In 1998, Neutral Milk Hotel released an album of hallucinatory folk-rock called In The Aeroplane Over The Sea that is, it can be said without fear of exaggeration, nothing short of a heartbreaking work of staggering genius. Like My Bloody Valentine’s Loveless, it is lightning caught in a bottle, one of those rare perfect albums that come along maybe once a decade. Or once a lifetime. In 1999, Jeff Mangum — Neutral Milk’s singer, songwriter and primary guitarist — disappeared from public life without explanation, declining all entreaties to perform or discuss the album or record a follow-up. Over […]
Sign Petition, Help Netflix Find Its Spine & Stop The Internet From Becoming Another Cable TV Rip-Off
In an open letter to investors, Netflix warned that if broadband providers started charging tolls for US Internet subscribers and slowing down video, it would encourage its 34 million American customers to join them in demanding an open Internet — and ditching ISPs who don’t follow them. This is an amazing first step, and an amazing ally to win in the war for a better Internet. But if we want to succeed, we need to make sure Netflix uses action, not just words. Please, join us in thanking CEO Reed Hastings and CFO Davids Wells and encouraging them to […]
BEING THERE: The Pixies @ The Electric Factory
Photo by NOAH SILVESTRY The Pixies weren’t just first to the indie rock party: they hosted it. They’re royals in the kingdom of rock, prophets in the religion of screamed lyrics, champions in the game of noise. Their subjects/followers/fanatics (or whatever else you may call them) flooded the Electric Factory floor to see the Pixies do what they do best, what nobody else can do — though Lord knows for 25 years they have tried and tried. This tour diverges quite a bit from others since the Pixies’ reunion in 2004: Paz Lenchantin plays bass, replacement of the replacement of […]
BEING THERE: No Other Tribute @ Union Transfer
Photo by MARY LYNN DOMINGUEZ The only thing I expected to be bitter about last night was the cold. Making trip from the suburbs to Union Transfer by SEPTA in below freezing temperatures seemed awful, but I soon found out that would be the warmest and most appealing part of my night. By the time I got to the line at UT, my fingers were frozen to the point of immobility, but I didn’t care. Seeing some of the most acclaimed indie bands of my generation — Beach House, The Walkmen, Fleet Foxes and Grizzly Bear — performing Byrds frontman […]
BEING THERE: Diane Coffee @ Kung Fu Necktie
Photo by MARY LYNN DOMINGUEZ After the release of Foxygen’s blissed-out We Are the 21st Century Ambassadors of Peace and Magic and the chain of awful events that led to them canceling an entire tour, I was pleasantly surprised by my first listen to Foxygen drummer Shaun Fleming’s solo project, Diane Coffee. But it seemed a little too good to be true, and I decided that seeing the 60’s-70’s-gospel&Mowtown-inspired indie-pop creation live at Kung Fu Necktie Saturday night would enable me to render a final verdict. Upon entering KFN, the first thing I noticed was how outnumbered I was by […]
Q&A w/ David Johansen, Gutter Punk, Glam Queen, Lounge Lizard, Protean Bluesman, Living Legend
Illustration by DANIEL ZEPPO David Johansen was cool before your grandparents even thought about making your parents — and 40-plus years later he shows no signs of becoming uncool any time soon. He prefigured glam and punk with the cross-dressing garage-squawk of The New York Dolls in the ’70s. He prefigured the age of kitsch and retro-chic with pompadoured lounge lizard Buster Poindexter in the ’80s. And he prefigured the enduring fascination with the fossilized forms of music that prefigured rock n’ roll — what Greil Marcus famously dubbed “the old, weird America” — with the Harry Smiths at the […]
MEDIA: The Least Trusted Name In News
Psyched to see our former colleague and Scrapple News anchorman AP Ticker, aka Frank Baker, on the cover of PW this week. AP Ticker is, among other things, The Second Most Interesting Man In The World (after the Dos Equis guy). PW: Sounds like Ticker is quite the unsung pioneer of television news. “He actually coined the phrase, ‘We’ll be right back,’” continues Baker. “Until then, it had been very awkward for anchormen. Because they would say, ‘We’re going to be here, but we’re going to a commercial now, but we’re not actually going to leave.’ It was very long. […]
Win Tix To See A VIP Advance Screening Of THE SECRET LIFE OF WALTER MITTY Tomorrow Night!
