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Timing Fortuitous for Dirty Projectors' Coffman
Being in the right place at the right time is pivotal for a young musician seeking to grow creatively. So is leaving.
Witness singer and guitarist Amber Coffman, 25. She moved to San Diego from Arizona in 2002 and then experienced an artistic …Read more.
Hurricane Katrina Serves as Inspiration for Switchfoot's New CD
Few multimillion-selling rock bands can match Switchfoot when it comes to having no public image to speak of and maintaining a low profile. But that is exactly the way this veteran San Diego band — whose seventh album, "Hello Hurricane,…Read more.
Alice Cooper, Puscifer in the Same Weekend -- Blessings for Halloween
Trick or treat?
For Alice Cooper and Maynard James Keenan, there may be no difference.
Then again, given their shared penchant for performing eye-popping stage shows on a regular basis, Halloween just might be the most anticlimactic day of the year …Read more.
Cashing in on the Man-child
What's the difference between Michael Jackson and a dead cow laying on the side of the road?
The cow can't be milked anymore.
If that assessment seems exceedingly harsh and distasteful, it is. But not nearly as distasteful as the dizzying rush to …Read more.
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Phish Heads Get Treat; Businesses See a 'Godsend'Trick or treat? That's 60,000 fans to see one band — Phish — not the 120-plus bands and solo acts that typically perform at the same site for three days each April at the annual Coachella Valley Music & Arts Festival. The treat, if Phish can pull it off, will be for more than the four-man group's rabid followers (or Phish Heads). Hoteliers in the California's greater Coachella Valley area hope that Festival 8 — as Phish has dubbed its weekend of eight performances between Oct. 30 and Nov. 1 — will spur business at a time of year when tourism is usually moribund. "Without being dramatic, it's been a godsend that we've gotten this event," said Mark Graves, director of communications of the Palm Springs Desert Resort Convention Visitors Authority. "Let's face it, we're all experiencing a down economy. This is a shot in the arm the whole valley will benefit from." Whether Phish Heads will fill all 18,000 hotel rooms across the valley remains to be seen. The Convention Visitors Authority is overseeing three-day festival package deals at 17 hotels, from Hilton to Travelodge, in the California desert cities of Palm Springs, Cathedral City, Palm Desert, Desert Hot Springs, Indian Wells, Indio, La Quinta and Rancho Mirage. The hotels are offering bus transportation to and from the festival, for which three-day tickets cost $199 each (no one- or two-day tickets are being sold). Phish, meanwhile, has teamed with Valley Music Travel to offer its own hotel package deals and shuttle service from Los Angeles International Airport, as well as paid on-site options for fans who want to camp or bring their RVs. Phish was formed in late 1983 by a group of students at the University of Vermont. By 1985, the band's best-known lineup was in place, featuring drummer and group namesake Jon Fishman, keyboardist Paige McConnell, bassist Mike Gordon and guitarist Trey Anastasio (who performs his concerto Sept. 12 at Carnegie Hall with the New York Philharmonic). The group, which disbanded in 2004 after 19 albums, reunited in March for three sold-out shows in Virginia. Its Indio, Calif., appearances will enable the band to revive its popular Halloween tradition of performing classic albums by other bands (from The Beatles to Talking Heads), in their entirety, on stage. But Phish is offering more than just music to festivalgoers. The band's website — phish.com — promises that Indio "campers" will be provided with "a communal sense of rapture" and "occasional deja vu."
To find out more about George Varga and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com. COPYRIGHT 2009 CREATORS.COM 
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