Photos by @HELLERHOUND On Wednesday of this past week, the all-encompassing humidity and ninety-degree-plus temperatures characteristic of Philadelphia summers interrupted an otherwise pleasant stretch of spring. People trudged through the city as if wading through bathwater; their jaws slack, tongues swollen, threatening to hang out of their mouths like dogs. Betraying conventional wisdom, Philadelphia looked into the sky, directly at the sun, asking WHY? Scientists might have an issue with this line of logic, but I think proponents of notions like synchronicity and collective unconscious like Carl Jung may have agreed that we can attribute the heat wave that hit […]
CINEMA: White Hawk Down
THE WALL (2017, directed by Doug Liman, 81 minutes, U.S.) BY DAN BUSKIRK FILM CRITIC The battlefield on which the new thriller The Wall is set in is boringly familiar, a cliché even: the beige blankness of the desert, the armored U.S. soldiers, the bent and blasted rubble, and the forbidding drone-laden soundtrack with Arab voices chanting overtop. The history of Hollywood’s war films makes for a telling window into public attitudes about national conflicts about our endless wars in the Middle East (if you begin with the Afghanistan invasion of 2001), and the public’s unthinking acceptance of them, […]
REVIEW: HDLSS “False Flag”
I was eighteen when I met Far and Wolfy, sitting at a dining room table, surrounded by sprawling potted plants, original paintings of clowns, and framed collages. With a voice somehow both barbed and soothing, Far charmed me with his thoughts on writing, while Wolfy slipped downstairs to the basement where the concrete walls were splattered with paint and poetry, and you couldn’t step a foot in any direction without being within an arm’s reach of an instrument. The sounds of electric guitar grew in the basement as Wolfy worked the loop pedal, and upstairs, Far told me about […]
TONITE: Like A Bird On A Wire
PREVIOUSLY: Everybody knows that 2016 was a cruel and unusual year. Intolerably cruel. Everybody knows that war is over and everybody knows the good guys lost. So I am only half-kidding when I ask: How can we possibly be expected to endure the abominable presidency of Donald Trump without David Bowie, Prince or Princess Leia? But I’m dead serious when I say we can’t do this without Leonard Cohen, who died at the ripe old age of 82 on the day before the election. As ever, his timing was impeccable. It goes without saying that he’d seen the future, […]
THE LADY OF THE LOG: Q&A w/ Catherine Coulson
Artowrk by JJUSTINE DEVINE EDITOR’S NOTE: This interview originally posted on September 28th, 2015. In advance of Sunday night’s long-anticipated reactivation of David Lynch’s Twin Peaks, we present this reprise edition. EDITOR’S NOTE 4/25/16: Just found out the sad and shocking news that Katherine passed away today. In tribute, we present a reprise edition of this very in-depth interview we did with her last October in advance of her talk at the Pennsylvania Academy Of The Arts, which was part of PAFA’s David Lynch retrospective, The Unified Field. She was very generous with her time — this was probably the […]
TONITE: Epic Soundtracks
BY JAMES M. DAVIS At the birth of the Internet, David Bowie famously remarked that soon music would be like “running water.” Everywhere, inescapable, available at the touch of a button. Any song from the entire history of recorded music, available at your fingertips, on your smartphone, anywhere you go. This is the world we live in now, and for me personally, it’s difficult to remember a time even when hearing a certain song meant having to go out and buy a CD. Farther back still is the time when hearing obscure music meant finding a dusty old record […]
FROM THE VAULT: After Dark, My Sweet
EDITOR’S NOTE: In advance of The xx’s performance at the Skyline Stage of The Mann on Wednesday May 17th, we present the complete 2012 MAGNET cover story profile written by yours truly. Enjoy. BY JONATHAN VALANIA It is the tail end of another hot, dog breath day afternoon in early August. Mercifully, we are on our way to some place that is, for one night anyway, cool: Staten Island. There are many locales that you might associate with the sound, the look and the vibe of The xx — London after dark, Tokyo circa Lost In Translation, Manhattan around […]
WORTH REPEATING: White Riot In Levittown
THE ATLANTIC: Levitt famously would not sell his houses to African Americans—not that such a policy was unusual at the time. Between 1946 and 1953, as New York University professor Tom Sugrue notes, 120,000 new homes were built in the Philly metro area. Only 347 were open to African Americans. In 1957 an African-American couple, William and Daisey Myers, bought a house as part of a plan to begin the integration of Levittown. Two thousand residents signed a petition denouncing the purchase: “[W]e feel that we are unprejudiced and undiscriminating in our wish to keep our community a closed […]
Q&A: Jim Reid, Lead Singer Of Jesus & Mary Chain
BY JONATHAN VALANIA Hard to remember now but there was a time when the Jesus & Mary Chain divided the population of planet Earth into two camps: Those who were sure they were the Second Coming and those who thought they were the end of Western Civilization. Such was the response 30 years ago to the band’s debut, Psychocandy. History would, of course, judge it a seminal and deeply influential classic. After a lengthy hiatus, the band is active again, and recently released the most def Damage And Joy, their first LP since 1998’s Munki. Don’t call it it […]
BEING THERE: Metallica @ The Linc
Photo by DYLAN LONG “We don’t give a shit,” declared James Hetfield, frontman of the heavy metal machine known as Metallica, to the sold-out crowd Lincoln Financial Field last night. Hetfield then elaborated, stating that Metallica doesn’t care what you look like, what you’re wearing, what religion you practice, or your political beliefs. “We’re here to celebrate live music and being alive. This is family.” It was a touching and beautiful moment between Hetfield and the crowd, a moment which of course would be followed by imminent doom and riffs from the bowels of hell. Kicking off the night with […]
MUST SEE: Friends In Low Places
Part one of a new Dutch documentary that says what American media is afraid to say.
TONIGHT: Sometimes Salvation
PREVIOUSLY: The Crowes’ axis turned on the brothers Robinson – frontman Chris Robinson, who actually sounds like he earned the sandpaper timbre in his petulant rasp of a voice, and guitarist Rich Robinson, who makes a commanding grasp of the early ’70s blues-rock vernacular look effortless. On and off since the early 1990’s, The Black Crowes have cut their own path on Rich Robinson’s unique brand of vintage melody and classic-rock swagger. Hits like “She Talks to Angels” and “Jealous Again” off their multi-platinum debut Shake Your Moneymaker helped them find footing among the grunge and heavy metal that […]