If you’ve seen the trailer, you probably can’t wait to see Ben Stiller in the new re-make of THE SECRET LIFE OF WALTER MITTY — and now you don’t have to! We have several pairs of tickets to give away for a special VIP advance screening 7:30 PM tomorrow night at the Ritz 5. Bet you never thought of yourself as a VIP-advance-screening type of guy/gal — well, you are now! And to think, you’re parents always told you you’d ‘never amount to anything reading that #%$^&ing Phawker.’ And now look at you! A V.I.PEE! Bet they feel pretty […]
Win Tix To A VIP Advance Screening Of INSIDE LLEWYN DAVIS Tomorrow Night! Ask Me How!
If you are a regular Phawker reader you probably can’t wait to see the new Coen brothers satire of the ’60s Greenwich Village folk scene, Inside Llewyn Davis. And now you don’t have to. We have several pairs of tickets to give away for a special VIP advance screening 7:30 PM tomorrow night at the Ritz 5. Bet you never thought of yourself as a VIP-advance-screening type of guy/gal — well, you are now! 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 […]
BEING THERE: Washed Out @ The Electric Factory
Photo by NOAH SILVESTRY Some say chillwave is the new shoegaze. Others say shoegaze is the old chillwave. I say who cares about nomenclature if the music feels right? Making good-feeling music has become a mission statement for Ernest Greene, the auteur behind Subpop’s resident chillwave/shoegazers Washed Out. Greene eschews complex rhythms and intricate vocal arrangements in favor of lush sonics and velveteen song structures that feel good when they rub up against your cochlea. In the studio Washed Out is a one man band, but last night at the Electric Factory Greene brought with him an entire backing band […]
BEING THERE: Goblin @ The Trocadero
Photo by PETE TROSHAK Legendary Italian soundtrack instrumentalists Goblin arrived in Philly Thursday night delivering a crowd pleasing two hour set to a fan-base that had waited forty years to see them. The band is in the middle of the their first U.S. tour ever featuring four-fifths of the seminal original line-up of the band — drummer Agostino Marangolo, guitarist Massimo Morante, keyboard player Maurizio Guarini and bassist Fabio Pignatelli. The band built their legend composing scores for Giallo movie maestro Dario Argento, Italy’s answer to Alfred Hitchcock. Their most famous work was the soundtrack to Argento’s film Suspiria – […]
Win Tix To See Heyward Howkins @ JB’s
If there was a more beautiful, idiosyncratic and intelligently-designed debut released last year than Heyward Howkins’ Hale & Hearty, then I didn’t hear it. Heyward Howkins is basically a one-man band of joy helmed by Mr. John Heyward Howkins, a recovering geologist/e-book editor come indie-rock savant. Imagine, if you will, M. Ward and Antony naked and slathered in milk and honey, sealed in a giant clamshell to baste for a thousand years. A millennium from now, long after the oceans have evaporated and the insects once again rule the earth, when the shell opens music-box style, there will be […]
BEING THERE: Cults @ The TLA
Photo by PETE TROSHAK Trippy NYC duo Cults brought their dreamy hybrid of 60s girl groups and psychedelic pop to the Theatre of Living Arts last night. Guitarist Brian Oblivion and singer Madeline Follin record as a duo but onstage they are augmented by a bass player, a drummer and a guitar/keyboard/xylophone player. Live the music has more teeth – clanging guitars, gut-rumbling bass and some primal drumming give the music more punch and aggression than their recordings would lead you to expect. Follin hung on the mic all night, giving the crowd intense smoldering stares as her powerful baby […]