‘Reality Check’ Game Show Rolls at Rothbury and All Good
By Andy Bernstein Nearly 1,500 people have now played Reality Check, the music and political trivia game show HeadCount has rolled out to festivals this summer. Only three people can claim to be champions: Paul Arseneau of Tolono, IL, walked away with a Les Paul guitar signed by Bob Weir at Rothbury as the winner…
Where Will Your Money Go?
Here’s what you have to look forward to: Visual Economics
Rara For The Revolutionary Music Of Haiti
By Richard Gehr The music of sinfully impoverished Haiti – from rara to more modern styles such as the mizik rasin (roots) played by Boukman Eksperyans – is brash and exciting, combining vodous rhythms played by slaves with the military marching-band instrumentation introduced by French colonialists. Yesterday in his New Yorker blog, Sasha Frere Jones…
New York Philharmonic To Perform Trey Anastasio’s ‘Time Turns Elastic’
And in yet more Phish-related news (non-rumors division): NEW YORK PHILHARMONIC TO GIVE NEW YORK PREMIERE OF TIME TURNS ELASTIC WITH TREY ANASTASIO AT CARNEGIE HALL, SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 12, 2009, AT 8:00 P.M. An Evening With Trey Anastasio and the New York Philharmonic, A Benefit for the Kristine Anastasio Manning Memorial Fund and the New…
Don’t Save The Date For Phish In Indio
Despite numerous rumors to the contrary, Phish today made the entire state of California disappear from its map of potential Halloween-run locations.
Hearing The Grateful Dead Again For The Very First Time
By Richard Gehr Like many geezers who’ve been listening to the Grateful Dead for decades, my passion for America’s Beatles was fueled by analog cassette tape trading via the US postal system. During those long, slow days before Al Gore invented the Internet, there always seemed to be time aplenty to dupe, package, mail, and…
California Commercial Advocates Pot Legalization, Regulation, Taxation
In California, the Marijuana Policy Project has begun airing a TV commercial calling for the legalization, regulation, and taxation of marijuana to help the state’s crippling budget crisis. Marijuana has been the top cash crop in California for years, bringing in $14 billion a year even during prohibition. Under a legal and regulated system, marijuana…
Joan Baez Sings ‘We Shall Overcome’ In Farsi
During last month’s fixed election, Joan Baez sat down in what appears to be her kitchen to dedicate a stately solo version of “We Shall Overcome” to the people of Iran – with lyrics in Farsi.
80 Million Strong DC Summit Meeting Addresses Youth Unemployment
While the official US unemployment rate hovers around 9.5%, the percentage of unemployed young people and recent college graduates is at least twice that figure. And the numbers for young Hispanics and African-Americans are another several points higher. Add the ridiculous $27,000 of debt with which the average grad is encumbered, and the absence of…
LSD-Inventor Albert Hoffman Writes Apple CEO Steve Jobs
By Richard Gehr Ryan Grimm neatly distills the fascinating historical confluence of psychedelic drugs (mostly LSD) and computer culture in this Huffington Post excerpt from his forthcoming book, This Is Your Country on Drugs: The Secret History of Getting High in the United States. The surprising bit, however, is this reproduction of a 2007 handwritten…