16. “The Wretched”
17. “Non-Entity”
18. “Gone, Still”
19. “Lights In The Sky”
20. “The Downward Spiral”
21. “1,000,000″
22. “Survivalism”
23. “The Good Soldier”
24. “Dead Souls”
25. “Hurt”
Encore
26. “Suck”
27. “Down In It”
28. “The Hand That Feeds”
29. “Head Like A Hole”
30. “Reptile” with Peter Murphy
31. “Strange Kind Of Love” with Peter Murphy
32. “Bela Lugosi’s Dead” with Peter Murphy
33. “Final Solution” with Peter Murphy
As the last summer of this decade comes to a close and “best of the decade” talk starts to pop up on various corners of the internet, we’ve decided to post a concise list of our favorite albums of the ’00s. We wanted this to be a small post/discussion, as opposed to some overwrought, massive thing, so we pared the list down to the 20 albums that, for us, defined the last 10 years. The list is below, with a foreword from Carles of popular weblog Hipster Runoff:
“You continue to come back to Gorilla vs. Bear for a reason. It seems to be ’simple’, like ‘not making a big deal’ about sharing emerging artists. While many blogs continue to generate zany memes, muckraking ‘newsbits’, and spiral into a terrible voice that cannot be corrected, Gorilla vs. Bear stays pretty ’straightforward’ and has never really ’shot itself in the foot’ by expanding beyond its core competency.
In the final 4 months of 2k9, you will see more ‘Best of the Decade’ gimmick lists than have ever been generated at the twilight of any decade. It seems like the ‘list’ gimmick has been exhausted, but there is still a responsibility of ‘relevant’ voices to generate a list, not only for the ‘mad hits’, ’search engine optimization’, and ’shitload of comments’ , but to give your followers a ‘landmark’, saying ‘We have lived through this. Now we shall reflect upon this.’ While some outlets can do this naturally because of their brand/voice, it seems likely that most people will ’seem like ass holes’ for making lists.
This is the top albums of the decade list by some bros who live in Texas, but seems like it means ‘more’ because the bros behind it have a ‘respected blog.’ While you are above concepts like ‘lists’, ‘time’, ‘labeling periods of time’, and ‘judging art’, it is a social responsibility of a relevant tastemaker to make ’seminal lists.’”
Does your dog scratch in the summer? Does your dog get hot spots? Does your dog mutilate himself and frustrate you and others to no end? You can’t find a solution. You’re tried creams, sprays, baths, vets, natural remedies, frontline, steroids from the vet (grrr) etc but nothing seems to work!
My super dog, Bombay is allergic to fleas so if he gets even one measly flea bite, forget it, it’s over. He will scratch and scratch and bite and bite until he’s ripping away at his tender skin! After trying literally every single possible remedy, I finally tried something most would find taboo: Marijuana. My fiance and I were going nuts over Bombay’s incessant scratching until one day I finally decided to go against everything I yelled at my fiance for in the past and blow a little weed smoke in Bombay’s face. Now Bombay is no stranger to weed. He’s closely cuddled with pot smokers nearly every day so we already knew he kind of dug it. While my fiance blew the smoke in his face Bombay drew his face closer to my man’s lips, inhaling the sweet smoke. Lo and behold, 30 seconds later, not a scratch…just a happy, little, ol’ dog snuggling on my lap. We were truly amazed by this miraculous use of the most wonderous natural medical drug, marijuana! After all, we know its physically harmless and drastically helps sufferers of MS, cancer, aids, depression, muscular dystrophy, glaucoma, and much much more.
Since then we’ve decided we don’t want to risk damaging Bombay’s little lungs so we put a teensy amount of leaves in some peanut butter or tuna fish and feed it to him when he starts to scratch. I can’t even begin to tell you how relieved little Bombay is as well as all of the humans who love and adore him. Some of you may want to call the animal cops on me and some of you immature, deuche bag or anti social types might want to take advantage of this knowledge and start blowing smoke in every animals’ face but be forewarned: this is not a joke, you should only try this if your pet has a serious allergy problem that leads to harmful skin irritations from scratching and biting.
