Amanda Palmer

Stoya, Pop Star of Porn

The Internet explodes for Brooklyn's own Stoya, America's sweetheart of smut

We Should Be Less Cynical About Albums That (Want to) Change The World

One of the most talked about songs on Taylor Swift's Speak Now was a ditty called "Mean," which my BFF Theon Weber focused on in-depth in his review for this paper. "It's chipper and funny, because the narrator is predicting escape from someone she dislikes: 'Some day, I'll be living in a big ol' ... More >>

EMP 2013: A Shadow of Its Former Self

Better Than: Watching two full days of rock docs. 
 At the 12th annual EMP Pop Conference at Tisch School of the Arts on Friday afternoon, Princeton professor Alexandra Vazquez was presenting on Superstorm Sandy, remaining structures of colonialism, and Cuban-American salsa singer La Lupe, also k ... More >>

Which NFL Playoff City Has the Best Musical History: Boston, SF, Baltimore or Atlanta?

Pazz & Jop 2012 Tabulation Notes

Weak consensus versus inspiring diversity

Tracing "Hallelujah" From Obscurity To Ubiquity

Back in September of 2010, noted music journalist (and former editor-in-chief of SPIN and Vibe magazines) Alan Light was among 4,000 people sitting in the Jacob Javitz Center for Yom Kippur services when the Congregation Beit Simchat Torah choir took the stage to conclude the solemn proceedings with ... More >>

How Leonard Cohen's 'Hallelujah' Went From Obscurity to Ubiquity

Cold, broken, and holy

New Year's Eve Guide: Shows

A Serious Conversation With Amanda Fucking Palmer

Fame and the machine

New Year's Eve Guide: Ignite the Night

Reinvention is the new resolution. Ring in 2013 with eats, drinks, music, and more.

Closing The Colony: A Visit To Times Square's Shuttering Sheet Music Outpost

In some ways, the Friday before last looked like business as usual at Colony Records, the venerable Theater District music-and-sheet-music retailer that recently announced its impending closing after 64 years of operation. At the counter, Warren Tesoro, an employee for 25 years, asked a middle-aged ... More >>

Fan Landers: "I've DIY'ed Myself Into Oblivion. How Do I Climb Out Of It?"

Are you a musician? Is your band having issues? Our new advice columnist, who we're going to call Fan Landers (a.k.a. Jessica Hopper), is ready to give you Real Talk about any problems your musical outfit might be having—whether professional, practical, or sartorial. Send your problems to sotc ... More >>

'Milk It A Little Longer For Me': Watching The Flaming Lips' Attempt To Make The Record Books

When news broke that the Flaming Lips were going to play eight separate shows in 24 hours in an attempt to eclipse a Guinness World Record set by Jay-Z, the collective response was something along the lines of, "Well, of course they are." The Lips have done so much bonkers shit up to this point in ... More >>

Amanda Palmer and the Grand Theft Orchestra

Scientology Wins a Major Award Again! Galaxy Press Vindicated!

Last June, we told you about how proudly Scientology crowed in its press releases that it had won "Telly Awards" for some of its DVDs. We went on to explain that it's kind of difficult not to win a Telly, which gives away thousands of awards to up to about a quarter of the businesses that bother t ... More >>

Amanda Palmer Dramatically Answers Questions About Her Connection to Scientology

A few weeks ago, we noted that Amanda Palmer -- the musician who performs as a solo act and as one half of the Dresden Dolls and Evelyn Evelyn -- made a rather dramatic appearance at Kate Bornstein's book party, held at Dixon Place. Right about that same time, Palmer was also making news for taking ... More >>

Sunday Funnies: Birmingham Raises the Odds on Ideal Orgs!

