One of the most famous relics of Polish identity is the painting of the Black Madonna of Czestochowa [pictured, above]. Poles who migrated to this country and longed for some aspect of their home, some celebration of their identity, set up a chapel in the 1950s up in Doylestown dedicated to the Black Madonna. These days, the shrine is impressively large, in fact it’s one of the largest monuments to the Polish identity around. Last weekend, Doylestown hosted the Polish American Family Festival & Fair celebrating diverse aspects of the Polish identity, from music to food to beer and dancing. […]
CONTEST: Win Tix To See QOTSA @ Festival Pier!
We have a coupla pairs of tix to see the mighty Queens Of The Stone Age — currently on tour in support of their excellent, Mark Ronson-produced new album,Villains — at Festival Pier tomorrow night. To qualify, all you have to do is sign up for our mailing list (see right, below the masthead). Trust us, this is something you want to do. In addition to breaking news alerts and Phawker updates, you also get advanced warning about groovy concert ticket giveaways and other free swag opportunities like this one! After signing up, send us an email at PHAWKER66@GMAIL.COM […]
DIVINE INTERVENTION: Q&A W/ Matthew Sweet
BY JONATHAN VALANIA In advance of his appearance at the Haverford Music Festival on Saturday September 9th, we got power-pop legend Matthew Sweet on the horn. DISCUSSED: making Girlfriend, life in Athens GA circa 1983, Richard Lloyd, leaving Los Angeles, Robert Quine, moving back to Nebraska, Michael Stipe, Kickstarter, teaching Peter Buck the chords to “Femme Fatale,” Tomorrow Forever. PHAWKER: Honor to speak with you, long time fan. Actually, I was getting my start in journalism when Girlfriend came out; I was working for the Allentown Morning Call. I think it was Altered Beast that came out when we […]
BEING THERE: The Philadelphia Folk Festival
Photo by ALICE KRIEG There aren’t too many folk festivals in this part of the country, and certainly not many that have the benefit of as much built-up knowledge, tradition, and custom as the Philadelphia Folk Festival. Because the festival has been put on every year for the past 56 years at the Old Pool Farm in Schwenksville by the Philadelphia Folksong Society, these traditions give the Philly Folk Fest a gravitas not accessible to younger music festivals. There are mysteries to it, set pieces that seem bewildering to newcomers and outsiders; many familiar faces are perhaps not even sure […]
BEING THERE: Belle & Sebastian @ The Mann
Photo by JOSH PELTA-HELLER Back in February, when it was announced that Andrew Bird and Belle & Sebastian were going to play the Mann Center in August, images of bespectacled sophisticates sitting cross legged, politely nodding along to plucked violin, expert whistling, and crooning Scottish voices commingling in refined harmonies sprang into my mind. I pictured it hot and muggy and figured that most of the audience would be fanning themselves off with that morning’s edition of The New York Times. I was excited to see Andrew Bird perform again, as he’d enlightened me with a labyrinth of sound engineered […]
Win Tix To See Belle & Sebastian @ The Mann
First, these thoughts about Belle & Sebastian’s staying power, written 11 years ago and, oddly enough, still applicable and moderately amusing: Boy oh boy, did Philebrity editor Joey Sweeney get his Underoos in a bunch when I mentioned that a new Belle and Sebastian album was cause for “a legion of cardigan-clad Millhouses to raise their skinny arms to heaven like antennae.” Speaking like a man who’s taken all the locker room towel-snapping he was gonna take for one lifetime, he told me to get my gang together and meet his gang on the playground for a badminton death […]
BEING THERE: Fleet Foxes & Animal Collective @ The Mann
Photo by JOSH PELTA-HELLER At first blush, the marquee billing for the Animal Collective/Fleet Foxes show at the Mann Center last night confused me: Animal Collective was the opening act? The experimental trance-pop band that made their name with mesmerizing collections of psychotropic anti-folk like Sung Tongs (2004) and Feels (2005) couldn’t be an opening act. They were too revolutionary and exciting. Unfortunately, though, the keyword here is were. It’s a pretty human thing to hold on to the past. Damn memory and everything. But, jesus, I knew better. I’d listened to Merriweather Post Pavilion (2009) and heard a shift […]
BEING THERE: XPoNential Music Festival 2017
Photos & Text by JOSH PELTA-HELLER This year, XPoNential Music Fest management scrambled to prepare for End-Times weather, rescheduling the first day of the event to shift more of it to the shelter of the BB&T Pavilion, and moved up set times, as highly anticipated performances from two beloved local bands — Swift Technique and Hurry — fell casualty to the lineup rework. Philly fest-goers armed themselves with ponchos and steeled their resolves — or just decided to stay home. Early Day-One acts Arkells, Brownout and Pinegrove did their damndest to rally the raging of the Friday afternoon crowds in […]
Win Tix To See Fleet Foxes & Animal Collective!
