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The End of the World as . . . Well, You Know

Photo courtesy Warner Bros. RecordsThe members of REM—the influential band from Athens, Georgia, that helped usher in '80s-era alternative rock with its jangly guitar hooks; mumbled, abstract lyrics; and a fiercely independent spirit—refuse to glance over their shoulders, even while approaching their silver anniversary. Sure, the original indie quartet—singer/lyricist Michael Stipe, guitarist Peter Buck, bassist …

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Death Row Defender

William Thompson is thinking about the troubles of a man he's never met, and it won't be the first time. Curtis McCarty sits on death row in Oklahoma, convicted of the 1982 murder of Pamela Willis, the 18-year-old daughter of a police officer. Thompson doesn't know McCarty but is intimately acquainted with his DNA profile. …

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The Dwarves

FILE UNDER: PUNK, HIP-HOP/POP/INDUSTRIAL/GOSPEL . . . The Dwarves The Dwarves Must Die Greedy/Sympathy for the Record Industry The Dwarves may have finally found their Pet Sounds—not to say The Dwarves Must Die, their first proper studio album in four years, is a collection of transcendent pop, unless you think pavement saws sound like string …

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Pass the Prozac

Carla RheaI can forgive them for the deficit (who hasn't taken the rent money to Vegas?), and I can forgive them for Iraq. I mean, really: let he among us who hasn't gone on a testosterone rampage and invaded another country and bombed the shit out of its women and children once in a while …

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Let Them Eat Wafers

For years, the hierarchy lording over the Diocese of Orange has dismissed criticism against its policies as not reflective of the county's 1.2 million Catholics. In a confidential Sept. 3 memo to diocesan priests, for instance, Vicar General Father Mike Heher claimed there had been “few e-mails or letters to [Orange Bishop Tod D. Brown] …

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Solvent

FILE UNDER: ELECTRONICA, TUBEWAY ARMY CHRISTMAS CAROLS Solvent Apples N Synthesizers Ghostly International At its most evil, analog-synth fetishist Jason Amm's Solvent sounds about as hellish as a merry-go-round. But that's in no way criticism. If you want paranoid, you've got Gary Numan, and with Solvent, you've got Tubeway Army's Christmas Carols. As on his …

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Diary of a Mad County

Photo by David Bohrer/Whitehouse.govWEDNESDAY Sept. 8 Balding ghoul Dick Cheney tells a bunch of Iowans that if he and George Bush aren't re-elected, the country will be hit with a terrorist attack. “We'll get hit again,” he says, “and we'll be hit in a way that'll be devastating.” He said this just a couple of …

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The Good Soldier

Photo (below) by Erik SkindrudAbout 20 mostly World War II veterans meet on Wednesday mornings at a Denny's in Oceanside. They call themselves the Old Bold Pilots. Not much appears to distinguish them from one another, but they have their secrets and there are ways of making them talk. Like, for instance, asking them a …

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Its Snot Unusual

Rooney was late draining me this morning. His orb said he was called away to a meeting of fellow Nurg dignitaries. My guess is there's another human uprising in Montana. The Nurg don't do anything about the uprisings, but they do like to watch. “Resistance is futile,” Rooney likes to say, “but it is also …

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Live Previews

INTERPOL POST IT ON LIVEJOURNAL There are people who answer the question “Do you like Interpol?” with a tart little “Actually, I'd rather listen to Joy Division.” And these people can blow it out their bunghole because if every other band hadn't been trying so hard to be the Rolling Stones at the time Interpol …

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Alan Jackson on Earth

Alan Jackson will never go to hell, unless he's got a sick little locked room somewhere, which he does not—that moustache bespeaks only the clearest, purest, most honorable, predictable soul, a country singer at home in an era when the open range is just what you gotta drive through to get a good parking spot …

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