By Foster Kamer 7/09/12 12:31pm

Things There Should Be Draconian Punishments For

broken-iphone-screen

Battle of the Bands (Who Hate Your iPhone): Should Concerts Outlaw Cell Phone Photos?

Unless you’re seeing a concert in a stadium, getting a good sight-line is hard enough as it stands: Unless you are tall-folk, you’re trying to see over the head of front-row tall folk. And if it’s not tall (or taller) folk—now that nearly everyone’s cell phone has a halfway decent camera affixed to it as a standard feature—it’s their phones. And if it’s not tall people’s phones, it’s everyone else’s phones. Because cell phones are now as standard a live music fixture as overpriced drinks and that high-pitched “eeeeeeeeee” sound of your hearing dying. And the desire to Instagram or Facebook or Tumblr a moment at a concert from one’s phone is—as going to pretty much any concert in 2012 will demonstrate—apparently insatiable. And we, as a people—or at least, the people of some respectably metropolitan cities—are better than that.

Or so one club would like to think. Read More

By Foster Kamer 3/19/12 12:07pm

That Whole Austin Situation

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A$AP Rocky Reads Austin the Riot Act as VICE’s SxSW Party Ends in Harlem Rap Crew’s Chaos

For a few weeks every year, pity poor Austin, Texas, when South by Southwest results in the tragic occupation of the town by New York City’s hipster and media set. Even Jay-Z was taken aback by the way his hometown was essentially imported to the Lone Star State. Think of it as one big Friday Night Lights fetishist party, or the metropolitan intelligentsia version of Spring Break in Daytona Beach. As they network among the endless river of new media panels, music industry showcases, and food trucks, occasionally something interesting happens.

Like when a Harlem rap crew brought forth absolute chaos upon SxSW’s denizens last night at a VICE party. Naturally. Read More

By Nitasha Tiku 6/16/11 4:30pm

Partytime

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Like that scene from Requiem for a Dream?

Big Freedia and Das Racist Show the Internet How to Bounce

It was hard to miss the twins. Even with the ring of twenty-somethings in face paint manning the door at Mother New York’s 36,000 sq. ft. headquarters and the stuffed grizzly bear standing guard at the entrance, Eboni and Erica Davis were impossible to ignore. Identical silky pigtails, identical spangled tank tops, identical booty shorts, Read More