Now playing on Phawker Radio! Why, because we love you! Ya big dummy! URBAN MUSIC: On April 29, the Roots will unveil Rising Down — the latest step in the six-member Philadelphia hip-hop band’s 15-year evolution on record. The darkly funky, politically charged project is now almost done after more than a year of recording, though it is currently missing contributions from planned guest artists Common, Lupe Fiasco, and Q-Tip.Earlier this week, EW stopped by the Manhattan studio where rapper Tariq ”Black Thought” Trotter, 35, and drummer/producer Ahmir ”?uestlove” Thompson, 37, are working on some final touches, and scored an […]
We Know It’s Only Rock N’ Roll But We Like It
I’M NOT THERE: I’m From Barcelona, First Unitarian Church, Last Night BY MICHAEL DONOVAN By all logic and reason, trying to cram a 29-piece band into one of Philadelphia’s smallest venues should be an awful mess. Apparently, Swedish juggernaut I’m From Barcelona does not listen to logic or reason — or maybe it just gets lost in translation — because Thursday night the performance by the 29-person Jönköping mob was nothing short of astounding. Taking the stage with upwards of 20 of his closest friends, lead singer Emanuel Lundgren wasted no time starting the party, launching into “Treehouse” from the […]
INDISUPUTABLE: Amy Winehouse Has Become The Most Persuasive Anti-Drug Ad We Have Ever Seen
THE SUN: AMY WINEHOUSE was arrested last night after allegedly attacking two men while out on a wild drug-fuelled bender. The junkie singer, 24, is to be quizzed by police after claims she HEADBUTTED a Good Samaritan who hailed her a cab outside a bar. Rehab star Amy, said to have PUNCHED a second victim in the face, sank to a horrific new low while high on Class A drugs. Onlookers told how the married singer also SNOGGED a mystery fella at a nightspot and shocked punters by overturning tables and drinks. She was later seen smoking drugs in the […]
All Of This Happened While You Were Sleeping
ZOO STATION: Animal Collective, Electric Factory, 9:20 PM BY JONATHAN VALANIA Back in college — which was longer ago than I care to admit, so let’s just say some time after the Earth cooled but before the Internet — I lived in an old Victorian house that the college owned and subdivided into separate apartments. It was a gathering house for all the freaks and geeks who didn’t quite blend in with the frat-boy-cheerleader-chug-a-lug-date-rape ethos of the main campus. Across the hall my neighbors had set up a de facto commune of 24/7 hacky-sack drum-circling and druggy bird-dogging. Most of […]
We Know It’s Only Rock N’ Roll But We Like It
PRETTY IN PINK: The Foals, Johnny Brendas, Last Night BY TIFFANY YOON It was a long day at the polls for Phawker, and the long day almost seemed in vain when Hillary’s Pennsylvania victory was announced. Dejected and upset, Phawker was in need of a drink and some hope. What better way to lift some spirits about the Pennsylvania loss than to watch a band that endorses Barack Obama. Foals is the UK powerpop band that sounds like the result of Bloc Party’s Kele Okereke and the four handsome guys from Battles copulating. Quite an orgy of sound. Fans didn’t […]
NPR FOR THE DEAF: We Hear It Even When You Can’t
RADIO TIMES w/ MARTY MOSS-COANE Hour One (HIGHLY RECOMMENDED) CHRIS HEDGES joins Marty to talk about his new book I Don’t Believe in Atheists. Hedges is a former foreign correspondent for The New York Times and a Senior Fellow at the Nation Institute. Listen to this show via Real Audio WIKIPEDIA: Christopher L. Hedges (born 18 September 1956 in St. Johnsbury, Vermont) is a journalist and author, specializing in American and Middle Eastern politics and society. Hedges is currently a senior fellow at The Nation Institute in New York City and a Lecturer in the Council of the Humanities and the […]
LISTEN LIKE THIEVES: Scarlett Johansson
Scarlett Johansson “Anywhere I Lay My Head” MP3
HEAR YE: Love Forever Changes
ROCK SNOB ENCYLOPEDIA: Baroque, psych-rock opus by the band Love; a Technicolor shapshot of L.A. circa 1967, a time and place awash in orange-sky sunshine and dark shadows. From 1965 to 1966, Love ruled the Sunset Strip, with enough record industry pull to get the Doors a record deal. They started the hipster Burt Bacharach appreciation society 30 years before Elvis Costello and Austin Powers via their gnarly, garage-stomp cover of “My Little Red Book.” Led by Arthur Lee–a charismatic frontman, gifted composer and hippie fashion plate who would later claim that Jimi Hendrix stole his look–Love recorded two albums, […]
TOP FIVE THINGS YOU SHOULD KNOW ABOUT LOU REED LAST NIGHT AT THE ELECTRIC FACTORY
1. For the first time since 1967, Lou has finally gotten his hair ‘right.’ 2. He’s got the face of a broke-in catcher’s mitt and the arms of an Olympic javelin thrower. 3. For the first time since New York, Lou has finally gotten his sound right. Three guitars, an accordion, upright bass, a guy on laptop, a drummer with mallets and Laurie Anderson on occasional violin. 4. Only Lou Reed would play “Sweet Jane” as the SECOND song of the night. And then “I’m Set Free” as the fourth, and then “I’m Sticking With You”, introduced with faux-exasperation that […]