Emerging as one of the most promising bands from Los Angeles since god knows when, Foster The People’s debut album, Torches, has earned the band a cozy stay at the top of Billboard’s charts, stage time at the Grammy’s honoring The Beach Boys, an army of fans, sold out shows during their 2012 tour, and too many other noteworthy accomplishments to mention. Admitting the band’s success is a drastic change from the life he once knew, frontman Mark Foster spoke with me to make heads or tails of his relatively short journey from Cleveland, to L.A., to the top of the charts.

I always hesitate to say a band’s success has been “meteoric,” but there really isn’t a better way to describe Foster The People’s popularity. How would you describe it? How do you look back and understand and appreciate everything?

It’s…tough. It’s tough because I feel like, because of how busy we’ve been and how drastic the contrast is from our lives before to when it really started to take off, there’s really…

Adam Yauch’s passing is a real tragedy. Who else can seamlessly stop a riveting show to quote Gandhi? Regarding the death penalty, the man known as MCA said, “An eye for an eye just makes the whole world blind.” The fact remains that Adam Yauch turned the world into a far better place than how he found it. Through his music, he not only entertained, but he erased racial tensions, campaigned to liberate a nation, and did it all with a smile on his face and composed, well-assured demeanor.

A peripheral fan might have just pegged the trio from Brooklyn as those guys sitting on a couch, swelling beer and yelling at their mom for their right to party, but the Beastie Boys’ experimentation and values make them New York’s answer to The Clash.

My first Beastie Boys show was the Mumia Abu-Jamal Benefit that they played with the likeminded Rage Against The Machine. I was nothing less than blown away by the sheer magic created by Ad-Rock, Mike D and MCA. Anyone could tell…

Newark, NJ, May 2, 2012—The Prudential Center was literally shaking. Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band were due up in minutes. The vibe couldn’t have been more exciting, as we knew it was the last stateside show before Europe. And any last show is always a party. Question: So how do you replace Clarence Clemons? Answer: With a five-piece kick-ass horn section including his young nephew Jake Clemons and the honking ballsy Eddie Manion, both saxing it up like mad.

We were taking bets on what he’d open with. So far on the tour, it’s been “We Take Care Of Our Own” but tonight was “No Surrender,” the first of many surprises. Usually, it’s the old material, for any artist, that proves to be the night’s highlight. In an inverse brand of logic that would permeate the proceedings, the songs off the powerful Wrecking Ball had the most resonance. And it started with the title track. These songs are all mini-anthems anyway and, in a live setting, flourish like spirituals (which some of…

There are a lot of stories in the news that expose things that seem to be obvious targets for investigation, but no one seems to pay attention. They are the stories behind the stories, which get lost because everyone is so busy looking at the primary focus of a particular news item. They don’t see things that should be raising a lot of questions. There are numerous instances of this, but I’ll give you just a few examples.

A couple of weeks ago, the mayor of Hamilton Township, NJ, was arrested and charged with accepting bribes. They actually caught him taking money from someone who was recording the conversation, so it seems pretty open and shut. The local papers are filled with stories about what a crook the guy turned out to be, when everyone thought he was such a nice guy, and a decent mayor.

In the course of the investigation, it’s come out that the insurance broker for the Hamilton Township school system received something along the lines of $930,000 over the past…

The Art Of Politics Vs. The Act Of Liberty

Whoopie!

The president of the United States agrees with the Bill of Rights. This is a novel concept, like when a kid begins to understand the alphabet as not merely being the lyrics to a cute song to memorize or a series of strange symbols that form different sounds but pieces of a larger linguistic puzzle. I guess if Barack Obama, a constitutional law professor, has “evolved” into this realm of sound legal reasoning after a half century on this planet, a Harvard education, and three years as leader of the free world, we should shout hosannas to the highest mountain or decry him as a heretic and whatever “war on…” has re-entered the vox populi.

Not here, bub.

Here we’re not fond of latecomers to the obvious. Detractors, and there are many, to this thinking claim that it is about time a politician in some form of power base utter these sentiments. Sure. Baby steps. First there’s Will & Grace, the vice president on Meet…