BY DAVE ALLEN John Vanderslice has earned a reputation for producing clean, well-mannered recordings with smart, cerebral lyrics that stack up favorably against the best American short stories of the last ten years. The I’s of his songs are so richly drawn and engaged in such diverse, age-of-terrorism pursuits — patrolling the corridors at Gitmo, for example, or denouncing 9/11 as a hoax to a reporter — as to evoke modern literature in verse-chorus form. Live, though, he dispenses with tidiness. Rather than attempt to replicate every note, crackle and bit of fuzz of his studio work, Vanderslice has assembled […]
PEARL JAM: Elderly Woman Behind The Counter
Eddie Vedder performs solo tonight and tomorrow night at the Tower. Don’t give us that hipper-than-thou look, we know there’s a part of you, buried under gallons of Kenzinger and back issues of Vice, that still thinks Ten is rad.
CAPTURING THE FRIEDBERGERS: Or, 13 Snappy Answers To 13 Silly Questions For The Fiery Furnaces
FIERY FURNACES 1979: Matthew Friedberger and his sister Darth Vader Eleanor PHAWKER: Have you ever been arrested? If so please explain. MATTHEW FREIDBERG: Well rested, mostly. A-rested, rarely. Explain what? PHAWKER: Never mind. Have you ever knowingly killed anyone? If so please explain. MF: I read in an email very much like this one that we were just killin’ it every night cross Europe. Maybe you can explain that. Knowingly? PHAWKER: What was the last book you read? MF: Too personal. PHAWKER: Wow, that must have been some book! Okay, last album purchased? Was it worth it? MF: Dizzy Gillespie […]
BACHELORETTE: Her Rotating Head
“Quietly psychedelic, the quavery vocal harmonies, wheezy synthesisers and attic-salvaged stringed instruments are layered with a shy urgency, a breathtaking tangle of dreaminess and directness… slow oscillations between intimacy and abstraction…. Having understood the implications of technology – electricity having made us all angels, etcetera – Bachelorette fractured herself into a girl-group of one, clouds of ah-ah-ahs and shoo-wop shoo-wops both underscoring and distracting from her tales of gravitational and hormonal pull.”– Author Unknown Bachelorette plays Kung Fu Necktie June 17th.
SHOCK: Turns Out Gay Guy From American Idol Is Gay
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER: “American Idol” runner-up Adam Lambert has landed the cover of Rolling Stone magazine, where he talks about sex, drugs and his “Idol” experiences. The 27-year-old singer from San Diego acknowledges in an interview that he’s gay, and says it shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone. “I’m proud of my sexuality,” he says. “I embrace it. It’s just another part of me.” Lambert says he was inspired to audition for the Fox network singing competition after having a “psychedelic experience” at the Burning Man festival in Nevada. There, he says, he experimented with “certain funguses.” “I knew that […]
CONCERT REVIEW: Jenny Lewis At The Troc
BY DIANCA POTTS After selling my extra tickets to Monday night’s show to a stranger from Craigslist, it dawned on me. I’ve been listening to the shit for almost a decade. But I’m a creature of habit and a shameless JLew fan, so despite my bummed out mood from overdosing on Eggers short stories earlier that afternoon, I shuffled over to the Troc, AA skirt and all. Torn between catching Farmer Dave’s set and stuffing my face, I went with my gut instinct and headed to Mixx where an anime-esque waiter denied my BFF tempura and served us lukewarm Miso […]
NPR FOR THE DEAF: We Hear It Even When You Can’t
FRESH AIR Perhaps best known for his role on the NBC comedy series The Office as Andy Bernard, the salesman who loves a cappella, actor Ed Helms takes to the big screen this summer in The Hangover, a buddy movie about three groomsmen who lose their soon-to-be married friend in Las Vegas. A graduate of Oberlin College in Ohio, Helms got his start in comedy with numerous sketch comedy groups. Prior to joining the cast of The Office, he was a senior correspondent on The Daily Show. ALSO, Journalist Gretchen Morgenson discusses efforts in Congress to regulate default swaps, which […]
