FRESH AIR Award-winning soul singer Isaac Hayes, who rose to the top of the charts in the 1970’s on the soul-record label Stax, died August 10. He was 65. He released his first solo album, Presenting Isaac Hayes, in 1968. His next album, Hot Buttered Soul, went gold in the 1970s, and is credited with helping pave the way for the rise of disco; his 1972 soundtrack to the movie Shaft went platinum, and the single “Theme From Shaft” won both an Oscar and a Grammy Award. Hayes also worked as an actor, with roles in movies as diverse as […]
HEAR YE: Conor Oberst Conor Oberst
Now playing on Phawker Radio! Conor Oberst plays the Troc Tonite! BY JONATHAN VALANIA Like Dylan in his prime, Conor Oberst writes long, elliptical narratives — weaving word-clotted threads of angst and regret, anger and shame, ecstasy and joy, through a camel’s eye of symbolism, creating word circuses that fascinate even when they flirt with meaninglessness. As with Dylan’s songs, when you boil them all down, they’re essentially about one thing: the wonder of consciousness. Baby I’m amazed, therefore I am.Both Bob Dylan and Oberst come from the Midwest — Dylan from Duluth, Minn., and Oberst from Omaha, Neb. (his […]
RIP: Isaac Hayes, AKA Black Moses, Dead At 65
ASSOCIATED PRESS: MEMPHIS, Tenn. — Isaac Hayes, the pioneering singer, songwriter and musician whose relentless ”Theme From Shaft” won Academy and Grammy awards, has been found dead at home. He was 65. The Shelby County Sheriff’s Office says a family member found Hayes unresponsive near a treadmill on Sunday. He was pronounced dead about an hour later at Baptist East Hospital in Memphis. The cause of death was not immediately known. In the early 1970s, Hayes laid the groundwork for disco, for what became known as urban-contemporary music and for romantic crooners like Barry White. And he was rapping before […]
CONCERT REVIEW: New Porno At The E-Factory
BY DAVE ALLEN If the New Pornographers were tuckered-out from their triumphant Friday gig at the All Points West Festival, they didn’t show it at their Saturday show at the Electric Factory. The Canadian sextet pumped up the song tempos to the breaking point without sacrificing the rich, ‘60s-inspired textures, sunbeam harmonies and endorphin-triggering melodies that have made them a beloved fixture of the indie scene for going on a decade. In a set drawn equally from their last three studio albums, with one or two throwbacks to 2000’s Mass Romantic, poise and polish held sway, with chugging instrumentals and […]
LOVIN’ SPOONFUL: Summer In The City
Amazing shadow puppet performance by Pilobolus Dance Theater on Conan.
HEAR YE: Randy Newman Harps And Angels
UNCUT: Harps & Angels provokes approximately equal parts gratitude that Newman got around to it, and vexation that he doesn’t do this sort of thing more often. Exactly 40 years since his eponymous solo debut, it’s both awesome and faintly depressing how few compete in his league. Harps & Angels consists of just 10 tracks, and has a running time that falls just short of 35 minutes, yet freights multitudes, musically and lyrically. That opening line introduces the title track, a gradually building, slowly sumptuous, New Orleans-flavoured jazz shimmy. Over this, Newman unspools the tale of a man sucking what […]
GIRL GERMS: Letter From Rock Camp
[Photos by BROOKE BOCAST] Thursday August 7, 2008 DEAR PHAWKER, Today was really good. My band, Electric Bliss, made a lot of progress in our song. Today the instructors and counselors performed another skit during assembly. This one was great. It was about cleaning up your band practice room and taking care of your gear. They first acted out the skit by leaving the lights on in the room and throwing their quarter-inch cables on the ground and tangling then up. So in response to the skit one of the band coaches Elaine taught us how to warp our cables […]
WORTH REPEATING: Fine Print
BY DOUG WALLEN In Dr. Dog’s Kensington studio hangs the painted and stitched fabric piece that became the cover of Fate. The guys saw it behind the bar at Chicago’s Rainbow Room, where artist Ken Ellis tends bar. The piece—which depicts a woman holding a man at bay with a shotgun in front of a dead tree—watches over them eerily. I ask Miller how Fate differs from previous albums. “It’s partially, I think, in the fidelity,” he says. “We didn’t have to compromise in the mixing process. We All Belong had more arrangements and was on a grander scale, but […]
GIRL GERMS: Letter From Rock Camp
Editor’s Note: This week, on the campus of Girard College, Girls Rock Philly! is holding their summer Rock Camp for girls ages 9-17. The campers get their choice of concentrations in guitar, bass, drums, vocals, keyboard and DJ’ing. Our beloved neophyte rock diva, 14-year-old Jenn W. (Roxborough represent!), is on the scene and will be sending us dispatches from Rock Camp all week. Wednesday, Aug. 6 DEAR PHAWKER, Ahhh . . . another rockin’ day a Girls Rock Philly. Wednesday, hump day of the week, was sure a busy one. Nevertheless, a very crucial part of the week. It was […]
We Know It’s Only Rock N’ Roll But We Like It
HAVE MERCY, BABY: Duffy, TLA, Last Night [Photos by JONATHAN VALANIA] TOP FIVE THINGS YOU SHOULD KNOW ABOUT DUFFY LAST NIGHT 1.) It takes some measure of balls to sashay onstage for the first time in a city you’ve never played before and launch directly into your hit album’s slowest number, accompanied only by a guitar. Apparently our Ms. Duffy has balls to spare, because the love-don’t-cost-a-thing ballad “Syrup and Honey” had the crowded (yet inexplicably not sold-out) TLA shouting out their appreciation during the song’s pauses, waving their hands in the air like it was Sunday morning at the […]
RIP: Robert Hazard Dead At 59
BY ED KING At one point last night, while standing behind home plate at Citizens Bank Park and watching the Philadelphia Phillies beat the Florida Marlins, I was suddenly overcome by a spell of Philly Pride. Cranky, old Ed King actually got misty as he looked out over the field, took in the sounds from the crowd, and remembered the franchise’s rare past glories and frequent letdowns. This is my team, I thought. My team’s lovely little ballpark. For better and for worse, my people. An hour after having gotten in tune with my city, I arrived home to read […]