We think they're melodramatic and overrated (granted, they have a few great songs). Nevertheless, the kids seem to love them. So here it is, care of Scenestars, the stream of the new Coldplay record. Enjoy.

Posted by freewilliamsburg at 12:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

[From Unknown Country via Gawker]
A huge floating reef made up of millions of disposed condoms has been discovered in the mid Pacific. The condom mass is two miles long, up to sixty feet deep, and in places so tightly compressed that a small plane could be landed on it.

The mass was discovered by the Australian Oceanographic Laboratory Outpost on Macquarie Island in the South Pacific. Scientists there explained that the accumulation, which consists almost exclusively of condoms, is explained by a principle of physics called "like aggregation." Like aggregation is caused by the massing of similar objects due to ocean currents and winds, the response of the objects to the earth's magnetic field, and other factors.

The tendency of dust to clump and mass in a house or under a bed is explained by the same principle.

The Australian scientists are mapping the reef by satellite because it is a serious marine hazard. The world disposes of an estimated 300 million condoms a year.

Posted by freewilliamsburg at 09:42 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)

FROM AP
A cell-phone ring tone appeared set to top the British singles chart Sunday, outselling the new single by the band Coldplay by nearly four to one, a music retailer said.

"Crazy Frog Axel F," a ring tone based on the sound of a revving Swedish mo-ped, is the first tune being used on mobile phones to cross into mainstream music charts, said Gennaro Castaldo, a spokesman for HMV, the British music retailing chain.

Coldplay had hoped to go straight to No. 1 on this Sunday's British singles chart with its new song, "Speed of Sound." But by Saturday, it appeared that the ring tone - which is available for digital download and as a compact disc single - would prevail, said Castaldo.

The ring tone was expected to replace the Oasis tune "Lyla" as the No. 1 hit on the list released Sunday by the Official UK Charts Co. The weekly singles chart, which has been released since 1952, is based on the sales of 5,600 retail shops across Britain.

While "Crazy Frog" and other ring tones do not appear to be much of a hit among adults, so many youngsters are personalizing the sound of their cell phones that such digital music could change world music markets.

"Music purists might not be too happy at the prospect of the "Crazy Frog" outselling Coldplay, but it shouldn't come as that much of a surprise when you consider its huge novelty appeal and the massive amount of exposure it is currently getting," said Castaldo.

The ring tone is based on a song that was recorded in Sweden nearly a decade ago by 17-year-old Daniel Malmedahl, using the high pitched revving of a two-stroke motorcycle, The International Herald Tribune reported Saturday.

Posted by freewilliamsburg at 03:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (6)

The Hold Steady free at Soundfix Records

TO DO FRIDAY 5-27

Get drunk by 7pm because Rilo Kiley is sold-out anyway.
Go home and download MP3's of this free Ryan Adams show

TO DO SATURDAY 5-28

Check out The Hold Steady at Soundfix Records, 3:00 PM
It's FREE
Bedford Avenue (at North 11th Street)

Then check out The Weird Weeds w/ Castanets and Marissa Nadler at
Glass House Gallery, 38 S 1st St, W-burg. (only 5 bucks)

From Flavorpill
The Weird Weeds, the Castanets, and Marissa Nadler are united by the tendency to haunt and hypnotize. While the Austin-based Weird Weeds create uncanny congruity from eerie guitar riffs, electrifying cymbals, door creaks, and full-pitched screams, the Castanets, birthed from San Diego's underground scene, mesmerize with mellower avant folk-rock. Marissa Nadler's hypnotic soprano, fortified by guitar, ukelele, or five-string banjo, croons with melancholy and soul. Within the Glass House Gallery's surreal setting (where freedom of artistic expression oozes like the freshly thrown acrylics on the walls), unfetter those last shackles of reality and succumb to this existential showcase.

TO DO SUNDAY 5-29

See the film "Smiles of a Summer Night" at the very underated Museum of the Moving Image at 6:30pm (only $10 and include admission). Get directions here.

From Time Out
Ingmar Bergman's sunniest film -- it's very nearly a comedy, in fact -- inspired both Sondheim's A Little Night Music and Woody Allen's A Midsummer Night's Sex Comedy. Those who find his usual gloom 'n' doom wearisome are in for a very pleasant surprise.

TO DO MEMORIAL DAY

If the weather is nice on Memorial Day:
Green-Wood Cemetery Celebrates Memorial Day with Free Annual Concert

[From Gotham Gazette] On Monday, May 30 at 2:00 p.m., The Green-Wood Historic Fund will celebrate its 7th Annual Memorial Day Concert as the extraordinary 54-piece Goldman Memorial Band pays tribute to Green-Wood "residents" Leonard Bernstein, Louis Gottschalk and Fred Ebb in a musical salute. The band will also debut a special medley to legendary Broadway lyricist Fred Ebb. The free concert takes place at the landmark Victorian Archway of Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn.

Guests are welcome to bring picnic lunches and folding chairs. Hot dogs, snacks and refreshments will be sold, as well as books about the cemetery and its history. All proceeds will benefit the Historic Fund, which preserves and restores the historic monuments and tombstones.

Green-Wood Cemetery is located at 25th Street at 5th Avenue, Brooklyn, NY. The concert will be at the Victorian Archway.
Please call 718-788-7850 for additional information

Posted by freewilliamsburg at 09:47 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

BrooklynVegan has a helpful White Stripes post this morning pointing us to some MP3's and the new White Stripes video. Check 'em out.

Posted by freewilliamsburg at 10:11 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

by Monte Holman

Laetitia Sadier has been the stylish voice of cool for a decade and a half, fronting Stereolab and delivering space age bachelor pad themes with a French twist to us drooling fans. We can't get enough, so Sadier and company simply deliver more and more and more. Stereolab's just-released three-disc set "Oscillons From the Anti-Sun" is absolutely essential for any fan of the band.

Somehow Sadier found the time to strike up a side-project, Monade. In this band she takes over the majority of the songwriting duties whereas in Stereolab her role is limited primarily to lyric composition and vocals. Monade's first album, "Socialisme Ou Barbarie: The Bedroom Recordings," (Drag City) presented Sadier's songwriting ability in a low-fi, D.I.Y. manner. Several songs featured Pram's Rosie Cuckston. Monade's latest, "A Few Steps More," (Too Pure) is a more stylized production featuring a full band (sans Cuckston) and a studio production.

Between all the recording and touring and child rearing, Sadier graciously spoke with us about her newest venture. And not surprisingly, the way she charms us sonically in Stereolab and Monade carries over to conversation.

Monade are Laetitia Sadier (vocals / moog / tambourine / trombone), Marie Merlet (bass / vocals), Nicolas Etienne (keys) and Xavier Chabellard (drums).

FREEwilliamsburg: Are you enjoying the Monade tour?

Sadier: Yeah, this is actually lovely because it's the groundwork. You have to somehow be persuasive. People are very enthusiastic and supportive, and it makes for nice shows.

FREEwilliamsburg: So the crowds are different with Monade than they are with Stereolab?

Sadier: Yeah, indeed, they're far less numerous, but it's very exciting.

FREEwilliamsburg: Stereolab is one of the most prolific bands of the last fifteen years. What made Monade necessary? What prompted its forming?

Sadier: I wanted to write songs. I have been writing songs. Because I couldn't write songs in Stereolab, I created a space where my little songs could exist. I also wanted to play the guitar. I always had a vision of myself with a guitar, playing the guitar, and it's the kind of thing I have problems doing alone in my bedroom. I thought it would be more exciting to play in a band format, and it is more fun, more stimulating. And that's simply that, really.

FREEwilliamsburg: Where did the songs on the first Monade album come from?

Sadier: They're songs I wrote over the years that came out on some little singles with friends, and eventually I thought if I record another five or six songs, I could put them all on an LP. And indeed, that's what happened. It was also motivation to work, to do it, you know. It's all about doing it, the activity of it. You can sit in your room and dream you're going to become a rock star or something, but somehow that didn't seem like too much of an option for me. I knew better, that if you want to do something, then go out there and do it.

FREEwilliamsburg: The first Monade album was mostly you, your songwriting, your playing. How did the process of the second album differ now that you have a full-on band?

Sadier: I would still write the songs, but obviously in a loose form. Being with the band, we developed them by playing them with drums, and playing them all together would mean that we could get ideas as to where the song could go and how it could change, how it could turn.

FREEwilliamsburg: Do you share the same musical interests as the rest of the band?

Sadier: Yeah, I think so. I was pretty lucky that I found people that were interested in the same way. I have a new drummer now who comes from a very different musical background, but he is learning our way of thinking (laughs), with difficulty sometimes, but he's doing good—he's doing good.

FREEwilliamsburg: When did he join up?

Sadier: About two months ago.

FREEwilliamsburg: Right before the current tour?

Sadier: Yes, we've played maybe fifteen shows together as this band. It's really fresh and exciting.

FREEwilliamsburg: You also play the trombone on this album, and I read in another interview that the instrument intrigued you. What about the trombone appeals to you?

Sadier: I like the sound of it. It's kind of an intuitive thing, you know, being able to identify with a sound. I think it's a bridging instrument—it goes high; it goes low—and I feel it's a bit like my voice, maybe another expression of it. Personally, I prefer the trumpet. I wanted to play the trumpet, but I don't think there is a trumpeter in me. The trombone, I thought, was closer. It's an instrument you really need to work at, and I don't feel I'm putting in the hours. Sometimes I do, and sometimes I don't, and I feel like I'm back at square one. It's a lot of dedication. Hopefully I will carry on, but again, it's a question of having a reason to play it.

FREEwilliamsburg: You've mentioned that Monade is a band in which you hope to find your own voice because in Stereolab, you aren't the primary songwriter. Do you feel that the current lineup is getting you closer to finding that voice?

Sadier: Well I really don't know what the future holds, exactly, but I'm closer to finding this voice. I can really identify with the music of Stereolab, and hopefully with Monade we'll be able to discover some new grooves, new ways of grooving and somehow being free within the group. But at the moment, we're concentrating on being a group and on being comfortable playing together, and hopefully it will enable us to take it somewhere else, where it's supposed to go.

FREEwilliamsburg: What was the first concert you ever went to?

Sadier: The first concert where I had to buy a ticket and everything was Simple Minds. It was their first album, so they played a small club in Montpelier. It was super exciting—I was thirteen. It's probably not the best concert I've been to (laughs). My dad came with me.

FREEwilliamsburg: Are you going to take your son to shows?

Sadier: He's already been to a few Lab shows, but I think he's still too little for that. He wants to go when he sees that I'm getting all ready to go to a show. He says "Ah I want to go, I want to go!" but he has time...

FREEwilliamsburg: Robert Lanham, the guy who runs our site, wrote a book called The Hipster Hanbook (wink, teeth gleam with subtlety), and in it, he listed Mars Audiac Quintet as an essential record to own. If you had to choose out of all the Stereolab recordings, which would be your favorite, the most essential? I'm a Dots and Loops fan, myself.

Sadier: I really like Dots and Loops. I like the record we did with Charles Long, "The Amorphous Body Study Center." I do connect with this one. And Margarine Eclipse is a nice record.

Posted by freewilliamsburg at 09:51 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

After receiving horrible approval numbers in a recent CNN poll, this can't be good news for Cap'n Pigfucker:

From The New York Times

After three years of unemployment, Allen Gruenhut finally landed a job as director of human resources for a company in the stone business on Long Island. His age, 53, worked against him in his long hunt for work, he contends, and so did the six-figure salary he earned at his previous job, in banking.

"They would not take me seriously at job interviews when I said I would be happy with a lower salary," Gruenhut said.

Jackie Ellenwood, 31, is still without a job. She had worked for three travel agencies over 13 years, until her last job, in Allen Park, Mich., ended in a layoff nine months ago. The industry is shrinking in response to more Internet bookings and cutbacks in corporate travel, so Ellenwood is looking for work elsewhere and studying to become a nurse.

The experiences of Gruenhut and Ellenwood help explain why many of the nation's unemployed are still struggling to get back to work. Not since World War II has the percentage of long-term joblessness -- the unemployed out of work for six months or more -- been so high for so long after a recession has ended.

The current trouble falls most heavily on people trapped by the shifting sands of the economy. Today, the unemployment rate is relatively low, at 5.2 percent, and overall hiring has started to pick up again, particularly for younger workers coming out of college and professional schools. But the presence of middle-aged women and better-educated white-collar workers among the long-term unemployed has increased.

"There are just not new jobs being created in the things these people did before," said Andrew Stettner, a policy analyst at the National Employment Law Project and co-author of a study of long-term unemployment. "We are firing fewer people than we did in 2001 and 2002, but we are not hiring many people either, and that cuts off the exit route out of unemployment."

The baby-boomer bulge working its way through the labor force also plays a role. As this large group of workers ages, it becomes harder for some who lose their jobs to find new work suited to their skills. And the bursting of the high-tech bubble stranded thousands of workers who are finding it difficult to shift quickly to other fields.

Structural changes in the economy and productivity improvements, reflecting the ability of companies to achieve higher output with fewer or the same number of workers, mean that even growing businesses no longer need to dip as much into the pool of displaced workers.

Posted by freewilliamsburg at 12:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

We weren't delighted about the filibuster deal made in the Senate, but it was nonetheless a HUGE victory for Democrats who just weeks ago seemed powerless against the nuclear option. Republican senators are going to have a lot of explaining to do when douchebags like James Dobson and Tim Wildmon call asking what the hell happened. [OK, they'll probably say heck instead of hell]. Dobson and Wildmon helped organize Justice Sunday just to ensure the death of the filibuster and enrolled Jesus Freak Bill Frist as a key speaker.