RAWK TAWK: Burying The Hatchet With Black Francis
[Illustration by ALEX FINE] BY JONATHAN VALANIA Set the Wayback Machine to 1988. I’m a college radio DJ stranded in the middle of Pennsyltucky. Entranced by the naked boob on the cover of Surfer Rosa, I slap it on the turntable and…the Pixies had me by the first 10 seconds of “Where Is My Mind?” and never really let go. Shortly thereafter I got a gig working for a Pennsyltucky daily. They asked me one day if I wanted to interview some guy named Black Francis from the Pixies. Would I? Man, this was a dream come true! I could […]
BECAUSE EVERY ROSE HAS ITS THORN
MIAMI HERALD: Bret Michaels may have to take out his extensions for a bit while his head heals. The eternal bachelor had a run-in with some stage scenery at Sunday night’s Tony Awards. Michaels and his band Poison performed Nothin’ But a Good Time with the cast of Rock of Ages, which celebrates 1980s hair music. As Michaels exited the stage, he glanced back to his fans, and a descending set piece knocked him to the ground. Check it out on YouTube; it looks nasty. MORE
I Went 2 The Roots Picnic & All I Got Was A Good Time
[Performer photos by TIFFANY YOON/Crowd shots by AMY SALIT] BY JONATHAN VALANIA FOR ROLLING STONE When it comes to The Roots — currently in-residence as the house band for Late Night With Jimmy Fallon and arguably the greatest live act on the planet — you must always expect the unexpected. So it should come as no surprise that Saturday’s second annual Roots Picnic at the Festival Pier in Philadelphia was a 12-hour all-you-can-eat-and-then-some feast of wonderful WTF-ness. What other band would kick off their own multi-genre lollapalooza — featuring the likes of Public Enemy, TV On The Radio, The Black […]
NOW IT CAN BE TOLD: Decemberists To Play Folk Fest
[Photo by AutumnDeWilde] Now that last night’s Decemberists show at the Tower is safely over, we are allowed to share the following: The Decemberists will be headlining the Saturday afternoon concert at the Philadelphia Folk Festival on Saturday, August 15. Other newly added acts include The Derek Trucks Band (closing Sunday night’s Martin Guitar Stage), Heartless Bastards, Austin Lucas, Kerri Powers, Shannon Lambert-Ryan and RUNA, as well as locals the West Philadelphia Orchestra and Burning Bridget Cleary. MORE PREVIOUSLY ON PHAWKER: Amongst people who like that sort of thing, Colin Meloy — ringleader of the Portland-based folk-pop collective The Decemberists […]
Sometimes Good Things DO Happen To Good People
As you may have heard, Woodshop Films/Scrapple TV founder Marc Brodzik, our partner in New Media crime, has been awarded a Pew Grant for media art. We could not be more proud or horny. For those unfamiliar with the Big Man, here’s his Pew bio: Marc Brodzik, media arts Born 1967 Marc Brodzik is a documentary filmmaker interested in filming portraits of the common man. In a recent documentary he focuses on small family owned coal mines and the struggles they face to stay in business in today’s market dominated by large corporations. His work has been screened at the […]
TONITE: Clap Your Hands And Say Yeah
PORTRAITS IN MUSIC Photographs by Michael T. Regan at the PRIMER Microstudio Opening First Friday, June 5th Doors open at 6:00pm Michael T. Regan is a sucker for heart and soul. At a young age, he discovered that music moved him and, in the next heartbeat, fell in love with the idea of capturing its’ essence on film. With skills honed at NYU’s Tisch School of Art and through hard work, humility and passion, Mike has been fortunate to carve out a successful commercial career shooting portraits for newspapers, magazines, labels and agencies such as URB, XLR8R, Scratch and […]