This is easily the best thing Kim Gordon’s ever done. And I’m old enough to remember when buying Bad Moon Rising on vinyl wasn’t just a hip format choice, it was your only option. “Sketch Artist” is the lead-off track from her just-announced/first-ever solo album, No Home Record, to be released October 11th on Matador Records. No Home Record follows the recent opening of Gordon’s solo exhibition “She Bites Her Tender Mind” at IMMA (Irish Museum of Modern Art) in Dublin and “Lo-Fi Glamour” at Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh, PA. The video for “Sketch Artist” was directed by Berlin-based artist and […]
DRAMA: So Shines A Good Deed In A Weary World
Hamilton The Musical will be making 40 $10 tickets available via lottery for each Philly performance at the Forrest Theater (Aug. 27th-Nov. 17). Sign up HERE.
RIP: Gar Joseph, Legendary Daily News Editor
THE INQUIRER: The first few times Gar Joseph applied for a reporting job at the Philadelphia Daily News, the editors turned him down. On paper, he was a solid candidate, a whip-smart 30-something assistant metro editor at the Wilmington News Journal. But there was some disagreement over whether he was too buttoned-up for the tabloid, which proudly wore its irreverent heart on its sleeve. What was clear to the paper’s editors was that Mr. Joseph didn’t give up easily, even if the odds weren’t in his favor. He kept on telling them he belonged at the Daily News, as simple […]
THE DEVIL’S BIZNESS: Q&A With Philadelphia Lawyer & Rock N’ Roll Evolutionist James A. Cosby
BY JONATHAN VALANIA By day he’s a mild-mannered Philadelphia lawyer, but by night James A. Cosby is a rock philosopher-cum-theoretician mapping out grand unifying theories about the origin mythos of rock n’ roll. Turns out it’s a lot more complicated than ‘the blues had a baby and they called it rock n’ roll’ and there is far more nuance in the grey zone between heaven and hell than is dreamt of in your Birth Of Rock Spotify playlist, Virginia. His 2016 book Devil’s Music, Holy Rollers And Hillbillies: How America Gave Birth To Rock N’ Roll ties together the […]
BEING THERE: The Rolling Stones @ The Linc
Photo by JOSH PELTA-HELLER Getting old is not for pussies. But let us not kid ourselves, there is no shame in living a long life, especially if you are a man of wealth and taste. By design, you don’t realize this until you get there but growing old is the best revenge. It gives you the license to finally admit to yourself just how silly and absurd you have been lo these many years. And that, my friends, is freedom. The Rolling Stones are as old as the devil — maybe older. They’ve been around for a long long year […]
BEING THERE: Mountain Goats @ Union Transfer
by JOSH PELTA-HELLER Woe betide the naysaying snickerer that mistakes indie legends The Mountain Goats for folky meanderers. Live, John Darnielle and co. invest their goat music with a visceral immediacy and all-in emotionalism that, even in its moments of accidental grace and pin-drop quietude, utterly commands the collective attention of the room, which was pretty packed Friday night at Union Transfer for the first of a two-night stand. Touring the new album In League With Dragons (2019), Darnielle curated a set list that featured new songs, a solo section with deep cuts from Nothing For Juice (1996), and crowd […]
BUTTHOLE SURFERS WEEK: Everything You Ever Wanted To Know About The Motherf*cking Butthole Surfers But Weren’t Sure It Was Even Legal To Ask
EDITOR’S NOTE: To mark the auspicious occasion of infamous Butthole Surfers frontman Gibby Haynes performing choice selections from the Surfers skidmarked back catalog with the kids from The Paul Green Rock Academy at Connie’s Ric Rac on Friday and Saturday (July 19th and 20th), we are officially declaring this Butthole Surfers Week here at Phawker industries. We will be re-posting choice nuggets of Butthole Surfers jetsam and effluvia that has run on the site over the years, culminating with our brand spanking new no-holes-barred Q&A with Gibby on Thursday. Look for it on a Phawker near you. In the […]
