Photo by AUDREY BERNSTEIN Freakonomics Radio, one of the ten most popular podcasts in the country, is hosting a live show at the Kimmel Center in Philadelphia on June 6th and we have a pair of tickets to give away to some lucky Phawker reader. What’s that you say? “What is this *makes sarcastic air quotes* freakin’ nomix thing you speak of?” Oh brother, where art thou?!? Time to get your freak on. Here’s a brief history of time as it applies to Freakonomics from their web site: It began when New York journalist and author Stephen J. Dubner [pictured] […]
Win Tix To See The National + Courtney Barnett
Photo by JOSH PELTA-HELLER If Joy Division had a horn section and beards and grew up in Cincinnati in the ’80s instead of Manchester in the ’70s, they would have been called The National and Ian Curtis would still be dead. Speaking of which, we have a pair of tix to see The National perform on June 11th at the Mann Center with very special guest Courtney Barnett! To qualify to win them, you must be signed up for our mailing list (see right, below the masthead), trust us you want to do this. You get first dibs on concert […]
Win Tix To Attend An Advance Screening Of Dead Don’t Die + A Q&A W/ Director Jim Jarmusch
Director Jim Jarmusch put the dead in deadpan. His films are elegantly cool pregnant pauses broken up with stillborn dialog and opening and closing credits scored with terminally hip soundtracks. His films wear sunglasses after dark, they smoke in places where no smoking is prohibited and they were cool before it was cool to be cool. Heretofore, Jarmusch has filmed the best minds of his generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked, dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn looking for an angry fix, angel-headed hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly connection to the starry dynamo in the […]
BEING THERE: MONO @ Union Transfer
Photo by JOSH PELTA-HELLER Delicate placidity often led to sudden uproar when the streams of dark-wave singer/songwriter Emma Ruth Rundle and the ethereal post-rock of Japan’s MONO were crossed at Union Transfer Sunday night. Rundle and her touring band, comprised of Wovenhand’s Dylan Nadon on drums and Jay Jayle members Evan Patterson on guitar and Todd Cook on bass, kicked off their set with “Races” from 2018’s On Dark Horses. Rich with reverb, Rundle’s guitar sounds hung in the air as she leaned toward the microphone, her voice gentle and softening the music beneath. Before transitioning into “Light Song,” Rundle […]
NPR 4 THE DEAF: We Hear It Even When You Can’t
Illustration by DREW FRIEDMAN FRESH AIR: Looking back on his early career, Howard Stern remembers being “petrified” that he wasn’t going to be able to make a living. “All the sexual antics, the religious antics, the race antics — everything that I talked about, every outrageous thing that I did — was to entertain my audience and grow my audience,” he says. “Whether you liked it or not, or the person down the street liked it or not — I didn’t care as long as I kept growing that audience.” Stern ultimately grew an audience of millions over a four-decade […]
BEING THERE: Meat Puppets @ Underground Arts
The Meat Puppets’ Curt Kirkwood by JOSH PELTA-HELLER After the Meat Puppets’ first song at Underground Arts on Friday night, Curt Kirkwood’s son Elmo responded with a little cheek to a fan who called out his name to cheer him on. “What?!” Maybe he was annoyed, maybe not — but he almost immediately broke the tension with a fiendishly disarming grin, flashed from somewhere behind his cascading curls, and when the fan returned “We love you!,” the Pups’ heir-apparent backed down some more: “I love you too.” They’re not much for stage banter, these hirsute Phoenix indie-rockers-cum-desert-mystics — in fact […]
WORTH REPEATING: The Duke Of Earle
EDITOR’S NOTE: This story originally published in the March 2013 issue of MAGNET. We are publishing the complete interview online for the first time on the occasion of Steve Earle & The Dukes performing at Ardmore Music Hall on Monday. DRUG STORE COWBOY BY JONATHAN VALANIA Steve Earle’s been a puppet, a pauper, a pirate, poet, a protest singer, a playwright, a pacifist, a pawn and a king, he’s been up and down and over and out and the most persuasive anti-drug ad on two feet. But mostly he’s been one of the greatest living American songwriters. Still is. During […]
BEING THERE: Hologram Zappa In Collingswood
Photo by EVAN HUNDELT On top of being a master of moustache, musical composition, and satire, Frank Zappa is undisputedly one of the greatest guitarists of all time. He released 62 albums over the course of his career, and 50 more have been posthumously released by the Zappa Family Trust. Somehow, out of the 112 albums, no two are alike – his spectrum of styles encompasses amorphous improvisational shredding, free jazz, comedy rock, prog rock, orchestrated toy-like noise, and an array of uncategorizable whackery. Since the passing of Frank’s widow, Gail Zappa, their eldest son, Ahmet, has been the controversial […]
Win Tix To See Patti Smith @ The Met Philly
From the Phawker archives, we present this ode to the high priestess of punk written by Amy Z. Quinn, circa 2007, to mark Patti Smith’s induction into the Rock N’ Roll Hall Of Fame: “She’s hardly the most famous performer to ever come out of Jersey — The Boss and The Chairman Of The Board still hold those titles — but without a doubt, Patti Smith, the High Poetess of Punk, remains the greatest communicator of the kind of nameless electric angst that drives Kids In Search Of Something to head north on the Jersey Turnpike and never look […]
BEING THERE: Sunn O))) @ Underground Arts
Photo by ERIC ASHLEIGH The dark lords of the drone metal Sith, Sunn O))) consists of guitarists Stephen O’Malley and Greg Anderson, a pair of spooky black druid robes, and lots and lots of smoke. Trafficking in tectonically slow strumming and seismic sludge tones, Sunn O))) create one of the most unique musical spectacles of our time. They’ve collaborated with other spectacles over the years, such as Boris, Ulver, Nurse With Wound, and even Mayhem’s Atilla, and have just released their latest album, Life Metal, for Record Store Day, recorded by legendary recording engineer Steve Albini. Their next album, Pyroclasts, […]
BEING THERE: Nick Mason’s Saucerful Of Secrets @ The Met
Photos by JOSH PELTA-HELLER Sooner or later all British men turn into Michael Caine and Pink Floyd drummer Nick Mason is a very British man. But, judging by his masterful helmsmanship of Saucerful Of Secrets at The Met Philly Saturday night, the 75-year-old Mason’s chops remain undiminished by the passage of a half century-plus since Floyd’s inception. Nick Mason’s Saucerful Of Secrets is, for those not in the know, the titular drummer from Pink Floyd joined by some Floyd org alums, plus the guitarist from Spandau Ballet (don’t ask), performing songs from The Piper At The Gates Of Dawn — […]
BEING THERE: Spiritualized @ The Fillmore
Photo by JUSTINE PATRICK OAKES If Brian Wilson had been a ’90s alt-rocker, he might’ve been something like Jason Pierce. He’s a man who turns catchy melodies into pulsating mantras, and layers them to create prismatic sonic mandalas. Spiritualized is a glowing comet on its blissful journey through the heavens, with Pierce at the center of its orbit. Or maybe it’s a diffuse nebula formed from the remnants of Spacemen 3’s supernova, and Pierce leads his continuously shifting Spiritualized crew on a voyage through shimmering interstellar vistas, while we folks back on Planet Earth get to watch their transmissions from, […]
THE PINK FLOYD: Arnold Layne
PREVIOUSLY: Win Tix To See Nick Mason’s Saucerful Of Secrets @ The Met!