Photo by SHELLY MOSMAN These are glory days for Bob Mould, valedictorian of the indie rock class of 1984; glowering godfather of alt-rock circa 1992; dark lord of the molten dirge circa 1998; shirtless dancing bear spinning the wheels of steel for the Blow-Off, his hugely successful gay-friendly DJ parties, circa 2002; celebrated warts-n-all memoirist circa 2011; and acknowledged American Master of punk-as-fuck-three-chords-and-the-truth tunesmithery circa now. If it looks like things are finally breaking his way, that was never guaranteed. It could have just as easily gone the other way. In October he turns 56. In rock n’ roll years, […]
BEING THERE: Iggy Pop @ The Academy Of Music
Photo by DAN LONG BY JONATHAN VALANIA FOR THE INQUIRER There may well be a sound more thrilling than the tub-thumping opening salvo of Iggy Pop’s “Lust For Life,” but after five decades of listening closely I’ve yet to hear it. When that song starts, stillness is simply not an option. Resistance is futile. It’s a showstopper, which is why it’s usually the last song of the night. So when Iggy (known to his mother as James Newell Osterberg Jr.) kicked off his concert at the Academy Of Music last night with it, the question hanging in the air was: […]
BEING THERE: The Melvins @ Underground Arts
Photo by DAN LONG Three distinctive variations of “loud” were amply demonstrated last night at Underground Arts during the Philly stop of the Savage Imperial Death March Tour, featuring the wildly animated Melt-Banana, the seminal distorto-ooze of The Melvins, and break-neck intensity of Napalm Death. Playing to a sold-out crowd — a kinetic mash of beards, denim, and flannel — each band tested earplug limits and garnered high-contact physical responses, with bodies continually thrashing about for the show’s duration. Preceded by a series of droid’ish bleeps and swaths of grinding guitar sound, Melt-Banana’s set was delivered with blink-and-you’ll-miss-it speed as […]
BECAUSE REALITY HAS A LIBERAL BIAS: Q&A w/ Comedian & ex-Totally Biased Host W. Kamau Bell
Illustration by GARY TAXALI© BY JONATHAN VALANIA Comedian W. Kamau Bell has been fighting the good fight in the stand-up comedy trenches of San Francisco since the phat pants ’90s. It was there that Chris Rock discovered him and eventually brokered a deal with FX for Bell to have his own TV show. In 2012, Totally Biased, a much-buzzed-about late night sketch comedy show starring Bell and produced by Rock, debuted to strong reviews and a big enough viewership to justify a second season until its ill-advised migration from FX to FXX, subsequent plummet in audience share and ensuing cancellation […]
A DAY THAT WILL LIVE IN INFAMY: When Jackie Robinson Came To Town We Let Progress Down
PHILADELPHIA DAILY NEWS: Whatever degradation Jackie Robinson faced during the 1947 season – and it was immense – few teams treated him as disgracefully as the Phillies. To Jackie Robinson back in the spring of 1947, Philadelphia was far what it purports to be: “The City of Brotherly Love.” Before the Dodgers came to town for the first time, Herb Pennock [pictured, below right], the Phils’ general manager, telephoned his Brooklyn counterpart, Branch Rickey, and told Rickey he just could not “bring that nigger here with the rest of your team.” “We are just not ready for that sort of […]
BEING THERE: The Cult @ The Electric Factory
The Cult, Electric Factory, Friday April 8th by DAN LONG DAN LONG: Joining The Cult — it’s a father and son thing, you wouldn’t understand. Or maybe you would. I can’t remember the exact moment it started – probably on a car ride with The Cult blasting over the shitty Subaru speakers and Dylan, my nine year old son, digging them. The next few years would be spent becoming semi-superfans, as my son and I built a tight Cult-centric bond. During our second show together, on a Wednesday night at The Trocadero back in 2006, my son became a bit […]
BEING THERE: Jonathan Richman @ Union Transfer
