SOLOMON BURKE: Cry To Me

The viddy’s a little, well, YouTubish, but THIS SONG — ladies and gentlemen, brothers and sisters, all the lawyers in glass towers, all the homies in the ‘hood (we know you’re readin’ this, don’t front) and all the ships at sea: Please rise and set your computer speakers to LOUD-ASS for King Solomon!

THE SECRET HISTORY OF AMERICAN BANDSTAND: The Fall Of Bob Horn And The Rise Of Dick — Drunk Driving, Statutory Rape, Geator The Bagman, And Mrs. Annenberg Is NOT Amused

Let us just say up front, we have no idea where the truth lies in all of this and merely offer this up for your consideration. In the last 10 years, a very different story about the rise of Bandstand has emerged that runs counter to the soft-focus squeaky-clean nostalgia we’ve all come to know and accept about the beginnings of the Philly-based Mecca of Sock-Hopdom. (The time-hook on this is a glowing notice in the Inquirer about Leonore Annenberg — widow of Walter Annenberg and noted philanthropist and a major 215 civic supporter in her own right — being […]

All Of This Happened While You Were Sleeping

WENT TO PLACES UNKNOWN: Spoon, Starlight Ballroom, Last Night BY JONATHAN VALANIA FOR THE INQUIRER Most bands are lucky to live one nasty, brutish and short life — much of it spent travelling vast distances to play for minuscule audiences, waking up in the back of stinky rental vans and finding breakfast at the bottom of a Budweiser can — but like a cat, Spoon seems to have nine lives. Spoon keeps coming back from one curiosity-killing foray into the unknown after another — trusting a major label, aping the Pixies, dabbling in white funk, etc. Some religions call it […]

We Know It’s Only Rock N’ Roll But We Like It

[Illustration by ALEX FINE] AMY SAYS: Patti Smith is 60 and graying, a widow, the mother of two grown children. Somewhere in the last few years, people began referring to her less as “punk priestess” and more as “punk matriarch.” Her new album, Twelve, is a genre- and generation-spanning collection of covers that has kinder critics saying she’s coming full circle now, which would almost make sense were there anything cyclical, round, or non-linear about Patti Smith. Her body is like an arrow always pointing forward, the direction all visionaries cast their eyes. She may not get there with us, […]

LIVE REVIEW: TV ON THE RADIO, Troc, Last Night

EVA SAYS: Overall, the show was relatively mediocre. And this is coming from someone who’s a pretty big TV On The Radio fan. In general, I really dig the whole Fela Kuti + The Roots + The Killers thing they’ve got going on. To me, they’re the epitome of what integrated urban culture sounds like. It’s not white and it’s not black and it’s not rock and it’s not rap. And it’s not exactly electro or world music either, though it does combine all of those things. Early on, it seemed like they were off to a good start. Lead […]