BEING THERE: Bad Books @ Union Transfer
Photo by DAN LONG Bad Books, the collaborative side project of singer-songwriter Kevin Devine and Manchester Orchestra frontman Andy Hull, has been resurrected after a seven-year hiatus. Their second album, 2012’s II, by far the most popular of their repertoire, weaves fictional narratives that swerve from punchy alt-rock to sentimental folk tunes, each chorus more catchy than the last. Their latest album, III, is as minimal as the title suggests, a bare bones ensemble of acoustic guitars and keys. The lyrics are more solemn, the background noise muted to spotlight each singer’s distinct voice. Onstage at Union Transfer last night, […]
BEING THERE: Wilco’s Solid Sound Festival @ MassMOCA
Photo by JOANN LOVIGLIO EDITOR’S NOTE: Heading up to Solid Sound Festival (aka Wilco-Con) tomorrow — throwing this up to get in the mood. FYI, that immaculate recording of Wilco’s set at 2017’s Solid Sound that I link to below is full-on Band of Tweedy godhead, if you’re into that kind of thing. “A few years ago timed slowed down, we got a diagnosis [wife Sue Miller was diagnosed with Lymphoma] that derailed things so we played songs to each other, me and [my son] Spencer, to speed up the time. Killing time without hurting anyone else. That’s what [the […]
STROKE OF GENIUS: Q&A W/ Scott McCaughey
BY JONATHAN VALANIA Few people in this life have seen Scott McCaughey’s eyes. He’s been wearing black Ray Bans non-stop 24-7 — presumably even when he sleeps and showers — since at least the late ‘80s. Dude’s got a right. If rock n’ roll is 99% sweat equity (and one percent drugs), and it is, Scott’s a rawk star. He’s got about six or seven bands he’s playing in simultaneously at any given point in time — most of them have Peter Buck in them and the ones that don’t have Wilco in them. Paul Westerberg of The Replacements called […]
BEING THERE: Kristin Hersh @ Boot & Saddle
Photo by JOSH PELTA-HELLER Kristin Hersh rocked Boot & Saddle so hard on Monday night that you could almost guess the shampoo brand of the short middle-aged woman at the front of the crowd enthusiastically thrashing her stylized white coiffure. Hersh pounded her clenched fist against the body of her green Fender while drummer Rob Ahlers and bassist Fred Abong negotiated an intro, her eyes narrowed in a thousand-yard stare into the abyss at the back of the room as she delivered a verse’s gritty vocals, and then broke for a middle-eight with a chillingly disaffected gaze over her scorching […]
BEING THERE: Perry Farrell @ World Cafe Live
Photo by JOSH PELTA-HELLER Since his days fronting Jane’s Addiction, Perry Farrell has convened several other projects, including alt-rockers Porno For Pyros, concept-electronica crew Satellite Party and, now, his eponymous Kind Heaven Orchestra — a self-proclaimed “solo project” that reads more as supergroup collective. For their debut, Farrell tapped industry heavyweight Tony Visctonti — known for his work with Iggy and Bowie and T. Rex — to produce a record featuring the likes of Matt Chamberlain (of Pearl Jam and Soundgarden), Tommy Lee (of Mötley Crüe, and Pamela Anderson), the Foo Fighter’s Taylor Hawkins, plus George Harrison’s kid, the guitarist […]
I Went To Father John Misty’s House And All I Got Was Stoned…And This 7,156 Word Magnum Opus
Illustration by RACHEL WADA EDITOR’S NOTE: This is the second installment of my 2013 MAGNET cover story. Part 1 is HERE. Misty Mountain Hop If Father John Misty’s life was a Hollywood movie, it would be a metaphysical jail-break thriller about a wrongly convicted man escaping the prison of belief thanks to the liberating power of rock ‘n’ roll and psychedelic drugs. MAGNET goes to the mountain to help write the script. BY JONATHAN VALANIA II Joshua Michael Tillman is largely estranged from his family. He has contact with his parents about once a year, if at all, and it’s […]