EDITOR’S NOTE: This interview originally published in the summer of 2014 on the occasion Tim & Eric’s last world tour. We are posting this special encore edition in advance of Tim & Eric’s 10th Anniversary Tour stopping at the Merriam Theater on Thursday. While Dr. Steve Brule, tragically, will not be joining them this time, a second season of Tim & Eric’s creepy-as-fuck Bedtime Stories, which is discussed at length in this Q&A, is slated to air later this year. Enjoy. BY JONATHAN VALANIA In advance of the Tim And Eric & Dr. Steve Brule (aka John C. Reilly) 2014 […]
VIVA LA RESISTANCE: Q&A w/ Henry D’Arthenay Of Venezuelan New Wavers La Vida Boheme
BY ERIN BLEWETT Present day Venezuela is a miasma of deprivation, violence and mayhem that has become the de facto legacy of deceased socialist leader Hugo Chávez. Citizens are being kidnapped for profit by criminal syndicates and killed with shocking regularity for speaking out against the government Nicolas Maduro, Chavez’s successor. Venezuela’s beloved La Vida Bohème is known for their high-octane, politically-charged, nouveau New Wave music which eventually got them declared as conspirators against the government on live television. Soon after, their tour manager was kidnapped and their booking agent murdered. As a result, they are now living in exile […]
ALBUM REVIEW: Cactus Blossoms You’re Dreaming
Cacti are rare in Minnesota, about as rare as brothers who are able to shake off the competition for their parents’ affection and join their voices in harmony. Brothers Page and Jack produce classic rockabilly-inflected twang-pop akin to the Everly Brothers. In standard arrangement, their band The Cactus Blossoms opens portals to foregone decades where life was every bit as complicated but more was put into maintaining the facade of simplicity. On You’re Dreaming, “Change Your Ways Or Die,” with its wailing guitar slides and Desperado riffs, summons up images of loners struggling to make their way out West to […]
CONTEST: Win Tix To See The Violent Femmes + Echo & The Bunnymen @ The Mann Center
The Violent Femmes self-titled 1983 debut is a deathless classic, a lightning-in-a-bottle masterpiece of teen alienation and post-adolescent psychodrama with the same trans-generational reach and cultural potency of Rebel Without A Cause, Romeo & Juliet and The Catcher In The Rye. The album indelibly mapped the frantic vicissitudes of teendom — the nihilistic angst, the desolate anomie, the hormonal riots — and scored the late-night dorm room soundtrack for a million private rebellions. Thirty three years later, the album’s power to provoke, amuse and connect with succeeding generations of angst-ridden post-adolescents of all ages remains undiminished. In the interim, […]
BEING THERE: U2 @ The Linc
Photo by DAN LONG First, a word to the haters – you know who you are – and then we’ll be done with them: F*ck y’all. Keep movin’, nothin’ to see here. Now, about that U2 concert last night. Full disclosure: I have seen every Philly U2 concert since The Unforgettable Fire, with the exception of the Pop Mart tour, which I am fine with, and no, I wasn’t cool enough (or old enough) to see them at the Bijou in 1980 when they were just four no-name dorks from Dublin. U2 remains a sorry/not sorry guilty pleasure. I am […]
BEING THERE: Sigur Ros @ The Mann
Photo by JOSH PELTA-HELLER Thunderstorms were forecast for Friday night, but mother nature stepped aside, allowing Icelandic dream merchants Sigur Ros to roll into the Mann Center and electrify the audience with a distorted, bowed electric guitar, thunderous malleted drumming, ponderous piano, and ascending falsetto singing in Hopelandic — a hodgepodge of Icelandic, English and emoted syllables. Earlier in the day, I daydreamed about the sound of rain falling on the cavernous wooden covering overhead, the electricity from thunderbolts commingling with the electricity from the amplifiers and speakers on stage. After the show, though, it was clear that a thunderstorm […]
BEING THERE: Nevertheless She Persisted
Photo by GEORGIY MARKOV
BEING THERE: Real Friends & Have Mercy @ The TLA
Photo by ERIN BLEWETT “Whether you guys fuck with this or not, cheers to you guys,” Broadside frontman Ollie Baxxter purred at an utterly captivated crowd at the Theater of the Living Arts on Thursday for an epic evening of sweaty pop-punk. The crowd was raging in the pit during the Richmond, VA-based pop-punk group’s set, and it was at that moment I realized I could never be The Girl That Moshes as I ran away from the actual Girl Who Moshes, using my camera as a shield. (In retrospect, not my best idea.) Next up was Tiny Moving Parts. […]
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 […]
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 […]
BEING THERE: Chairlift + Kristin Kontrol @ UT
Photo by JOSH HELTA-PELLER/KOALA FOTOGRAPHY If the name Chairlift doesn’t ring a bell, search your memory banks for “Ch-Ching” and/or “Bruises,” both of which appeared on Apple commercials and probably burrowed into your brain. Still don’t recognize them after a quick Google search? Well, that’s too bad, because the band’s breaking up, and their show at Union Transfer on Friday night was their second-to-last. There’s good news, though, and it’s twofold; 1) we live in a digital world in which their music can be easily accessed, and 2) the art-pop duo is breaking up on good terms, so that bassist/drummer […]
BEING THERE: Why? @ Union Transfer
Photo by JOSH PELTA-HELLER/KOALA FOTOGRAPHY Why? is a band that I usually appreciate most while drinking alone in some dimly lit room, curled up in a ball, leaning into masochistic tendencies I picked up as a teenager. A musical project that started out as sound collage experiment, and evolved over the years into a white-guy-rap, post-rock, indie-pop amalgam, Why? won me over with Yoni Wolf’s nasal-vocals that never shied away from taboo subjects like suicidal ideation or masturbating in the bathroom at the art museum. The authenticity of Yoni’s voice in Why?’s bizarre, genre-fluid music engendered the band with a […]
BEING THERE: John Mayer @ Wells Fargo Center
Photo by JOSH PELTA-HELLER/KOALA PHOTOGRPHY There is a certain kind of concert review you see from time to time wherein the too-cool-for-school critic goes to some obviously lame concert with the intention of trashing it and comes away humbled by the sheer humanity of, say, fans of the Dave Matthews Band. In the interest of full disclosure I went to see John Mayer at the Wells Fargo Center Friday night fully expecting to write the exact opposite of that kind of review afterwards, i.e. I was planning on really laying into him from on high. And I still may! But […]