BY JONATHAN VALANIA Some say Sleater-Kinney is/was the Nirvana of Riot Grrl, that early ‘90s punk-rawk insurrection of punk poetesses and feminist studies majors storming the ramparts of indie-rock armed with little more than jagged guitars, spastic rhythms, thrift store chic, and the radical notion that feminism means women are people, too. And that goes double for rock n’ roll. Carrie Brownstein would probably just say that Sleater-Kinney was the Sleater-Kinney of Riot Grrl, which is more or less the takeaway from Hunger Makes Me A Modern Girl, her fascinating and revealing new memoir about the chaos and confusion of […]
CONTEST: Win Tix To See Peaches @ The Troc
If Peaches never existed, she surely would have invented herself. In fact, that’s exactly how Merrill Beth Nisker, a 46-year-old former drama teacher from Ontario, transformed into Peaches, electroclash’s preeminent erotic provocateur/party animal. For the last 10 years, she has been transgressing the boundaries of good taste and common decency with album titles such as Impeach My Bush and trashy retrofitted ’80s dance music that advocates fornication as the palliative cure for the pain and boredom of modern existence. In the process, she has built a swelling cult of gender freaks, hipster geeks, and hypersexual misfits, all of whom […]
A MAN FOR ALL SEASONS: Q&A With Author, Essayist & New Yorker Staff Writer Adam Gopnik
EDITOR’S NOTE: This interview originally posted on November 17th 2011, upon the publication of Adam Gopnik’s book The Table Comes First: Family, France & The Meaning Of Food. BY JONATHAN VALANIA Longtime New Yorker staff writer, author, essayist, children’s novelist and Philly homeboy Adam Gopnik will be delivering the keynote lecture of the Philadelphia Museum Of Art’s Object Lessons: New Thinking about Still Life symposium at 6:30 pm tonight — his talk is called Things that Mean Things: Objects and Inventory in American Art. Back in 2011, we got Gopnik on the horn and we discussed writing, food, crime and punishment, […]
Win Tix To See Streetlight Manifesto On Sunday
We have a pair of tickets for some lucky Phawker reader to see Streetlight Manifesto, ball-capped avatars of Jersey third wave ska, play the Electric Factory on Sunday. Self-described as “one part rock, one part ska, with influences from Latin, klezmer, folk, world, funk, jazz and classical thrown in,” Streetlight Manifesto will help you get your ska ya-yas out.To qualify to win you need to do two things: First, follow us on Twitter. Second, send a note to Phawke66@gmail.com letting us know that you are following us on Twitter with the words TWIN TONE in the subject line. Please […]
BEING THERE: Mac DeMarco @ The Trocadero
Photo by DYLAN LONG Mac DeMarco’s spacy yet genuine personality, well-crafted slacker rock and full-on bozo performance style has led him a long way. The line to get into Mac DeMarco’s way sold out show at Trocadero Theater last night stretched down an entire block of Arch street from 10th to 11th streets and continued around the corner, studded with eager teens rocking tucked in t-shirts, five panel hats and multi-colored denim jackets. Opening act Walter TV (a project consisting of several of Mac’s own band members plus Simon Ankenman) delivered 45 minutes of strange yet enjoyable melodies punctuated by […]
DEATH IN THE CLASSROOM: Phawker Interns Weigh In On Campus Shootings, Ben Carson, Self-Defense, Gun Control & Gun Madness
EDITOR’S NOTE: At one point in Wes Anderson’s The Life Aquatic, aging playboy oceanographer Steve Zissou, aka Bill Murray, asks aloud, “Do the interns get Glocks?” Not at Phawker, Steve. But they do get the microphone and a chance to voice their opinion from time to time — this being one of them. In the wake of the unspeakable slaughter of nine college students in Roseburg 12 days ago, and presidential candidate Ben Carson’s remark afterwards that the students should have rushed the gunman (“I wouldn’t have just stood there,” he said.), I asked the interns — Temple students one […]
