[Mon, 8.Feb.10]

You Say Party! We Say Die!: XXXX

Vancouver dance-punk troupe parties like its 2002.

Orphaned Land: The Never Ending Way of ORwarriOR

One of the Middle East's best metal bands returns with their first album in six years.

Susan Boyle: I Dreamed a Dream

For better or for worse, Susan Boyle is you and me.

Jessica Pavone: Songs of Synastry and Solitude

Gloomy and forceful, Songs of Synastry and Solitude is as much about the space between the notes as it is the notes themselves, and as much about Pavone’s own story as it is yours.

Maria Muldaur and Her Garden of Joy: Good Time Music for Hard Times

Subtlety has nothing to do with sobriety and these songs are positively liquid in their clarion call for having fun as the only logical response to a lousy economic situation.

MORE MUSIC

[Thu, 4.Feb.10]
Jann Klose: 16 November 2009 - Chicago
Klose has the classically incandescent look of a young James Taylor. Wavy brown hair frames his chin and ocean-blue eyes sparkle as he strums.

MOST RECENT

:. Cracker + Camper Van Beethoven: 17 January 2010 - Cambridge, MA

:. Perpetual Groove: 22 January 2010 - Austin, TX

:. Haiti Relief Benefit: 23 January 2010 - New York

:. Umphrey's McGee: 29 December 2009 - Chicago

:. The Fiery Furnaces: 8 November 2009 - Guelph, ON

MORE EVENTS

[8.Feb.10]

[6.Feb.10]

[5.Feb.10]

[Mon, 8.Feb.10]
:. The ultimate ‘Survivor’ test: obscurity
:. 20 years of worst best-picture nominees
:. Werewolves are a hair different in ‘The Wolfman’
:. Blue whales singing in a lower key
:. ‘Heart-stopping’: Nik Wallenda walks the high wire
:. ‘The View’ gets political , and viewers love it (so does D.C.)
:. Over 50 years, Walk of Fame turned Hollywood into destination
:. Franken criticizes planned Comcast-NBC Universal merger

[Sat, 6.Feb.10]
:. INTERVIEW:Claire Danes did homework to play autistic scientist in ‘Temple Grandin’
:. Super Bowl weekend should be another win for ‘Avatar’
:. Diane Sawyer, gilt-edged newswoman
:. INTERVIEW:Nicholas Sparks is a master of romance, and Hollywood knows it
:. Stirring ‘Robin Hood’ series leads new DVD sets from BBC

Incentives Matter: An Interview with Stephen J. Dubner
By Ian Chant
[8.Feb.10] :. PopMatters talks with Superfreakonomics coauthor Stephen J. Dubner about collaboration, geoengineering and why some economists don't like his books.

CULTURE AT LARGE: 20 years of worst best-picture nominees Werewolves are a hair different in ‘The Wolfman’ Blue whales singing in a lower key

MIXED MEDIA: Water Feature - Danny Paul Grody’s ‘Fountain’ (MP3) Evolution of a Song - “The Loco-motion”

— recent features —

Deconstruction Zone: Orson Welles: A Man of a Certain Ego
By Rodger Jacobs
[5.Feb.10] :. “The chief proof of a man’s real greatness lies in his perception of his own smallness. It argues... a power of comparison and of appreciation which is in itself proof of nobility.”

IN THE BLOGS:
Re:Print: Analyzing Oscar’s Best Adaptations
Graphic Novelties: The Word Made Flesh: Chronicling The Unwritten
Calls for Papers: Directors Spotlight: Oliver Stone
Short Ends and Leader: Bowl-derdash: The Movie Ads
Channel Surfing: Super Bowl Commercials 2010: Touchdowns and Fumbles
Notes from the Road: Cheap Trick: 4.Feb.2010 - Toronto

J.D. Salinger’s Seymour, a Eulogy
By Chadwick Jenkins
[5.Feb.10] :. Seymour is the presence you are sure you encountered before the door shut and he was gone; in this way, Seymour (not Holden) becomes the emblem for Salinger himself.

Risk and Equilibrium: The Impact of Greil Marcus
By Robert Loss
[5.Feb.10] :. The entirety of Marcus' famous 1970 "What is this shit?" review prefigures the sense of profound, disturbed wonder in the best of Marcus’ criticism.

Treading New Ground: An Interview with OK Go
By Adam Conner-Simons
[5.Feb.10] :. OK Go talks about breaking instruments in the studio, rocking out with musical idols, and the surreal sensation of playing glow-in-the-dark guitars rigged with lasers.

