WHERE R U GOING, CRAZY? Dr. Dog, Popped! Fest, Starlight Ballroom, Friday [FLICKR] BY AMY Z. QUINN If the question at hand during the Popped! Festival’s headlining night was, “Where are you going crazy, in your mind or in every inch of your body?” the answer was YES. Here’s the kind of scene it was at the Starlight Ballroom on Friday night: By the time I arrived at the show, during the second act of the four-band bill, all but one of the stalls in the women’s bathroom were already clogged and the bass was heavy enough to make your […]
POPPED! FEST BAND LIBS: KMASS, PONY PANTS
[Photo by Paul Castoral] Kmass * 1. We are called Kenneth Masters & Cramske (The Premium Underground) because we’re under the radar, make niche music for no one in particular, and don’t really take ourselves as serious as those statements imply. 2. No, that is not a stupid name for a band and it is generously awesome, slightly rad, although a little presumptuous of you to say that. 3. We are a band because we had “gasoline dreams” and delusions of making music, getting rich, and wasting our days as we saw fit. But reality sank in and we just […]
Cover Wars: Who Bum Rushed The Show?
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
HOW THE MSM FAILS YOU: Did You Know Water Is A Right, Not A Commodity? You Didn’t, Did You?
OK, let’s start with this story from KYW: Groups Tell Mayor: Tap Water Is Good Enough by KYW’s Karin Phillips A coalition of advocates, students, and faith organizations is sending a letter to Mayor Street asking him to terminate city contracts with bottled water companies. The letter to Mayor Street is part of the “Think Outside the Bottle” campaign by Corporate Accountability International, which is leading a charge against what it calls the marketing muscle of bottled water corporations. Michael Gagne is Philadelphia coordinator: “It calls on him to lead a public education campaign on the quality of our public […]
TODAY I SAW…
BY JEFF DEENEY “Today I saw…” is a series of nonfiction shorts based on my experiences as a caseworker serving formerly homeless families now living in North and West Philadelphia. I decided not long after starting the job that I was seeing so many fascinating and disturbing things in the city’s poorest neighborhoods that I needed to start cataloging them. I hope this bi-weekly column serves as a record of a side of the city that many Philadelphians don’t come in contact with on a daily basis. I want to capture moments not frequently covered by the local media, […]
KYW UNLEASHES TASTE-KILLER COMPOUND AT READING TERMINAL; ‘This Is Horrible, This Is Great’
Sugarest(TM) is a minty tablet which dissolves in your mouth and temporarily blocks and neutralizes the sweet-taste receptors of your taste buds. Simply place a tablet in your mouth for 2 minutes, and sugary foods and sweets lose their taste and appeal, giving a dieter the “instant willpower” they need to keep to their diet. The effect lasts for 20-30 minutes, long enough for a dieter to defeat their sugar cravings and lose their desire for sweet but fattening foods. Additional information may be found on the Sugarest(TM) website. The KYW reporter held a live taste test for Sugarest(TM) at […]