by Tamara Palmer
“I was a really big fan of Christina’s…”
– Lady GaGa
At age 22, Lady GaGa (born Stefani Germanotta) has already written songs for Britney Spears and the Pussycat Dolls, gone number one in two countries and topped the iTunes chart with her debut album The Fame. Named after the Queen song “Radio Ga-Ga,” she’s also been accused of influencing the current sounds and visuals of another pop superstar, Christina Aguilera, who rocked a suspiciously GaGa-esque look at the MTV Video Music Awards and in recent promotional photographs. We spoke with this engaging ingénue in the making about these “dirrrty” claims, fame and the legacy of her idol, Andy Warhol.
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by Carrie Borzillo
“It’s like going to your high school reunion.”
– Rob Zombie
When Rob Zombie got to work on compiling the White Zombie box set, Let Sleeping Corpses Lie, his first thought was “I don’t really remember all of this.” The second thought was, “What were we thinking?!” Anyone familiar with the musical horror show that is White Zombie knows that the band’s 1998 demise wasn’t exactly an amicable one. So, putting the 5 CD/1 DVD career-spanning box set together wasn’t exactly a fun trip down memory lane for Mr. Robert Bartleh Cummings.
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by Brett Warner
Every other Friday night, T.J. Byrnes Restaurant and Bar in Manhattan’s Financial District hosts a modestly produced karaoke night. The small, unassuming Irish pub is tucked away behind a towering housing project, and on any such night, nearby residents might hear the echoes of drunken laughter or the faint opening bass notes of The Human League’s “Don’t You Want Me.” For Rutgers professor Fred Solinger and bookstore manager George Carmona, though, this is not just about getting plastered and mumbling through a semi-coherent rendition of “Copacabana”— it’s turf warfare.
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by Brett Warner
It’s 9:33 PM at the Detroiter Truck Stop in Woodhaven, Michigan and I’m inadvertently playing Duran Duran for the black metal band Goatwhore. Standing bored behind the gift shop checkout counter half an hour before closing time, I had plugged my iPod into the small external laptop speaker display model sitting quietly to my right, humming along to the first couple tunes on 1993’s The Wedding Album. Halfway through Warren Cuccurullo’s guitar solo on “Ordinary World”, I look up to see four very big, very pierced and very tattooed gentlemen standing directly across from me, waiting to purchase a few pairs of winter gloves. Recognizing their spooky font logo, I proclaim in the manliest voice I can muster how my old roommate was a big time fan. It’s too late, though – my metal cred is gone forever. I’ve been outed.
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by Brett Warner
It has always been a bitter irony that death is the most commercially viable thing an artist can ever do. From Vermeer to Van Gogh, Nick Drake to Notorious B.I.G., nothing attracts dollar signs and revisionist cultural significance quite like a tragic demise. Despite what the gargantuan pharmaceutical industry might suggest, people are secretly enthralled by the romance of death – it’s why The Dark Knight made more than a billion dollars, it’s why Nevermind, not OK Computer, is the most important record of the ‘90s, and it’s why Sony Music’s new release Michael (in stores now) will sell a shit ton of copies despite not being a real Michael Jackson album in just about every possible way.
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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 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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