TAXI TO THE DARK SIDE: Death Cab For Cutie, House Of Blues, Atlantic City, Last Night 1. Death Cab for Cutie invited the ever-charming St Vincent to open the show, and she succeeded in charming the very skinny pants off the entire skinny pants collective that was the crowd. Smart pickin’s by the Seattle quartet! 2. Death Cab for Cutie’s latest record, Narrow Stairs, translates exceptionally to the stage–something 2005’s painfully boring “Plans” cannot say. The upbeat new single “No Sunshine” and “Long Division,” along with the full ten-minute version of “I Will Possess Your Heart,” were standouts of […]
CONCERT REVIEW: Untucked At Tuxedo Junction
BACK IN THE DAY: Philadelphia Orchestra, March 2nd, 1916 BY DAVE ALLEN I though that jeans and an untucked dress shirt might fly at a new-music event: the kickoff concert for Orchestra 2001’s 20th-anniversary season, held at the Perelman Theater on Friday. Nope. Suits and ties ruled the night, even by the few age-group peers in the crowd (I later found out they were students of one of the evening’s performers). But no matter: even if formality held sway in the audience, the evening’s program, including two world premieres, was bound to shake things up. The concert opened with a […]
BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN: This Land Is Your Land
Let’s take it back. Click HERE to register to vote. Monday is the deadline to register in Pennsylvania. UPDATE: The Obama campaign registered some 21,000 new voters on Saturday. Democrats now hold a million-plus new voter advantage over Republicans in Pennsylvania. ROLLING STONE: On Saturday, Bruce Springsteen kicked off three days of Vote For Change concerts on behalf of Barack Obama with a powerful acoustic set that drew estimated 50,000 to the Ben Franklin Parkway in Philadelphia. Cutting a distinctly Woody Guthriesque profile in rolled up flannel, denim and a halo of tousled hair, The Boss stood atop a 30-foot […]
THE BOSS: We Hold These Truths To Be Self-Evident
“Hello Philly, I am glad to be here today for this voter registration drive and for Barack Obama, the next President of the United States. “I’ve spent 35 years writing about America, its people, and the meaning of the American Promise. The Promise that was handed down to us, right here in this city from our founding fathers, with one instruction: Do your best to make these things real. Opportunity, equality, social and economic justice, a fair shake for all of our citizens, the American idea, as a positive influence, around the world for a more just and peaceful existence. […]
EARLY WORD: Born In The USA
[Illustration by ALEX FINE] EDITOR’S NOTE: Steal this poster! Grab it, blog it, put in on your MySpace, Facebook it, email your friends, print it out and hang it up. If anyone wants to print this out poster-sized hit us back at feed@phawker.com and we will send you the hi-res version. RELATED: We Hold These Truths To Be Self-Evident RELATED: This Land Is Your Land MCCAIN CONCEDES MICHIGAN: John McCain is pulling out of Michigan, according to two Republicans, a stunning move a month away from Election Day that indicates the difficulty Republicans are having in finding blue states to […]
5 Reasons Fleet Foxes Was Better Than Whatever Weird Beard Hootenanny You Went To Last Night
SO HAPPY TOGETHER: The Fleet Foxes, Starlight Ballroom, Last Night Fleet Foxes endorse banjo virtuoso Frank Fairfield, and you probably should too. Foxes’ opener, armed with a banjo, a few guitars, a fiddle, and a rocking chair, mesmerized the crowd for thirty minutes with indecipherable lyrics and a deluge of either sweat or tears. I’m keeping my fingers crossed for tears, though, in the interest of sheer manliness. Fleet Foxes know how to captivate Philadelphia’s hipster/old people/lumberjack scene. Back to the 215 for the second time in just a few months, the Foxes packed the Starlight with more flannel than […]
NPR FOR THE DEAF: We Hear It Even When You Can’t
FRESH AIR In his new book, The Devil We Know, former CIA operative Robert Baer argues that Iran is an up-and-coming — and often misunderstood — superpower, with strong influences throughout the Middle East. “The sooner we understand the Iranian paradox — who they are, what they want, how they want to both humble us and work with us — the sooner we’ll understand how to come to terms with the new Iranian superpower,” writes Baer. Baer’s previous book, See No Evil, was the basis for the George Clooney film Syriana. RADIO TIMES Hour 1 What’s your favorite song? Album? […]
N.E.R.D.: Everybody Nose
N.E.R.D. plays the Electric Factory tonight with Common.
HEAR YE: Bob Dylan Tell Tale Signs
NPR: Widely regarded as America’s greatest living songwriter, Bob Dylan has written and recorded some of the most influential and acclaimed music of the past century. With countless studio albums, compilations and live discs to his name in his nearly 50-year career, Dylan continues to produce new music that’s as vital as his earliest recordings, and still performs more than 100 concerts every year in what’s been called the “never-ending tour.” For the legions of fans who still can’t get enough, Dylan’s longtime label (Columbia Records) has been releasing a series of “bootleg” CDs from the singer — a vast […]
NEWS CLUES: Like An Internet Sex Tape Of The Truth
HATERADE: Michael Cera Backlash Begins Pointless Quest For Consensus Apparently no one is immune to the backlash that success brings. Not even Michael Cera! America’s ubiquitous and awkward sweetheart appears to be on the precipice of the inevitable take down. Mr. Cera, who stars in this Friday’s Nick and Nora’s Infinite Playlist, was profiled in the New York Times on Sunday, prompting prickly Hollywood Elsewhere blogger Jeffrey Wells to state that Mr. Cera is “on the brink” and “two or three steps from being over.” We can’t say we expect mannered reasoning from Mr. Wells, who is prone to over-reactions and brash […]
HIP PICKS: What’s Goin’ On
From our partners in New Media crime over at ScrappleTV comes this new bi-weekly night life feature hosted by Bob Concordia, who doesn’t let the fact that he is, like, 82 keep him from getting his rock on.
HEAR YE: Girl Talk Feed The Animals
Now playing on Phawker Radio! NEW YORK TIMES: Girl Talk, whose real name is Gregg Gillis, makes danceable musical collages out of short clips from other people’s songs; there are more than 300 samples on “Feed the Animals,” the album he released online at illegalart.net in June. He doesn’t get the permission of the composers to use these samples, as United States copyright law mostly requires, because he maintains that the brief snippets he works with are covered by copyright law’s “fair use” principle (and perhaps because doing so would be prohibitively expensive). Girl Talk’s rising profile has put him […]
We Know It’s Only Rock N’ Roll But We Like It
[Photo by AMY Z. QUINN] JUST LIKE BUDDY HOLLY: Weezer, Susquehanna Center, Saturday Night BY AMY Z. QUINN I was pretty sure I’d made it through Saturday night’s Weezer show without feeling too old when on the way back to the car, niece Jenny turned to me and said “Who is Buddy Holly, anyway?” Cue that wah-wah-waaaaah “Thank you for playing!” sound effect. Of course, I was happy to tell her all about the Texas rocker, about the nerd-sex glasses and “Everyday” and “Peggy Sue” and The Day The Music Died, though I stopped short of going into why I […]