Photo by JOSH PELTA-HELLER Jonathan Richman’s shows are a meandering montage from start to finish, what might at first seem like an ill-advised marriage of classical guitar noodling, musings in various languages, vaudevillian song and dance, psychedelic storytelling and outright highly stylized stand-up comedy, with and without musical accompaniment. There’s no opener, and no encore. His show is short — just over an hour — and performed casually, intimately by Richman and his longtime drummer Tommy Larkins, before the rapt attention of a room of devoted followers. Where many performers seem to struggle to preserve audience attention or to outplay […]
BEING THERE: Berniedelphia
Bernie Sanders speaks to 10,200 @ Liacouras Center by DYLAN LONG It’s a chilly Monday afternoon and I’m sitting in my dorm at Temple University dicking around, and I get a text from one of my closest friends. It reads, “Bernie Rally Wednesday night??” I ask her what she’s talking about, assuming it’s some locally sponsored rally for presidential candidate Bernie Sanders that’ll draw maybe a thousand people in support. She sends me a link to Bernie’s website that has the official event at the Liacouras Center listed in full detail, telling me that Bernie Sanders is coming to speak […]
FICTION: The Conformist
By Blaze Archer The air in the basement stank of sweat. The bodies were pressed against each other in a circle, their clothes in a pile by the door. The skin against skin caused a static electricity to charge the room. In the center of the circle two boys fought. The one light bulb illuminated the shining curves of their backs as they grappled with each other, punched, bit, grabbed. The small wiry kid who had taken off his glasses for the fight was swinging, dodging, winning. He reminded you of those scrawny kids at dodge ball, but he was […]
BEING THERE: Rihanna @ The Wells Fargo Center
Artwork by ITSMCFLYY Admittedly, I haven’t always believed in the political power of Rihanna. That might be partially due to my inability to think philosophically while a preteen who was forced to run laps in gym class to “Pon De Replay,” and who went through awkward lessons in dancehall etiquette to “Umbrella” in my middle school’s cafeteria, and by that I mean my first introduction to what my peers called ‘dancing,’ which in reality was just grinding your ass into some dweebish 12-year-old boy’s lap under a strobe light that someone’s mom rented, while wearing an unfittingly preppy, mall-branded polo. […]
Win Tix To See Andrew Bird @ E-Factory Tonight!
Artwork by ANGELA RIZZA Folks, we are pleased to announce this last minute offer of a pair of tickets to see critically-acclaimed Wonka-esque indie-folker Andrew Bird at the Electric Factory tonight. What’s that you say? You don’t know what an Andrew Bird is? Hey, there is is no such thing as a stupid question. Although ‘who is Andrew Bird?’ comes close. Let’s ask around and study it out. Quoth Salon: Despite going through conservatory and getting a degree in violin performance, Andrew Bird has always felt like an outsider in the world of classical music. Yet, as alternative acts were […]
Win Tix For A Conversation w/ ‘Making A Murderer’ Defense Dream Team Dean Strang & Jerry Buting
Dean Strang and Jerry Buting, defense attorneys for Steven Avery in the Netflix documentary series Making A Murderer — aka The Bert & Ernie Of American Jurisprudence –– have commenced a nationwide speaking tour called A Conversation on Justice Tour which stops at the Keswick tomorrow night and, due to overwhelming popular demand, again on Sunday. Philly’s Tara Murtha will moderate a discussion with Strang and Buting about the Steven Avery case and its broader implications, as well as a discussion on the larger topic of the American criminal justice system. Each night will also feature a Q&A portion […]
Win Tix To See The Savages @ Union Transfer
Photo by PETE TROSHAK Folks, we are excited to announce that we have a pair of tix to giveaway to some lucky Phawker reader to see The Savages at Union Transfer on Thursday in support of their just-released sophomore album, Adore Life. Here’s what The Guardian had to say on the heels of their 2013 debut, Silence Yourself: “[Savages] makes us dream of what it must have been like to have been around to hear, in real time, the debut releases by Public Image Ltd, Magazine, Siouxsie and the Banshees and Joy Division, to feel, as those incredible records hit […]