The deal will surely create a larger rift between James Dobson and Trent Lott who have been taking pot-shots at each other all week:

From USA Today
"Who does [James Dobson] think he is, questioning my conservative credentials?" Sen. Trent Lott, R-Miss., said in an interview. Dobson, head of the conservative group Focus on the Family, criticized Lott for his efforts to forge a compromise in the fight over the judges. Lott is still angry. "Some of his language and conduct is quite un-Christian, and I don't appreciate it," the senator said.

We're hoping for an all out brawl. Dobson issued a statement soon after the news broke:

"We share the disappointment, outrage and sense of abandonment felt by millions of conservative Americans who helped put Republicans in power last November. I am certain that these voters will remember both Democrats and Republicans who betrayed their trust."

We hope Dobson heeds his own words to remember this decision. He helped organize the Republican vote in 2004 (Focus on the Family distibuted 8 million voting guides) and we'd love to see him and sit the 2006 and 2008 elections out. As DailyKos pointed out, this entire filibuster debate was largely because of Dobson in the first place.

Posted by freewilliamsburg at 10:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Somehow the new White Stripes record hasn't been leaked yet. In lieu of MP3's, Scenestars.net has provided a stream of the full record, "Get Behind Me Satan." This is a very different, more mellow, more sparse White Stipes almost completely devoid of Jimmy Page riffs. (Though "Red Rain" — one of the album's highlights — does sound like a Led Zeppelin III outtake). The good news is most of the record is more inspired than the cheesy Lenny Kravitz-sounding single "Blue Orchid." Start with "Little Ghost," a carefree bluegrass-inspired hoedown. "As Ugly as I Seem" is a lovely confessional on accoustic guitar, accompanied by Meg on bongos. Upon first listen, "Get Behind Me Satan" sounds like the proverbial "transitional" record. Most notably, many tracks are piano-driven, a break with their tradional guitar-heavy sound. Vibes, banjos, and xylophones are added to the mix on several tracks. Regardless of your opinion of their new sound, one question will linger; what's up with the Zoro costume, Jack? [The record is due to be released June 6]

Listen to the record by clicking here

Let us know what you think. Start your reviews here in comments.

Posted by freewilliamsburg at 10:10 AM | Permalink | Comments (14)

Click here to sign the petition

From moveonpac.org
Senator Bill Frist has pulled the trigger on the "nuclear option." We now have less than 72 hours to stop him from seizing absolute power to stack the courts — including the Supreme Court. The vote is still too close to call. If we raise our voice, we can win.

We've launched an emergency petition we'll be delivering to congress every three hours, from Monday morning until the final vote is complete. Our allies will read your comments on the Senate floor, and every senator will know the American people are standing ready to hold them accountable.

Posted by freewilliamsburg at 10:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

To do tonight:
33Hz at Rothko. This is pure dance music reminiscent of early eighties Prince. Their new self-titled CD is the best pop release so far this year with the best hand-claps this side of LCD Soundsystem. Check them out tonight, Friday 5/20, at Rothko (band goes on at 12:15)

Rothko
116 Suffolk St. (Lower East Side)
at Rivington St.
212-475-7088

Check out 33Hz's site here

Posted by freewilliamsburg at 01:17 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

You can read all about it here

Let CEO Reed Hastings know what you think. We did some research and found his email:

reed.hastings@netflix.com

COPY AND PASTE AND SEND:

I enjoy the service your company provides, but please rethink your cross promotional deal with Wal-Mart. Otherwise, I will have to reconsider giving my money to your company.

Sincerely,
INSERT NAME

Here's their phone number:
(408) 317-3700

Posted by freewilliamsburg at 01:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Our friend Pete sent us this one and we had to share:

E-mail exchanges between Lance, the King of Black Metal from Gary, Indiana (aka Dave Hill) and Mathias, a Norwegian black metal guy. [Gary is some Brooklyn writer in on the stupidity of these morons] An excerpt:

okay, let me break it down for you. first of all, i don't think anyone who is truly into black metal would start an e-mail by saying "hi!" you are not working at a smoothie shop buddy, you are representing black metal. pull yourself together! i should know- i'm the king of black metal...do you guys have stickers? you should put them up around town and maybe put something under the band's name that says "definitely not a bunch of pussies"

click here for more

Posted by freewilliamsburg at 09:29 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

by Monte Holman

From the Drake Tungsten album and Telefono to Girls Can Tell and Kill the Moonlight, we've known Daniel to be a sonic scientist, layering vocal track upon vocal track and mixing sporadic, uneven guitar solos with Eno's surefire drumming, all in the name of wholesome, solid pop. Gimme Fiction takes those familiar Spoon antics and throws them into conversations with the band's predecessors, nodding to Bowie, the Stones, Motown, Brit pop, and indie gods like Yo La Tengo.

The opening track, "The Beast and Dragon Adored," establishes the tone of the record. It begins with studio chatter and tape hiss that usher in one of Spoon's greatest assets: Jim Eno. He's a gem of a drummer, producer, filter, adhesive, weapon. He knows when to restrain himself and when to let loose, no silly fills or cymbal wanks. He announces his huge presence on this record with a booming, almost distorted, simple tom hit. On top of Eno's foundational rhythm, Daniel builds a slinky Bondlike theme with powerful low-end keys and distorted guitars, complete with his characteristic "ah yeahs" and "awrights." Throughout, the bass and drums move the song while clips of shrill and distorted un-solos spew and spider. This track unleashes the record's rock and roll spirit: "When you don't feel it / it shows, they tear out your soul / when you believe / they call it rock and roll."

Gimme Fiction is wrought with Daniel's Brit-influenced vocal crooning, and the Beatles don't even need to be mentioned here. But he also shows his Bowie sex appeal and Jagger strut, particularly in "I Turn My Camera On," a minimal disco rehash. If ever there was a moment when singing in falsetto epitomized masculinity, this is it. Try not moving to this one -- if the disco drums and bass don't get you, the hip-hop samples will.

Daniel also presents smart lyrical ambiguities in songs like "My Mathematical Mind," which is primarily a political anthem. Line breaks like "I want to change / your mind" and "I want to change / your ways" are critical both of the speaker and the addressed (who, in all likelihood, is the leader of the free world). Elsewhere the phrases "no more riding the brakes / instead I'm gonna see the stakes" point out a boredom with political inactivity as the speaker accuses someone of setting up the Apocalypse without thinking about it. This is about as politically pointed as Spoon gets, I suppose, and in the end, as the lyrics go, Daniel doesn't sweat it.Between Eno's experienced ear and Daniel's penchant for sonic experimentation, Spoon comes out with a stunning sense of space. There are no holes on Gimme Fiction-each second seems deliberate. But the pair's heady approach doesn't take the life out of the songs. The rewinding tape noises, samples, bells, distortions, amp buzzes, backward tracking, handclaps, taped discussions and laughter-all of it gives the album immediacy and dimension. The recording seems complete but not finished. We feel the studio space; we witness the recording process and appreciate its outcome all in the same sitting.

Each tune possesses characteristics that make it distinct, memorable. For example, "Sister Jack" is pretty straightforward Americana fronted by big guitars, tambourines, handclaps, and a distinctly pop chord progression. Playful lyrics like "I was on the outside / I was looking in / I was in a drop-D metal band we called Requiem" give this song head-bobbing accessibility and, though everything is pleasant and tight, prepare listeners for a sort of pay-no-mind track. But Spoon doesn't let us fall asleep. Enter production experiments (backward tracks, noise), and just when we think the song will trail off into 4/4 repetitiveness, the time signature changes. Instrumental and vocal lines shift, and Spoon proves it is in the business of making smart records. No song is filler. No additive is excessive.

There's a 50s feel to some songs like the tom-heavy doo-wop ballad "I Summon You," which is perhaps the best song on the album, rich in love-lost minor chords and lamenting lyrics. "And now this little girl / she says will we make it at all? / 800 miles is a drive." And the album has a personally historic touch, especially "They Never Got You," which is a product of Spoon's heralded story of major label trickery, the fuck you from Elektra (aka "The Agony of Lafitte). Daniel cautions, "Cover your tracks / don't let the footholds start / don't let anyone in / cause they never got you / and you never got them." This one features prototypically Spoon handclaps plus knee slaps and ground stomps fit for a hoedown.

Spoon continues to put out records of intrigue, connected collections of songs rather than strings of singles. The band is able to combine rock classicism with stylish persona in a way that oozes staying power. And most importantly, Gimme Fiction flaunts Spoon's instinct for booty-shaking rock and roll.

Posted by freewilliamsburg at 12:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

I don't usually read The New Republic, so I can't vouch for the usual quality of their content, but I was astounded by the stupidity of their response to my recent New York Times article on BurningAngel and alt-porn. Here's an excerpt of Rochelle Gurstein's prudish, reactionary, and irrational article; "On the Triumph of the Pornographic Imagination":

"My usually robust sense of the absurd was overwhelmed by the many grotesqueries of the "Styles" article that, in the end, meretriciously recast the humiliation and degradation of women, even if it is self-inflicted, as forms of self-expression.... Had any of those college-educated, alt-porn promoters ever heard of them [Baby Boomer anti-porn crusaders] or of the radical feminist slogan, "Pornography is the theory, rape the practice"

She goes on to suggest that Lynndie England was a victim of the "pornographic imagination"

"[Lynndie]England's sadism, along with the fact that she and Graner not only made but circulated pornographic videos of themselves, speak to the coercive and brutalizing nature of the pornographic imagination so prevalent in our world today..... Pathetic Lynndie England, shown in another article awkwardly cradling her infant boy (her child with Graner, who is now married to another woman involved in Abu Ghraib)--here, I thought, was the Linda Lovelace of our times."

Read the whole embarassing article after the jump

On the Triumph of the Pornographic Imagination

"Wearing Nothing but Attitude"
--New York Times, May 1, 2005

Was this trite phrase part of an ad campaign for a new Calvin Klein perfume or was it a headline for an article in the "Sunday Styles" section? It turned out to be a headline for an article about a new and supposedly hip genre of online pornography called "alt-porn," which, as far as I can tell, is distinguished from the old-fashioned, square type in that it features nude photographs and "hard-core" videos in between interviews with members of "hard-core punk and indie bands." To me, this sounded like an unimaginative reworking of the tired-out Playboy formula (did they have cartoons, too?), but as I read on, I learned that Joanna Angel, a founder of BurningAngel.com and star of many of its XXX-rated videos, thought of herself as a vanguard artist. The reporter, Robert Lanham, pointed out that not only had Angel ("her stage name") been an English major at Rutgers, but that she has "a year-book's worth of quotations tattooed across her 4-foot-11 frame, from Kurt Vonnegut ('So it goes') to a paraphrase of Margaret Atwood ('Touch me and you will burn')." As further proof of her vanguard credentials, she is quoted as saying such edgy things as "Porn is more punk than most punk music," and "Some people make music, others paint, I make porn."

This petite, "literature"-inspired young woman apparently has even greater ambitions than making transgressive art. She tells the reporter that "millions of dollars are being made in L.A. every year on porn" and she wants "to start an empire here." Angel even fancies herself a bit of the feminist. She "takes pride," according to Lanham, "in being a female executive in an industry dominated by men." And she takes care of her "girls," none of whom "ever feels exploited." "We treat everyone with respect, like friends," she said. "It's hard work but everyone has fun." Lanham knows a good story when he sees one so he gives plenty of attention to the liberationist angle. Not only does he quote other young, hip, porn entrepreneurs who run similar websites (like Missy Suicide, the founder of SuicideGirls.com, who sees "nudity as self-expression"), he also appeals to more conventional authorities, like Katie Roiphe, identified for readers as "an author who often writes about women's issues": "Younger women today are growing more comfortable with their sexuality," she said, "and it makes perfect sense that they'd want to create a hip corner of the pornographic universe where they can express themselves."

A hip corner of the pornographic universe where younger women, who are more comfortable with their sexuality, can express themselves. ... So it has come to this, I thought. Pornography, which only a generation ago had been assailed by feminists as the ultimate act of objectification, subordination, and dehumanization of women in a capitalist, patriarchal society was now being offered as an entertaining tidbit in the "Sunday Styles" section of the Times, surrounded on the same page by ads for Prada luxury goods and followed by photographs of the social elite at their charity functions on the next. As is so often the case these days, the world appeared upside down to me and I almost felt like laughing, so absurd was the spectacle of naïvete being paraded around as the last word in sophistication.

But, before I knew it, I was feeling something more like nausea as I remembered that Andrea Dworkin, the radical feminist who dedicated her life to fighting "violence against women"--the stark phrase that used to conjure up prostitution, incest, wife-beating, rape, and pornography as component parts of the same system of male power, as dangerous for girls and women as it was filled with hatred for them--had died just a few weeks before, at the miserably young age of 58. It had been a while since I had thought of Dworkin or her comrade in arms, Catharine MacKinnon, both of whom I long admired for the courageous legal battle they waged to ban pornography that brutalizes women. What, I wondered, has happened to those 1970s feminist "Take-Back-the-Night" rallies, where defiant young women marched through city streets to reclaim their right to walk unescorted and unmolested after dark? Had any of those college-educated, alt-porn promoters ever heard of them or of the radical feminist slogan, "Pornography is the theory, rape the practice"? Samuel Johnson's observation that "a few years make such havoc in human generations" rushed into my thoughts. And then, just as suddenly, I found myself thinking, even as a voice inside accused me of vulgar Marxism, that Herbert Marcuse was right: We live in a "one-dimensional" society that effectively de-fangs as it accommodates and absorbs all forms of criticism, dissent, and vanguardism. So it was no wonder that my usually robust sense of the absurd was overwhelmed by the many grotesqueries of the "Styles" article that, in the end, meretriciously recast the humiliation and degradation of women, even if it is self-inflicted, as forms of self-expression.

