Oct 31 – Nov 6, 2012

Oct 31 - Nov 6, 2012 / Vol. 26 / No. 36

Cover Story

The Prairie Populist: George McGovern

“I’m fed up to the ears with old men dreaming up wars for young men to die in.” Believe it or not, that line was delivered, day after day, by a major American political party’s candidate for president — the late Democratic U.S. Sen. George McGovern, in 1972. That phrase ran through my mind as…

John Grooms

Review: Godspeed You! Black Emperor’s Allelujah! Don’t Bend! Ascend!

In today’s instrumental rock landscape, all those emotional waves relentlessly ebbing and crashing, Explosions In the Sky-style, tend to mute how fresh the genre’s innovators sounded. Godspeed You! Black Emperor certainly reads like the Berlin Philharmonic by comparison. Now the politically charged Montreal collective returns a full decade after its last transmission as a rejuvenated…

John Schacht

Review: Ty Segall’s Twins

Rising up from San Francisco’s underground scene, singer/guitarist/drummer Ty Segall performs as a member of various groups including the Ty Segall Band, White Fence, the Sic Alps and the Perverts. Finally, his latest release — his third of 2012 — could be what gets him above ground. On Twins, Segall dishes up basement-guitar skronk. His…

Lew Herman

The Baby Grocery Store is born

Babies may not come with owners’ manuals, but there are thousands of gadgets and accessories available to parents trying to make heads or tails out of their precious bundles of gas and high-pitched screams. From miracle blankets to white-noise machines to vibrating bouncy chairs, the array of products for the youngest among us is endless.…

Ailen Arreaza

Fear and loafing on the campaign trail, Part II

Editor’s note: This is the last story in this two-part series where political reporter Michael Cooper followed campaign volunteers in the last crucial weeks of the election. The first part published on Friday. In a strip mall in Pineville, the regional headquarters of the Obama campaign holds another key facet of election work: the phonebank.…

Michael A. Cooper Jr.

How do you know if you’re a real foodie?

When people indulge in too much sex, we call them nymphomaniacs. When she takes drugs to the extreme, we call her an addict. If he lives and breathes his local sports team, we dub him a fanatic. When a person takes an obsession with food to that next level, we call that person a foodie.…

Keia Mastrianni

Bizarre crimes from Charlotte police files (Nov. 1)

Final Destination: Police were serving a search warrant at a house on Albemarle Road last week when the suspect took off running. He didn’t make it far, however, as he was struck by a car nearby. The man suffered minor injuries and was also found to have a small amount of weed in his pocket.…

Ryan Pitkin

Wreck-It Ralph: Game on

WRECK-IT RALPH *** DIRECTED BY Rich Moore STARS John C. Reilly, Sarah Silverman There’s no better way to milk ’80s nostalgia than to drag a long-forgotten performer from the era back in front of the movie camera for a cameo that will leave the Generation Xers cooing with delight. The box office smash Ted saw…

Matt Brunson

Flight: Up in the air

FLIGHT *** (out of four) DIRECTED BY Robert Zemeckis STARS Denzel Washington, Don Cheadle Some actors, like Harrison Ford, excel at playing straightforward heroes. Others, such as Brad Pitt, soar when tackling protagonists with dark shadings. And then there’s Denzel Washington, who’s equally adept at portraying both. In Flight, director Robert Zemeckis’ first film in…

Matt Brunson

Wuthering Heights: Rocky revision

WUTHERING HEIGHTS **1/2 DIRECTED BY Andrea Arnold STARS Kaya Scodelario, James Howson Director Andrea Arnold takes the revisionist route with her adaptation of Wuthering Heights, refashioning the Emily Bronte chestnut to serve as a treatise on race as well as class. Her Heathcliff is a young black man (played by Solomon Glave and later James…

Matt Brunson

Fear and loafing on the campaign trail, Part I

Editor’s note: In this two-part series, political reporter Michael Cooper follows campaign volunteers in the last crucial weeks of the election. Look for the second part online on Monday. Donning a tan flap cap and a “Jennifer Roberts for Congress” shirt, field organizer Seth Koch stood atop a wooden table, underneath the shelter of Charlotte’s…

Michael A. Cooper Jr.

Talking trash: Vik Muniz: Garbage Matters

Civilizations high and low deal with garbage produced by too many people living too close together. Policies have developed around a common mindset: out of sight, out of mind. Burn it, bury it, drown it in the deep blue sea. The policies worked out well enough before the backwoods dump became the neighbor’s backyard, before…

Scott Lucas

Coming of age: Brandi Carlile

Brandi Carlile is sitting outside a Burlington, Vt., coffee shop. It’s the same town where she opened her solo tour nearly one year ago to the day. It’s a nice moment of reflection after a hectic morning. Finally recovering from a cold that forced the cancellation of a concert in Morgantown, W.Va., the previous night,…

Jeff Hahne

In the loop: Kishi Bashi

You don’t hear a lot of violin in contemporary American music. Sure, it pops up from time to time in the lush, orchestral pop of acts like The National and has a supporting role in bluegrass and Americana, but the violin is rarely the star of the show. Unless, of course, that show happens to…

Rachel Bailey

A mean night in Alabama

For most of the evening it’s hard to care which of the trashy, bigoted citizens of Argo, Ala., killed real estate developer Charles Tatum. Nearly every Jim Crow sunuvabitch in town, innocent or guilty, hates L.A. homicide detective Virgil Tibbs with a passion. And the townspeople are meaner and more corrosive in this stage adaptation…

Perry Tannenbaum

Weekly horoscope (Nov. 1-Nov. 7)

Scorpio The Phoenix (Oct. 23-Nov. 20) It is seriously important for you to hang onto your center at this time. A relationship situation could undermine your fresh resolve. For All Signs: The election puzzle. It is notable that at 6:04 p.m. on Election Day, Mercury turns retrograde as the voting on the Eastern seaboard comes…

Vivian Carol

This week’s concert listings (Nov. 1-Nov. 7)

** Bullet points indicate CL’s critics’ picks** Thursday, Nov. 1 Blues/Roots/International Aris Quiroga Nieto (The Wine Cellar, Cornelius) Bayou Butch Lucas (Villa Antonio (Ballantyne)) Blues and More (Wet Willie’s) Latin Thursdays (Dream Nightclub, Matthews) Classical/Jazz/Smooth Beats and Keys (Encore Bistro and Bar) Bill Hanna’s Vintage Dance Band (Grand Central Events) John Alexander (Blue Restaurant &…

Re-elect Obama

In this issue, we at Creative Loafing present our endorsements for the crucial Nov. 6 elections. John Grooms and Mike Cooper offer their picks for several local, regional and national races. Here, I’d like to talk about why it’s essential that we re-elect President Barack Hussein Obama. Sure, we wish President Obama had been the…

Mark Kemp

CL Endorsements

GovernorI developed some respect for Republican gubernatorial candidate Pat McCrory after he met with me against his staff’s wishes. But I also value the livelihood of North Carolinians who could suffer greatly if McCrory rubberstamps the reactionary whims of Republicans in the General Assembly, should he be elected. He was wrong for supporting a voter…

Michael A. Cooper Jr. and John Grooms

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