As you may have noticed, Cover Wars have been on hiatus for the last coupla weeks. We have been waiting for the other shoe to drop in the PW Sale story because, hey, we feel that people fearing for their jobs don’t need our shit-talking, unless their name is Imus. But that’s just us. While we are waiting to see where PW owner Anthony Clifton’s gold-plated loafer will drop, we’d like to take a minute here to ponder what all this means: First and foremost, the golden age of the alternative weekly is OVER, and the industry is moving from […]
FILM FEST PICKS & PANS: Dante’s Inferno; Wicked Flowers; Book Of The Dead; Severance
BY DAN BUSKIRK FILM CRITIC Heading into its last weekend, the 2007 Philadelphia Film Festival unleashes the big celebrity guns, giving us this year’s American Independent Award winner, Dermot Mulroney. I spent a few minutes this week trying to stoke a friend’s memory on exactly who the very recognizable Mulroney is, and finally had to give up. His specialty in nearly 20 years of film acting has been in supporting roles, often playing ingratiating nice guys who are romance-bait for the female lead. He’s worked with Altman on Kansas City, with Julia Roberts in My Best Friend’s Wedding and most […]
FILMFEST SPOTLIGHT: Meet Elizabeth Fiend
At no time in recorded history have we possessed so much knowledge about health and nutrition, nor have we ever had such vast and effective machinery for disseminating that knowledge — and yet we live in hi-tech Dark Age with the vast majority of the global population essentially ignorant or confused about the basic facts of their own biology. How did this happen? Well, that’s whole six-part mini-series in and of itself, but the short answer is that the bottom line of many a multi-national corporation is dependent on that ignorance, and vast sums of money are expended to maintain […]
POP IN TAPE: Open A Can Of ‘Shh’ & Keep It On The DL
BY MICHAEL FICHMAN Props to the Popped Festival — a massive undertaking that has gone reasonably well thus far. To see the back-porch house show cats making moves and slinging in-kind donated energy drink, it makes you feel proud. We’ve crawled from the mud-caked basements and now we are basking in the light for all to see in our hirsute, road biking glory. Shit, even though there’s a one-to-one musician/promoter/DJ/photographer/blogger to fan ratio, it still feels like a bona-fide event rather than a rearrangement of furniture. But in an ironic twist, as the Popped Festival protrudes its proud, puffed-out chest and […]
All Of This Happened While You Were Sleeping
DROOLING BANJOS: Fan Of Friends, Popped! Fest Night 4, The Parlor, [FLICKR] BY SIMONE SECCI FOREIGN CORRESPONDENT I really appreciate when there are initiatives that help promote the local artists. I think that must be the interest of every city and as a foreigner it’s nice to see that in Philadelphia, at least some people care about it. Especially when like last night they were really good expressions of that already underlined local scene. Unfortunately I have to report that especially the first part of the show with Fursaxa on stage didn’t see the participation of as many people as […]
POPPED! FEST REVIEW: The Low Budgets
HELP, IT’S BITING ME! GET IT OFF MY NECK!: The Low Budgets, Popped! Fest Night 3, Mill Creek Tavern [FLICKR] EVA SAYS: I’ve only been to the Millcreek Tavern once before and I remember it struck me as too damn clean for a bar. Not the type of place I’d expect to hold a Popped! show, either, but in a way that was supposed to be part of the appeal I guess. However, what I was expecting was a better turnout. I mean as a city that prides itself on its DIY creative art scene you’d think people would […]
NJ Governor Corzine In ‘Critical Condition’ After Car Accident On The Way To Referee Imus Vs. Rutgers
Click image for details. Preliminary reports indicate The Governor was NOT wearing his seat belt.
KILLADELPHIA: When You Kill A Man, You Kill The Hopes & Dreams Of All The Kids Who Counted On Him
BY MELISSA DRIBBEN INQUIRER STAFF WRITER “You’ve got to redeem yourselves,” Charles “Wayne” Baldwin used to tell the boys on his after-school football team when they messed up or broke down in tears of frustration. He used the phrase often. Enough that whenever the boys think of their coach, they will hear him saying it. Telling them to stop feeling sorry for themselves, to learn from their mistakes and try again. But the concept of redemption surely has become more complicated, and harder to comprehend, for the children who loved and respected Baldwin. Last Friday, he was killed when a […]
MAILBAG: Colonel Fighting Yet Another Unpopular Rock War
Dear Phawker, “I worked at JC Dobbs from 1989 to 1990.” – Rick D Rick was a great fella to have a drink with and share a story at the bar and his sudden passing is a terrible loss, but as the former publicist for J.C. Dobbs, I have to say that the above quote is just not true. Kathy James, the owner and booking agent for J.C. Dobbs, would cut rental deals with many young independent promoters who wanted to book occasional all-ages shows at her bar. Rick was one of those guys, but he never worked for Kathy […]
Kurt Vonnegut lived in a modest-sized townhouse on the east side of Manhattan, in a neighborhood inexplicably referred to as Turtle Bay. I know this because I followed him home one day.
BY MICHAEL WEINREB I cannot say what it was, exactly, that possessed me to do this — I had never stalked a celebrity before then, and have not since. It was an act of free will, but at the same time, seemed predestined. This was several years ago, not long after I first moved to New York. I had reached a nadir, tumbled into one of those angst-ridden quarter-life crises which are unavoidable for a man in his 20s. Of course, there were colossally stupid decisions made: I fell in love with a woman who lived with another man; worked […]
THE EARLY WORD: Somebody Bring Imus
1915’s “Birth of a Nation” was the film that simultaneously launched the modern movie industry and gave the Ku Klux Klan a foothold in the 20th Century. Friday night is the Philly premiere of a film project that DJ Spooky calls “a digital exorcism” .. taking the original 1915 footage and doing a live 3-screen video/audio remix that turns the tables on the original.. It all goes down this Friday night 4/13 at the Gordon Theater, Rutgers-Camden.. DJ Spooky will be there at 6pm for a FREE roundtable discussion with the RU-C departments of film and African-American studies.. More info […]