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Riff Raff vs. Spring Breakers and Other Music Stories We <3

Here's a round-up of the music stories Voice writers have been reading recently. Take a spin through the links below and tip us off if there's something you like that we may have missed.

iTube: The Smartphone App That Recognizes Food Allergens

Tired of wondering if there are trace amounts of nuts in just about everything

Introducting the Winners of Voice Media Group's First Annual Music Writing Award

Each week in our print editions and every day on our blogs, the 13 Voice Media Group papers feature some of the best music writing in the country. That's why we're excited to announce the winners of our first VMG music writing awards. The honor goes to the authors of one blog post and one print pi ... More >>

Buy Your Sweet Someone a Gummy Bear Chandelier This Holiday

Can't find the words to tell your significant other, "you make me feel all warm and squishy inside"? Why not let a chandelier made of gummy bears say it for you. New York-based home furnishing company, Jellio, has commissioned artist, Kevin Champeny, to design the hanging light fixture made out of ... More >>

The Ten Best Artists at Brooklyn Electronic Music Festival This Weekend

This weekend, the Brooklyn Electronic Music Festival will take over Williamsburg for the fifth year running. (So it's technically the Williamsburg Electronic Music Festival, but who's counting when you're drunk and dancing to Nick Catchdubs at 4 a.m.?) Last year's Festival brought Matthew Dear, Beat ... More >>

The Village Voice Welcomes Scott Foundas, Our New Chief Film Critic

Between the end of the world, and the end of the campaign, and the end of Lucasfilm, this has been the news week to end all news weeks. (And Newsweek!) But here at the Voice we're happy to report on one choice bit of unabashed good news: that Scott Foundas will be joining us as our new chief film cr ... More >>

Marcus Samuelsson at GOP Convention, Bourdain Says He Can Die Happy

Mario Batali doesn't like it when people yell in his kitchen: "One of the big rules for our kitchens is that if you're not close enough to be able to touch me, you can't talk to me." [New York Times] Obama supporter Marcus Samuelsson is hanging with Arianna Huffington at the Republican National Co ... More >>

Medical Marijuana: Los Angeles Bans Prescription Pot Shops

After Los Angeles' prescription pot supporters and opponents took to City Hall to do verbal battle about the legal future of medical marijuana dispensaries, the L.A. City Council decided Tuesday night to ban prescription pot shops. The unanimous vote requires that all 762 dispensaries close immedia ... More >>

Man Makes Food Mummy out of McDonalds, Trying to Get Sued

Ben Campbell is taking food art to a whole other level. The Texan artist is currently in the process of creating an art show featuring a wide variety of work created with McDonald's food. His goal: to get sued by the fast food chain.

Marilyn Hagerty, Grand Forks Olive Garden Reviewer, Speaks

Marilyn Hagerty isn't the first person to review the Olive Garden--in fact, Pulitzer-Prize-winning columnist Jonathan Gold did that very thing in the LA Weekly last April--and she won't be the last. But for some reason, her very factual review of the "long-awaited" franchise in Grand Forks, North Da ... More >>

Jonathan Gold Leaving L.A. Weekly for L.A. Times

Jonathan Gold spoke before a rapt audience last May at NYC's Housing Works in support of his wife Laurie Ochoa's literary journal, Slake. Pulitzer Prize-winning restaurant critic and prose stylist Jonathan Gold is apparently leaving our sister paper LA Weekly. The rumors began last Friday, when Go ... More >>

Da Capo's Second-Best Music Writing 2011: 112 Of Last Year's Most Notable Music Stories

The 2011 edition of Da Capo's annual anthology Best Music Writing— which this year was guest edited by The New Yorker classical writer and The Rest Is Noise author Alex Ross; Daphne Carr has been the series editor since 2006—contains 32 essays and is augmented by a a jumbo-sized "Other N ... More >>

Occupy L.A., Occupy Philadelphia Both Cleared; LAPD Handpicked Media Present For the Raid

Los Angeles moved to evict Occupy protesters from the park outside its City Hall last night, which the occupiers had been calling "Solidarity Park." More than a thousand cops in riot gear arrested 200 people and dismantled tents. According to reports, the eviction was mostly peaceful. The last holdo ... More >>

Chipotle Doubles Its Organic Produce Use; John Huntsman Digs Mexican Street Food

​LA Weekly's Jonathan Gold scores the best assignment ever -- comparing Copenhagen's Noma, San Pellegrino's top restaurant of the year, with Grant Achatz's Alinea for GQ. [HuffPo] The clear grape spirit pisco, originally from Chile and Peru, is making inroads into the crowded U.S. liquor mark ... More >>

Brooklyn Museum Cancels "Art in the Streets" Show

GREGORY BOJORQUEZ (COURTESY OF MOCA)​The "Art in the Streets" show currently on display at the MOCA in Los Angeles, under the new leadership of Jeffrey Deitch, was slated to travel next to New York City, but the Brooklyn Museum has pulled out, our sisters at the LA Weekly have learned. An ema ... More >>

