FRESH AIR: When Nick Lowe was approached by his label to make a holiday album, he says he was “slightly appalled, really — we think it’s all a bit vulgar, you know, cashing in on Christmas.” Ultimately, Lowe says he took it as a challenge: Quality Street came out of that effort. It includes some traditional songs, such as “Silent Night,” as well as British Christmas favorites and some originals, such as “Christmas At The Airport.” Lowe recently visited the Fresh Air studio to talk with Terry Gross and perform songs from the album. MORE
BEING THERE: Modern Baseball @ The TLA
Photo by DYLAN LONG The TLA was jam packed last night for Philly’s very own Modern Baseball, homegrown pop-punksters known for their melodic leanings and turn-on-a-dime breakdowns. Opening up the sold-out show was a well-stacked lineup of buzzy bands, including Chicago pop-punkers Knuckle Puck and Beantown grinders Somos. Security had a busy night scooping up crowd surfers left and right while blaring, buzzsawing guitars had fists pumping skyward as the crowd’s energy continued to build. Brendan Lukens, Modern Baseball Jonah Hill-esque frontman, walked on stage a bit past 10, and cut to the quick: “Let’s just get started, we’re gonna […]
ARTSY: Q&A w/ Photographer Jessica Kourkounis
CLICK TO ENLARGE Jessica Kourkounis [pictured, below right, with chicken) is a Philadelphia-based photographer specializing in documentary, editorial and portraiture work. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, Time, The Art Economist and ESPN The Magazine. Her brother plays drums on many of the albums in your collection. Presumably. PHAWKER: How did you get interested in photography? What was the ‘Eureka!’ moment when you decided that this is what you wanted to do with your life? JESSICA KOURKOUNIS: I’ve been interested in photography for so long I honestly can’t even remember […]
BEING THERE: Strand Of Oaks @ Union Transfer
Photo by MARY LYNN DOMINGUEZ Arriving at Union Transfer to see Strand of Oaks play a homecoming show felt a lot like walking into a gathering of old friends, without knowing anyone. As a self-proclaimed lone wolf, it’s a territory I have explored many times before. I’m used to tapping through my phone for non-existent text messages and notifications while being surrounded by overly affectionate couples and groups of friends who are, like, “Oh my God, so glad you came.” Still, I knew I was in for a good, interesting time. The most important thing I’d recently learned about frontman […]
BEING THERE: The 1975 @ The Tower Theater
Photo by DYLAN LONG Last night in Upper Darbyland, 69th Street was crawling with fans anticipating one of the U.K.’s edgiest up-an-coming indie rock bands, The 1975. With just one studio album under their belt — anchored by raw, electrifying singles such as “Robbers”, “Chocolate” and “Sex” — the group is in the midst of a lengthy North American tour that brought them to the Tower last night. The electricity of the crowd was evident from the moment the doors of the Tower Theater opened ’til the last of the fans trickled out onto 69th & Ludlow. Young Rising Sons […]
Win Tix To See Skinny Puppy @ The Trocadero
Here’s a chance to re-live your gloriously misspent goth youth. Skinny Puppy, Canuck-ian avatars of the Ministry/NIN/Front Line Assembly school of bummer EDM for bad people, play the Troc tomorrow night, along with Front Line Assembly, and we have a pair of tix to giveaway to some lucky recovering goth/Phawker reader. To win, all you have to do is send us an email at FEED@PHAWKER.COM and share some mildly embarrassing personal factoid (Example: “I actually liked the first Ministry album, back when they still sounded like pussies”) or anecdote (“The jocks at school used to call me ‘Flock Of […]
BEING THERE: Slayer @ The Tower Theater
Photo by DAN LONG Nothing says ‘father/son outing’ like a Slayer concert, am I right? The ear-raping wall of guitar thrash, the blood red stage lights, the chest-thumping double-kick drum pummeling, the demonic, blood-curdling vocals. These are the building blocks of male bonding, at least in my household. So this show was on my bucket list – I wanted my 17-year-old son to see Slayer before any more of them die. I’ve been bringing him to shows since he was nine, so he’s no stranger to the scene, but this was Slayer. Scratch that, this was motherfucking Slayer! He was […]
BEING THERE: Dylan @ The Academy Of Music
Artist’s rendering The Academy of Music opera house in Philadelphia opened in 1857, which, if memory serves, is where and when Bob Dylan first went electric — much to the consternation of the stovepipe-hatted folkies in attendance, who felt he was selling out the purity of old-timey steam-powered protest anthems. It is said that Stephen A. Douglas was so incensed he attempted to chop the cable supplying power to the Academy stage with an axe and had to be wrestled to the ground by none other than Abraham Lincoln, who “licked him,” as Huckleberry Finn used to say. Historic records […]
BEING THERE: The New Pornographers @ UT
Photo by MARY LYNN DOMINGUEZ Ten minutes before arriving at Union Transfer to see the New Pornographers, I was dumped. Denied. Kicked to the curb. Or whatever you want to call it. Not to worry, “we can still be friends” I was told. Great. That’s just great. Having taken a crash course in the New Pornographers greatest hits and misses shortly before my arrival, I knew the show was going to feel like getting slapped upside the head with a happy stick. Great. That’s just great. But enough of me feeling sorry for myself, there were more important things to […]
How I Learned To Stop Worrying & Love Bob Dylan
Artwork by JOSHUA BUDICH BY MIKE WALSH Let me make this clear up front: I’m not a Dylan-head, Dylan-ite, Dylan-phile, Dylan-ologist, or any other kind of extreme Dylan fan. In fact, I never bought a Dylan record or CD until just a few years ago. I never saw the need. Growing up in the ’60s, Dylan was on the radio all the time —“Blowing in the Wind,“ “Don’t Think Twice It’s All Right,“ “The Times They Are a Changin’,“ “All I Really Want to Do,“ “It Ain’t Me Babe, “Mr. Tambourine Man,“ etc., etc. Plus, many other bands had hits […]
BOOKS: Q&A With Pulitzer Prize-Winning Journalist David Kinney, Author Of The Dylanologists
EDITOR’S NOTE: This originally posted on July 17th 2014 BY JONATHAN VALANIA Sometimes I think Dylanology — the obsessive study and consumption of all things Bob — is the new (and improved) Scientology. Think about it: Both are non-denominational pop cults formed in the latter half of the 20th Century that rally around a charismatic leader and rake in boatloads of believer money. Both have celebrity acolytes and promise extraordinary insight. But there is one vast and crucial difference, as vast and crucial as the difference between The Old Testament and The New Testament: L. Ron Hubbard wrote Battlefield Earth […]
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 […]
BEING THERE: Animal Collective DJs @ The Dolphin
Photo by MARY LYNN DOMINGUEZ Last night I set out to accomplish three things: 1.) See 75 percent of Animal Collective play some tunes 2.) Milk them for any AC-related news, and 3.) Make it in and out of the Dolphin alive and not incarcerated. We started off the night with an Uber driver named Festus, who drove us through the unwelcome November snow showers, and shared with us his grievances about the whole Uber vs. PPA deal. Something, something, current events, the PPA ruled against something and he’s pissed. I tried to follow, but his angry Jamaican accent made […]