Sam Zurick watch: Last week the Reader‘s Miles Raymer reported on a weird blog post from Joan of Arc front dude Tim Kinsella: a bazillion-word manifesto by former Cap’n Jazz/Make Believe/JoA guitarist Sam Zurick. Zurick has been drifting around the southwest in a van, undergoing a religious conversion, and his new faith reads like something collaged together from Coast to Coast AM episodes and Robert Anton Wilson novels—aliens, shadow-government media hijinks, weed. Kinsella tells Gossip Wolf it’s been more than a week since he’s heard from Zurick, who has no cell phone and last e-mailed from an Arizona library.
Local indie-rock fan and corporate lawyer @Mitchfork can come off like a scumbag in his anonymous Twitter feed—he’s openly discussed harassing baristas and copping a feel in the No Age pit at Pitchfork. But after last week’s stage collapse at Belgian festival Pukkelpop, which killed four during Smith Westerns‘ set, @Mitchfork tweeted that he’d raised $3,200 to help replace the group’s gear. According to Smith Westerns’ management, who hadn’t heard about @Mitchfork’s donation, the band had rented backline.
Last week Tom Breihan—who wrote the Reader‘s recent Colt Cabana cover story—quit Pitchfork after seven years. He left Chicago for Virginia and is now a senior writer at Stereogum, which means you won’t see any more Pitchfork rap reviews by someone who actually knows and understands hip-hop.
In the 90s Chicago foursome Kid Million got compared to Smashing Pumpkins and Jane’s Addiction and sold a few dozen copies of their hook-heavy indie-rock albums. They broke up in 2001, and since then front man David Singer has released a slew of solo records, written the score for August: Osage County, and cofounded Intonation Music Workshop. He says Kid Million haven’t played a one-off in five years, but they’ll reunite at the Bucktown Arts Fest on Sat 8/27. Fans can download their three albums free at kidmillionmusic.com till Labor Day. —Jessica Hopper and J.R. Nelson
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