Friday, January 6 2012
From Touring Carnival to Destination Festival: Lollapalooza at 20
When Lollapalooza disappeared from view in 1997, it seemed that a good idea had run its course. But the end of the road for Lollapalooza as a tour turned out to be just the first part of its story.
Friday, October 28 2011
The Power of Communion: A Chat with Ben Lovett of Mumford & Sons
Mumford & Sons' Ben Lovett didn't like the way that the world of booking and promoting musicians was being handled -- so he completely reinvented it.
Friday, October 21 2011
Lollapalooza 1991: The Underground As a Community
Originally conceived of as a farewell tour for Jane's Addiction, Lollapalooza turned into something even grander: Woodstock for Gen X.
Tuesday, October 18 2011
The Value of CMJ: Festival Kicks off Today in NYC
Exploring CMJ 2011 as it kicks off today. The state of the world is much different, for better of worse, from the time of the first CMJ conference in 1980. So what can CMJ Music Marathon attendees expect? Using 2010 as a guide...
Wednesday, September 28 2011
PopMatters Picks: Best 2011 Summer Concert Experiences
PopMatters writers offer up a smattering of their favorite concert moments from the summer of 2011.
Monday, September 26 2011
ATP America Presents: I’ll Be Your Mirror Curated by Portishead & ATP
All Tomorrow's Parties' I'll Be Your Mirror opens in its new location in Asbury Park, New Jersey this weekend with a lineup curated by Portishead and ATP. PopMatters speaks to the festival's founder, Barry Hogan, to discuss where ATP has been and where it's going.
Thursday, September 1 2011
Dances with Spiders: Italian Roots Music, With Bite, Comes to North America
The story of the pizzica revival is one of how a music associated with a healing ritual of poor, oppressed peasants was transformed into a proud assertion of cultural heritage and identity.
Thursday, August 25 2011
When Art Is Illegal (Or Not)
Graffiti is, as Norman Mailer famously described it, "Your presence on their Presence... hanging your alias on their scene."
Wednesday, August 24 2011
The Museum of Modern Art Highlights ‘Images of War (At a Distance)’
Visual artist Harun Farocki's MoMA installation fuses images of war and violence with the documentary mode to create a bold, confrontational hybrid.
Friday, August 12 2011
It’s the Film at Work: Interview with Shamim Sarif and Hanan Kattan
"Whatever situation you are in," says Shamim Sarif, "there are opportunities for the human spirit to grow, and I like to have that possibility in the films and the work that we do."
Friday, July 22 2011
Phish Rocks the House at Super Ball IX
The Vermont quartet delivered a monumental series of performance that conjured a Scott Pilgrim vs the World status – “an epic of epic epicness”. There seems to be only one band that has the dedicated fan base to stage its own mega-festival with no supporting acts.
Wednesday, July 20 2011
Rust Belt Visions: The 2011 Allied Media Conference
In Detroit, a cauldron where neoliberal experiments are tested and then unleashed upon the world, the Allied Media Conference reveals both the huge challenges facing community organizing and how media can assist the disenfranchised.
Tuesday, July 19 2011
Revisionist History: Hair Metal’s Proto-Punk Roots
There might not seem to be any rhyme or reason for pairing Mötley Crüe and Poison with the New York Dolls, but appearances can be deceiving when it comes to the self-proclaimed "tour of the summer".
Friday, June 24 2011
Duke Ellington and Paris Part 2: An Interview With Laurent Mignard
In this second part of his 'Duke and Paris' series, Matthew Asprey looks into what Laurent Mignard means, when he says, "Our record is called Duke Ellington Is Alive because I'm really sure that Duke's mood is still with us."
Thursday, June 23 2011
Summer Is Electric With Electronic Music Festivals
Fans of electronic music will find a lot of massive events going on around the US this summer. Here are a few to look out for.
Friday, June 17 2011
It’s a Classical Kind of Summer
Classical music fans can rest assured that financially stressed arts organizations will continue to strive to make events accessible to the public, particularly in the summer months.
Thursday, June 16 2011
Get Out and Go to Fun Summer Events
Our writers' favorite summer events run the gamut from the ultra local fare of a day devoted to mustard in a small Midwestern town to the huge SummerStage series in New York and the glorious Montreal Jazz Festival.
Summer in New York Is Musical Heaven
It's the scavenger spirit of self-discovery, with the relative high frequency of opportunities to catch bands at small venues early on, that makes the summer in New York a joy.
Thursday, June 2 2011
Kanye West = Batman? Five Perfect Broadway Superhero Musicals We’d Like to See
If only the creators of the Spiderman musical had chosen Elvis Costello instead of U2 to create Spidey's soundtrack... While we're at it, here are some ideas for Broadway's next pack of superhero shows.
Monday, May 9 2011
There Is Nothing to Grieve: An Argument Against a Neutral Milk Hotel Reunion
On 4 December 2010, Jeff Mangum, indie rock's most reclusive star, performed a full acoustic set, the first in at least a decade. But does that make the possibility of a Neutral Milk Hotel reunion a good idea?
