EIGHT MILES HIGH IN THE LAND DOWN UNDER In the last year Tame Impala auteur Kevin Parker has gone from trippy bedroom Lonerist to beloved global psych savant. MAGNET journeys to the Land of Oz to press an ear up to his inner speaker. By Jonathan Valania Kevin Parker, the one-man-band psych-rock wunderkind who records under the name Tame Impala, lives across the street from a professional magician (and sword swallower) in a quaint cul-de-sac of houses ringed with lemon trees in Freemantle, a charming seaside town of 25,000 in Western Australia. He shares a granny flat with Melody Prochet, […]
CONTEST: Win Tix To See No Age @ PhilaMOCA
We have a pair of tix to give away to see dynamic punk duo No Age perform at @PhilaMOCA on Saturday in support of the just released An Object! 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 want to do. In addition to breaking news alerts and Phawker updates, you also get advanced warning about groovy concert ticket giveaways and other free swag opportunities like this one! After signing up, send us an email at FEED@PHAWKER.COM telling us a much, with the […]
BEING THERE: Made In America
Photo by PETE TROSHAK Made In America, the two day music festival organized by Jay-Z, returned to Philadelphia’s Benjamin Franklin Parkway over Labor Day Weekend. Early in day one, much-buzzed-about sister act Haim impressed the crowd with their unique percussion-heavy mix of 80’s pop and jam band-ian hippie-rock. Public Enemy’s Chuck D and Flava Flav performed their politically charged rap backed by a sizzling live band and delivered one of the best sets of the fest. Public Enemy put their money where their mouth is, announcing that they were donating their payment for the show to the embattled and underfunded […]
BEING THERE: California Dreamin’
(Clockwise from left) Lana Del Rey, Roky Erickson Barry-James O’Neill, Jonathan Wilson, Laurel Canyon, 9:54 pm Tuesday by JONATHAN VALANIA
BEING THERE: Wassup Doc?
Moby’s house, Hollywood hills, Tuesday 1:46 PM by JONATHAN VALANIA MOBY: A few weeks ago Wayne [Coyne] and I spent the day making a video for ‘The Perfect Life’. then at the end of the day we broke out an acoustic guitar and gathered all of the extras on a rooftop overlooking L.A and sang an unrehearsed, impromptu version of the song. Please keep in mind we had no idea what we were doing. Wayne Coyne and I ended up doing a duet on ‘The Perfect Life’: we sing the choruses together, and then go back and forth on the […]
BEING THERE: Chelsea Girl
Moby, Los Angeles, yesterday. RELATED: The US soldier who was sentenced as Bradley Manning on Wednesday plans to undergo hormone therapy and has asked to be recognised as a woman. In a statement on Thursday Manning said she would like to be known as Chelsea E Manning [see below] and be referred to by female pronouns. “As I transition into this next phase of my life, I want everyone to know the real me,” she wrote. “I am Chelsea Manning. I am a female. Given the way that I feel, and have felt since childhood, I want to begin hormone […]
BEING THERE: Richard Thompson @ PFF
Richard Thompson, Philadelphia Folk Festival, last night by PETE TROSHAK The Philadelphia Folk Fest is a music institution now in its fifty-second year. The Fest is held on an idyllic patch of moonlight farmland, with a stage housed in a barn-like structure at the bottom of a steep, crowd-filled hill. The fest is a four day event complete with campgrounds and a variety of musical acts, kind of like a mini-Woodstock with less mud and no bad brown acid. Friday night at the Philadelphia Folk Festival was headlined by British guitar and songwriting legend Richard Thompson — a veteran of […]
Q&A: Richard Thompson, The Gandalf Of Folk Rock
EDITOR’S NOTE: To celebrate the auspicious return of Richard Thompson, with a full band, to the Philadelphia Folk Festival on Friday we are re-running this interview we did with him back in 2010. BY ARTHUR SHKOLNIK Cobalt-eyed six-string sensei Richard Thompson has been pushing the boundaries of finger-style guitar since the mid-sixties, when he founded Fairport Convention as a teenager. Five decades and over 40 albums later, Thompson is consistently ranked as one of the top five living guitarists and one of the greatest songwriters in recent memory. Or as Anchorage Daily News cartoonist Peter Dunlop Shoal puts it so […]
Win Tix To See The Black Crowes @ The Mann
When the Black Crowes broke big in 1990, I wrote them off as derivative cock rockers. When Southern Harmony And Musical Companion came out in 1992, I realized I was wrong. Dead wrong. Take, for instance the song posted below, “Sometimes Salvation.” I dare you to find me a more soulful, primal and convincing rock n’ roll song about the pitiless intersections of love and addiction, transcendence and destruction. Don’t bother, you can’t. And yes, that’s Sophia Coppola as the druggy ingenue. Their trajectory since has zigged and zagged all over the place as they morphed from Rolling Stones […]
Win Tix To See Sullivan & Son Comedy Tour
We have a couple pairs of tickets to give away to see the Sullivan & Son Comedy Tour’s stop at the TLA on Thursday. The TV show, now in its second season on TBS, is premised upon Steve Sullivan (Steve Byrne), a corporate attorney from New York City who visits his Irish American father Jack (Dan Lauria) and Korean mother Ok Cha (Jodi Long) just as they are preparing to sell their bar in a Pittsburgh working-class neighborhood and retire. Much to their surprise, Sullivan decides to trade the corporate bar for his parents’ taproom which is the unofficial […]
BEING THERE: Paul Weller @ Union Transfer
Photo by RORY MCGLASSON Paul Weller, founder of The Jam, is now and shall forever be The Modfather. The 55-year-old Brit pop icon ended his U.S. tour Wednesday at Union Transfer and despite a setlist with paltry few Jam numbers, Weller did not disappoint. Weller doesn’t do nostalgia. Repeated shout-outs for Jam tunes were summarily ignored. Still, Weller did offer up a few all-time favorites, among them “That’s Entertainment,” the timeless classic that catapulted Weller to super-stardom some 36 years ago, and the mighty “Town Called Malice.” Weller, who still gets nervous before going on stage apparently, took about three […]
CONTEST: Win Tix To See The Vaccines @ UT
We have a pair of tickets to see The Vaccines at Union Transfer on Friday! 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 want to do. In addition to breaking news alerts and Phawker updates, you also get advanced warning about groovy concert ticket giveaways and other free swag opportunities like this one! After signing up, send us an email at FEED@PHAWKER.COM telling us a much, with the words VACCINATE ME in the subject line. If you are already on our mailing […]
BEING THERE: The XPoNential Music Festival
Dr. Dog’s Scott McMicken, Saturday night by PETE TROSHAK The 2013 XPoNential Music Festival kicked off Friday with the sunny sounds of Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros and ended on a lightning-flashed, hard-rain-a-fallin’ Sunday with the one and only Bob Dylan. Dr. John, a.k.a. the Night Tripper, delivered a rare daytime outdoors set Saturday afternoon to a large, eager audience. Backed by a tight five-piece band, the good Dr. delivered a swampy drowning-in-gumbo-blues jam of a set that wowed the crowd. Highlights of the evening included a transcendental set of psychedelic ear candy from Philly’s stoner-friendly answer to E.L.O., aka […]