Scientologists don't really have a Sunday service. They like to say that they do, because they crave mainstream acceptance. But unless Xenu rested after six days and L. Ron Hubbard just forgot to mention it, there's no reason for Scientologists to treat Sunday any differently than every other day of ... More >>

Amanda Palmer Loved Kate Bornstein's Memoir So Much, She Crashed the Book Party

Tuesday night, we were invited to play a small part in Kate Bornstein's book party at the experimental theater Dixon Place, to celebrate the release of her memoir, A Queer and Pleasant Danger. Earlier that day, our cover story about Kate had popped up on the website, and the print version of this ... More >>

Occupy Wall Street Dreams Of A Giant Jam Session May 1

"Band seeking 1000 guitar players. Other instruments also welcome. Influences include Woody Guthrie, Tom Morello, Willie Nile, and Sergio Ortega." Occupy Wall Street is raising a "Guitarmy." For months, activists have been preparing for May Day, laying plans for teach-ins, bank blockades, marches ... More >>

Live: Pomplamoose Keep It Real At The Music Hall Of Williamsburg

Pomplamoose Music Hall Of Williamsburg Friday, June 24 Better than: Watching broadcast TV without a DVR. Explaining where I was going on Friday night engendered one of two single-syllable reactions from my friends: "Ugh!" or "Who?" Pomplamoose, the male-female duo from San Francisco who became fa ... More >>

The Ten Best Musician/Comic Artist Friendships

Grant Morrison in the video for My Chemical Romance's "Sing" Grant Morrison is a U.K. comic book writer known for known for highly singular--or insane, if you prefer, in a good way--takes on established mainstream properties like X-Men and Doom Patrol as well as his own, peyotesque original series ... More >>

Dresden Dolls

A Very Long Conversation with Comedian Reggie Watts About Williamsburg, Touring with Conan, and Brian Eno Birthday Parties That Is Totally Worth the Read

Any attempt to describe what Reggie Watts does onstage will inevitably fail to convey the dizzying heights of absurdity the man regularly achieves, but here it goes. First, the Seattle-via-Montana transplant constructs backing tracks via carefully controlled beat-boxing and judicious use of loopin ... More >>

Evelyn Evelyn

Tonight They're Gonna Rock You Tonight: Afrobeat, Modernist Jazz, and the Steadily Improving Amanda Palmer

The Daily News reports that tonight's Femi Kuti gig has been cancelled. But if you can't delay your fix, the Knitting Factory's New York AfroBeat Festival will otherwise continue as planned. Catch clarinetist Oran Etkin's free-form jazz at the early show, or Wunmigirl's African breakbeats late. D ... More >>

MURDER HE WROTE

Neil Gaiman explains how Amanda Palmer died

Summer Guide: Amadou & Mariam's A Global Affair

Damon Albarn lends this "blind couple from Mali" a dash of Britpop

Coachella 2009, By The Numbers

David AtlasLeonard Cohen: hymnal, transcendant Clubs editor Stacey Anderson sojourned in Indio, California this past weekend for Coachella. She already covered the frantic play-by-play over at our Twitter, so we asked her to wrap-up the festival with a by-the-numbers guide to her three days in the ... More >>

Coachella: Paul McCartney's Coming to the Desert

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Live: Amanda Palmer on New Year's Eve

photo by Dan Weiss Amanda Palmer Wednesday, Dec. 31 Bowery Ballroom If the very idea of a pancake made-up cabaret duo popular with the Hot Topic set puts you off, you probably won't notice that the Dresden Dolls' frontwoman-currently-solo Amanda Palmer branches out more from her insular culture t ... More >>

Your Last Minute New Year's Eve

Sound of the City will resume full-force come Monday. In the meantime, find your last minute arrangements below...

Interview: Dresden Dolls Leading Lady Amanda Palmer

Amanda Palmer plays late on New Years Eve at the Bowery Ballroom. Tickets are still available. 2008 has been an up-and-down year for Dresden Dolls leading lady Amanda Palmer. Her first foray into solo work appeared this past September in the form of Who Killed Amanda Palmer?, a twelve song set o ... More >>

WORLD OF MIRRORS

An actual reason to go to the Seaport

Record Store Day at Other Music: Deerhunter, Grizzly Bear, Interpol