Photo by JOSH PELTA-HELLER I have to admit that when I first checked out the Black Lips about a decade ago, it had nothing to do with their music. I’d never heard it. Rather, I was drawn in by their already legendary antics such as whipping their junk out, vomiting, and kissing one another. That last stunt allegedly got them kicked out of India. This stuff may seem pedestrian to you, my faithful old-school punk reader, but for a dyed-in-the-wool folkie like me it sounded super-cool. I mean, in the folk world, the worst we get up to is, say, […]

Photo by JOSH PELTA-HELLER After breaking up three years prior, The Black Crowes reunited in 2005 and began work on a record that would shift away from the rollicking radio-ready electric blues boogie of Shake Your Money Maker and the space-kissed psychedelia of 2001’s Lions. The resulting LP, 2008’s Warpaint, featured a balanced narrative of contemplative ballads on America’s southern mountain life: bittersweet odes to sunsets, backwoods swamp-stomp evangelism and a subtle, irreverent iconoclasm reminiscent of Flannery O’Connor. All of which revealed Chris’ and Rich Robinson’s deep roots in the lore of early-20th-century Appalachian folk music that framed up new […]

Photo by JOSH PELTA-HELLER Could have been the fact that I was recently promoted to Theater Critic at Phawker and have a background in Kabuki.  Or the fact that both my wife (who, concerned for my personal safety in Trump territory, forbade me from donning my Lizzie Warren kit) and my editor (who blew out of there like some sort of psyclone ranger during the Reagan era) are from Allentown and this, therefore, would practically be a family affair.  Or maybe it was just my desire for an alternate State of the Union. No matter. On Tuesday night I laid […]

Photo by JOSH PELTA-HELLER Halfway through a characteristically killer set from opener Reef the Lost Cauze [pictured, above], the Philly rap artist noted, “I expected more Black people! There’s not a lotta Black people here for a band called Blackalicious!” Reef’s rap swings hard and pulls nothing, offering in his trademark explosive delivery shrewd social commentaries that tend not to dodge the uncomfortable, even if he affixes a modicum of self-aware humor at the end — the spoonful of sugar to help the medicine go down. His observation on the crowd was only half in jest. Wherever they stand with […]

Photo by JOSH PELTA-HELLER The Jesus Lizard – if you’re into the trashy side of ’90s alt rock/noise rock/post-hardcore, you either know ‘em, or you don’t know ‘em yet. If you fall into the latter category, I suggest you go blow your ears out to their 1991 record, Goat; it’s a good place to start. What makes this band special is their ability to meld harsh punk tones and belligerent drunken preaching into something that sounds much more mature than the sum of its parts. Their hooks and grooves are the glue that holds this seasick monkey trick together. The […]