BY MATT WYNNE Last night at the Starlight ballroom, I saw four middle aged guys put the current crop to shame. Easily one of the best shows I have ever been to. I have been trying to put my finger on exactly what it is about a band like the Jesus Lizard that stands in such stark contrast to much of the music I have heard and seen in the last few years. They are just authentic, and like all truly good things they require no explanation about why they are so good. Explanations serve their function when something awful […]
NPR FOR THE DEAF: We Hear It Even When You Can’t
FRESH AIR Private equity firms buy undervalued or under-appreciated companies, impose short-term improvements and sell them for a fast profit. Some of the companies they’ve bought include Hertz, La Quinta, Dunkin Donuts, and Toys R Us. Josh Kosman, a private equity expert, says that the way the firms have been able to buy these businesses — through leveraged buyouts — means the majority of the money for the buyout has come from loans that the firms dump on the company they’re supposedly fixing. Now burdened with debt, many of those companies owned by private equity firms are in danger of […]
CONCERT REVIEW: Bishop Allen At JBs
BY JAMIE DAVIS Bishop Allen [pictured, above] are basically a fun little Brooklyn indie pop band: Fairly nonsensical lyrics, a xylophone player, skinny jeans and guitars worn 1964 George Harrison style. On disc, the songs sound pretty much as you’d expect, catchy, low-key, nothing really fantastic but pleasant enough to hold the moment, if not much after that. However, the songs do seem to improve in a live setting, as was the case last night at Johnny Brendas. The performers were energetic, and the choruses tended to take off a little more with the extra volume. The band obviously enjoyed […]
N.A.S.A.: Spacious Thoughts
BOING BOING: Boing Boing Video proudly debuts a new piece from the “great god almighty could it get any more awesome?” N.A.S.A. music project, this one from two personal music heroes: Tom Waits, and Kool Keith. The track is called Spacious Thoughts, and you can pick it up on the project’s debut album, Spirit of Apollo (Amazon link.) NASA, short for “North America South America,” is a music collaboration project assembled by Squeak E. Clean (aka Sam Spiegel, brother of film director Spike Jonze) and DJ Zegon (Ze Gonzales, professional skateboarder). The music video embedded above was created by Montreal-based […]
Q&A: With Fleet Foxes Drummer J. Tillman
BY JAMIE DAVIS J. Tillman, or Josh as he prefers to be called, is most widely known as the drummer for popular indie-folk rockers the Fleet Foxes. However, since 2005, Tillman has been steadily releasing a steady stream of solo albums that traffic in the same kind of woodsy, peaceful easy feeling that has made the Foxes so beloved by the skinny jeans crowd. He has released six albums in four years, and is currently touring his most recent release, Year in the Kingdom — yet another gorgeously somber acoustic affair, with heartbreaking lyrics and immensely sad instrumentation and arrangements. […]
WEEK IN REVIEW: Scrapple TV News
All the news that shits. With your host, A.P. Ticker.
REVIEW: Julian Casablancas Phrazes For The Young
BY JAMIE DAVIS The cover of Phrazes for the Young shows singer The Strokes’s singer Julian Casablancas sitting in the middle of a room, surrounded by various objects designed to show the combination of antiques with modern technology. There’s an old arch-top guitar with a guitar hero neck, a phonograph with a digital console etc… You get the point. He’s taken the ’80s, and seeing what would happen if all that synthy nonsense was going on in the ’60s. His band, The Strokes was widely credited with kicking off the New Rock Revolution of the early 2000s, which was […]
NOW HEAR THIS: Beck & Wilco Do Skip Spence’s Oar
ROCK SNOB ENCYCLOPEDIA: Spence, Skip: Like Syd Barrett, Spence was a crazy diamond who reached for the secret too soon. After wandering in and out of grace in the late ’60s, he spent the next 30 years howling at the moon in a trailer park oblivion of welfare and disease, until his death in the spring of 1999 at age 53. The original drummer for Jefferson Airplane, Spence went on to sing, compose and play guitar with Moby Grape, a powerhouse San Francisco psych-pop group that seemed destined for a commercial glory that would never come. In 1968, while in […]
VICTED: Two Touring Bands In One Week Ripped Off
INQUIRER: Two bands got the same nasty welcome when they passed through Philadelphia over the past week: Members awoke to find the trailers carrying their instruments and equipment had vanished. The thefts happened in the parking lot of the Holiday Inn at 900 Packer Ave., where bands Kill Hannah and Mae stayed during stops on their respective tours. Mat Devine, lead singer of the Chicago-based Kill Hannah, said the group’s van and 14-foot trailer were parked “five feet from the front door” when they were stolen Wednesday. “We’re devastated and speechless,” Devine said. “We’ve been touring so hard around the […]
20 YEARS AGO: The More Fiends Vs. The Berlin Wall
EDITOR’S NOTE: The Philly punk band More Fiends was founded by Allen and Elizabeth Fiend (host of BiG TeA PaRtY Sustainable Living) . BY ELIZABETH FIEND It was November 9th 1989 and More Fiends had been on tour already for a grueling seven weeks. I was lying on an old mattress on the floor of a narrow bedroom watching Happy Days which had turned incredibly funny because in the German dubbed version The Fonz had a whiney, high pitched voice. Plus, come on, Fonzie was speaking German. The program was interrupted by what seemed like some sort of special news […]
WEEK IN REVIEW: Scrapple TV News
All the news that shits. With your host, A.P. Ticker.
EARLY WORD: Still Bill After All These Years
Just the Two of Us. Ain’t No Sunshine. Lean on Me. The man who wrote the songs that defined a decade walked away from showbiz without a look back. For 23 years, Bill Withers shunned the spotlight and refused all interviews — until filmmakers Damani Baker and Alex Vlack convinced him to tell his surprising story. Still Bill gives us an inside look at Bill Withers’ life and personality, tells why he stopped performing at the peak of his career and who he is today. An amazing portrait of an icon who never gave up his soul. First Person Arts […]