ALL GOOD ZOMBIES GO TO HEAVEN: Q&A With Bassist Chris White, Songwriter, Odessey & Oracle
BY JONATHAN VALANIA A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away called the Summer Of Love, The Zombies created one the three or four baroque-pop masterpieces of the psychedelic era of the 1960s. And nobody cared. Though they had a couple hits, The Zombies were never cool like the Beatles and the Stones were cool. Their innate dorkiness probably didn’t help, though it would, years later, thanks to Wes Anderson, render them alpha males in the Land Of Twee. But still, they served with valor, bravely walking point during the British Invasion and proudly wearing the uniform: skinny […]
ROMANCE, APOCALYPSE & MOON LANDINGS: A Q&A With Experimental Filmmaker Kate McCabe
BY JONATHAN VALANIA Though she currently resides on the high plains of the Mojave Desert near the “rock n’ roll heaven” of Joshua Tree, acclaimed filmmaker Kate McCabe was born and bred in the Northeast, went to school at Girls’ High and attended University Of The Arts. It was a U Arts project — a Russ Meyers pastiche called Go Go Rama Mama, told from the perspective of a go-go dancer making the rounds for tips, shot through with all the low-rent tragedy and comedy such venues engender — that marked her coming out as a filmmaker. From there […]
Win Tix To See Luna @ The Troc On Monday
While it is inarguably true that there would be no Luna — and for that matter no Galaxie 500 — without the Velvet Underground, Dean Wareham’s ’90s alt-rawk jawn was never so much a Velvet Underground cover band as it was a lovely green shoot growing out of VU’s “Pale Blue Eyes”/”Femme Fatale” side, eschewing the noise and transgression of the first two VU albums for the lyrical, languid jangling pop meditations of the last two VU albums. Poor bastards had no more commercial luck with Lou Reed’s sound cloud than Lou Reed did, which is to say none, […]
BEING THERE: Bully @ Boot & Saddle
Photo by TOM BECK If you ask me, it wasn’t until the turn of the century when Nashville really started earning it’s stripes as the country’s “Music City.” It really wasn’t until 2000 when the city started pumping out great bands that weren’t country artists. Since that time, Kings of Leon, The Dead Weather, Kopecky, Diarrhea Planet, and a slew of other bands added to the diversity of the Nashville scene, which, up until that point, was mostly just a country scene. Both Jack White and The Black Keys left their respective hometowns of Detroit and Akron, Ohio to move […]
Win Tix To See Franz Ferdinand + Sparks @ E. F.
What happens when you combine smarty/dancey-pants Glaswegian art-punks Franz Ferdinand with arch, synth-y post-glam/post-New Wave/post-whatever Los Angeleno art-rockers Sparks? The not-very-imaginatively-named FFS, a once-secret long-running collaboration that’s resulted in the eponymously-titled debut FFS, released by the way-cool Domino label back in June. (Rule of thumb, if it’s on Domino it’s worth hearing.) What’s it sound like? Arch, dance-y, cerebral, post-glam, post-New Wave, post-whatever art-rock. If that’s your idea of a good time have we got a deal for you. FFS are currently on a tour for the album that brings them to the Electric Factory on Saturday and we […]
PILGRIM’S PROGRESS: 3 Interns Wander Into The Immaculate Heart Of Popegeddon And Live To Tell
Photo by DAN LONG EDITOR’S NOTE: I sent my interns — three Temple students with contrasting religious perspectives and zero reporting experience — to cover Pope Francis’ visit with the following instructions: Go have an adventure then come back and tell me about it. The good. The bad. And the ugly. Wade into the crowd and get your hands dirty. Talk to people. Take in the mass. Feel the love. Drink the Kool-Aid. Or don’t. Just be honest with the reader. And above all, have fun with it, you will be a part of history in the making.
BEING THERE: Come On Get Happy
Pope Francis, 5th & Ranstead, 4:22 pm Saturday by DAN LONG