Here was further proof, as if I needed it, of the triumph of "the pornographic imagination." The phrase, of course, comes from the title of a celebrated essay of Susan Sontag's from the mid-'60s. Where Sontag (perhaps naïvely, in retrospect) had argued that pornography of the Sade-Bataille-Apollinaire "art" variety expanded the boundaries of consciousness, the pornographic imagination in our own time has instead proved to be monopolistic. "Naughty" S&M lingerie displays in the windows of upscale department stores; "cardio striptease" classes at health clubs; revealing fashions on the street--I wondered if Katie Roiphe had any of these hackneyed, stereotypical images of dominatrixes and porn stars and hookers in mind when she spoke with enthusiasm of how younger, more liberated women were "expressing themselves" in pornography. From what I could see, the erotic imagination of women had never been more flat.

"What does woman want?" Freud's famous question suddenly accosted me, as did the answer offered by the feminist critique of pornography: Women no longer know what they want, so completely has their erotic desire been formed by men's pornographic images of them. But, then, I remembered another answer to Freud's question that still had currency when I was in graduate school in the mid-'80s--"radical lesbian separatism." This militant phrase, which used to evoke the utopian hope of making both personal and political life anew, now sounded impossibly foreign even to my ear. It was hard to resist the oppressive conclusion that, in our present-day atmosphere of habitual conformism and pseudo-vanguards of the alt-porn variety, visionary feminists like Andrea Dworkin have come to feel out of place. Dworkin had the imagination to picture a world where women would not have to fear for their safety, where they would be guaranteed dignity and justice, where they would be free to create their own never-before-imagined realms of eros. As I lamented Dworkin's premature death and the moribund quality of the erotic and political imaginations today, another radical idealist, even more alien to contemporary sensibility, came to my mind, this time from the turn of the last century--Emma Goldman.

Goldman's "beautiful ideal," as she called it, was anarchism. Anarchism, for her (I had gotten Anarchism and Other Essays from my bookshelf), meant "the freest possible expression of all the latent powers of the individual." And Goldman's vision of "free love"--"the strongest and deepest element in all life, the harbinger of hope, of joy, of ecstasy"--was at its core. I have never been able to fully grasp this vision, for it was highly spiritualized, verging on the miraculous. But it is clear that for Goldman only a radical transformation of the individual erotic imagination would make possible a radical transformation of the world: "Whether love last but one brief span of time or for eternity, it is the only creative, inspiring, elevating basis for a new race, a new world." Like the lesbian separatists of the '70s, nineteenth-century anarchists did not want merely to reform the status quo. Goldman angered the suffragettes of her time by rejecting their cause, for she, like all anarchists, believed the state was founded on violence and existed only to protect the rich. It is a testimony to her radicalism that she regarded voting or even accepting legal representation (which she often required) as colluding with a morally bankrupt system.

I soon found myself thinking about the cost of Goldman's commitment, the unrelenting hardness of her life--her repeated arrests for speaking in public about subjects that few in her day dared to mention even in private ("free love," "family limitation," prostitution); her imprisonment and deportation to Russia for agitating against conscription during World War I; her bitter disillusionment with the Bolshevik Revolution, about which she wrote, turning her into a pariah among the Left for the rest of her life; her lonely wanderings in Europe without legal papers during the '20s; her many passionate but all too frequently unhappy love affairs, often with younger men. ... Then, abruptly, my intellectual reveries ended as my eye came to rest on the headline from another story: "Plea Deal is Set for G.I. Pictured in Abuses in Iraq" (New York Times, April 30). Accompanying the story was a photo of Lynndie England, looking glum and boyish in her camouflage fatigues, a disturbing contrast to the notorious photograph of this same young woman holding a leash around the neck of a naked Iraqi man on his knees--a pornographic pose as common in Helmut Newton's stylish fashion shoots and Robert Mapplethorpe's high-toned S&M portraits as it apparently is in mainstream pornography.

England's trial for her part in the "Abu Ghraib prison abuse scandal," as it is euphemistically called, has put this female soldier (the fruit of equal-opportunity feminism, I thought) in the news again these days. It was already well publicized that England, whom the Times describes as "a hell-raising young woman from West Virginia," was sexually involved with Charles Graner, a man 15 years her senior, who was the instigator and choreographer of the circus of cruelty and perversity at Abu Ghraib. But it has now been revealed in her trial that she has a history of mental-health afflictions and learning disabilities. Even if this is an extreme case, England's sadism, along with the fact that she and Graner not only made but circulated pornographic videos of themselves, speak to the coercive and brutalizing nature of the pornographic imagination so prevalent in our world today.

Pathetic Lynndie England, shown in another article awkwardly cradling her infant boy (her child with Graner, who is now married to another woman involved in Abu Ghraib)--here, I thought, was the Linda Lovelace of our times. I didn't imagine that England or the better educated, alt-porn entrepreneur, Joanna Angel, both of whom are in their early twenties, had ever heard of Linda Lovelace, the star of Deep Throat, or of her best-selling memoir about her vicious exploitation by pornographers that led to her becoming a feminist cause celebre and rallying point for Dworkin and MacKinnon's anti-pornography legislation. Now, I couldn't help wondering, with the death of Dworkin, was there anyone left to champion England's cause or, for that matter, any radical cause, feminist or otherwise?

Rochelle Gurstein is the author of The Repeal of Reticence (Hill and Wang).

Posted by freewilliamsburg at 12:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

George Galloway called the oil-for-food scandal the "mother of all smokescreens" during a hearing on Capitol Hill on Tuesday. He also had this to say:

Have a look at the real Oil-for-Food scandal. Have a look at the 14 months you were in charge of Baghdad, the first 14 months when $8.8 billion of Iraq's wealth went missing on your watch. Have a look at Halliburton and other American corporations that stole not only Iraq's money, but the money of the American taxpayer.

I told the world that Iraq, contrary to your claims did not have weapons of mass destruction.

I told the world, contrary to your claims, that Iraq had no connection to al-Qaeda.

I told the world, contrary to your claims, that Iraq had no connection to the atrocity on 9/11 2001.

I told the world, contrary to your claims, that the Iraqi people would resist a British and American invasion of their country and that the fall of Baghdad would not be the beginning of the end, but merely the end of the beginning.

Senator, in everything I said about Iraq, I turned out to be right and you turned out to be wrong and 100,000 people paid with their lives; 1600 of them American soldiers sent to their deaths on a pack of lies; 15,000 of them wounded, many of them disabled forever on a pack of lies.

Posted by freewilliamsburg at 01:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

David Cross has an hilarious list of fake reviews on Pitchfork, a clever attack on their inane skewering of him as a "nauseatingly smug... giant fucking asshole." Cross proves once again he's the funniest man alive.

"May I suggest listening to Elegant Nuisance by ButterFat 100. With this, their second album since signing with Holive Records, ButterFat 100 return to their psychobilly/emo core roots. Let its volcanic rapture overwhelm you like a 19th century hand-woven blanket made of human hair might have done back in the days when they enjoyed such things."

go to pitchfork [thanks to Kevin at Catch for bringing this to our attention]

Posted by freewilliamsburg at 09:39 AM | Permalink | Comments (6)

Is it just us or does Kenneth Tomlinson
look a lot like Lon Chaney's Wolfman?

The Republican-appointed head of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, Kenneth Tomlinson, is on a campaign to end "liberal bias" at NPR and PBS. Clearly, this self-proclaimed conservative has no bias of his own. Before the appointment, he was the editor-in-chief of the reactionary geriatric staple known Reader's Digest. If you haven't read it lately, it's ultraconservative politically and the journalistic equivalent of Family Circus. Before that, he was director of the Voice of America in the Reagan administration.

CommonCause.org has put together a petition to:

* Stop efforts to influence programming decisions at National Public Radio (NPR) and the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS).
* Eliminate the two ombudsman positions recently created to evaluate and critique public broadcasting programs for bias. This is an inappropriate role for the CPB and is contrary to its mission of serving as a "heat shield" to protect public broadcasting from political influence.
* Support the appointment of board members to the CPB who have demonstrated expertise and commitment to public broadcasting as opposed to the current system, which favors the appointment of partisans.
* Publicly assure journalists working for public broadcasting that they can conduct fact based investigative reporting critical of government without fear of reprisals.

Click here to sign the petition

Posted by freewilliamsburg at 09:39 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

This is the coolest web site we've stumbled upon in a while. Avoid those annoying website registrations found on the NY Times, etc with bugmenot. Now you don't have to worry that Rupert Murdoch knows your identity should you log into the NYPost to read about Tara Reid in PageSix or to see if Steve Dunleavy is dead yet.

Click below for some sample passwords [most seem to work]
www.nytimes.com
www.washingtonpost.com
www.latimes.com
www.chicagotribune.com
www.nypost.com

If your conscience kicks in see below [from bugmenot FAQ]

Why not just register?
-- It's a breach of privacy.
-- Sites don't have a great track record with the whole spam thing.
-- It's contrary to the fundamental spirit of the net. Just ask Google.
-- It's pointless due to the significant percentage of users who enter fake demographic details anyway.
-- It's a waste of time.
-- It's annoying as hell.
-- Imagine if every site required registration to access content.

Posted by freewilliamsburg at 09:39 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Finally, a book has come along that can help explain some of those Chuck Eddy reviews we read in the Voice. Does anyone really understand Check Eddy when he says things like "tribal-drummed neo-no-wave," "electro-punk robo-scuzz," or strangest of all "80s post-hardcore pigfuck hard-rock." We're not making this up.

Or how about this impenetrable Eddy prose:

So on the eve of Hitler's birthday I'm pulling out old Laibach and Enigma records in horror of the papacy's return to that old Oberammergau catechism, and I reach for the most seminal goth-rock number of all. It's on The Yardbirds Great Hits (Epic, 1977, one vinyl disc, liner notes by Ira Robbins), and the album cover's got reams of ticker-taped That Was the Year That Was headlines, and there the unexpected words were, (accidentally?) next to the title of the 'Birds Gregorian high-mass stained-glass pagan-pop plaint "Still I'm Sad" (later covered by Boney M): "Pope Paul VI makes a 'peace pilgrimage' to Istanbul." Eerie ...

The Rock Snob's Dictionary will hopefully shed some light. It's funny and informative and, best of all, thorough. Here's a quick excerpt:

Albini, Steve. Self-consciously difficult Chicago-based record producer who chafes at being called a producer, insisting that he merely "records" bands; best known for having produced-er, recorded-Nirvana’s studio swan song, In Utero, and for issuing snarky comments to the press when some of the album's uncompromisingly raw songs were later remixed by other producers. Albini, who pushes the bounds of hard-rock iconoclasm by wearing glasses and having short hair, enhanced his outsider cred by playing guitar in the not-very-good hardcore bands Big Black, Rapeman, and Shellac.

Rewards repeated listens. Euphemistic phrase employed by rock critics to confer value upon a dubious musical work that, given the reputations involved, has to be better than it sounds.

Seminal. Catchall adjective employed by rock writers to describe any group or artist in on a trend too early to sell any records.

But come on.... Shellac rules

Check out the book website. They have some funny excerpts and blog updates including a Snob List vs. Honest List of favorite records for the two authors. ("The first list being the albums that you'd honestly take to that desert island for your listening enjoyment, the second list being the albums that you'd claim to be taking to impress other Rock Snobs.") We listed them after the jump:

FOR STEVEN DALY
HONEST FAVORITES
1. Young Americans, David Bowie
2. Nils Lofgren, Nils Lofgren
3. The Harder They Come, original soundtrack
4. The Hissing of Summer Lawns, Joni Mitchell
5. Parade, Prince
6. The Documentary, the Game
7. Funky Dory, Rachel Stevens (import only)
8. Ultimate Dolly Parton, Dolly Parton
9. J to Tha LO! The Remixes, Jennifer Lopez
10. Quadrophenia, the Who

SNOB SUBSTITUTES
1. Jobriath, Jobriath (reissue with liner notes by Morrissey)2. Like Flies on Sherbet, Alex Chilton
3. Arkology, Lee "Scratch" Perry (box set)
4. Not the Tremblin' Kind, Laura Cantrell
5. Inspiration Information, Shuggie Otis
6. When the Revolution Comes, the Last Poets
7. The Vogue Years, Francoise Hardy (import only)
8. More a Legend Than a Band, the Flatlanders
9. Mutantes Ao Vivo, Os Mutantes
10. Ogden's Nut Gone Flake, the Small Faces

FOR DAVID KAMP
HONEST FAVORITES
1. Revolver, the Beatles
2. Imperial Bedroom, Elvis Costello & the Attractions
3. Unearthed, Johnny Cash (boxed set)
4. English Settlement, XTC
5. Warehouse: Songs & Stories, Husker Du
6. Circle in the Round, Miles Davis
7. The Soft Bulletin, the Flaming Lips
8. Quadrophenia, the Who
9. White Light/White Heat, the Velvet Underground
10. Al Green's Greatest Hits, Vols. 1 & 2, Al Green

SNOB SUBSTITUTES
1. Grievous Angel, Gram Parsons
2. Brian Jones Presents: The Pipes of Pan at Jajouka, the Master Musicians of Jajouka
3. The Bells, Lou Reed
4. Pacific Ocean Blue, Dennis Wilson
5. Young Loud & Snotty, the Dead Boys
6. I Don't Know (What the World Is Coming To), Bobby Womack
7. Born to Be with You, Dion
8. Musings of a Creekdipper, Victoria Williams
9. Rough Mix, Pete Townshend & Ronnie Lane
10. ( ), Sigur Ros

Posted by freewilliamsburg at 12:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (6)

White House spokesman Scott McClellan on Newsweek's story about the alleged desecration of the Koran at Guantanamo Bay:

"The report has had serious consequences," he said. "People have lost their lives. The image of the United States abroad has been damaged."

