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Village Voice set to strike? Looming walkout at America’s oldest alt weekly
06.28.2011
05:12 pm
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This cover seemed the most appropriate, under the circumstances…
 
Anticipating a near certain strike, Village Voice journos have set-up an online alt-weekly to their alt-weekly at The Real Voice:

The current three-year contract between Village Voice Media and UAW Local 2110, representing the workers of The Village Voice, expires midnight June 30. The membership has unanimously passed a strike authorization vote.

Over the past three years, the Voice staff has been cut by an estimated 60%, and average annual salaries have markedly diminished. Management has so far played hardball with the union, refusing to make an offer, while demanding extensive concessions from the newspaper’s staff, including a substantial, ever-increasing contribution to an inferior health plan, as well as the elimination of management’s own contribution to employees’ retirement accounts. The union membership sees the quality of their medical coverage as the critical issue. “That’s why I came to work here,” said one staff writer. “The health insurance is the one thing that made low wages bearable.”

In the event of a work stoppage, writers, bloggers, photographers, editors, designers, and sales staff—as well as former Voice staff members and other supporters—will be publishing an alternate website, TheRealVoice.org, where readers will find the same high-quality writing there that they currently enjoy in the paper and on Voice blogs.

A strike benefit will be held on Wednesday, June 29, beginning at 8 p.m. at Public Assembly (70 North 6th Street, Williamsburg, Brooklyn, 718-384-4586), featuring the bands Fort Lean, K-Holes, and Alan Watts. The suggested $10 donation will go to the Village Voice Strike Fund. Voice alumni, including many distinguished writers and editors, are expected to attend.

The Village Voice is the nation’s oldest and largest alternative newsweekly and the recipient of numerous journalism awards, including three Pulitzers. It was founded in 1955 by Ed Fancher, Dan Wolf, and Norman Mailer. The Voice, along with the rest of its six-newspaper chain, was acquired in 2006 by Phoenix-based New Times Media, since renamed Village Voice Media. The Village Voice is the only unionized newspaper in the now 13-weekly VVM chain. The shop includes workers from all parts of the paper, including Production, Editorial, and Sales.

More information at The Real Voice

This clip seemed the most appropriate, under the circumstances…
 

Posted by Richard Metzger
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06.28.2011
05:12 pm
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Village Voice picks worst rock song of 2010: ‘Hey Soul Sister’ by Train
12.27.2010
06:07 am
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image
 
Maura Johnston and Christopher R. Weingarten of the Village Voice have put together their list of the 20 worst pop songs of 2010. No 1: “Hey Soul Sister” by Train. Whether or not you agree with their list, you’ll find mucho laughs in some of their scathingly over-the-top descriptions of the songs they loathed. Nothing like disgust to bring out the best in a rock writer.

Here’s an example of the literary heights and lows that Johnston and Weingarten achieve in their all-out assault on music that gets them pissed off:

The chorus is jacked from an even worse place. “Hey Soul Sister” is an orgy where bad ideas trade STDs, and the most syphilitic brain-fart stumbled in drunk from a Smash Mouth show. (For those of you who arrived late, Smash Mouth was a band from the late ‘90s that was formed when a soul patch met cake frosting. Their wikki-wikki scratching and dorkpie hats did to music what blood-soaked clowns do to the dreams of sleeping children.) Listen to “Hey, Soul Sister” a few times and you’ll inevitably be reminded of the “whistling solo” from the Shrek house band’s inescapable “All Star.” From Smash Mouth, Train picked up an earworm that burrowed into society’s asshole, laid 4.7 million iTunes eggs, and gave birth to a grey cloud of banality that covers the Earth.

And just think: When your shitty kid marries someone you violently disapprove of 20 years from now, this song—with its references to blowjobs and songs that were ground into the ground before the kid was a twinkle in your eye—will serve as the couple’s first dance. As you watch your offspring and new in-law twirl around the dance floor, you will reach for a glass of Champagne Loko (President Kid Rock won’t try to ban the stuff until he’s up for re-election in 2032) and wonder how everything went so, so wrong.”

To see the list of 20 crimes against pop music and read more scorched-earth reviewing go to the Voice website here.

Train doing their big hit on the Ellen DeGeneres Show.
 

Posted by Marc Campbell
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12.27.2010
06:07 am
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