by Fred Topel
“I guess Stephen Brill never saw Star Wars.”
– Kyle Newman
With the Star Wars saga officially wrapped up with Episode III: Revenge of the Sith, fans will seek out any remaining sliver of that galaxy far, far away on screen. The Clone Wars animated movie gave them a little bit of light drone lasering action, but what really caught their attention was Kyle Newman’s Fanboys.
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by Nicole Powers
Amanda Palmer is a rebel with a cause; she fights fiercely for her artistic freedom. When the musician and singer, who is currently on hiatus from the “Brechtian punk cabaret” band The Dresden Dolls, made a video to promote one of the songs from her debut solo album, Who Killed Amada Palmer, it seems her belly didn’t conform to the ideal expressed by a male executive at her label, who apparently explained: “I’m a guy, Amanda. I understand what people like.” She fought the label’s attempt to slim down her stomach’s role in the clip for “Leeds United” (it was already pretty damn small). Her loyal fans also rose to her defense, and a grassroots ReBellyOn website was launched.
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by Andrea Larrabee
“I’m old fashioned and modern at the same time,” Rachel Federoff tells me at one point during our phone interview. As a key player in the hit Bravo TV show Millionaire Matchmaker – which is now in its fourth and most successful season to date – Federoff must reconcile her intrinsically alternative self with the always outspoken and often very traditional beliefs of her mentor Patti Stanger, who founded the Millionaire’s Club, the elite matchmaking service upon which the show is based.
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by Tamara Palmer
“Rockers are pussies.”
– Al Jourgensen
He’s been variously known under monikers such as Buck Satan, Alien Dog Star and Alien Jourgensen and is the brain trust behind such thought-provoking band names as Ministry, Revolting Cocks and 1000 Homo DJs. But Al Jourgensen, who cut a frightening figure with these bands’ even more provocative industrial music when they emerged in the late eighties and early nineties, is a surprisingly friendly and relatable guy. Once the picture of cocaine and heroin rock star excess, the six-years sober Jourgensen is far more likely to be found at the opera than at an arena concert these days.
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by Jay Hathaway
“It’s volatile.”
– Maynard James Keenan
Maynard James Keenan thrives on the unpredictable. He’s famous as the lead singer of two hugely successful, yet almost completely different bands: Tool and A Perfect Circle. His current band, Puscifer, released its first album, “V” Is For Vagina, in 2007, and followed it up with a remix album in 2008.
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by Tamara Palmer
“Onward and upward.”
– Brody Dalle
While fans of the Distillers and other next-generation punk bands should ultimately find this transition natural and easy to follow, Spinnerette — the new vehicle for former Distillers lead Brody Dalle — has a decidedly more gentle rock edge as debuted on their first release, the “Ghetto Love EP.”
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by Nicole Powers
“We’ve had 18 years of climate conferences…”
– Ondi Timoner
In her latest documentary, Cool It!, two-time Sundance Grand Jury Prize-winning director Ondi Timoner (We Live In Public and Dig!) sets forth the case for lowering the temperature of the global warming debate, and offers pragmatic solutions to what former Vice President and preeminent environmentalist Al Gore considers a moral issue.
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