Can anyone say Abu Ghraib? Listening to the White House criticize Newsweek is akin to having Keith Richards self-righteously lecture you on the harms of smoking. Abu Ghraib, our extradition policy, the Iraq War, and the illegal detainment of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay have damaged our reputation abroad in a much more profound way.

Posted by freewilliamsburg at 11:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (6)

From Flavorpill:

Though MoMA's moved the masterpieces back to Manhattan, Long Island City is still teeming with culture. Commence an art-filled weekend by touring the furtive Fisher Landau Center, an icon-heavy painting and sculpture collection. Then, drop into the nearby Museum of the Moving Image, where Porgy and Bess lights the screen and Digital Play recreates a video-game arcade. Later, listen to live music in the peaceful Noguchi Museum garden or let loose with Skeletons & the Girl-Faced Boys in P.S.1's courtyard. Hit the trail again on Sun 5.15 for two exciting sculpture shows: Make It Now: New Sculpture in New York at the stylish Sculpture Center and the competing Sport at the down-to-earth Socrates Sculpture Park. (YP)

Also, a great show at Tommy's Tavern:
Leaders of the Free World, The Redcoats are Coming, Poorboy Johnson & the Goddamn Rattlesnake, Landrew, and Compassion in Action

Saturday at 8pm (5 bucks)
Tommy's Tavern
1041 Manhattan Ave (at Freeman St)
G to Greenpoint Ave or B61/B43 to India St.

Posted by freewilliamsburg at 09:52 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

From Pitchfork
The bands involved were asked to pick a song by answering the question "What have you been listening to lately?" Yes, it's a covers album — but instead of being treated to a Counting Crows rendition of "Horse With No Name", we get popular contemporary artists covering... popular contemporary artists. Among the goodies on the CD are the inescapable Devendra Banhart trying on Antony & the Johnson's white facepaint, the Decemberists borrowing Joanna Newsom's shoes, and the Shins reviving their acquaintance with the Postal Service. We also get the Constantines and Ida each appearing both as performers and as cover-ees; yea, and a Wolf shall cover a Frog, a Mountain Goat shall cover a Silver Jew, and the majority of the tracks shall be previously unreleased, amen. The tracklist:

01 The Decemberists: "Bridges & Balloons" by Joanna Newsom
02 Spoon: "Decora" by Yo La Tengo
03 The Constantines: "Why I Didn't Like August '93" by Elevator
04 CocoRosie: "Ohio" by Damien Jurado
05 The Mountain Goats: "Pet Politics" by Silver Jews
06 San Serac: "Late Blues" by Ida
07 The Shins: "We Will Become Silhouettes" by the Postal Service
08 Josephine Foster: "The Golden Window" by the Cherry Blossoms
09 Cynthia G. Mason: "Surprise, AZ" by Richard Buckner
10 Jim Guthrie: "Nighttime/Anytime (It's Alright)" by the Constantines
11 Espers: "Firefly Refrain" by Fursaxa
12 Two Gallants: "Anna's Sweater" by Blear
13 Vetiver: "Be Kind to Me" by Michael Hurley
14 Ida: "My Fair, My Dark" by David Schickele
15 Mount Eerie: "Waterfalls" by Thanksgiving
16 Devendra Banhart: "Fistful of Love" by Antony & the Johnsons
17 Wolf Parade: "Claxxon's Lament" by Frog Eyes

Posted by freewilliamsburg at 10:02 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

FROM USA TODAY

The Bush administration periodically put the USA on high alert for terrorist attacks even though then-Homeland Security chief Tom Ridge argued there was only flimsy evidence to justify raising the threat level, Ridge now says.

Ridge, who resigned Feb. 1, said Tuesday that he often disagreed with administration officials who wanted to elevate the threat level to orange, or "high" risk of terrorist attack, but was overruled.

His comments at a Washington forum describe spirited debates over terrorist intelligence and provide rare insight into the inner workings of the nation's homeland security apparatus.

Ridge said he wanted to "debunk the myth" that his agency was responsible for repeatedly raising the alert under a color-coded system he unveiled in 2002.

"More often than not we were the least inclined to raise it," Ridge told reporters. "Sometimes we disagreed with the intelligence assessment. Sometimes we thought even if the intelligence was good, you don't necessarily put the country on (alert). ... There were times when some people were really aggressive about raising it, and we said, 'For that?' "

Revising or scrapping the color-coded alert system is under review by new Homeland Security secretary Michael Chertoff. Department spokesman Brian Roehrkasse said "improvements and adjustments" may be announced within the next few months.

The threat level was last raised on a nationwide scale in December 2003, to orange from yellow — or "elevated" risk — where the alert level is now. In most cases, Ridge said Homeland Security officials didn't want to raise the level because they knew local governments and businesses would have to spend money putting temporary security upgrades in place.

"You have to use that tool of communication very sparingly," Ridge said at the forum, which was attended by seven other former department leaders.

The level is raised if a majority on the President's Homeland Security Advisory Council favors it and President Bush concurs. Among those on the council with Ridge were Attorney General John Ashcroft, FBI chief Robert Mueller, CIA director George Tenet, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Secretary of State Colin Powell.

Ridge and Ashcroft publicly clashed over how to communicate threat information to the public. But Ridge has never before discussed internal dissention over the threat level.

The color-coded system was controversial from the start. Polls showed the public found it confusing.

Posted by freewilliamsburg at 04:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Time to discuss Social Security again to divert attention from casualties and debt, George.

From AP via Catch
Congress has approved an additional $82 billion for Iraq and Afghanistan and to combat terrorism worldwide, boosting the cost of the global effort since 2001 to more than $300 billion.

The Senate approved the measure Tuesday on a 100-0 vote. The House passed the measure last week. It now goes to President Bush for his certain signature.....

Most of the money -- $75.9 billion -- is slated for military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, while $4.2 billion goes to foreign aid and other international relations programs.

Read the full article here.

Who are we to question out pious leader? He is after all doing God's work. Buy the Bushfish [From Wonkette]

Do you believe God belongs in government?
Do you believe President Bush is doing The Lord's Work?
If so, then show your love for God & the USA!

Posted by freewilliamsburg at 10:35 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Interview by Monte Holman

Shearwater (Puffinus gravis) hail from Austin and are blood relatives of folk-rock band Okkervil River. Jonathan Meiburg and Will Sheff share song-writing duties in both bands, though lately it seems they've branched off from one another. Sheff assumed more of a lead role in Okkervil, and Meiburg claimed Shearwater, enlisting the help of Travis Weller (violin), Thor Harris (drums, thunder), Kim Burke (upright bass), and Howard Draper (everything), all of whom were present on past Shearwater recordings.

"Theives" (EP—Misra), their latest recording, explores dynamics. It's both delicately soft and surprisingly noisy, all the while haunting. Employing folksy standbys, such as banjos and lap-steels, the band attempts to build lush new backdrops for instrumental presentations listeners may expect from a Texas-based band. Meiburg's sober vocals ring out beautifully and ghostly.

Shearwater is currently on tour with the Mountain Goats, and Jonathan Meiburg (pictured front and center) was kind enough to speak with me before the show at North Six. The man loves birds.

-----------------------------------------------

FREEwilliamsburg: I read on your website that you consider yourself, for the time being, "more of a musician than a scientist rather than the other way around." So you've been studying a while then?

JM:(laughs) I'm nearly finished with my Master's thesis, which I returned to with some vigor and determination a couple months ago and found that I still really loved it and was really interested in it. I'm going to finish it up in a month or two and stop there for now because while I'm interested in moving on and getting a Ph.D., it would mean six years of school and I'd have to quit music. I'm just not ready to quit music right now.

But today I went to the Natural History Museum. I spent time up in the collection there working with the guy I worked with in the Falklands, and it's so cool to get to go back in there. Today I just spent time in the exhibits, and ah, I love that place. It's like a maze — it's so alive — it's got this sort of scientific veneer but it's really all about art. It's all about the presentation, the beautiful and strange dioramas and the way everything is laid out—it's very whimsical, and some of it's almost nonsensical. There are parts of it that you get the feeling they're almost embarrassed are still there, but they can't get rid of them now; it's so permanent.

It's like a microcosm—parts of it are always sealed off with no explanation. Parts of it they're always working on. There are new things opening up; it's never going to be finished. Parts of it are becoming outdated just as new parts of it are coming online, you might say. Some incredible things are getting glossed over and left to get dusty. There are cabinets in the basement that haven't been looked at — I think some of them are albatross cabinets — and they have hundreds of thousands of birds in the collection, most of them in these big metal cabinets with these drawers you slide out. Some of them you pull out and think "nobody's looked at this in forty years."

FREEwilliamsburg: And you were able to go down and see some of those collections?

JM: Yeah, yeah. Some of them — well the building has shifted on its foundation since the cabinets were shut last, and they don't open. (laughs)

FREEwilliamsburg: They're trapped in there?

JM: Well, you'd have to get a welder down there—it's wild. There are probably about five people managing the entire bird collection. Most of the time the stuff just sits there.

FREEwilliamsburg: Who was the guy you studied with in the Falklands?

JM: Robin Woods — he's a British ornithologist who works for Falklands Conservation. He's retired, but you wouldn't know it from his schedule. He's a really incredible fellow, very patient with me. He introduced me to the world of birds. I met him in a boarding house down in the Falklands, and he needed an assistant for this bird survey he was about to do, so I said "take me." I pestered him enough that he took me along. It was a seven week trip to the outer islands of the Falklands to look at this one bird, which is the bird I ended up studying for my thesis.

FREEwilliamsburg: Which bird?

JM: The Striated Caracara — you know that picture of that weird — looking bird [on the Shearwater website]? That's it.

FREEwilliamsburg: Misra's site says you're the world's leading expert on the Striated Caracara.

JM: I don't like that tag. I'm not the world's leading expert on anything. I mean, I know about as much about it, I guess, as anybody, but expert is not the right word. It's just that nobody's really looking at it. I'm not an expert, though. It makes me nervous seeing that because I don't want Robin or any of those people seeing that and going "oh, ok..." I don't have a publication to my name about that thing. I should—I've got all the stuff, but... when I left the aboriginal settlement I lived in...

FREEwilliamsburg: When was that?

JM: The same year. It was that weird Watson fellowship thing. The guy I'd been staying with, one of the last things he said to me was "Don't become an expert!" (laughs)

FREEwilliamsburg: What's the Watson Fellowship?

JM: The Watson Fellowship sends about sixty students a year from different small liberal arts colleges to do projects you design yourself in one or more foreign countries. For a year. You can't come back until the year's over.

It was called Community Life at the Ends of the Earth. I'd never really left the United States before that. So the first thing I did was get on a plane to Tiera del Fuego when I was twenty-one years old. (laughs) It was a different experience, really wild. But I lived. I came back with an interest in birds and with my mind thoroughly blown by that experience. It was really hard to settle back down in the U.S. I was living at my parents' house in suburban Atlanta for a little while working at Mailboxes, Etc., and I would just come home and cry. I couldn't believe out of all the things I had just witnessed, out of all these wonders I just saw — I can barely communicate them to you — it doesn't matter at all unless you have some artful way to communicate it.

Let me tell you one more thing about the Natural History Museum, sorry. The thing I really wanted to see, and which was right where I saw it last when I was working with Robin there. I say working — I was really just tagging along and helping him out. They have this case on the third floor, or maybe the fourth floor. It's at the end of one of those long L-shaped corridors. There's nothing leading to it. It's just a couple of glass display cases. There's another case pressed up against them, so you can't even see part of it. But it's a little bird exhibit. They have all these mounted birds from all over the world completely out of context. They're listed by their family and their range, but not in any habitat context. I think they've been trying to rearrange it so you see things more in the context of a habitat rather than just a bunch of birds together. One of the cases is woodpeckers, and they have just right there in this little thing an Imperial Woodpecker, which is THE largest woodpecker on earth. It's probably extinct, very likely extinct.

FREEwilliamsburg: Where is its natural habitat?

JM: Pine forests of northwestern Mexico in a very poorly known region. It's really backwoods. But I don't think that bird's been sighted in a very long time. The other ones they've got at the museum are up in a vault, basically, in the rare bird room. I wouldn't want to speculate about the value of it — it's an extinct species. It's this giant fucking woodpecker! (laughs) Looking at it is like looking at a holy relic. It's the size of a raven. It's huge. It's very closely related to the Ivory-Billed, which was just rediscovered last week in Arkansas, praise be.

FREEwilliamsburg: Really?

