Author Archives: Tony Hicks
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Insert Foot: Who holds the title of most un-rock rock star on the planet?
You know how sometimes you can’t unsee something, no matter how violently your eyes leap back into your brain, screaming? I just witnessed a clip of something from 1976 featuring John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd, posing as CHP officers, pulling Brian Wilson from bed and forcing him to surf…
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Insert Foot: Celebrating Four Seasons Total Landscaping Day with Laura Jane Grace
INSERT FOOT, Laura Jane Grace and Four Seasons Total Landscaping Day. Laura Jane Grace, who fronts punk band Against Me!, just announced she’ll play a solo set at Four Seasons Total Landscaping in Philadelphia on Aug 21. Admitting your career is over so blatantly seems kind of weird. But…
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Insert Foot: Bill Cosby has his freedom on Independence Day, but should anyone buy tickets?
Bill Cosby speaks to reporters outside of his home in Cheltenham, Pennsylvaniaon June 30, 2021. Cosby was released from prison after court overturned his sex assault conviction. Photo by Michael Abbott/Getty Images. On Independence Day, it’s always fascinating to examine who really has it. Bill Cosby has his independence today.…
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Insert Foot: Aren’t we a little late to the Britney Spears sympathy party?
Protesters attend a #FreeBritney Rally at Stanley Mosk Courthouse in Los Angeles on March 17, 2021. Original photo: Frazer Harrison/Getty Images. You’re being told to care about Britney Spears again. Should you? Everybody’s doing it. She’s heroic. She wants her life back. She wants to dump the birth control…
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Insert Foot: Music City San Francisco celebrates the Bay Area’s music past and its future
SAN FRANCISCO — I think I might have overdosed my 13-year-old daughter. On music. C’mon. Rendering: Adam Pardee/STAFF. She wouldn’t be the first of my daughters to suffer at the hands of my geekery. My 19-year-old was force-fed punk rock until she started making plans to perform a Bad…
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Insert Foot: The maskless in Walnut Creek partying like they’re vaccinated
Rendering: Adam Pardee/STAFF. WALNUT CREEK, Calif. — I went out Friday night. In public. With other real humans. It was weird … and pretty great, I must admit. I was doing a story for my day job about local venues and restaurants reopening. I was offered tours and free…
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Review: Does Wolfgang Van Halen’s ‘Mammoth WVH’ live up to lofty expectations?
There are a couple ways to listen to the debut of Wolfgang Van Halen’s Mammoth WVH. Mammoth WVH Wolfgang Van Halen Explorer1 Music Group, June 11 7/10 The first comes through expectations of the 30-year-old son of a man who changed rock guitar, and whose band was America’s answer to Led Zeppelin. The son is the third generation of a great musical family and the benefactor of…
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Insert Foot: Grimes is talking crazy, which is a not-so-crazy thing
Insert Foot, Grimes and Skynet socialists. At least Grimes is trying. Granted, the Canadian pop singer-songwriter is a bit weird, though that’s a plus in this context. Because only weirdos–at least in some sense–are really worth our extra attention. We don’t expect normal people to grab us by the shoulders and scream…
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Some things change, others remain the same for Liz Phair on ‘Soberish’
Liz Phair recently told Variety that you can go home again, only things progress and people change. That was a great way to describe her first new album in more than a decade, the fresh-but-comfortable Soberish. Soberish Liz Phair Chrysalis, June 4 8/10 It’s appropriately clever, honest, a bit…
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Insert Foot: Why does K-Pop sensation BTS have seven members?
Insert Foot discovers BTS. Editor’s note: Work with us here… Mr. Insert Foot, in many ways, is like RIFF’s curmudgeonly dad. He’s open to new ideas, but it takes a while! Next month, we’ll talk to him about the 23-member NCT. I was messing around the other day (working)…
