Now playing on Phawker Radio! Out August 18th on XL. THE GUARDIAN: In fact, the really startling musical reinvention of 2009 is that of Jack Peñate. He hit the charts in 2007 as a kind of male equivalent of Kate Nash, a concept it’s hard to countenance, even now, without emitting a reflexive yell of panic. He peddled anaemic, bandy-legged gorblimey guitar pop with a side-order of anaemic, bandy-legged gorblimey cod-reggae. At least he did until March of this year, when he released Tonight’s Today, which seems destined to remain 2009’s premier WTF? moment, unless Bruce Springsteen is planning on […]
TONITE: Better Late Than Never
Apologies to Jersey Dan, we promised to post this snazzy flier and didn’t remember that we hadn’t until we were already at the show. But our word is all we have, so here ya go. And while we are coming clean, you should know that for at least two days we had up the headline WARNING: Do NOT Spill Bear On This Man re: the hoofties that beat a man to death at a Phillies game for spilling beer on them. And, it was our frenemies at Philebrity that pointed it out! Oh, the humanity! PW we feel your shame.
THE FLEET FOXES: Winter Hymnal
[Dir. by SCOTT COLAN] The Fleet Foxes play the Electric Factory tonight with the mighty Espers. PREVIOUSLY: QUEER AS FOLK or How Philadelphia Got Its Freak On [Illustration by ALEX FINE] BY JONATHAN VALANIA It all started, for me anyway, at Brooke Sietinsons‘ walk-up loft/hobbit hole on Second Street, somewhere in that OK Corral-esque strip between the Standard Tap and the 700 Club. Even though she no longer lives there, the exact location will have to remain a secret because, technically speaking, L&I could still fine her for dispensing the Morning Glory seeds of Philly freak-folkdom without a permit. But […]
BIG NEWS: Dr. Dog Signs With Anti
Anti Records, home to such iconic artists as Tom Waits, Nick Cave and Mavis Staples, is proud to announce the signing of acclaimed symphonious pop purveyors Dr. Dog. The band, which has amassed a dedicated audience through four remarkable albums and a steady diet of exhilarating live shows, is currently preparing to record a new LP set for release in early 2010. Guitarist-vocalist Scott McMicken promises a subtle yet profound evolution in the band’s harmonic sound. (continued, with tour dates, after the jump)
TONITE: Nekophilia
BY JONATHAN VALANIA A tomboyish siren with a thick red mane and lungs of fine Corinthian leather, Neko Case is equal parts gender warrior and indie aesthete, a potent hybrid aptly evoked by the Joan-of-Arc-on-a-muscle-car tableau on the cover her new album, Middle Cyclone. Case is also in possession of what is arguably the greatest voice of her generation — clarion in tone; trans-national in its reach; and bottomless in its capacity to transmute wryly-observed public fictions into inescapable private truths that all more or less boil down to: I am woman, hear me ruminate. That voice was in fighting […]
CONTEST: Win Tix To Day 3 Of All Points West
We have a winner for yesterday’s contest: Phawker reader TIM ALLEN correctly answered that Creation Records was the label that My Bloody Valentine nearly bankrupted with the costly making of their landmark Loveless album. But fear not dear reader, there are no losers here at Phawker, just people who haven’t won yet. With that in mind, let’s get one of you into a pair of tickets for Day Three of All Points West, aka Sunday August 2nd. Even though we have long believed that headliners Coldplay are little more than Radiohead for people who still buy Sting solo albums, this […]
NPR FOR THE DEAF: We Hear It Even When You Can’t
[Click image to enlarge] FRESH AIR Economists Paul Krugman and Stuart Butler discuss the way America’s health care system is financed — and how it should be. A Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist and Nobel Prize-winning economist, Krugman argues in a July 25 New York Times column that free markets alone cannot fix the health care system. He’s a professor of Economics and International Affairs at Princeton University, and his books include The Conscience of a Liberal, The Great Unraveling: Losing Our Way in the New Century and The Return of Depression Economics. A native of Britain, Butler — the vice president […]
GEMINI WOLF: Sudseyfuss
Gemini Wolf — “Sudseyfuss” from Derek Moench on Vimeo. From Synchronized Eyes now out on Earsnake.
CONTEST: Win Tix 2 See My Bloody Valentine At APW
Time for round two of our All Points West tix giveaway contest. These tix are for Day Two of APW, aka Saturday August 1st, and although Tool are the official headliner (along with Gogol Bordello, Ting Tings, Arctic Monkeys, Neko Case and Chairlift) in our estimation the real reason to be there that day is My Bloody Valentine. We can still remember where we were they day we heard Kennedy got shot: In our bedroom, listening to MBV’s Loveless, tripping our tits off. It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. Anyway, a pair of tickets […]
NPR FOR THE DEAF: We Hear It Even When You Can’t
FRESH AIR Century Foundation fellow Maggie Mahar is the author of Money-Driven Medicine: The Real Reason Healthcare Costs So Much, published in 2006. A former financial journalist for Institutional Investor, The New York Times, Barron’s and Bloomberg, Mahar writes the Healthbeat blog, a Century Foundation project. She has also contributed to Dartmouth Medicine, covering Medicare spending and the possibility of reform. Money-Driven Medicine argues that, over the past century, the history of U.S. health care has been shaped by corporate interests’ gradual encroachment on physician autonomy. According to Mahar, this has produced a system of costly and inefficient competition among […]
We Know It’s Only Rock N’ Roll But We Like It
READY, STEADY, GO: Craig Finn, The Hold Steady, Xponential Music Festival, Last Night [Photo by JONATHAN VALANIA] *** ZEE AVI: Honey Bee WIKIPEDIA: Zee Avi (born Izyan Alirahman,[1] also known as KokoKaina; b. 1986) is a Malaysian singer-songwriter, guitarist, and ukulele player. She was born in Miri, Sarawak, on the island of Borneo. She moved to Kuala Lumpur when she was 12.[2] She studied fashion design at American InterContinental University in London.[3] Zee originally posted a video of her first song on YouTube because one of her friends had missed her first performance in Kuala Lumpur, so she created a […]
EARLY WORD: Jingle Bells, Batman Smells
[Click flier to activate Internets] BY TIFFANY YOON Geoff McGovern has become well known in Philly, or at least in some DIY circles, for booking all ages shows in makeshift venues like the Danger Danger Gallery and Pi Lam in West Philadelphia. He’s also booked shows at the Copy Gallery on 11th and Arch and has been known to use other venues to house bands like Ponytail, Growing, Eric Copeland of Black Dice, Teeth Mountain and many other names that are now well-known in the music circuit. He’s not the first to book shows of this caliber in Philadelphia, but […]