JM: You didn't know about this? It's been missing for fifty years, and they'd written it off. They published sightings of at least one in this area in Arkansas. I have an Ivory-Billed woodpeckers on my banjo. I'm obsessed with them. We were going to write a whole album about the ivory-bill woodpecker, which now I don't know if I can do since it's been found. (laughs) I didn't want to do a dirge for it. I like the mystery of it-people would see it every now and again.

FREEwilliamsburg: Who finally found it again?

JM: This is for real — the Nature Conservancy. They'd been sitting on it for fourteen months, and then they published it in Science, and there's some video of it, and it's for real. It was a Campephilus woodpecker-Campephilus is a genus. It was Campephilus principalis, the ivory-billed woodpecker. The imperial woodpecker is the Campephilus imperialis (laughs), and it looks just like the ivory-bill, just a size larger. So it's a spectacular bird. And it was just sitting there right in the case. I mean you could've shown me the bones of St. Peter, and I wouldn't have been more impressed. I'm just in awe of this thing. It's right next to some of my other favorites like the Crimson Fruit Crow, which is still alive. It's a South American species. And a couple of extinct birds from North America — the Heath Hen, which is sort of an eastern grouse-and an extinct bird from New Zealand called the Huia that had, well the male had this big curved beak, and the female had this little stubby beak. They've been extinct since like the forties, I think.

FREEwilliamsburg: So this has been a very productive trip to New York for you?

JM: Well, that's where I get my jollies. It doesn't do anybody any good, but god, it sends me — I'm still buzzing from that. I can't see it anywhere else. I had a friend with me, and I was like, "Look, look, look at this!" It was like a secret that was hidden in the Natural History Museum. All this other stuff is there to distract you, like the dinosaurs and everything, but look at this!

But we can move on now, or else we'll stay here forever.

FREEwilliamsburg: What about the new EP? Wasn't it recorded in the same session as the last album, Winged Life?

JM: Oh Thieves. It was recorded at the same time and same place as Winged Life at the Echo Lab with Matt Pence. We didn't want to do a seventy-minute record; I don't like seventy-minute records. I thought Winged Life was almost a little long as it was because the previous two records had been thirty-three minutes. That's what I'm aiming for, the perfect thirty-five minute record. I actually like "Thieves" a little more than Winged Life. I thought it was a little more cohesive, and I think it swings between extremes more. It shows a little more somehow what the band is doing more now.

FREEwilliamsburg: And how would you characterize that? Here's a quote from your website, "otherworldly, lovely, and a little bit evil."

JM: (laughs) Yeah, that's the idea.

FREEwilliamsburg: How so compared to Winged Life?

JM: Well it's a little less poppy, little less folky, and a little more of its own thing. I like strange textures and more abstract songwriting and song forms, and we're going to be working with that a little more on the next record, which we'll be playing a couple songs from tonight.

FREEwilliamsburg: Have you started recording that yet?

JM: Haven't started yet, but we're going to start in August.

FREEwilliamsburg: Will it be with the same lineup as the folks touring with you right now?

JM: Yep, this is the lineup.

FREEwilliamsburg: No Will Sheff?

JM: I'm sure Will will be involved in some capacity. He's not on this tour because Okkervil is touring right now as well.

FREEwilliamsburg: I know you play the keys in Okkervil River, and you and Will are the primary songwriters in both Okkervil and Shearwater. How does it work with both of you playing significant roles in both bands?

JM: At the time we started Shearwater, neither Will nor I had any outlet. Okkervil was a little bit stuck for some reason right then-Will had more songs than they were doing, and I was in a band that didn't quite fit with what I wanted. So we seized on Shearwater as an opportunity to do that, and since that time, Okkervil has really taken off for Will as his expressive outlet. It does pretty much everything that he wants it to do. I think the new Okkervil record is great. I'm really proud of it, Black Sheep Boy. I'm representing (laughs and points to his Okkervil River t-shirt), partly as a kind of "I still like Okkervil" thing (laughs). I got up and played with them a little last night at the show (they played at the Bowery the previous night). It was weird because it was the first time I had seen an Okkervil River show since 1999 before I joined the band.

It's been really friendly, and they're really supportive of Shearwater and what we're doing. It was too bad we couldn't all be on the tours, but at the same time, it's kind of a good problem to have. Okkervil's on a great tour; we're on an amazing tour. This is like a dream come true, to get to play to these audiences. Bear in mind, we're used to playing for like five, ten people. To play for two hundred, three hundred, four hundred people is incredible for us. But I also think we're finally ready to do it. We had a great SXSW, we've honed the set a lot over the tours and have really gotten it tighter.

With Okkervil and Shearwater, there sort of is a split happening, but it's an incredibly amicable split. I mean to keep playing with Okkervil. Will's going to keep playing with Shearwater when he can. In general, though, Shearwater's become more of my thing, and Okkervil's Will's.

FREEwilliamsburg: Austin is a big place for music, obviously. You've got all kinds of music there, from bands like Trail of Dead to a large Tejano presence to country. How do you feel Shearwater fits into all that?

JM: There are a lot of different ways to be a musician in Austin. For us, it's sort of like Austin is home base. We live there; we like being there. We don't play there all the time, a couple times a year.

FREEwilliamsburg: Do you feel a part of a community?

JM: I feel like I know a lot of musicians. And we don't have to worry too much about that "are people going to come to my party?" feeling when we play a show. There will be at least some people that you know are going to come and see you, and you feel ok about playing on a Friday night. So it's a little less fraught with anxiety. Now that's displaced to other places. It's like "are people going to come see us in St. Louis?"

FREEwilliamsburg: Here's our favorite question: what was the first concert you went to?

JM: It was in North Carolina. Man, it was James Taylor. It was in the UNC Dean Dome.

FREEwilliamsburg: How old were you?

JM: Fourteen? I thought it was awesome. I was so into it. Even then, I thought this is a little bit slick or something. And I loved Pink Floyd then too, but you couldn't go see them. They had come through Raleigh a couple years previous, but they weren't coming through again anytime soon. I was learning to play acoustic guitar at the time, so I liked James Taylor. It was funny-I remember seeing the guitarist doing volume swells and thinking "how's he doing that?" It all seemed very miraculous in a way. I was like "wow, look at all those purple and green lights!" (laughs)

FREEwilliamsburg: What's next for Shearwater?

JM: Shearwater is almost ready to make a new record. We're going to start in August, and hopefully it will come out in the winter.

FREEwilliamsburg: Are you recording at the Echo Lab again?

JM: I don't think so this time. I think we're going to be working with a guy Craig Ross in Austin, who Thor used to play with. He's done records for Lisa Germano. He's got a really good ear, and he lives right across the street from me. So we won't have to decamp to another part of the state. But I loved working at the Echo Lab — those guys are great, and we'd definitely work with them again.

Posted by freewilliamsburg at 09:54 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

From TinyMixTapes
Because it makes so much sense (why wouldn't they?!), uber-feminist dirtstache band Le Tigre will be producing a track for human Barbie doll Paris Hilton's upcoming debut album, as reported by MTVe. The album, due out on Paris' own imprint, Heiress Records, will be distributed through Warner Bros. Rumor has it that the album will be called "Paris is Burning." No release date has been set, but incidentally, Paris will be attending a totally hot launch party for her label thrown by PlayStation on July 2nd. More combinations that make perfect sense! I wonder, universe, if next we can see Bob Saget on Broadway or maybe Bright Eyes on Jay Leno performing "When the President Talks to God." Oh wait, list of things that are totally happening.

Le Tigre's list of recent collaborators reads like a pop culture who's-who. Their most recent single, "TKO," featured Missy Elliot, and Kathleen Hanna did a guest vocal on Green Day's latest, American Idiot. And to think, not too long ago they were just your average electro pop band. See what a major label can make happen, folks? Le Tigre released The Island last fall on Universal Records. They'll be too busy making music with famous people this summer to tour, but they will be appearing in your home non-stop for months to come via reruns of VH1 fundit programming. Be sure to catch "My Coolest Years: I Was a Closet Case."

Posted by freewilliamsburg at 04:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (36)

Get well, Alan. We're all big fans.

From the band's messageboard [Via OneLouder]:
dear friends,

the following is a lot of sentences starting with "i". i've heard this is bad form and it tends to paint a very egocentric picture of the writer. good thing i'm a musician...

low has to cancel the shows we have booked in may and june - perhaps beyond. i have always tried to extend true respect to the fans of our music. it would be very easy to just cancel without proper explanation, and hope that the rumors tipped our way, perhaps adding to some crafted mystique. but, i'm a coward and i'll leave that to the true artists.

i have not been very mentally stable for the last while. due to this, touring at this time has become too much of a burden on everyone involved. my current problems and instability create undue and unnecessary stress for everyone close to me, especially on the road, so despite coming back from several months of shows we have thoroughly enjoyed playing and being a part of, i have to respect their best judgment. those last several months have been some of the hardest to live through, and it is too much to ask those around me to have to put up with that any more.

for those of you who cling to details and think information is power; i have been speculated/diagnosed with everything from post-traumatic stress disorder, ADHD, bipolar whatever, suicidal depression/anxiety ("here's some pills, call me if you are still alive next week - oh, wait, sorry, your small business insurance plan doesn't cover all this..."), to paranoia, laziness, OCD, and good old-fashioned two-faced asshole-ness. i know - "big deal, who doesn't have problems? you have a great and easy life! how bad can it be!?!" i wish i was a better person, and i'm working on that, much in the same way everyone else does. unfortunately, for one reason or another, that battle for me right now abruptly demands some drastic effort, sacrifice, and change - and that's just to stay in the game... i feel like i've come through the worst of it, by there's nothing uglier than lips speaking vain promises, so forgive me if i'm reluctant to be the cheerleader this time. i need to get healthy, and it's apparent that something about touring right now is doing more damage than good.

several months ago, amid a couple "bad days", i found myself standing in front of a photo of John Peel, on the wall outside one of the BBC studios on london. the image of his face in this photo is an image that exposes fools. i was ashamed to even look into his eyes. still, seeing his calm, wise face made me realize i had been letting my own selfish battle with sanity get in the way of the gift of music that i and we all are so privileged to be even a small part of. my thoughts raced.

i remembered being in the man's home and meeting his family. if there has ever been an example of a selfless man, he surely was/is. yet, it hurt more than looking at the sun than to look at him on some piece of paper!?!... in that instant, i knew i was a fool, and that i had become the enemy. to many this may sound like a very weird and/or dangerous realization, but i have a feeling that that moment will be one i will look back upon someday as "where things changed." - where the eclipse peaked and began to wane. God bless the DJ.

it breaks my heart. i love playing music and i love being able to play it for people, but i love the people i play music with the most. do the math. you have been so kind to us and the people we work with have been patient and selfless through all this, so despite complete faith that everyone probably understands and at least respects our decision, i still wish to extend my deepest apologies to all.

now, to wrap this up, a word or two regarding the individual inconvenience and monetary loss involved: i know this sounds a bit assuming but, in a cosmic, semi-mentally-ill way, i feel every subway fare spent to go downtown to buy and now refund the tickets, every plan made and day worked extra so the day of the low show would be open, every broken heart that was looking forward to feeling my righteous guitar riffs up close and live, and every dollar that will have to come out of the pockets of the promoters of all these shows (i'm serious... despite all the sleazy stuff that goes on the music biz, most of the promoters we work with are very honest people who are not getting rich off what they do, but they still do it because they love music and the community they live in... please go easy on 'em.)

thank you, and again, i am very sorry. i suggest that instead of going to the low show, go for a walk with a friend or two that day - somewhere where there's trees or rocks and dirt or plants. i plan to do the same, each of those days, right here in beautiful duluth... or at the funny farm - who knows? either way....

and please please please go out and get the M.I.A. cd!

peace be with you.

sincerely,
g. alan sparhawk

Thanks Jason

Posted by freewilliamsburg at 01:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (6)

FROM HP: Welcome to the Huffington Post, which, as our motto says, has been delivering news and opinion since, well, a few hours ago. As you look around, you'll see that our front page features our favorite posts from our group bloggers — including Mike Nichols, Ellen DeGeneres, John Cusack and David Mamet — and the top news headlines of the moment. If you are hungry for more, you can always get your fill at The Blog and the News Wire where fresh posts and news stories are added 24/7. And don't forget to check out Eat the Press, Harry Shearer's spicy dish about the media. So come in and make yourself at home.

Check it out for yourself

Posted by freewilliamsburg at 10:25 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Todd P presents
Oneida [pictured], Apes, Sightings and Pterodactyl
Saturday May 7 at Palace Tavern

The Palace Tavern is a 1930's era old man bar in Greenpoint, Brooklyn featuring $1.50 Budweiser mugs and 3 for $2 Jello shots. Huge wood floor back room with gingerbread house walls and a cozy fireplace, plus a big half moon bar with big old timey pane picture windows looking out onto Nassau Ave up front.

Doors will open at 9:30 and the bands will go on promptly, due to a kinda early curfew over there.

Posted by freewilliamsburg at 10:55 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Dullard Harry Reid actually says something candid:

[From reviewjournal.com]
In the course of a discussion on filibusters and Senate rules, Washington's top Democrat gave the 60 juniors a lesson in partisan politics, particularly about the commander in chief. "The man's father is a wonderful human being," Reid said in response to a question about President Bush's policies. "I think this guy is a loser.

"I think President Bush is doing a bad job," he added to a handful of chuckles.

"He's driving this country into bankruptcy," Reid said, referring to the deficit. "He's got us in this intractable war in Iraq where we now have about 1,600 American soldiers dead and another 15,000 injured."

