by Tim Quirk
As a founding member of both The Clash and Big Audio Dynamite and a producer responsible for records by The Libertines and Babyshambles, Mick Jones has had an illustrious and consistently relevant career that has spanned the course of three decades. Jones talks about these phases and stages in this Rhap Session.
By Tim Quirk
The hits keep on coming. Another round of "Drunk Dialing" from SXSW. In this episode: Eli from Throw Me the Statue on his most memorable drunk dialing disaster.
By Tim Quirk
Another installment of "Drunk Dialing" from SXSW, wherein your favorite musicians talk about their most memorable moments of regrettable telecommunication. In this episode, Tim Quirk talks to the legendary Gang of Four bassist, Dave Allen.
By Tim Quirk
Another installment of our "Drunk Dialing" series. Here's British Sea Power, talking to Tim Quirk at the SXSW Festival in Austin, Texas, about their most memorable (or barely remembered) drunk dialing experience.
By Tim Quirk
Every night at South By Southwest is a night to remember that you will likely forget. When the bands, industry insiders and journalists descend on Austin, Texas, the beer flows like wine. And who among us has not found ourselves in the precarious position of possessing liquid courage in one hand and a telephone in the other? We are all guilty of drunk dialing, my friends. Let ye without a call history cast the first stone.
With that in mind, our intrepid reporter Tim Quirk, embedded with the bands at this year's SXSW, will be asking some of your favorite musicians about their most (un)forgettable drunk dialing trespasses. In our first installment: David Gedge of the Wedding Present and Cinerama.
By Tim Quirk
There’s little I enjoy more than talking about music. Well, maybe drinking and talking about music. What could be better than that? How about drinking and talking about music in Rio De Janeiro? And what if the people you’re talking and sharing caipirinhas with, as you gaze down at Copacabana Beach while the giant statue of Cristo Redentor gazes down at you, are a group of gifted musicians from six continents?
By Tim Quirk
When I was a teenager, Rolling Stone ran a semi-notorious cover featuring a bare-chested Jim Morrison (did that guy ever wear a shirt?) with a caption that read, “He’s Hot, He’s Sexy and He’s Dead.” The Doors still seem to do pretty good business in T-shirts and dorm room posters. As do other admirable, sexy and dead rockers such as John Lennon, Bob Marley and Kurt Cobain. So how come vendors on random street corners don’t carry an equally impressive selection of Joe Strummer T-shirts?
Continue reading "Where Are All the Joe Strummer T-Shirts?" »
By Tim Quirk
But I’m also deeply suspicious of any effort to make people feel bad about the music they like, and doubly so when such efforts cloak themselves in faux-populist clothing (hipsters declaring that the really cool kids don’t like hipster music is a lot like the Ivy League-educated scion of a wealthy family who currently runs our country dismissing his opponent in the 2004 election as elite and out of touch with middle America). And since I’m in New York right now for the CMJ Music Marathon, which is pretty much a non-stop celebration of semi-popular indie rock, this stuff can’t help but percolate in my beer-soaked noggin (relevant aside: at the last indie-rock-tastic festival I attended in Austin, some guy behind me in the bar line at a Ponys show ridiculed me for buying a $4 Tecate instead of a $3 Pabst Blue Ribbon; I try my best to love my fellow human beings, but sometimes they make it very, very difficult).
By Tim Quirk
OK, so Chris Brown jumping from table to table was the
musical high point of this year’s VMAs. I wasn’t in the Pearl Theater itself, but friends who were
insist that watching Chris and co. fly through the air was actually more
impressive in the room than it looked on TV – even cooler, apparently the
production lady who talked to everyone during commercials was saying stuff
like, “All drinks off the tables!” and “Don’t stand up, or you will be
decapitated!” just before Chris Brown blew everybody’s mind and washed the sad aftertaste
of Britney thrusting her hips while surrounded by good dancers out of the
nation’s collective, gaped mouth.
But my own personal high point came courtesy of Kid Rock. I have no idea if what he said was merely bleeped, or edited out of the broadcast entirely, but it was one of those priceless moments of honesty bursting through posturing that pop music specializes in.
By Tim Quirk
If you look closely at this picture, you will see that even
the poor guy who has to dress up as the Moon Man in 100+ degree heat walks
around drinking cocktails by the pool at the Palms. That’s a margarita glass in
his left hand, though how he gets the liquid through the reflective surface of
his space visor is beyond me.
Moon Man manqué joined plenty of other people at the Palms’ pool in not-quite-rocking out to Peter, Bjorn and John this afternoon. The band did their damndest to engage the crowd: singer/guitarist Peter Moren even tried climbing up the lighting rig as though he were a deranged punker who might be willing to leap to his death at one point. Unfortunately, he did this during their whistle-tastic hit, “Young Folks,” which is eminently hummable, but not exactly the type of thing that makes you want to cut your chest open with a broken bottle.