Janice Hahn, Future Congresswoman, Targeted by Inane 'Give Us Your Cash, Bitch' Political Ad

Our partners at the LA Weekly introduced us to the above political ad, which serves as a nice counterpoint to our own local nuttiness lately. While on the East Coast we've had Weinergate, which of course eventually went national, and more seriously, the fight for gay marriage, the West Coast has... ... More >>

Richard Branson and Friends Gathering Tomorrow in NYC For Drug Legalization

Very powerful man​Tomorrow at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in Manhattan, Virgin boss and billionaire Richard Branson will appear with former presidents from Brazil, Switzerland and Columbia, together representing the Global Commission on Drug Policy, to present a report that calls for an end to t ... More >>

Presenting the Single Best Review of Gwyneth Paltrow's Cookbook, Courtesy of Ruth Bourdain

​ [Via LA Weekly] Have a tip or restaurant-related news? Send it to fork@villagevoice.com. Twitter: @ForkintheRoadVV

Jason Hall 'In' at The Lion; Patricia Yee 'Out' at Aureole

​Jason Hall, previously of Gotham Bar & Grill, Anthos, and Mia Dona, has been running the kitchen at The Lion under John DeLucie. [Eater] Colin Alevras, formerly of The Tasting Room, DBGB, and Momofuku, has joined the staff at Andrew Carmellini's forthcoming The Dutch. [Eater] Aureole's exec ... More >>

Barbara Fairchild's Website Will 'Probably' Launch Next Month

Barbara Fairchild​Barbara Fairchild may have ceded Bon Appétit's reigns to Adam Rapoport, but she's got still plenty to occupy her appetites. In an interview with LA Weekly's Squid Ink blog, the former ed-in-chief discusses the food site she's planning to launch "probably right after th ... More >>

Jonathan Gold on Restaurant Letter Grades

​Jonathan Gold, a restaurant critic at our sister publication LA Weekly, is heavily quoted in a Wall Street Journal article about the Department of Health letter grades that will be posted on restaurants starting in July. Los Angeles has had a similar system since 1998.

The Good News: Sly Stone Actually Played Coachella. The Bad News: It Was Either "An Absolutely Sad Spectacle" Or "An Act Of Obliterating Rebellion"

Pic by Lina Lecaro.​Ordinarily we here at SOTC have no great love for or interest in Coachella, given its considerable distance from... us. But monitoring the web chatter throughout the weekend was somewhat enjoyable anyway -- Sunday night's news that Phoenix's set was way, way better attended ... More >>

Congratulations to the Death Set for Puking on a Girl in the Front Row at SXSW

Nate "Igor" SmithThe Death Set at SXSW 2010. Guess the puker. Mad Decent, Jelly, and I Heart Comix joined brand forces during South By SXSW to throw a three-day Austin Carniville, a main-stage show space encircled with candy apples, a funnel-cake booth, and a roving pink monster. Major Lazer headl ... More >>

Beard Awards Media and Journalism Finalists Are Announced

The man himself.​The James Beard Foundation is announcing its James Beard Awards finalists via Twitter this morning. The list of chefs has just started rolling out (currently, regional finalists are being named), but the list of final nominees for the foundation's Media and Journalism Awards a ... More >>

"It's Such A Greek Tragedy": LA Weekly Tracks The Sad Decline Of Runaways Drummer Sandy West

So The Runaways movie opens today, with Kristen Stewart and Dakota Fanning prancing about trashing hotel rooms and leering and whatnot; our friends over at LA Weekly have a long, excellent feature on a figure with alas only a bit part in the film: drummer Sandy West, who died of cancer in 2006 aft ... More >>

RZA's Official Statement on What It Was Like to Dress Up As George Washington for Victory or Death: "More baggy, more space for my nuts."

​Surely you recall Victory or Death, the massive RZA-helmed tribute to Emanuel Gottlieb Leutze's George Washington Crossing the Potomac painting, except with Wu-Tang members and hidden ninjas and a website that plays a remix of "O Fortuna" at swelling volume? Well our pals at the LA Weekly had ... More >>

Haggis Hounds, Don't Rejoice Just Yet: Reports on Ban Being Lifted Were Incorrect

Haggis still a no-no for now.​Rumors that the ban on haggis may soon be lifted were somewhat premature, it appears. The BBC reported that the U.S. government was planning to relax the ban on Scotland's national dish, but as it turns out, this was incorrect. A few days after the original artic ... More >>

Anthony Bourdain Pauses to Reflect on 2007, the Year That the Food World Tilted on Its Axis

Anthony Bourdain in a reflective moment.​As this miserable decade exhales its last, poisonous breaths, Anthony Bourdain has a few thoughts to share about what's changed in the food world not over the last 10 years, but the last three.

