PhilaMOCA presents a two hour presentation of short films from around the world created to coincide with the Sigur Rós album VALTARI. Upon the release of their album VALTARI, Sigur Rós gave a dozen filmmakers the same modest budget and asked them to create whatever comes into their head when they listen to songs from the album.  The idea was to bypass the usual artistic approval process and allow people utmost creative freedom.  Among the filmmakers are Alma Har’el (BOMBAY BEACH), Andrea Arnold (FISH TANK), John Cameron Mitchell (HEDWIG AND THE ANGRY INCH), Ramin Bahrani (CHOP SHOP), and Floria […]

  John Doe, TLA, Friday 5:09 PM, by JEFF FUSCO PREVIOUSLY: THE X-MAN COMETH — A Q&A With John Doe

  ROLLING STONE: The war over pot may be far from over. Legalization has set Colorado and Washington on a collision course with the Obama administration, which has shown no sign of backing down on its full-scale assault on pot growers and distributors. Although the president pledged to go easy on medical marijuana – now legal in 18 states – he has actually launched more raids on state-sanctioned pot dispensaries than George W. Bush, and has threatened to prosecute state officials who oversee medical marijuana as if they were drug lords. And while the administration has yet to issue a […]

Photo by PETE TROSHAK The Faint rolled onto stage last night at the Trocadero on a wave of swirling fog and strobe lights. The band started off slow, playing at first in darkness and milking the tension for a few songs before unleashing the main event of the night – an airing of their classic album Danse Macabre. The album is an eminently danceable 35-minute hell-ride through the paranoia, claustrophobia and decay of life as a drone in the big city. As scenes of skyscrapers and animated pixels rolled by on screens behind them, the band brought the album to […]

  Jack White has issued the following statement to correct an excerpt from his upcoming cover story in British Esquire that was taken completely out of context–and actually edited to change its original meaning–in an NME.com news post. The original quote referred to the state of image-based celebrity in general was twisted by the NME who changed the original quote, tacking the words “Lady Gaga’s music” on to the original quote–words Jack never actually said. White commented in full:   I’d like to address the recent tabloidesque drama baiting by the press in regards to Lady Gaga. I never said anything about her […]

  It takes a particular confidence for one unknown musician to pronounce to another that their first meeting has the hallmarks of legend. But then Johnny Marr, eighteen years old when he arrived uninvited at the Stretford home of Steven Patrick Morrissey one afternoon in May of 1982, had such confidence in abundance; what he did not have, and it was the reason he had come knocking on the door of the nondescript semidetached council house at 384 Kings Road that day, was a partner for his singular talent on the guitar. Steven Morrissey, a writer of speculative merit and […]

Illustration by YannGOBART The American Philosophical Presents IT’S ABOUT TIME: Short films from the Secret Cinema Archive 7 PM tonight at  American Philosophical Society  Philosophical Hall, 104 South Fifth Street, Philadelphia,  Post-screening discussion moderated by Phawker film critic Dan Buskrk I often hear moviegoers complain that a film was too slow or too manic but of course what they are reacting to is their inability to comfortably exist within the filmmaker’s sense of time. A clock may measure consistent units of time but the timepiece’s objective mechanical conception can differ wildly from subjective time as humans perceive it, just as […]

Photo by SECOND SUNDAE [via PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER] All they had to guide them through the blackness was the glow of cellphones and two flashlights. Brian led everyone up a stairwell. Stopping on the fifth floor, he took out a can of black spray paint. He straddled a wide hole in the concrete floor and reached to paint the outline of a face on the wall. His friend Drew Rutledge pointed a flashlight at him from a few feet away. Brian shifted his weight from his right foot to left. Drew shifted the faint beam to the left. But in the […]