Illustration by ALEX FINE EDITOR’S NOTE: Like many of you, we were deeply disappointed to learn that WHYY-FM has elected to drop American Routes from their weekend programming, where it has been a fixture for more than a decade. (Boo-stink!) But fear not local lovers of Americana, WXPN has stepped in and offered American Routes a home on its airwaves. American Routes will air on Sundays from 3-5 pm starting Sunday June 19th. (Hooray!) To celebrate, we are re-running our in-depth 2009 interview with American Routes host Nick Spitzer. Enjoy!) BY JONATHAN VALANIA Nick Spitzer is a folkorist, ethnographer, professor […]
Win Tix To See Dolly Parton @ The Mann Center
There was a time in America, an awful time of bad clothes, bad drugs, bad presidents, and bad mustaches, known as the 1970s, when Dolly Parton was the living punchline to a running national joke about big boobs and dumb blondes. Four and half decades later, nobody’s laughing at Dolly Parton any more. Circa now, Dolly Parton is a country icon, a feminist icon, a gay icon, and a living testimonial to the Picture Of Dorian Gray-like power of plastic surgery, in the right surgeon’s skilled hands and on the right face, to do less harm than good. Long […]
BEING THERE: Roots Picnic 2016
DMX by DYLAN LONG The ninth annual Roots Picnic took place this past Saturday at Philly’s Festival Pier, sporting potentially one of the most buzzed-about lineups in its entire history. With headliners such as R&B legend Usher (backed by The Roots of course), Future, one of the don dadas in rap right now, and soul sensation Leon Bridges, one could wonder how this lineup could get any sweeter for hip hop and R&B fans far and wide. Lo and behold, The Roots succeeded immensely once again in gathering some of the most hot and groundbreaking artists in the game right […]
CONTEST: Win Tix To See Wilco @ The Mann!
It has often been said that Wilco is the American Radiohead — an edgy, 21st-century rock band whose audience only seems to grow the more they challenge it. Less remarked on is the more obvious fact that they are also the new Grateful Dead — populist guarantors of the heartland verities of cosmic Americana. Like the Dead, the continuum of Wilco’s concertizing has come to matter far more than their individual albums. Which is why it is so crucial that you get to the Mann tomorrow night to see them, or risk falling hopelessly behind on the whole ‘heartland […]
LET IT BE: A Q&A With ‘Mats Biographer Bob Mehr
BY JONATHAN VALANIA In the Amerindie rock underground of the mid-80s, The Replacements, along with Husker Du and REM, formed a troika of indie-rock royalty that produced some of the greatest music of that decade or any other. Nineteen eighty-four was their annus mirabilis. REM released Reckoning, and Husker Du released Zen Arcade and New Day Rising. The Replacements released Let It Be, which despite the co-opting of the Beatles song for its title was in fact their Beggars Banquet. All three soon signed major label deals with varying results. Husker Du lasted just two albums, the uneven Candy Apple […]
CONTEST: Win Tix To See Eagles Of Death Metal!
The Eagles Of Death Metal — still reeling from the horrific tragedy at the Bataclan, and the PTSD-tinted crazy talk that followed — play the Troc on Friday and we want to send you and a friend, on us. 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 […]
Win Tix To See The Walkmen’s Hamilton Leithauser
Fourteen years after the release of Everyone Who Pretended To Like Me Is Now Gone, The Walkmen have gone on ‘indefinite hiatus’ — which is a polite way of saying ‘We broke up but we could easily get back together for a tour or an album if the money’s right, or everything we try post-Walkmen utterly fails.’ Given the warm critical response to Walkmen singer Hamilton Leithauser’s 2014 solo debut Black Hours — an unlikely but uber-catchy collection of stately torch-songs, caffeinated power-pop and Stones-y country-rock hybrids, that features members of Vampire Weekend and The Shins), that’s not happening any […]
FROM THE VAULT: Heroes & Villains
EDITOR’S NOTE: This story first appeared in the June/July 2002 issue of MAGNET MAGAZINE BY JONATHAN VALANIA so much depends upon a red wheel barrow glazed with rain water beside the white chickens. That was written by William Carlos Williams, an American poet. Best I can tell, he was talking about the significance of insignificance, that little things truly do mean a lot—like if you could surf the past in a time machine and you did something as small as, say, kicking a stone in the Stone Age, it could send a ripple through the entire fabric of history. […]
BEING THERE: Courtney Barnett @ The E-Factory
Photo by TOM BECK Fresh off a 2015 North American tour during which she played a sold out show at Union Transfer, Courtney Barnett returned to Philly last night for a sold out show at the Electric Factory backed by her Aussie accomplices, drummer Dave Mudie and bassist “Bones” Sloane. Decked out in her trademark droopy pants, old t-shirt and slept-on hair, Barnett kicked things off with “Dead Fox.” Songs from Sometimes I Sit And Think And Sometimes I Just Sit, Barnett’s 2015 debut LP, made up the lion’s share of the set list. Just three songs from 2012’s A […]
Win Tix To See Borns @ The Electric Factory Friday
Garrett Borns is a one-man glam-rock revivial — think Marc Bolan crossed with Jeff Buckley with Harry Styles hair — and who doesn’t love one-man glam-rock revivals? Not you, that’s for sure. That’s why you must be terribly excited to learn that we have a pair of tix to see Borns @ the Electric Factory on Friday. To qualify to win, 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 […]
Win Tix To See Rufus Wainright @ The Foundry
Rufus is for lovers: Boys who like boys, girls who like girls, boys who like girls and girls who like boys. Young, old, everyone in between. These are his people. Basically anyone who’s ever had a heart break apart in their hands and learned the hard way that you can jigsaw back together, with patience and the glue of time, but it will never be the same again. It’s like bypass surgery or Cupid’s arrow — it may not kill you, it might even make you stronger, but it still hurts when you lay the wrong way. By rights, […]
Win Tix To See Cage The Elephant @ The Mann
Arguably, the best thing to come out of Kentucky since bourbon, Slint and fried chicken, Cage The Elephant are a gang of punky/trippy blooze-rockers currently wreaking their own brand of testosterone-addled, rock-havoc on the world. Currently, they are as popular as they are obvious — early on you could hear undigested chunks of Pixies, Janes, Pumpkins and White Stripes in the mix — but since when was that a bad thing in rock and/or roll? Besides, they’ve since added ’60s Brit-pop (Kinks, Hollies, Zombies) and ’70s Krautrock (Can, Neu, Amon Duul) to their plunder. Think a Kentucky-fried Dr. Dog. […]
BEING THERE: Del The Funky Homosapien @ UT
Photo by JOSH PELTA-HELLER Following an earnest and energetic opening set from Minneapolis rapper Sean Anonymous, Harvard math grad, NYU adjunct professor and turntable acrobat DJ Shiftee helped prime a Sunday crowd convened at Union Transfer to see Del The Funky Homosapien. Having first cut his chops writing lyrics for cousin Ice Cube’s Da Lench Mob crew in California’s hip hop scene in the early 90’s, Del’s first solo record I Wish My Brother George Was Here was produced by Cube in 1991, and buoyed by the success of hit single “Mistadobalina,” a popular critique of cultural inauthenticity that sampled […]