pampelmoose Dave Allen of Gang of Four’s Music and Media Blog — music . media . web. culture

Wired may have pronounced “The Web is Dead” but wait..watch the video above to see our hero, Antoine Dodson, in action live on the news. Then see Antoine as he’s video-jacked in song. The zero-barrier-to-entry web in action.

Katy Perry – Teenage Dream

“No matter how inevitable a song like “California Gurls” sounds, there are no guarantees, even at the highest levels of pop stardom [see Christina Aguilera's career-jeopardizing 2010 super bomb, Bionic.] For Madonna or even Britney, changing your look or sound every album cycle was enough. No more. Largely thanks to Gaga, everything’s accelerated. Perry knows she can’t quite keep up with that pace. So instead, she’s cruising in the wake, comfortably alternating between looking like a blue-haired Smurfette, a Bettie Page acolyte, and Zooey Deschanel. But super-stardom is more than an infinite clothes rack—it’s about being untouchable and universal at once. “I don’t want people to see that I’m a human being,” Gaga has said. Katy Perry doesn’t have that problem.”

So, Katy Perry vs Lady Gaga? You decide.

This musician’s arrogance knows no bounds..

More Grinderman 2

This article was written by Brian Logan, for guardian.co.uk on Tuesday 17th August 2010 09.38 America/Chicago

“This is my ninth show here, and the first I’ve performed without a bra.” If you’re the kind of person who, on hearing a statement like that, whoops, this is the show for you. Storm Large is an Amazonian US rock star and raconteur, whose show Crazy Enough recounts her supposedly exotic life of drugs, sex and brushes with insanity. She has a terrific voice and considerable charisma, and uses them to tell us, repeatedly, how amazing and unconventional she is.

She may well be – but judging by Crazy Enough, her much-vaunted uniqueness is just your average adolescent sense of being different to everyone else. “All of my life, I never fit in,” she tells us, but her definition of non-conformism is the orthodox one. She got hooked on heroin, she got into rock music. She had sex when she was 13, and has had lots since – about which she is inordinately proud. She has a highly sexualised girl-power agenda; that dubious brand of feminism that involves boasting about one’s boob job. She gives the finger to music industry “assholes” because she refuses to be pigeonholed.

The only unorthodox part of this misfit-by-numbers shtick is that Large’s childhood was scarred by her mother’s mental health problems. But even these episodes are glossed to fit into Large’s egocentric narrative of victory-against-the-odds. Perhaps the full show (which has shrunk for its Edinburgh timeslot) does that story justice; here, the emoting comes cheaply.

It’s a shame, because Large and her band’s raunch-rock is undeniably powerful, and there’s a final song, a musical metaphor for Large’s inclusive worldview, that strikes just the right balance between funny and in-yer-face. “My vagina is eight miles wide / Absolutely everyone can come inside”. By that stage, however, it’s an offer one finds easy to decline.

guardian.co.uk © Guardian News and Media Limited 2010

Beer, food carts and music, what’s wrong with that? Nothing. For $5, which includes your first food and beer taster, and which benefits Morrison Child & Family Services you get to see Langhorne Slim with the Decemberists’ Chris Funk, Luzelena and Paul of Y La Bamba and Loch Lomond all street busking. Then on stage you’ll see AgesandAges and Sallie Ford and The Sound Outside

Get your tickets here.

Deschutes Brewery Street Fare
Thursday, August 12th
5-9 pm

Join us on Davis Street in front of our Portland Pub for street food from 10 of Portland’s best food carts, local music and craft beer. Proceeds benefit Morrison Child & Family Services and the entry fee is only $5.00 and includes your 1st food & beer taster! Additional taster tickets are $4. Tickets can be purchased online (see below) or at the gate. For more information, call us at 503-296-4906.

Street Carts:
Potato Champion
Whiffies Fried Pies
The Grilled Cheese Grill
Ali Baba’s
Mum’s Kitchen
Slow & Low
Garden State
Oregon Ice Works
Pyro Pizza
Flavour Spot

STAGE
7pm AgesandAges
8pm Sallie Ford and The Sound Outside