Posted by freewilliamsburg at 10:51 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

by Dave Thomas

Well, "Revenge of the Sith" is finally coming out. And if that's the most we have to look forward to this month, it's going to be a sad, sad time.

We're highly skeptical, but Variety gave the new Star Wars flicker a glowing review. Hollywood Reporter reviews it here. One more from Coming Soon. Here's the rest of this month's films below:

MAY 6

KINGDOM OF HEAVEN

WHAT'S THE PITCH?
Ridley Scott film about the Crusades. Great timing, huh?

WILL IT SUCK?
Main thing to keep in mind here is Ridley Scott, who turned even "Gladiator" into better-than-expected but not quite Best Picture worthy fare. I mean come on people "Traffic" was released that year. The screenwriter has been tapped to do three upcoming huge releases, including "Jurassic Park IV" (yes, there's going to be a 'IV'), Scorcese's "Infernal Affairs" remake, and "Tripoli." So Hollywood, at least, has confidence in him.

Casting is interesting. In keeping with the law that says that Orlando Bloom must not appear in a modern setting, he has the lead. Jeremy Irons and Liam Neeson should be fun to watch (although I can happily wait to see Liam in "Batman Begins," instead). And Ed Norton appears in a mask.

Actually, I don't think this is going to be very good. But it's going to look great.

HOW WELL WILL IT DO?
The R is going to hurt a bit, but "House of Wax" is R, too, so....

Other problems include the second frame of "Hitchiker's" this week and the one-two comedy punch of "Monster-in-Law" and "Kicking and Screaming" the following week. It's gonna be hard to sell the Crusades with those options. Still, it's a Ridley Scott epic, and even "Black Hawk Down" made over $100mil, and that was in the winter. $104mil.

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HOUSE OF WAX

WHAT'S THE PITCH?
Paris Hilton gets whacked. What more do you need to know?

WILL IT SUCK?
Probably. This is from Dark Castle, the Joel Silver/Robert Zemeckis shingle that brought you "Gothika," "Thirteen Ghosts," and "Ghost Ship." Almost all remakes, and not very good ones at that. Also, they bring the mad gore. Now, Elisha Cuthbert's in this, but, then again, I must remind you of the gore, the suckiness, and the Paris Hilton who, even if she does get waxed (and not in a good way) will still be alive for part of the film. On the other hand, "Gilmore Girls" fans rejoice (or lament if you care about their cred) for Chad Michael Murray and Jared Padalecki's presence in this mess.

This comes from the twin brother writing team that brought you "Baywatch: Nights," which is strangely appropriate.

I will say this, however...this is the first Dark Castle trailer that actually looks scary.

HOW WELL WILL IT DO?
There's no horror fare per se for it to contend with, but the second frame of "XXX: State of the Union" and even "Hitchhiker's" could be a bit of a drag. Still, horror refuses to be put down this year, no matter how much it sucks. $81mil.

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CRASH

WHAT'S THE PITCH?
Not a remake of the David Cronenberg film with the Mint Charlie. Oh, I hope there are no Mint Charlies. Instead, "Short Cuts," Paul Haggis-style.

WILL IT SUCK?
It's a cast of thousands talking about race. What's not to like? You've got Matt Dillon, Thandie "where are my eyebrows?" Newton, Don Cheadle, Brendan "underrated" Fraser, William Fichtner, Ryan "also underrated, but maybe not as much" Phillipe, Sandra "Look, I'm in an indie" Bullock, and Ludacris. I hope he still has those big arms from that Spike Jonze video.

Early buzz is good but not as good as Haggis' last piece, "Million Dollar Baby," or as all the hip critics spelled it earlier this year "M$B." Here Haggis directs as well.

HOW WELL WILL IT DO?
It could stand to have a bit more advertising if Lion's Gate truly intends to open it wide. If not, the high profile cast should be more than enough to get it through the indie waters. In wide release, though, it might drown. $32mil.

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JIMINY GLICK IN LALAWOOD

WHAT'S THE PITCH?
Martin Short plays one of his annoying characters for an entire movie.

WILL IT SUCK?
If, like me, Martin Short has jumped the shark for you, the only point of interest here might be the setting - the Toronto Film Festival. Also, there are some decent-looking cameos/actual roles - Jan Hooks, Linda Cardellini, Jake Gyllenhaal, Kevin Kline, Steve Martin, Kurt Russell, Kiefer Sutherland, and Forest Whitaker.

Defintely not enough to get me interested. Early buzz is not good.

HOW WELL WILL IT DO?
It's not so much that it's up against anything (except itself). The show didn't really have all that big a following. And they're not exactly pushing this indiewise. And when the studio pushing it has the title of the movie in its name (Lalawood LLC, I shit you not) you know you're in trouble. Still, even fucking "Clifford" made some dough. $8mil.

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MYSTERIOUS SKIN

WHAT'S THE PITCH?
The latest from Gregg Araki. Two teens grow up in a small town, one of them believing he was abducted by aliens as a boy. Rebellion/angst ensues.

WILL IT SUCK?
This is probably the best-reviewed Araki ("The Doom Generation," "Nowhere,") film yet, which isn't saying much since his earlier films weren't all that well received. Still he's built up a following, and so far they seem satisfied. The casting is kind of interesting. Michelle Trachtenburg takes a break from "Eurotrip" fare to get her indie feet wet. Probably a good move. And "potato face" from "24" makes an appearance as well. And Billy Drago! He's back! In indie form!

HOW WELL WILL IT DO?
Big indie releases the following week plus a push from a relatively small company (the Philly-based TLA) and the fact that Araki movies don't usually do all that well anyway could compromise the big grosses. $300,000.

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BROTHERS

WHAT'S THE PITCH?
One brother goes off to war. The other stays behind with his sister-in-law. One brother is presumed dead. Guess what happens next. Guess who isn't really dead.

WILL IT SUCK?
Early buzz is actually pretty good. The performances are being highlighted. This is from the screenwriter of "Wilbur Wants to Kill Himself," which explored similar themes, and was also kind of slow. The fests seem to love it anyway.

HOW WELL WILL IT DO?
Again, the following week is a problem, but this week, good buzz and good promotion from Focus (who usually does right by their pictures) should help, though not much. $600,000.

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FIGHTING TOMMY RILEY

WHAT'S THE PITCH?
"M$B" with a guy. So I guess that makes it "Rocky."

WILL IT SUCK?
This really does have a "Rocky" feel. Right down to the fact that the guy who wrote it stars as the boxer. Other than that, it feels like a low-budget, DV knock-off of "M$B."

HOW WELL WILL IT DO?
This is going to have its ass handed to it. Even by the small features. $250,000.

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MODIGLIANI

WHAT'S THE PITCH?
Modigliani (remember him?) takes on Picasso in an art competition in Paris.

WILL IT SUCK?
The early buzz is so bad it's not even funny. On the other hand, audiences seem to like it. Put another way, it's got zero percent on Rotten Tomatoes, but 7 out of 10 on the IMDB. Go figure. Andy Garcia plays the lead, so if you want to see him do his impersonation of Alfred Molina in "Frida," check it out.

HOW WELL WILL IT DO?
Although this has the biggest star of the limited releases this week, it's also got one of the smallest distributors and weakest critical momentum, so, don't expect much bank. $500,000.

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TWIN SISTERS

WHAT'S THE PITCH?
Twins sisters are separated at a young age. One goes to live with a rich aunt in Holland. The other becomes a Nazi farmhand. Then they get back together.

WILL IT SUCK?
This was one of the Best Foreign Film nominees at this year's Oscars. The advance buzz is outstanding.

HOW WELL WILL IT DO?
Without Miramax pushing them, none of the above would mean crap. On the other hand, Miramax is kind of busy right now, so I don't know if they'll be giving this their full attention. $600,000.

MAY 13

MONSTER-IN-LAW

WHAT'S THE PITCH?
Hanoi Jane belittles Jenny From Tha Block in an attempt to keep her from marrying her son, That Guy From Alias.

WILL IT SUCK?
It's not the most original idea to come across the plate. "Meet the Parent" comments aside, the trailer manages to rehash the allergic food reaction schtick from "Hitch" and "Along Came Polly" - twice. Director's okay. He did "Legally Blonde" and "Win a Date with Tad Hamilton" so I guess he's on good footing here. It's probably a better idea on paper than in execution, but whatever puts food on Will Arnett's plate is fine by me.

Incidentally, Jane Fonda's last role was (as you'll hear many times when this comes out) 15 years ago in "Stanley and Iris" with Robert DeNiro, who also recently played an embarrassing father-in-law along with icons Barbara Streisand and Dustin Hoffman. So I think we can look forward to all the great 70's stars playing annoying, quirky parents in the future. Look for Robert Redford to play Sean William Scott's dad in "Meet the Founder of the Sundance Film Festival" and Al Pacino to play Amanda Byne's senile grandpop with mechanical hands in "Grandfather Claws."

HOW WELL WILL IT DO?
Laugh all you want (please laugh, they beat me when you don't) but that intense dramatic acting legend cum wacky sitcom-character bit made "Meet the Fockers" the second most successful live-action (thank God for Shrek and Nemo) comedy of all time. Let me say that again. "Meet the Fockers," not "Airplane," not "Some Like It Hot," not "Animal House," not even freakin' "Half-Baked," no "Meet the Fucking Fockers" is the second-highest-grossing live-action comedy ever made (behind, er, "Home Alone"). Let's take a moment.

Okay, that having been said, there is hope. It'll be a good fight between this and "Kicking and Screaming" to see who grabs the comedy cajones of the Mother's Day crowd. Oh, did I say Mother's Day? Yeah, there ya go. New Line ain't dummies. At least Anakin will slice this up a little next week. $189mil.

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KICKING AND SCREAMING

WHAT'S THE PITCH?
All sorts of family conflict going on here. Will Ferrell coaches a kids' soccer team against a team coached by his dad (Robert "I will act with everyone eventually" Duvall) and featuring his son (a role somehow not played by Dakota Fanning).

WILL IT SUCK?
Early buzz is not good. This is what happens when you add the raw power of the director of "How High" (Bob Dylan's non-Wallflowers son, as it happens) with the writing acumen of the team that brought you "Space Jam" and BOTH "The Santa Clause" movies. Ironically, the trailer's actually kind of funny.

Now if this were a remake of the 1995 slacker comedy "Kicking and Screaming" with Eric Stoltz... it still probably wouldn't be a good idea.

But I would pay to see Eric Stoltz coach a soccer team.

HOW WELL WILL IT DO?
Will Ferrell is a BFD, which from now on will stand for "Big Fucking Draw." "Monster-in-Law" will be a problem, but there's enough comedy pie (and enough diversity in the demo's for each) to go around. For now. Next week, pickings get slimmer, and the moviegoers who didn't plan ahead and are boxed out of "Sith" screenings will have to choose between this and "Monster-In-Law" (and a couple of other movies, but we'll get to that later). I'm thinking that crowd is more Will Ferrell than Jennifer Lopez.

Even with that, however, the combined power of J-Lo and J-Fo will bury W-Fe over time. $75mil.

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UNLEASHED

WHAT'S THE PITCH?
Jet Li escapes the clutches of Bob Hoskins who's been training him like a fighting dog for years. Morgan Freeman takes him in and teaches him how to be human.

WILL IT SUCK?
Early buzz is mixed, with audiences liking it more than critics. Looks to me like some cool action scenes (Yuen Woo Ping did the fight choreography, so I'm there regardless) buffered by some boring, sappy tonight-on-a-very-special-Blind-Morgan-Freeman-Show filler. Luc Besson writes, but whatever good will he bought with "The Professional" and "Nikita" he spent on "Kiss of the Dragon." and "The Transporter." Speaking of the latter, same director here and, yes, there will be a sequel which I can only hope will be called "Transporter 2: Still Transportin'."

HOW WELL WILL IT DO?
Of the two non-comedy releases this week, this has the advantage. People get psyched for Jet Li films. Oscar-fresh Freeman doesn't hurt, either. $80mil.

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MINDHUNTERS

WHAT'S THE PITCH?
As I said over a year ago when this was first supposed to come out, it's about an elite group of profilers who have to hunt one of their own when he or she starts targeting them.

WILL IT SUCK?
This movie is so old ("How old is it?") that it was nominated for a Golden Trailer Award LAST year. The trailer is actually pretty good (though the last shot gives away too much). The premise is intriguing - but here are two strikes against it. One is director Renny Harlin who pretty much makes everything suck. He's like the Revolution Studios of directors. Then you have the writer Wayne Kramer, who did a decent job with "The Cooler" but is saddled with a co-writer who did "Glimmer Man" and, less of an indictment, "Constantine." Oh, Andrew Kevin Walker, where art thou?

In spite of all that, this is actually getting good reviews. It's had plenty of time to gather them.

HOW WELL WILL IT DO?
Dimension seems to have so little faith in this that it failed to release it in January '04 as originally planned. As if to add bad timing to injury, they're releasing it against three much higher profile pics. I'm surprised they didn't just say "Fuck you, Renny!" and release it against "Sith." Still, if it's as good as the early adopters say, it might grow a cult following. $34mil.

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LAYER CAKE

WHAT'S THE PITCH?
Just when he thinks he's out, cocaine "businessman" Daniel Craig gets dragged back into the business by his boss. The directing debut of the guy who produced "Lock, Stock" and "Snatch."