“Blissfully Nerdy”: An Interview with Owen Pallett
By C.L. Chafin
[4.Feb.10] :. As Owen Pallett releases his first new full-length in years, Heartland, the maestro himself sits down with PopMatters to talk about his lush new album, what it's like to be a one-man symphony, and how he finally set out to make a record that he can play for anyone, anywhere.

The Iconographies: Life During Wartime: The Cultural Catharsis of Brian Wood’s DMZ
By shathley Q
[4.Feb.10] :. DMZ creator Brian Wood offers a cultural catharsis for our times, one that is enduringly artistic, despite being overtly political.

Imperial Movements, Round-by-Round
By Matthew M. Briones
[3.Feb.10] :. It was not long ago that Filipinos and Puerto Ricans were the gloveless, unprotected, and militarily inferior populations fighting for their lives.

20 Questions: The 88
By Evan Sawdey
[3.Feb.10] :. After years of being pop music's "best kept secret", the 88 are now breaking out with their theme song to the NBC show Community.

The Kids Don’t Stand a Chance: An Interview with Vampire Weekend
By Alistair Dickinson
[2.Feb.10] :. From championed blogosphere heroes to chart-topping rockers, Vampire Weekend talks about the supposed controversy over the band's sound, their new hit album and more.

Stop Me If You Think That You’ve Seen This Grammys Before
By Terry Sawyer
[2.Feb.10] :. The Grammys seem like a festering boomer leftover, far removed from the present where major labels live in post-apocalyptic decline.

The Cult of Kindle and the Myth of Digital Utopia
By Kelly Roberts
[1.Feb.10] :. If I could read more with a Kindle, it stood to reason that I wasn’t reading enough without one. Getting and consuming increasingly MORE information is an end in of itself these days.

The Rockist: Hollywood’s New Dimension: ‘Avatar’ in 3D
By Michael Brett
[5.Feb.10] :. The Rockist visits James Cameron's Pandora in search of stone obelisks but finds only Ewoks.

Retro Remote: The Simpsons, ‘Radio Bart’ Part 1: Floyd Collins and Kathy Fiscus
By Kit MacFarlane
[4.Feb.10] :. 'Radio Bart' draws on 70 years of media history to position itself in that uneasy mix of altruism, morbid curiosity and callous self-interest.

Soundscape: Mix #1: Vancouver
By Alan Ranta
[4.Feb.10] :. Welcome to the new Soundscape Mixtape Series where we step beyond criticism. In the great tradition of the mixtape, we are going to present these explorations with their actual sound.

Mixtape Confessions: Plenty of Bang for the Buck
By Ben Rubenstein
[3.Feb.10] :. An economic survey of a decade of concert-going yields an average of positive returns for my dollar. Yeah, Bob Dylan was worth every penny and more.

Worlds in Panels: A Case for Comics in College
By Shaun Huston
[3.Feb.10] :. My name is (insert name here) and I am a visual learner -- and other reasons why comics is a relevant subject for the college curriculum.

Moving Pixels: The Art of Place in Hitman: Blood Money
By L.B. Jeffries
[2.Feb.10] :. A game isn’t just its content or game design alone, but rather, the space created when all these pieces come together.

Read Only Memory: The Lives of Others
By Michael Antman
[1.Feb.10] :. There's a higher ratio of disposable schlock in the memoir than in other literary genres, but the best memoirs permit access to lives strange, twisted, wasted, brave, and glorious -- lives, in short, other than our own.

Subversive Rock Humor: Chameleon Comedian: David Bowie 1967-1970
By Iain Ellis
[29.Jan.10] :. As innovative and eclectic as his music has been, Bowie’s means and methods of articulation also reveal an artist finely attuned to the subversive potential of humor.

The Rockist: Indie Ambition: Hold Steady
By Michael Brett
[29.Jan.10] :. Can Craig Finn pull his bandmates with him and lift them up to his arena tour in the sky? The Rockist ponders the future of the Hold Steady.

The Box Office Belletrist: The Ice Storm: America Out in the Cold
By Jennifer Makowsky
[28.Jan.10] :. Ang Lee captures the '70s on film the way Rick Moody captures the era in the book The Ice Storm. It's the midst of the sexual revolution, the Watergate scandal is erupting, and the country's social consciousness is changing.