Also, for topical inflammations, open cuts or scabs, I find putting aloe directly on the skin works best.
Let me know your thoughts on this people. I’d love to hear how it works out for you loving pet owners and your pets!!
If you own a caged pet, please let it out of its cage and give it some exercise and affection…same goes for those of you who chain/tether your dogs (which is now illegal in CA). When animals are distressed, they often turn to self mutilative behaviors.
“The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated.” - Gandhi
This is what the man sitting next to me yelled at the Borgata Event Center in Atlantic City on Friday right before the three men, David Crosby, Graham Nash, and Steven Stills walked onto the stage. I’ve heard the hits, mainly released in the 70’s, and I heard whispers in the crowd, “You know, I was at Woodstock!”It is certainly no secret the fame and influence these men had in their heyday, and if anyone wasn’t sure, it was made obvious by the intense excitement and exploding anticipation of the audience as the lights rose on the stage.I was eager to see what these so-called “legends” had in store for the night here in 2009.
As the men came on stage the screams and cries from the women in the audience reminded me of the shrieks of 16-year-old girls at the sight of Justin Timberlake. However, these men were about three times the age of JT, and these women, well, let’s just they say they were not to 16.
The night began softly to ease the audience into their well known trancelike harmonies with songs like “Helplessly Hoping” and “Wasted on the Way,” but thenthey changed their tune by covering some songs from others like the Rolling Stones’ “Ruby Tuesday,” James Taylor’s “You can close you’re eyes,” and Bob Dylan’s “Girl from the North Country.” These were fun and unexpected additions that kept the audience reeling.
Then they returned to their own stock and played Crosby’s “Guinevere.” While reminiscing their years as lovesick young women with this smooth ballad, the now not quite as young women were near tears clasping their heart with both hands as they swayed to the not quiet as smooth harmonies. Nonetheless, this song was a hit with the audience and it was truly awe-inspiring to listen to this love song from the lips of CSN themselves.
The rockers then sped things up and invited the audience to “Go roll a big one” with “Marakesh Expresss,” to which everyone sang along. They then gave a shout out to the “Deadheads” in the audience with “Uncle John’s band.” Stills showed off his still stellar guitar skills with an intricate solo during “Long Time Coming.” Although it was slightly disconcerting seeing these nearly elderly men rock out hard (well maybe not that hard), it was these songs that gave the young people in audience their first glimpse into what made these dudes so damn cool.
Later they played Crosby’s “Déjà vu” which Nash referred to as “ the weird shit” and then, before singing the long awaited, “Our House,” they gave a dedication to some truly devoted middle-aged ex-groupies in row one, explaining “We didn’t get into Rock and Roll for the money…” Keep in mind they’re now in their late 60’s…yikes.
Anyway, the night rocked on and everyone shot out of their seats to sing along to Still’s badboy anthem “Love the one you’re with.” Then they slowed it down one last time with Crosby’s “Almost cut my Hair” which I have to say was my personal favorite. Crosby’s powerful blues-like crooning really blew me away. It was amazing the vocal power that can come of that 60-something. So far in their set, I think this was the one song I can say took me back to a place before my time.
They finished up with “Wooden Ships” and saved the best for last, with a final encore of “Teach Your Children Well” during which everyone ran up to the stage and sang along. In this jumble of middle aged men who want to be them, and women who want to be with them, all of the sudden we were back in 1974, and although their hair was a little whiter and their bodies a little frailer, I finally understood what that guy meant when he said “They guys are legends!”
Neil Young said “It’s better to burn out then to fade away,” but by the end of the show it was clear that these dudes, no matter how many harmonies that might go off, or lyrics that they might forget, what was once there undoubtedly remains and these three legends are far from ever fading away.
