The living rebuke to any Beatles-era baby boomers fond of lamenting the lack of melody and harmony in today’s pop music — namely The New Pornographers — will be playing at the Canopy Club in Urbana tonight, and I for one could not be more thrilled to have tickets. The Canada-based indie rock combo is […]
IT Overflow
Posted inArts & Culture
Tsunami Relief at Bar None: Right Now!
Midafternoon on a Sunday at Bar None isn’t exactly the time and place you expect to encounter a rock show, but that’s just what Tom Irwin has decided to pull out of his back pocket today. A makeshift “power trio” (Irwin on bass, local percussion legend Timothy M. “Grumpy” Harte on drums, and Tom’s guitar-slinging […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Marathon time
Once again, I must apologize for being so lackadaisical about posting here. I’m happy to report, however, that I haven’t stopped blogging because I’ve fallen off the wagon. In fact, it’s quite the opposite. I’ve been training intensely for my first marathon, and the big day is this Sunday! I’ve put in my double-digit miles […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Isn’t it Room-antic?
In the market for a movie date this coming Valentine’s Day but want to avoid the usual RomCom clichés? Affairs of the heart have rarely been so absurdly and ineptly dramatized as they are in The Room, a notorious and unintentionally hilarious cult film oft -reputed to be the Citizen Kane of bad movies, which […]
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Classic Reprint: Train songs, washboards, and snot
The following was my first published piece of writing. I submitted it to the Illinois Times in November of 1987, at age 20, and it led to my unofficial position as go-to rock music writer for the paper over the next three years. More than two decades on, it still seems almost inconceivable that the […]
Posted inArts & Culture
I Love You Phillip Morris
In the new fact-based comedy-drama I Love You Phillip Morris, (opening at Champaign’s Art Theater this Friday, January 28, 2011) Jim Carrey has the role of a lifetime as gay confidence man and multiple prison escapee Frank Russell. Perhaps even more over-the-top than any previous character portrayed by Carrey, Russell’s compulsion to manipulate, lie and […]
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Waco Brothers And Blue Ribbon Revival At Bar None 1/22/2011
“History is written by the winner / This is a loser’s song.” So sang Waco Brothers leader Jon Langford last night at Springfield’s Bar None. The song was entitled “Walking on Hell’s Roof Looking at the Flowers,” from the band’s most recent CD, Electric Waco Chair, and at last night’s show it provided a rare […]
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5 tips for holiday health
Wow, it’s been months since I’ve updated this blog. To both people who read this, I’m sorry. (That’s the standard apology when a blogger comes back from a period of laziness: first comment on how long it’s been, then jokingly understate the number of people who read said blog. In reality, we actually have four […]
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Kudos to the kids
Most of my distinct memories from elementary school have stuck with me purely because I was impressed that someone else didn’t cry – that girl who stapled her finger, the boy who knocked out his two front teeth, or my big sister with a face full of gravel after a misguided jungle gym move. But […]
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Hunger Challenge Days 4 & 5: Pols and parties
I’m not hungry today. The challenge has been pretty easy lately, which is completely the opposite of what I expected. I am definitely learning a lot about the cost of food, though. A lot of my favorite things, like hummus, cost a ton of money for ingredients that are relatively cheap, which signals to me […]
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Hunger Challenge – Day 3: Cupcake Conundrum
Tracy Smith with Feeding Illinois poses this question for the day: The cupcake truck is outside your building, calling your name, but at $3.25 that decadent temptation is out of the question. What will you be snacking on instead to refuel? No sweat. I would (hypothetically) go with an old favorite: a spoon full of […]
