When it comes to road work, Perpetual Groove (or PGroove, as they’re known by their adoring fans) is an unstoppable machine on a seemingly endless tour. Although they’re routinely classified as a jam band, PGroove’s sound can’t be contained within the boundaries of a single genre, and often combines elements of rock, electronic, ambient, psychedelia, and jazz all within the confines of a single song. Adam Perry’s stinging bass grooves and Albert Suttle’s heavy beats provide the foundation for undulating layers of keyboard and pulsating guitar crescendos that have been known to drive audiences into jam-induced convulsions. However, they have […]

BY BRANDON LAFVING I came expecting theater. If that is a crime, let me be guilty. Pig Iron is, in fact, a Theater Company, and, as the name suggests, they produce what people in the know refer to as plays. So when I walked into the Suzanne Roberts Theater* on opening night I expected to see a modern version of Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, or What You Will and what I got was a head-spinning nexus of performing arts genres that brought together dance, theater, and opera onto a single stage. Not that I’m complaining. Most directors do not even consider […]

International House Philadelphia proudly presents the Philadelphia premiere of this local production! A surprise hit at the Sundance Film Festival, Resurrect Dead: The Mystery of the Toynbee Tiles garnered West Philadelphian Jon Foy an award for Best Documentary Director at Sundance 2011. Resurrect Dead is an artfully crafted documentary that follows Foy, local musician and artist Justin Duerr, and Steve Weinik and Colin Smith as they try to solve the mystery of the Toynbee Tiles. Appearing on city streets over the past three decades, the Toynbee Tiles consist of hundreds of cryptic messages about resurrecting the dead. The search takes […]

FRESH AIR Thousands of government organizations and private companies work on programs related to counterterrorism, homeland security and intelligence. Last December, The Washington Post reported that this “top-secret world … has become so large, so unwieldy and so secretive that no one knows how much money it costs, how many people it employs, how many programs exist within it or exactly how many agencies do the same work.” On today’s Fresh Air, Washington Post national security reporter Dana Priest, the co-author of both the Post’s investigative series and the book Top Secret America: The Rise of the New American Security […]

“I like to think of Jesus with, like, big eagle’s wings, singin’ lead vocals for Lynyrd Skynyrd with, like, an angel band, and I’m in the front row, and I’m hammered drunk…” — John C. Reilly as Cal Naughton Jr. in Talladega Nights

  MIKE LOFGREN*: Thus far, I have concentrated on Republican tactics, rather than Republican beliefs, but the tactics themselves are important indicators of an absolutist, authoritarian mindset that is increasingly hostile to the democratic values of reason, compromise and conciliation. Rather, this mindset seeks polarizing division (Karl Rove has been very explicit that this is his principal campaign strategy), conflict and the crushing of opposition. As for what they really believe, the Republican Party of 2011 believes in three principal tenets I have laid out below. The rest of their platform one may safely dismiss as window dressing: 1. The […]

[Photo by Mark Valenzuela] BY BRANDON LAFVING FRINGE CORRESPONDENT Fringe shows are, by design, experimental and/or playful, they occupy a space where anything can, and usually does, happen — well, the good ones do, anyway. With this in mind, I walked into the Arts Bank Theater Friday night with the same caution I would exert if I was attending Shamu’s matinee performance at Sea World. Which is to say that under no circumstances would I willingly sit in the ‘splash’ section. Then I saw the stage: A majestic bed and a throne entangled in a dark and twisted web of […]

[Painting by JEFF DOTTAVIO] NPR SONG OF THE DAY:  It’s a little baffling that when Ray Charles originally released Live in Concert in early 1965, its brisk 38-minute duration meant shutting out “Georgia on My Mind.” It was his first concert record since turning Hoagy Carmichael and Stuart Gorrell’s classic into a No. 1 hit, but what was already well on its way to becoming Charles’ signature song was nowhere to be found until recently, when a expanded reissue restored it to the album’s running order. Counterintuitive though it may be, the song’s absence might be explained by the breathtaking […]

BY MATTHEW HENGEVELD What hip-hop needs are newcomers like Philly’s Kuf Knotz. The man knows his shit, plus he’s got a debut album that absolutely knocks. Boombox Logic is soulful, uplifting and easily the most pleasingly Philly-centric album I’ve heard since the Roots’ 2006 masterpiece Game Theory. Kuf’s not afraid to talk about being a sneaker pimp or have a good time on tracks. His manifesto might as well be “chill, I got this” because he displays a proficiency on the mic that some veterans have yet to achieve. In advance of his appearance tomorrow at the WHYY Connections Festival, […]

MCCLATCHY NEWSPAPERS: This cell phone photo was shot by a resident of Ishaqi on March 15, 2006, of bodies Iraqi police said were of children executed by U.S. troops after a night raid there. Here, the bodies of the five children are wrapped in blankets and laid in a pickup bed to be taken for burial. A State Department cable obtained by WikiLeaks quotes the U.N. investigator of extrajudicial killings as saying an autopsy showed the residents of the house had been handcuffed and shot in the head, including children under the age of 5. McClatchy obtained the photo from […]