WILL IT SUCK?
No worries, mate. It's quite good. Read my review here. The short version is that this is in the same vein as the good Guy Ritchie movies (and not the evil one) but with a little more of the serious and a little bit less of the funny - but that's a good thing in this case.

HOW WELL WILL IT DO?
Of all the limited releases this weekend (or most others in May), this is arguably in the best shape. It's got a good lead-in, tight trailer, although it could stand to have a little bit more of a push from Sony Pictures Classics. $7mil.

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MAD HOT BALLROOM

WHAT'S THE PITCH?
"Dancebound."

WILL IT SUCK?
No. Saw this one, too. Gotta love the Philly Film Fest. Anyway, it's good stuff. Not as deep as say, "Hoop Dreams" or even "Spellbound," but entertaining nonetheless.

HOW WELL WILL IT DO?
This might actually be in a better position than "Layer Cake." People love the kiddie docs. This could be this summer's "Spellbound." $6mil.

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CRAZY LIKE A FOX

WHAT'S THE PITCH?
Roger Rees (Robin Colcord or Lord John Marbury, if you prefer) goes crazy. But it's all to save his farm, so it's okay.

WILL IT SUCK?
Hard to say. Totally new writer/director. It's Roger Rees, so he should be fun. I tell you what, though, if they ever make a movie version of that 80's series "Crazy Like a Fox," I'll be there. Or if they make a movie about how Rupert Murdoch is totally fucking insane.

HOW WELL WILL IT DO?
In a sea of unkowns, it's equally unknown. $250,000.

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KINGS AND QUEEN

WHAT'S THE PITCH?
A separated couple reunites after one of the couple's father dies. Oh, and one of them is mistakenly locked in a mental institution.

WILL IT SUCK?
Nominated for a shitload of Cesar Awards. American reception a little more lukewarm, but still positive overall.

HOW WELL WILL IT DO?
Much higher profile indies out there right now. $200,000.

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SAINT RALPH

WHAT'S THE PITCH?
Kid runs the Boston Marathon as a symbolic miraculous gesture on behalf of his ill mother.

WILL IT SUCK?
Early reviews are mixed, but audiences seem to like it. I know, I was hoping it was the long-awaited sequel to "King Ralph," too, but it could still be good. Campbell Scott looks like he'll be fun as Ralph's priest/mentor.

HOW WELL WILL IT DO?
The presence of Scott (and a couple of other recognizable faces, like Jennifer Tilly) plus the push of a mini-major like Samuel Goldwyn could give this a slight edge. $2mil.

MAY 20

STAR WARS: EPISODE III - REVENGE OF THE SITH

WHAT'S THE PITCH?
Alienation and mother issues drive ambitious youth to become totalitarian dictator. Kind of like "Pink Floyd: The Wall" with lightsabers.

WILL IT SUCK?
This faces the same challenges the other two faced. George Lucas writing the screenplay and George Lucas writing the screenplay. Why, oh, why couldn't he let Frank Darabont have the reins? Or Lawrence Kasdan? But, noooo….

At least there's less potential for suck here. There's little or no Jar Jar (we hope). There's less focus on romance, since Anakin's has to end. In other words, Lucas can focus on what he does best - action. Although early word from him is that this is a very dramatic script.

I will admit, however, that just watching the rehearsals of the fight between Anakin and Obi-Wan got me psyched. Although what I'm really looking forward to is watching Palpatine throw down.

HOW WELL WILL IT DO?
Sucking won't get in the way of this making money. "Phantom Menace" was far worse than "Attack of the Clones" and made over $100mil. more. Of course, that points in the direction of this doing worse, since it will probably be better than "Clones." However, I think this will better meet audience expectations (greatly tempered expectations) and so generate positive, as opposed to disappointed, word of mouth, and help this land somewhere between its predecessors. $350mil.

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DOMINION: A PREQUEL TO THE EXORCIST

WHAT'S THE PITCH?
Yet another movie about the events leading up to the original. This time Paul Schrader's original footage sees the light of day.

WILL IT SUCK?
When we last left the Prequel Saga, Schrader's version lay on the cutting room floor, replaced by splatterrific Renny Harlin's vision. But it's okay, they told Schrader, your version will be on the DVD.

As it turns out, not so much.

So Schrader screened his version in Brussels, got himself some buzz to go with his pity whuffie, and Morgan Creek reconsidered. And they were so contrite that they agreed to release it in a limited capacity up against "Star Wars III."

All of this could mean nothing if the movie still sucks. Early buzz is that this is much better, though that's not much of an accomplishment. The original (can we even call it that?) scored a whopping 11% on Rotten Tomatoes.

HOW WELL WILL IT DO?
Well, if Morgan Creek keeps up the monster ad campaign they've been running so far, I think you, me, and three other people might know about this. $17mil.

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SEX, POLITICS, & COCKTAILS

WHAT'S THE PITCH?
Guy goes gay.

WILL IT SUCK?
Early buzz really isn't that good, but the trailer's kind of funny.

HOW WELL WILL IT DO?
The bigger queer-themed indie release is coming out next week. Without better reviews, this one could stagnate. $500,000.

TELL THEM WHO YOU ARE
(Held over from last month)

WHAT'S THE PITCH?
Legendary cinematographer Haskell Wexler's son turns the camera on his dad. Art-as-therapy ensues.

WILL IT SUCK?
Early buzz is good to mediocre. But it might be worth it just to see the guest list. Everyone from George Lucas to Sidney Poitier weighs in.

HOW WELL WILL IT DO?
If ThinkFilm pushes this with the film lover's crowd, and I mean name-drops shamelessly, they could draw a crowd. Still don't see that happening, though. $250,000.

MAY 27

THE LONGEST YARD

WHAT'S THE PITCH?
Inmates vs. guards in this remake of the football classic.

WILL IT SUCK?
Director Peter Segal does okay with Sandler films. "Anger Management," "50 First Dates." These are among the "meh" titles in the Sandler oeuvre. Actually, anything other than the first two and "Wedding Singer" is kind of a wash.

It'll be nice to see him work with Chris Rock, but Rock's never really been that great in movies. He's a creature of stand-up.

Other cast notables include Burt "I'm starring in my own remake" Reynolds, James Cromwell, William Fichtner, the camp value of Steve Austin and Brian Bosworth, Sandler stand-by's Allen Covert and Rob Schneider (and if he says "You can do it!" one more fucking time I'm going to kick him in the balls eight times).

HOW WELL WILL IT DO?
According to the polling data on Movies.com, people are almost as psyched for this as they are for "Sith." Sandler is a VERY BFD. He's gotta deal with the second frame of "Sith" and the release of "Madagascar," (which means that Rock's competing against a more family-friendly version of himself). No mean feat. But if anyone can do it... (I'm watching you, Schneider. Don't!) $127mil.

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MADAGASCAR

WHAT'S THE PITCH?
A lion, a hippo, a giraffe, and a zebra walk into a bar, er, out of a zoo and end up stranded on Madagascar.

WILL IT SUCK?
There are two kinds of DreamWorks CG animated features. "Shrek" movies and "Shark Tale." With its outdated cultural references (they're singing "I like to move it, move it" in the trailer) this is probably going to be "Zoo Animal Tale." Good cast though: Chris Rock, Ben Stiller, David Schwimmer, Andy Richter, Cedric the Entertainer.

HOW WELL WILL IT DO?
This is very good timing on DreamWorks part. Most films are avoiding the wake of "Sith," but they realize that this darker chapter won't fill the void of kid's films the way "Phantom Menace" did. And, parents aren't going to take their kids to a Sandler film when there's a perfectly good cartoon out there. And the following weekend ain't got jack. $210mil.

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A LEAGUE OF ORDINARY GENTLEMAN

WHAT'S THE PITCH?
Who cares? It has to be better than "The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen."

WILL IT SUCK?
Actually, it's about bowling. Specifically, the efforts of middle-aged bowlers to get the TV public interested in the sport again. The trailer is hilarious. Early buzz is strong. It may not be "Murderball," but it should be pretty damn good.

HOW WELL WILL IT DO?
This has a fairly good buzz behind it. If Magnolia can capitalize on that, this could make a splash. But they haven't really done that so far. $5mil.

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SAVING FACE

WHAT'S THE PITCH?
A young Chinese-American woman is faced with the prospect of coming out to her mom, who is suddenly outcast and on her doorstep in New York.

WILL IT SUCK?
Early buzz is good. Do you like Joan Chen? She's the mom. That's all I got.

HOW WELL WILL IT DO?
With Sony Pictures Classics behind it, this should fare well. Unfortunately this is the summer, and foreign indie dramas aren't the biggest draw these days. $400,000.

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BOMB THE SYSTEM
(Also held over from last month)

WHAT'S THE PITCH?
A graffiti artist declares war on the NYPD.

WILL IT SUCK?
Probably not. Good reviews. Neat premise, minus the slight "Gleaming the Cube" w/ graffiti vibe.

HOW WELL WILL IT DO?
Needs a bigger marketing push than it's currently getting from Palm pictures, who, imho, fumbled "Gunner Palace," which should have been one of the biggest indie stories of the year so far, but wasn't. That doesn't bode well for this, which could otherwise make some bank given the dearth of films about, well, graffiti. $250,000.

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PURE

WHAT'S THE PITCH?
Well, the synopsis has to do with a little kid discovering that his mom's addicted to heroin. The trailer, however, looks like an Eternity commercial.

WILL IT SUCK?
This comes from the director of "Hideous Kinky," which, if you've seen it, might explain the Eternity commercial. Early reviews are mixed, but generally good. Keira Knightley does her indie thing, if that does it for you.

HOW WELL WILL IT DO?
Too small, unless they play up that Keira angle. Even then...$2mil.

There's one good movie coming out next month. Save your pennies.

by Dave Thomas

Posted by freewilliamsburg at 10:45 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

JUNE 14 - The Pixies Jones Beach concert announced.

Interpol and LCD Soundsystem opening

Presale tickets on sale thursday, May 5 at noon

Click Here for more info

Posted by freewilliamsburg at 10:28 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)

by Michael Cohen

Montreal pop rockers Stars came down to NYC this week to play a few shows including a benefit concert at NorthSix for Save Darfur Coalition, Human Rights Watch, and Doctors w/out Borders. I sat down with singer/songwriter Torquil Campbell while the Stars band hauled gear into the Bowery Ballroom for their sound check on Wed April, 27. Torquill explained why everybody's a star and pop culture is better than no culture.

Stars is Torquil Campbell (vocals), Chris Seligman (keys), Amy Millan (guitars, vocals), Evan Cranley (bass), with Pat McGee (drums).

FREEwilliamsburg: I'd like to start with the back-story and how the band met...
TC: We met as children, me and Chris have known each other since we were 8. But the band started in Williamsburg--we moved there 'cause it seemed like countryside to us at the time. We moved into this loft with our friend James who's in a band called Metric, with Nick Zinner who wasn't making music at the time but is now the Yeah Yeah Yeahs guy. And we built this big loft, put up all the walls and shit. And that's where the band started. We made our first record there. But it wasn't a record, it was just us making some music 'cause we had nothing else to do. And then somebody wanted to release it. So once we realized we were gonna be a band we moved to Montreal and Amy and Evan joined.

FREEwilliamsburg: Why Montreal?
TC: Growing up in Toronto, we didn't want to move back there and do our past again. Montreal is a good middle ground. It's a place where you can not really have a job and spend a lot of time working on your music. We had no money so that sounded like a good idea.

FREEwilliamsburg: At that point, would you believe it if someone had said 5 years later you'd be a nationally touring band sustaining yourselves financially...
TC: No, and I have quibbles with certain aspects of that description of our career, but I would definitely never have dreamed in a million years that this was possible. Even this modest success that we've had. We actually haven't been very lucky. We've just worked very hard for a very long time. It's the most unbelievable thing in my life 'cause I didn't start doing it until I was 26 and it was something I was just doing to distract myself.

FREEwilliamsburg: Has your creative process changed from just messing about in your loft and wasting time with you friends versus trying to come up with songs or albums or themes?
TC: The creative process, oddly, has not changed all that much. It was always very constructed in my mind. I guess I'd spent a long time thinking about 'what if I were in a band, what would that band be like? What would the record covers be like? And what would we say? And how would it be?' So I had constructed the whole thing in my brain. And really it's just a process of letting that happen.

It changed when Andy and Evan joined because they became part of that process. But it didn't alter the way I thought about making the music. I'm not a musician, really. I'm a music fan that can sing a little bit. And it's much more about the whole world of the song, the whole world of the music.

FREEwilliamsburg: Let me read this to you from your website: "young people who through their music are trying to save us from our mundane and complacent fears"
TC: Yes that's not something we ever said. When we saw that on our website it resulted in someone getting yelled at, I think. We're not trying to save anyone from anything. We're hoping they'll save us. And nobody's fears are mundane and complacent. People's fears are highly dramatic and extremely crucial. I think that if we have a mandate as a band it's to make people see that their lives are beautiful dramas: everyone is the star of their own incredibly dramatic, complex, and moving story. And the rest of us are just characters in that story. We want to be a soundtrack for those moments in people's lives when they feel like the choices they're making or the things they're doing are taking them somewhere that they've never been before.

FREEwilliamsburg: That's highly linked to your acting background. That you wanted to live the lead role not just act it?
TC: Just getting into others people's lives and celebrating. I always really liked pop music that made people's kitchen sink dramas into big moments and big things. I think that's what pop music does better than any other art form, take the minutia in peoples lives and turn it into something that's memorable and dramatic. So as an actor, I always thought of characters when I was writing songs. That's how I learned about stories. It was always somebody else's stories. I wasn't like writing lyrics to be confessional or about how sad I was because my girlfriend had left me.