The hirsute Seattle-based five-piece known as Fleet Foxes traffics in often-acoustic autumnal 60s folk-rock and sun-dappled three-part harmonies which can be deadly in the wrong hands, but they’ve always stayed on the right side of precious. While it is well known that the Fleet Foxes look like lumberjacks and sing like angels, what is less known is that live they play like they made a deal with the devil at the crossroads. If, like me, you loved their 2008 self-titled LP but were a little underwhelmed by 2011’s Helplessness Blues and find the new Crack Up a tad snoozy, […]
THOSE WERE THE DAYS OF WINE AND ROSES: Q&A With The Dream Syndicate’s Steve Wynn
EDITOR’S NOTE: This Q&A with Steve Wynn originally published back in the summer of 2013. In advanced of the re-activated Dream Syndicate’s performance at XPoNential Fest on Sunday, we present the encore edition. ALL MUSIC GUIDE: Dream Syndicate are at the foundation (alongside the Velvet Underground, the Stooges, and R.E.M.) of contemporary alternative music simply because at the time when most bands were experimenting with new technology, the Syndicate deigned to bring back the guitar. Fronted by Steve Wynn (b. Feb. 21, 1960) and including Karl Precoda (guitar), Dennis Duck (drums), and Kendra Smith (bass), the band formed in Los […]
ALBUM REVIEW: Offa Rex Queen Of Hearts
Before I start, I should probably confess that I’ve always loved folk music. Growing up with one foot in America and one foot in Ireland, folk music helped me connect with what I felt were my roots. My culture. My people. The songs and artists I grew up with spoke to an older time, when lessons were passed down orally, when work was done by hand, and songs were sung to make it go a little faster. As I grew up, I found artists who mixed those old ballads and stories with a more mainstream, rock’n’roll sort of sound. It […]
BEING THERE: Thurston Moore @UndergroundArts
Photo by SYDNEY SCHAEFER “Blues is a feeling,” Mississippi Fred McDowell used to muse. Indisputable truth from a blues master (1906-1972). But can Rock n Roll be deemed a Consciousness, as Thurston Moore posits with the title of his latest solo album? Lawdy, yes. Moore’s roiling yet contemplative recent record, released in late April, helps make the case: 5 extended dual guitar song-jams over its 40 minutes, oft-enough reaching “real O-mind” rock-out exhilaration as well as strum-&-blossom thoughtful reflection. The alb’s not a meta-rock document but, especially for those who Believe, it’s some hugely welcome Rock My Religion-ism spirit-uplift from […]
BEING THERE: Kendrick Lamar @WellsFargoCtr
Photo by LIAM MCKENNA [ENLARGE] Oh Kendrick Lamar! I often remind myself how grateful I am for his existence and his talent. In the 20-something years that I have been listening to Hip-Hop, no other artist has been able to embody so much of my black experience in America. He is political, hood, eloquent, exceptionally creative and may very well be a genius. So, I was beyond ecstatic to see Kung Fu Kenny live in person last night at the Wells Fargo Center for the Philadelphia leg of the DAMN Tour. Aside from that one meet and greet that radio […]