Thomas Keller Discusses Plans for Video Omnipotence

Deborah Jones/LA Weekly​FiTR's sister site, LA Weekly, caught up with Thomas Keller yesterday to talk with him about his new Los Angeles outpost of Bouchon and his new cookbook, Ad Hoc at Home. Among other things, Keller discussed his plans for total video transparency between his far-flung ki ... More >>

Matt and Kim Play Universal Studios, Frolic in the Original Back to the Future Delorean

Erin Broadley It's been impossible to keep up with the recent adventures of Matt & Kim: guesting on Jimmy Kimmel, winning the Breakthrough Video VMA for their cold-weather streaking parade "Lessons Learned," greasing the stage for spider-suited Weezer on Halloween (with Kim costumed as Edie Sedgwic ... More >>

Jonathan Gold Gets His 'New Yorker' Profile

Rena Kosnett/LA WeeklyJonathan Gold drinks to life, Pulitzers.​Jonathan Gold's already won the only Pulitzer ever awarded for food criticism, so it's appropriate that a New Yorker profile would follow, albeit two years after the fact. The article, by Dana Goodyear, will appear in Monday's issu ... More >>

David Chang and Mario Batali: So Important, So Overrated

Grub Street surveyed members of the gastronobility to assess the "state of our food union," questioning the likes of Anthony Bourdain, Alan Richman, Gael Greene, and LA Weekly's Jonathan Gold. Unsurprisingly, New York figured largely into their appraisal: David Chang and Mario Batali were named two ... More >>

Marilyn Manson, Who Currently Wants To Give the World AIDS ("I Am Very Generous"), Still Shaking His Fists, Threatening Door-To-Door Visits Via MySpace

This continues. After threatening to pay home visits to quote-unquote journalists who make "cavalier statements" about him "personally or with my fans help" (read: the LA Weekly) Mr. Manson is still carrying on, posting angry mass-bulletin missive via MySpace. Buddyhead, the web site at the center ... More >>

So That Onion Article Might Come True: Marilyn Manson Is Really Now Offering To Go Door-To-Door To Shock People; The LA Weekly May or May Not Be First on His List

Manson's mug shot from 2001, after rubbing his pelvis on a security guard's head Even funnier than that Best Music Writing-feted piece in the Onion from 2001--"Marilyn Manson Now Going Door-To-Door Trying To Shock People," a classic you should reread immediately--is that it's threatening to come tr ... More >>

Live Blogging the Michael Jackson Memorial

Live Video streaming by Ustream For all the lovely grace notes, homages, and eulogies that have flowed from any number of erudite and compassionate individuals in the wake of Michael Jackson's untimely death at the young age of 50, a celebrity's death is not over in American until the huge, gaudy, ... More >>

Remembering Bea Arthur with Lamb, Booze and Recreational Drugs

LA Weekly has a great piece about Bea Arthur, who passed away this weekend, and her leg-of-lamb bit, which was part of her Bea Arthur On Broadway: Just Between Friends one-woman show. Although it's a little off topic, we couldn't resist posting this great video of the husky Golden Girl singing "Pu ... More >>

Lemmy from Motorhead Keeps Fit By Drinking Jack & Coke and Sex

Kevin Scanlon for the LA Weekly Our brethren over at the LA Weekly put out their annual People Issue this week. In addition to an entertaining (and frankly endearing) discourse on how Drew Barrymore loves the word fucking--as in "I fucking love cassettes"--and how Aziz Ansari's Parks and Recreation ... More >>

The Early Word--Kevin's

Although I am an admitted American-brunch-denier (and now there are even more reasons to hate on brunch), for the sake of household peace, I often find myself brunching. This past weekend, we decided to try Kevin's, a newish restaurant in Red Hook.Kevin's dinner menu looks promising--simple, good st ... More >>

Vegetable Gardens on 60 Minutes

Last week, Alice Waters was on 60 Minutes talking about the local/organic food movement and urging President Obama to plant a garden on the White House grounds. This week, President Obama took his turn on the show, and told correspondant Steve Kroft all about the vegetable garden on which Michelle O ... More >>

At the Greenmarket: Flowers, Kimchi

The Greenmarket is like the weather right now--it might technically be spring; the sunny blue sky might look like spring; but outside it still feels like winter. Likewise, the Greenmarket is looking beautiful, with bushels of tulips and other spring blooms. But the edibles are still wintery: root v ... More >>

The Ninth Annual Film Poll

Critics turn into optimists, pick WALL-E as year's best.

Blissfully His

Apichatpong's rarely screened short films, and the man himself, come to Anthology

The 2007 Village Voice/LA Weekly Film Poll: There Will Be Consensus

Last Meal: Jonathan Gold Discovers Roast Prosciutto

Jonathan Gold's last meal

. . . starts with bloody steaks and ends at Prada

Food Pulitzer for Jonathan Gold

Jeffrey Sebelia's Post-'Project Runway' Show

1999

Village Voice Media, New Times Announce Merger

Deal to combine two largest alt-weekly chains would require Justice Department approval

Alt-Press Gets Nailed

Slam-Dunk Antitrust Case—or Power Grab?