FREEwilliamsburg: I feel that many of your songs want to be up-close and personal
TC: We want it to be very raw and something that people can feel unafraid of when they listen. That was always something about music that meant a lot to me -- soul music of the 60 and 70's or the Smiths. They were different kinds of music but they had in common that they made you feel unafraid when you listened to them. They made you feel like being vulnerable or sad was beautiful and actually heroic.

FREEwilliamsburg: How did you become involved in yesterday's benefit concert?
TC: James Wu in the Fatales got in touch with us literally five days ago and told us they had been organizing this benefit. We love Doctors Without Borders and put information about them on our record and have always wanted to help them in any way we can. So we were gonna come to New York anyway and they needed an extra band on the bill so we did it.

FREEwilliamsburg: What's your view on art in relation to mass produced pop culture
TC: Pop culture is better than no culture that's for sure. That's where we're headed I think. That's the frightening end game where we might go to.

FREEwilliamsburg: That there's only one culture or a lack of a counterculture?
TC: That it's just hard for us to know, really. We live in these big cities where we have at our disposal libraries and bookstores and video outlets to see foreign films on DVD and read all kinds of different media and press, all different kinds of books. That opportunity is not there for a huge number of people who live even in North America. And if you go into the heartland of this country you have to search hard to find those people who are getting it out there. But there's always those people there. There's always little bookstores, there's always anarchist cafes, and people doing interesting shit no matter where you go but they're a little enclave in a big sea of people who are basically eating whatever they're told to eat and we all know that. But those people are living lives that are just as dramatic, beautiful, and profound and filled with drama as any of ours and if they knew it, imagine the power of that.

FREEwilliamsburg: As a former New Yorker, what's your feeling about playing Summer Stage? [with Death Cab for Cutie and The Decemberists Aug 18]
TC: It's so fuckin awesome. It's going to be fantastic. We met Death Cab for Cutie last year and they're just incredibly wonderful people and very inspiring. We're very excited, it's a great honor. It's beautiful to look out see the skyline of New York City while playing a gig in the summertime. The best thing is I've acted Shakespeare, gotten busted for smoking pot, and also broken up with a person or two, all in the park. Now I'm gonna play a rock show also with The Decemberists, they're from Portland.

FREEwilliamsburg: Is there a notion that you can't be too educated and still have a pop appeal?
TC: I don't know. I think actually the more education you have the better you can get at it.

FREEwilliamsburg: Don't some producers dumb everything down...
TC: Well dumb is a relative word. I've always had a weird relationship with this idea because to me, pop is context. You know that song by JoJo with Bow Wow? It's a genius track about a fourteen year old girl, saying 'I like you and that's why I'm hanging out with you.' Then Bow Wow does his stupid little rap about how he doesn't sleep around on the road because he's got a real good girl back at home. If you're 12 years old and hearing that stuff it changes your life. You feel sex for the first time and how to relate in the world. I think it's great and I don't have a problem with it being there. Really the anger that people direct toward them should be directed at record companies who choose to make their own act a priority. Celine Dion didn't ask to spend 50 times more on her record but they chose to because they thought it would sell. Someone else is having life changing experience to it. Better pop culture than no culture at all.

STARS LINKS
http://www.paperbagrecords.com/pbr.html
http://www.arts-crafts.ca/stars

Posted by freewilliamsburg at 10:23 AM | Permalink | Comments (6)

The City's rezoning plan is official. Let us know what you think in comments.

From NYTimes
City officials agreed yesterday to let developers turn the decaying north Brooklyn waterfront, with its relics of Brooklyn's industrial past, into a neighborhood of residential towers with a parklike esplanade along the East River.

The plan, which rivals the ambition and scope of the creation of Battery Park City, would rezone a 175-block area of Greenpoint and Williamsburg, two neighborhoods that have surged in popularity because of their proximity to Manhattan but whose development has been curtailed because much of the area is now restricted to industrial use.

The area has become perhaps the most emblematic of Brooklyn's resurgence over the last few decades, as young people seeking an alternative to Manhattan have flocked to its once desolate streets, remaking Williamsburg into a hub of nightlife, art galleries and restaurants just one subway stop away from Manhattan.

That has propelled the local housing market, and led to intense pressure to develop acres of abandoned or underutilized properties near the East River that boast stunning views of Manhattan.

The rezoning, which was approved unanimously by a key City Council committee, would transform the long-crumbling waterfront into a residential neighborhood complete with 40-story luxury apartment buildings, shops and manicured recreation areas. As envisioned by city planners, the rezoning would help realize decades-long efforts to capitalize on one of New York's most ignored assets, its miles of neglected waterfront, while also protecting a neighborhood that has long been considered a repository for unpopular projects like power plants, waste transfer stations and porn shops.

"This rezoning will ensure that the reuse of this priceless but long derelict waterfront will be for the purposes of housing and recreation and not for such inappropriate uses as waste transfer stations and power plants," Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg told reporters at a late afternoon news conference.

The plan, which is expected to be approved by the full City Council next week, imposes some novel requirements for developers seeking to build the housing. In order to build to the maximum height of roughly 30 or 40 stories, they must keep at least 20 percent of the homes affordable to low- and middle-income New Yorkers, making it among the most ambitious such programs in the nation, city officials say. And the developers must build the waterfront esplanade, which will eventually be turned over for management to the city's Parks Department.

The rezoning in north Brooklyn is coming together as the city moves aggressively to spruce up its aging waterfronts, many of which have been in decline for more than a generation as New York's ports lost their prominence. Earlier this year, the city approved the rezoning of a huge swath of the Far West Side of Manhattan for office space and housing and has finally begun putting in place a plan to support a mix of uses, including a cruise ship terminal, on the Red Hook waterfront in Brooklyn.

But the north Brooklyn plan, whose final version came after intense negotiations between the City Council and Bloomberg administration officials, could yield one of the most extreme transformations of a neighborhood in decades. Inland from the water, the plan seeks to preserve the low-rise scale of the areas, where four- and six-story apartment buildings predominate, as well as the mix of light industry and residences.

To that end, the plan will designate a 22-block area near the Bushwick Inlet, just beyond the East River waterfront, as an Industrial Business Zone, which brings with it special protections and benefits for businesses operating or moving there, and create a $4 million fund to preserve manufacturing jobs in the neighborhood.

The plan also creates 54 acres of parkland, including a 28-acre park with an Olympic-quality aquatic center on the river. The waterfront, though, will see the most striking change, and is the scene of the city's broadest test of inclusionary zoning, which allows developers to build larger buildings in exchange for setting aside some of the apartments as lower-cost units.

To take advantage of this bonus, developers on the waterfront must put aside 20 to 25 percent of their apartments for low- to moderate-income New Yorkers. In the city's calculations, for a family of four, low income is defined as earning up to $50,250 per year, and moderate income is defined as $50,250 to $78,000.

In exchange, they will be allowed to put up larger buildings, capped at roughly 30 or 40 stories depending on the location, and they will be eligible for a 25-year tax exemption. Those developers are also eligible for certain grants for the public esplanades they build.

Those who do not include affordable apartments in their developments would be ineligible for the tax exemption. The size of their buildings would also be smaller, limited to roughly 23 or 33 stories, officials said. In the inland areas, there is also an inclusionary program, but it is smaller in scale.

Council members involved in the negotiations said that their modifications to the administration's plan will result in the construction of more affordable homes overall, about 33 percent of the more than 10,500 apartments anticipated from the rezoning.

In addition, Mr. Bloomberg said, the five major developers who own 70 percent of the property within the rezoning area reached an agreement with the city's main building service union to pay union-scale wages.

"In 10 years, I can't imagine what Williamsburg-Greenpoint is going to look like," said Councilwoman Melinda Katz, Democrat of Queens, who as chairwoman of the Land Use Committee led negotiations with Bloomberg administration officials.

City Councilman David Yassky, Democrat of Brooklyn, who represents much of the area, echoed that sentiment. "This is truly a transformative plan for New York City's waterfront," he said. Many residents and community advocates, though, have been opposed to the changes envisioned by the city, and some had lobbied for a guarantee that 40 percent of the new housing would be directed to lower-income residents. But several housing advocates watching the voting at City Hall praised city officials for including more lower-cost housing and open space in the plan.

"The communities off Williamsburg and Greenpoint win," said Brad Lander, director of the Pratt Institute Center for Community and Environmental Development, "because today there is a guarantee of new and permanently affordable housing, instead of a virtual guarantee that new development would price residents out of their homes."

Posted by freewilliamsburg at 10:32 AM | Permalink | Comments (17)

You can download the song here.

"When The President Talks To God"

When the president talks to God
Are the conversations brief or long?
Does he ask to rape our women's' rights
And send poor farm kids off to die?
Does God suggest an oil hike
When the president talks to God?

When the president talks to God
Are the consonants all hard or soft?
Is he resolute all down the line?
Is every issue black or white?
Does what God say ever change his mind
When the president talks to God?

When the president talks to God
Does he fake that drawl or merely nod?
Agree which convicts should be killed?
Where prisons should be built and filled?
Which voter fraud must be concealed
When the president talks to God?

When the president talks to God
I wonder which one plays the better cop
We should find some jobs. the ghetto's broke
No, they're lazy, George, I say we don't
Just give 'em more liquor stores and dirty coke
That's what God recommends

When the president talks to God
Do they drink near beer and go play golf
While they pick which countries to invade
Which Muslim souls still can be saved?
I guess god just calls a spade a spade
When the president talks to God

When the president talks to God
Does he ever think that maybe he's not?
That that voice is just inside his head
When he kneels next to the presidential bed
Does he ever smell his own bullshit
When the president talks to God?

I doubt it
I doubt it

Posted by freewilliamsburg at 09:34 AM | Permalink | Comments (78)

Stryper is planning a comeback. We don't know whether to be excited or nauseous. We just hope someone does an exit poll at the concerts to see how many fans are in attendence ironically. Those T-shirt sales will be huge. Everyone wants a cock-rockin', Jesus-fearing, mother-fucking Stryper 2005 Tour shirt.

Apply to be the official Stryper Street Team President here. Listen to their new, more-horrible-than-you-imagined mp3 here.

From their Press Release:

The multi-platinum and Billboard charting rock band Stryper is back and set to release Reborn via Big3 Records on August 16, 2005. Reborn marks the band's first complete studio release of original material in over a decade, since 1990's Against The Law, and features 10 original tracks marked by Stryper's trademark blend of melodic vocals, heavy guitar licks and pounding drums, as well a new version of the previously released track "In God We Trust." After writing and recording some songs in April 2004, Michael Sweet approached the band about reuniting and recording the material as a Stryper record. The album was re-recorded in Massachussetts at Blue Jay Studio, Mixed Emotions, and Sweet's home studio. The title track "Reborn" is provocatively dark with catchy lyrics and raw guitar riffs, and will impact radio on June 7th.

Said Stryper frontman Michael Sweet of the new record, "Our fans have said they would like to hear Stryper with more edge, but I didn't want to do something so heavy that it would limit us. We were able to deliver the edge yet still keep the melody and catchy guitar riffs." As for the title Reborn, Sweet remarks, "I wrote the song "Reborn" before we decided to reunite as a band, and once we came together it was natural to make this notion the essence of the album as we feel we are being reborn. We truly feel like a new band."

The release of Reborn begins a remarkable new chapter in Stryper's career. With 8 albums released and more than 8 million albums sold worldwide, the band has been a pioneering force in the Christian metal music scene, and one of the most exciting forces in American rock music. Reborn encapsulates the band's signature sound, yet includes a modern twist that will not only speak to Stryper's loyal fan base worldwide, but also to hard rock fans everywhere.

Original Stryper members Michael Sweet (lead vocals, guitar), Oz Fox (lead guitar), Robert Sweet (drums) are pleased to announce the addition of Tracy Ferrie (bass) to the band. Stryper will embark on a North American tour in support of the record this fall.

Big3 Records will also release a Stryper DVD, packed with live footage and special features, by the end of the year. The DVD is history in the making. Not only is it the first Stryper DVD to be released, but it is also the first ever live music filmed in Puerto Rico

Posted by freewilliamsburg at 07:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (11)

From Press Release
As we prepare for the release of Face The Truth, perhaps the finest work of Stephen Malkmus' recorded career (and we're including that other band he used to be in), the following tour dates have been announced:

June
04 Washington DC Black Cat
05 Philadelphia, PA Theatre of Living Arts
07 New York, NY Irving Plaza
09 Cleveland, OH Beachland Ballroom
10 Detroit, MI St. Andrew's Hall
12 Minneapolis, MN First Avenue
14 Los Angeles, CA El Rey
15 San Francisco, CA The Fillmore w/Martha Wainwright
18 Seattle, WA Neumos w/Martha Wainwright

On May 24, Matador will be releasing the 3rd post-Pavement album from Stephen Malkmus, Face The Truth, on the every popular compact disc and phonograph long player configurations. Face The Truth, Stephen's first bona fide solo recording, captures our favorite singer-songwriter at the height of his creative powers. We can say with total confidence that some of SM's wittiest moments to date are found on this album, along with many of his most heartfelt. An album of staggering lyrical and musical range, Face The Truth' is unlikely to be supported by heavy touring (what with Stephen's pending dad-to-be status), but selected US dates are planned, so catch him while you can!

Posted by freewilliamsburg at 12:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)